The Cyber Ranch Podcast

Drew and Allan were skeptical about SABSA, as it is a model one CISO friend described as being "only good for a graduate student writing a paper!" Another CISO pointed out that SABSA was designed long before modern engineering practices. Andrew Townley, a long-term SABSA consultant, on the other hand, gets straight to the practicality of it. There is indeed an academic and theoretical foundation behind SABSA, but it is most definitely leveraged for one purpose - to achieve desirable business outcomes. Drew and Allan ask: Both Allan and Drew walk away with enough curiosity to dig into SABSA more. Note that Andrew several times also cites the work of Russell Ackoff, another academician who enjoyed a rather brilliant career as a business consultant - grounding his systems theory into meaningful business practicality. More on Russell Ackoff here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_L._Ackoff

Hang on to your saddle for this one! Drew Simonis joins Allan as his new co-host in a show where the two of them explore alternative models for selling and funding the cyber mission! You probably know about corporate social responsibility initiatives. Did you know that it's not a a new idea in the history of capitalism, but rather a throwback? Before shareholder capitalism, there was stakeholder capitalism: Stakeholder capitalism proposes that corporations should serve the interests of all their stakeholders, and not just shareholders. Stakeholders can include investors, owners, employees, vendors, customers, and the general public at large. The focus is on long-term value creation, not merely enhancing shareholder value. Drew walks Allan through some very compelling arguments in favor of this model, and Drew and Allan together tie it to how CISOs can implement and fund cybersecurity... Random highlights: 1. The short-sightedness of quarter-over-quarter thinking 2. Comparison to the Chinese Communist Party, who gets a big thumbs down from both Drew and Allan, but who do get credit for being able to enact truly long-term plans. 3. Jack Welch and other prominent CEOs advocating for aspects of stakeholder capitalism 4. Random tie-ins to cybersecurity all throughout. Allan is stoked to have Drew join him as co-host, and this show is most definitely one of the more philosophical episodes, while still grounding itself in the practicalities of running cybersecurity programs. Y'all be good now!

Howdy, y’all, and welcome to The Cyber Ranch Podcast! Our guest toda is Tomer Schwartz, co-founder and CTO over at Dazz Yup! He’s a vendor! And OMG he’s a sponsoring vendor too! Whatever will we do? But wait, y’all know Allan's rule: Vendors are allowed on the show if and when they can add more value on a given subject vs. any practitioners in The Cyber Ranch network. Tomer fits that bill perfectly! Tomer has worked in the Microsoft Security Response Center, he’s the former Armis co-founder & CTO, current co-founder & CTO at Dazz, who is a leader in the Application Security Posture Management space. Tomer is also a coffee aficionado. Now what does Dazz do and why did we ask Tomer to be on the show? Dazz is in the Application Security Posture Management space, which is relatively new around here, but they also collate and track threat exposure realtime, and also secure the SDLC in a DevOps’y way... Questions Check out Dazz at https://dazz.io

If leadership exists in good and bad forms, so must followership. Leadership can exist both by designation, and dynamically, as manifested by folks who may not have an official leader title. And yet we don't measure followership, and our measurements of leadership leave something to be desired... Join Allan Alford as he flies solo this week exploring these topics and suggesting a better way forward. Y'all be good now!

Howdy, y’all, and welcome to The Cyber Ranch Podcast! Our guest is Nathan Case, who is a previous guest from a multi-guest show. Nate has been a CISO, CTO, Strategist, consultant, CEO, and all kinds of other things. His career is as colorful and varied as Allan's – maybe even more so. Nat's chosen topic is “There is no such thing as security!” So without further ado, let’s dive in!

In this show, Allan interviews seven guests and asks them questions from a list of 21: Omkhar Arasaratnam “How do we leverage LLMs for our own use in cybersecurity?” "How do you challenge your own precepts and assumptions to stay current in your role?" Ofer Klein “How do you describe what you do in cybersecurity to someone at a cocktail party who knows nothing about cyber?" "How do you explain to the business the value you bring and the risks you solve?" Rick Doten "What message do you have for your fellow CISOs?" "In this cybersecurity community there is hostility between vendors and practitioners. What is your best moment with a vendor?" Sahil Agarwal “How do you measure and articulate the risk that AI represents to the business?" "Governance, Risk Management and Compliance - Where should the priority be?" Roger Brotz "What would you like your fellows CISOs to know?" "What are we still getting wrong in cybersecurity?" Tyson Martin "How do we take on more accountability as business leaders?" "How do we overcome our defaults, precepts and assumptions? How do you get past your own biases and blind spots?" Sponsored by our good friends at Semperis. It's a great series of a guests, and a great series of answers. Y'all be good now!

