July 1, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of the Ransomware Rewind podcast, Mike and Joe interview renowned cybersecurity expert Eric Cole, also known as the Cyber Czar.
The discussion delves into Eric's fascinating journey from being a CIA hacker in the 1980s to creating successful cybersecurity firms and becoming a thought leader in the industry. Read down to the bottom to get the link for Dr. Eric Cole's book for free!
00:00 Welcome to Ransomware Rewind
01:06 Eric's Journey to the CIA
05:42 Early Cybersecurity Challenges
10:31 Adventures with John McAfee
15:44 The Butterfly Effect Philosophy
24:52 The Importance of Business Acumen for CISOs
28:53 The Power of Effective Communication
29:14 The Butterfly Effect in Cybersecurity Training
29:34 Sharing Knowledge for Greater Impact
30:01 Challenges in Communicating Security Needs
30:28 Humorous Take on ROI in Personal Life
30:57 Avoiding Unwinnable Fights
31:08 Debating the Role of Chinese Nationals in Tech
32:24 Inconsistencies in Tech Regulations
34:40 The Cold War of Cybersecurity
37:21 The Backbone of the Internet
39:23 The Future: Star Trek or Skynet?
40:31 Ethical Dilemmas in Predictive Policing
42:51 Final Thoughts and Future Plans
Joe Erle, Cyber Group Practice Leader at C3 Insurance
Tiktok / https://www.tiktok.com/@itscyberjoe
Insta / https://www.instagram.com/itscyberjoe/
Meta / https://www.facebook.com/joeerle/
LinkedIn / https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeerle/
Questions about cyber insurance?
Email joe@c3insurance.com
Get the 14 Steps to protect your data here:
https://c3insurance.com/secure-your-companys-data/
Mike Dowdy
LinkedIn / https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedowdy/
Special Guest:
Dr. Eric Cole, Cybersecurity Expert
Consulting Company / https://secure-anchor.com/about/
LinkedIn / https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericcole1/
Youtube / https://www.youtube.com/c/DrEricCole
Bulletproof Cyber Podcast / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY8Ef086jcWMvx0wkArY-xA
Instagram / https://www.instagram.com/drericcole/?hl=en
Buy Eric's Book, Cyber Crisis on Amazon: https://a.co/d/bxH94tF
Get Eric's newest book for free here: https://safe.secure-anchor.com/online-danger-free
Thx for watching - Don't forget to like and subscribe.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:52):
welcome to the Ransomware Rewind podcast
where we put a human face behind cyber security
and today our guest is the one and only cyber Zar
actually was a hacker for the CIA
he's gone on to have successful companies um
he's the host of the CISO excuse me
(01:14):
host of life of a CISO and Bulletproof Cyber sorry
kind of nervous and what I like about
Eric is that he's very human in our space
there's a lot of people that get accomplished
and they have a hard time not speaking in acronyms
and I think everyone who watches
(01:35):
this is gonna get a lot of value
both on the business side and
I appreciate that you see
I'm referred to as a robot
by a lot of my friends and family
so I'm glad to be going as a human a human being
I'm not an AI agent I promise
OK people look just want to dive into your story
can you tell us a little bit about your background
how you were actually working for the CIA as a hacker
(02:00):
and how what you Learned in the environment
is relevant to businesses today
because I saw you speak as well to businesses
and I thought that was exciting
because you're mixing those two worlds yeah yeah
so so I I I'll take you back to to the 1980s right
so so you're gonna be putting on our bell bottom pants
and the BG's right
and and I know it's
(02:20):
it's hard to imagine but
but this was a time in place no computers
no cell phones no nothing
I remember in college
I was working to help fix mainframes in the evening
for IBM and I was given a pager
and I thought I was like the coolest kid on campus
right so it's it's crazy times but but yeah
I was always fascinated in design and architecture
(02:44):
and was actually planning on going to college
for architecture and then a friend of the family said
Eric everything's moving to computers
why don't you major in computer science
well back in the 80s
computer science was electrical engineering
with some programming classes
so here's uh Gigi Eric that wants to program and
and solve problems of taking physics and calculus
(03:06):
and I'm just like
hate life going this is not what I wanna do
and it's crazy cause I'm
I'm a firm believer you gotta listen to your instinct
and I still remember it was a Thursday afternoon