In this show, Allan interviews seven guests and asks them questions from a list of 21: Chris "Cpat" Patteson “Why do so many CISOs think cybersecurity insurance is snake oil?” Johann Balaguer “People, process, technology - Which is the most important and why?” "What do you want your fellow community of CISOs to know?" Lee Krause “What are we still doing wrong in cybersecurity?" Ken Foster “What are we still doing wrong in cybersecurity?" "How do we articulate risk to the business?" Marty Momdjian "Walk me through how to solvie the nightmare of repeat incidents?" Michael Calderin “IA&M: Who should own it, and why? CIO? CISO?” "What is the definition of progress in cybersecurity? Is there an end state?" Mike Britton "People, Process, Technology: Which is the most important?" "I&AM: Who should own it? CISO or CIO?" "What's your favorite part of the RSA conference?" Sponsored by our good friends at Semperis. It's a great series of a guests, and a great series of answers. Y'all be good now!

In this show, Allan interviews nine guests and asks them questions from a list of 21: Dr. Deanna Caputo “How do you measure and articulate risk to the business?” “People, process or technology?” Carlos Guerrero “How do we foster community in cybersecurity?” Elliott Franklin “Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance – Which of the three is most important?” “What does progress look like in cybersecurity?” Corey Bodzin “With regards to AI & LLM, what is the impact to infrastructure?” Evgeniy Kharam “How integral is Identity & Access Management to the cybersecurity mission?” “How well is traditional DLP technology meeting its mission and what else can we do?” Gary Hayslip “What does RSA mean to you?” Kelly Shortridge “What does progress mean to you in cybersecurity?” “What is the end goal of cybersecurity?” George Kamide & George Al-Koura “What are you getting out of RSA?” Kevin Jackson “What are we doing wrong in cybersecurity?” Sponsored by our good friends at Semperis. It's a great series of a guests, and a great series of answers. Y'all be good now!

Howdy, y’all, and welcome to The Cyber Ranch Podcast… AND The Audience 1st Podcast! What you are about to hear was recorded LIVE! at the CISO XC conference in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas (my very favorite conference!) I am your host, Allan Alford, CEO of Alford & Adams Consulting. I have co-host on this episode, Dani Woolf, of the Audience 1st podcast! On her show, Dani interviews security buyers so vendors can more efficiently market and sell to them without ruffling their feathers (or piss them off). What we’re doing on this joint endeavor is interviewing various CISOs and other folks about their roles in cyber. This week’s show focuses on the pros of cybersecurity – we covered the negatives last week, and this week we cover the positives. My listeners should know by now that I like to end on a positive note… WARNING: Some naughty language

Howdy, y’all, and welcome to The Cyber Ranch Podcast… AND The Audience 1st Podcast! What you are about to hear was recorded LIVE! at the CISO XC conference in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas (my very favorite conference!) I am your host, Allan Alford, CEO of Alford & Adams Consulting. I have co-host on this episode, Dani Woolf, of the Audience 1st podcast! On her show, Dani interviews security buyers so vendors can more efficiently market and sell to them without ruffling their feathers (or piss them off). What we’re doing on this joint endeavor is interviewing various CISOs and other folks about their roles in cyber. This week’s show focuses on the cons of cybersecurity – the beefs, gripes, grumps, complaints and fears about cybersecurity. Next week we’ll end on a positive note, but this show as an opportunity for CISOs to scream into the void. Without further ado, here we go… WARNING: Some naughty language this episode.

Howdy, y’all, and welcome to The Cyber Ranch Podcast! That’s Drew Simonis, CISO @ Juniper Networks, former CSO @ Hewlett Packard Enterprise, former CISO at Willis – you get the idea. Drew’s posts on LinkedIn are pure fire – not in the hot takes way, but because of the quality of the thinking behind them. Drew has also been on the show a couple of times now, and we keep inviting him back because he’s always worth hearing from. Drew and Allan were chatting this afternoon about the idea that oftentimes cybersecurity does not matter – and that that’s okay! So we decided to record a show on that topic. Drew and Allan share some real-world stories where they put security on hold for the benefit of the business: Drew and Allan share many more stories and break down why in each of these cases, deprioritizing daily security operations was the right thing to do! Y'all be good now!