I was in a fourth grade class and I'm like questioning
is this really what I want to do
for the rest of my life cause
cause Fortran was not a fun programming language
I'm like I I
I don't want to do this
(03:27):
and this voice came to me that said
you gotta go to the cop office today
so I get out of class around 3:30
of course
it's raining out like the universe always test you
it's raining out and it's a fit a 10 minute walk
so I I walk to the cop office
I get there at 4:00 they close at 4:30
I'm soaking wet and I walk in and the lady's like
(03:47):
how did you know and I'm like how did I know what
and she's like you must have known and I'm like OK
this is I I have no idea what you're talking about
every two years
the CIA comes to New York City and recruits on campus
and they're gonna be here tomorrow
and we have three slots left
do you want one of those slots
so I'm like cool sure now
(04:08):
it's one of those things at the time
I didn't really process like interviewing for the CIA
I was just a naive kid I didn't even have a suit
like I had to had to stop
put
like a five and dime on the way home and pick up some
like 20 dollar suit which is probably
like the ugliest suit on the planet these days uh
and and I showed up to the interview totally naive
just relaxed I had no idea what was at stake
(04:30):
and I must have did good cause after a
a few trips to Washington
a ton of polygraphs and a ton of uh psych exams uh
that they put me into the CIA and I'm like here
here
here here we go so that's sort of how I got started
it was just sort of me testing and saying
is this what I really wanna do with my life
and then trying it out
at just what happened to be the CIA
that then turned into a 10 year career
(04:52):
that sort of set the stage for the rest of my life
it's fascinating
so it was just like kind of a random event
you didn't even know how they were doing it
and there you were
yeah we're I yeah
I I love the Steve Jobs quote where it's like
when you look back
all the dots seem to line up and make perfect sense
but at the time there's no plan right
everybody thinks I had this brilliant plan
(05:13):
that when I was 6 years old
and I'm in kindergarten I'm gonna work for the CIA no
no no
it was like it just sort of happens you
you mean things unfold and the next thing you know
and
and the funniest thing when I went to work for the CIA
uh I had to interview at different places
so I was interviewing at like a networking shop
and a programming and this uh
security area and everybody was like
(05:35):
go for networking
I remember my adviser at the times like
security is a fad right
it's not gonna take off it's not gonna be a big deal
it's just gonna be segmentation
you need to focus in on networking
but I'm one of those is take advice
but listen to your instinct
so I went in cyber instead and uh
at the time remember
this is when I started working in the cyber security
(05:57):
office it's 1990
the web wasn't invented until 92
Amazon and Google weren't companies until 98
so like this was really early on
so I got in where in the 90s
I mean I'm just messing around with routers
and protocol stacks and packets and
and all that fun stuff
and then the web comes out and applications
and I'm sort of right there
(06:18):
like identifying exploiting vulnerability
so it's really really a fun time and sort of a great uh
period to get into this area
during your time at the CIA
you must have
seen some things before they became public
what private uh
classified threats did you see that later became public
(06:38):
that the public sector didn't take seriously
is that does that question make sense
yeah
yeah yeah
so so so
so probably the biggest one was
just how exposed our critical infrastructure was
so like imagine this this 20 year old in the 90s
(06:59):
sort of talking about critical infrastructure
and electricity and
and one of my it turned out to be
one of my focus areas that I spent about 15 years on is
I'm like listen
what's the difference
between a nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb
there's really not a lot of difference
it's it's it's how you do it
so it's a great person
(07:20):
yeah so
so so I'm like wait a second
nuclear reactors are running on computers
and you mean these these computers aren't patched
they're older systems they're exploitable
like what if somebody gets into them
and can exploit them and turn them against them
and like what
once again crazy talk in the 90s and then of course
(07:42):
uh Stuxnet comes out right with the
with the Iranian uh nuclear reactors
the system sevens of the
the Siemens uh Plcs and essentially uh exploitable
and then
what a lot of people don't even realize with that
is
that that exploit of Stuxnet
it wasn't a one off
it was actually implanted in to the System 7
(08:05):
and manufacturing and there's many other countries
that actually use those systems
so it was one of those where it was like OK
we we were able to attack Iran
but all these other countries
uh also have vulnerabilities
and how are we gonna protect and secure that from
from that being used against us
that's not is a really interesting case yeah
(08:27):
didn't correct me if I'm wrong
did they use
like malware to corrupt the personal computers
emails of a lot of the people that work there
and then somebody brought it into
the nuclear reactor facility
or was it and then another instance
I heard that there was a spy that went in there
(08:50):
and he had this like special malware that go from his
um
his chip to the um software there through the air um
do you remember the details on that
yeah so so so essentially it was code uh
(09:11):
that was put in uh during manufacturing so
so basically like a solar winds type scenario uh
where you basically go after uh
supply chain and but the code was dormant
so you have to get a way to activate it
and as you know
nuclear reactors are typically air gapped
and segmented so
(09:32):
this part of the story is open to debate
of how they got it but but uh
the version I heard was what
one of the engineers was at a trade conference
and targeted and given a USB drive
and then he took the USB drive back in to the facility
and at his work computer that was behind the air gap
(09:53):
he plugged it in
and then plugging in that USB activated the
the malware on the system
so yeah there's always as you know today with attacks
there's always a human element
like very rarely
do you break into a computer system
without exploiting a human
somewhere along the way and
and either a social engineering
or those types of things
(10:14):
so yeah somehow the engineer got a USB drive
plugged it into the computer
and then that's what activated the malicious code
so that's one of the things I always say is
you can have the best security
and the best technology in the world
but you can't secure stupid
very true
well back then I I don't think they
(10:35):
they thought that that was a
a way that most people got in
but nowadays people are still doing dumb stuff uh
picking up uh
USB drives out of the parking lot of their office uh
there's trade shows of course
where people are giving away uh USBs
they're giving away these chargers that could be uh
could have on them you know
(10:56):
we don't we don't know um
so you know there's a lot of uh
gaps that we could close if we just
you know tell people
you can't use all that swag
if it plugs in because of convention
you know
as much as we like to play trick or treat
at these conventions yup
we're gonna nerd out on YouTube like
(11:17):
did you work directly with John Mccaffrey
when you worked with Ed Mccaffrey
yeah
John was one of the ones that actually recruited me uh
cause I I
I built a company with a 4 other brilliant uh folks uh
TSGI and we sold out to Lockheed Martin
mm hmm and normally
normally when you acquire a company the top execs
(11:39):
I was one of the top uh officer CTO take the buyouts
but Bob Stevens at the time
wanted me to stay on as his chief scientist
and senior fellow to sort of help with a lot of uh
top notch things so yeah
real quick before we get to the Mccaffrey
one of my fun stories at Lockheed was at
on a Saturday morning at 3:00am
(11:59):
I basically get a call that it's like OK
there's a jet a private jet on Dallas Air Strip
be there in 30 minutes
we'll brief you on the plane and it's like oh
this should be good and I'm flying to Texas
and that's when the
Chinese broke into the Joint Strike Fighter
and what a lot of people don't realize with that story
the real interesting twist is
everyone was concerned that the Chinese got basically
(12:22):
the software of
the blueprints for the Joint Strike Fighter
the reality is they had it already
we didn't care about them having it
what we cared about was the integrity issue
is what
back doors or malware that they put in the code
so then they could potentially control or cause the
the aircraft to not operate
the way that it was supposed to
(12:44):
so it's one of those where the public gets one message
where oh
the Chinese have the source code it's like no no
we cared about what did they modify or change
not what did they actually do
and and I actually had a really good gig there
it was one of those that