Howdy, y’all, and welcome to The Cyber Ranch Podcast! Our guest today is Ankur Ahuja, 2x CISO, Ted-X Speaker, Startup Investor, Board Advisor, etc. etc. Ankur is currently SVP and CISO at Billtrust, and he’s got some Big 4 in his DNA too (ten years, in fact!). Ankur wanted to chat about how CISOs can drive business growth, so I asked him to come on down to the ‘Ranch and have a chat with me. It's more than attending sales calls. It's more than security questionnaires Listen for some clever new tips on driving business growth!

Melanie Ensign is a communications strategist and corporate anthropologist for cybersecurity, privacy, and risk organizations. She is founder and CEO of Discernible, a multi-disciplinary Center of Excellence for security, privacy, & risk teams. Her team includes experts in communications, product development and management, compliance, security and privacy engineering, and behavioral science. Melanie is here at the 'Ranch to talk specifically about the fact that so many CISOs feel they are in organizations that simply don’t care about cybersecurity. She’s got some good insights into this one, and it’s the perfect topic for her expertise. Allan asks Melanie:

In this episode, Allan tackles the idea of selling the CISO mission. He deconstructs the types of CISOs and the "selling" they must do. Sometimes you really are selling, but most of the time you should be solving business problems. Allan speaks to: And also deconstructs the art of selling itself. Hint: Business Impact Analysis is a valuable tool in this whole process. Special thanks to Helen Patton and Melanie Ensign for prompting this exploration. Y'all be good now!

Our guest this week is Jonathan Rau, VP and Distinguished Engineer over at Query, and a proponent of what he calls "SecDataOps". Jonathan is quite active on LinkedIn and his takes, though often spicy, tend to be spot-on. Allan has come to enjoy following Jonathan's posts, and he was excited to have Jonathan come on the show and share his insights. Allan asks Jonathan, in a VERY lively conversation: Y'all be good now!

This is part two in our neurodiversity series. Our guest roster this time also includes Dr. Ursula Alford, a psychologist who routinely works with the neurodiverse populace. The lineup of guests covers ADHD, Autism, challenges unique to women with neurodiversity, how leaders should manage neurodivergent team members and more. Y'all be good now!

Geoff Hancock is Deputy CEO and CISO for Access Point Consulting, Former Global Director and CISO over at World Wide Technology. He’s also a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor at George Washington University and has held various C-suite and executive roles at Verizon, CGI Federal Advanced Technology, Microsoft, and Advanced Cybersecurity Group. He is back at the 'Ranch this week to talk about CISO Communications. Allan asks Geoff: It's a fantastic show full of great insights, and you will thoroughly enjoy listening to it. Y'all be good now!

Join Allan LIVE! at Zero Trust World in Orlando as he asks 12 guests "What does Zero Trust Mean to You?" and a wide variety of other questions. Conference highlights are discussed as well, including hacker activities, hacker demonstrations, incredible talks, etc. Allan also learns all about The Tech Degenerates, and organization furthering partnership and comradery amongst cybersecurity vendors, MSPs, MSSPs, CISOs, etc. (Allan has since joined their Discord group!) Another great highlight is a chat with Carlos Rodriguez about the vCISO life. This show is sponsored by our good friends at ThreatLocker - visit https://threatlocker.com and tell them you heard about them down here at the 'Ranch! Y'all be good now!

How does cybersecurity relate to the four horsemen of the apocalypse? Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death? In this episode, Dr. Chase Cunningham, renowned Zero Trust expert, author, instructor, Chief Strategy Officer, advisor, etc., examines the 4 conditions on our planet represented by the four horsemen, ties it all to cybersecurity, and then solves it all with Zero Trust. It's quite a ride and an adventure you should listen to! Allan tries to keep up in this episode that jumps from topic to topic, but all with a zero trust underpinning. It's another LIVE! episode recorded at Zero Trust World 2024 in Orlando. Sponsored by our good friends at ThreatLocker. Y'all be good now!

Howdy, y'all! Allan went down to Orlando, Florida and recorded three LIVE! shows at Zero Trust World, a conference sponsored by ThreatLocker. This is the first of those three shows. James Keeler of LMT Technology Solutions has a steady hand on the incident response wheel and a lot of experience under his belt as well. After seeing James speak on a panel at Zero Trust World, Allan asked him to be on the show. Join Allan as he asks James to walk us through his philosophy of incident response, the underpinnings, the steps and just about everything else about Incident Response as well. This show is sponsored by our good friends at ThreatLocker - visit https://threatlocker.com and tell them you heard about them down here at the 'Ranch!