I was probably gonna stay for a while
had a lot of stock options
I I was a VP I was I was doing really well
it was sort of nice had to buy out from TSG
(13:04):
I and then I get this phone call
uh from this crazy guy where
where I swore it was one of my friends
that was sort of drunk at a bar that
that they were like just pranking me
cause he's like hey dude man
we gotta catch up and meet and this is John
I'm like who the heck is this guy
and and uh I God rest his soul
I mean you
you know he's a no longer with us unfortunately
(13:26):
but an amazing amazing person
but no he
John is definitely the definition of a fine line
between brilliance and insanity
yes where you sort of you cross over that and and my
my favorite John example example is uh
when he sort of had to flee the country and I would
I would fly down uh
to Belize and meet up with him and have dinner
(13:47):
he would always let me pick dinner
and I always picked sushi restaurants
and like after the fourth or fifth dinner
John's like Eric
do you eat anything other than sushi
now by the way I love sushi
but I I said I said I do he goes well
why do you always pick sushi
and at this point I'm like
I had a pretty good relationship with John
so I'm like I'm gonna be honest with him
(14:08):
and I'm like John I'll be honest with you
I love you but you're a lot of mentally unstable
I said I don't want to go to a steakhouse
where there's a knife
because if I say something that pisses you off
you actually might stab me to death
I said you can't do a lot of damage with a chopstick
and it's funny
there's this moment of silence and he looks at me goes
you're a smart man that's probably true and I'm like OK
(14:28):
so so I mean at least he understood and knew
and knew his expectation but yeah
no John was one of those guys brilliant but yeah
you do not want to piss him off cause uh
like some of the stories you heard about
you might not be alive tomorrow
especially if you mess with his dogs yeah
exactly
that's really mean what kind of dogs does he have
no he well
(14:49):
it's really too much but he in Belize
he thought someone killed his dog
I don't know if they did or they didn't
and that's why he got in all that trouble
he's the uh the person that they made John Wick after
got it thank you
John Wick 2 you can get the dog
oh yeah yeah
John Wick's one of my favorite
(15:10):
I I'm actually also I don't watch a lot of TV
but I'm a big movie buff
so I don't know about you guys
I'm excited for a mission impossible this weekend
I don't know if you guys are gonna go see that with
with my man Tom Cruise right
haha yeah
still doing it
he's still doing he's got to be 62 or 63 at this point
good for him he's
he's drawn
he's been there for three years
the impressive thing about Tom Cruise is
(15:31):
he makes it pride he does his own stunts
yeah like he does not have a stunt double
so he was like jumping out of airplanes
he he was I think the first
if I get this correct uh
the first non
military person to actually be allowed to do a Halo
jump wow
cause in the movie I had to do a Halo and
and I did some of that in the CIA
which is super fun where at like 23,000 feet you're
(15:54):
you're jumping out of a plane with oxygen and uh
and like minus 23 degree weather and
and then the fun part is you've got about four seconds
to open up your parachute
cause if you open it up too soon
you show up an enemy radar and you get shot
you open too late and you don't have enough buoyancy
and you hit the ground too hard and die
so it's yeah
it's one of those fun things where
where seven seconds seems like a lot of time
(16:15):
but when you're free falling at 120 miles an hour
it goes by really quick oh
I bet it does
wow how about work stress yeah
and then also we got a bunch of questions for you
sorry we'll be all over the place
I noticed that you mentioned the butterfly effect a lot
where did that come from
(16:37):
that that's a good question
I'm an avid reader
I I love reading and I only read non fiction
like I love reading sort of biographies
I I read a lot of self help books
uh
right now I so sort of going to I
I like reading sort of the classics of uh
modern day sort of stuff
so I'm going through a lot of those old ones
(16:58):
so I don't remember which book I got it from
but but it's one of those where
so to my philosophy on life
where I try to leave everybody
better off than I left them
like
always try to leave nuggets of knowledge and stuff
which uh
some of my kids friends love me cause any
any of their friends that come to the house
I'm not that dad that like goes
where do you go to college
(17:19):
I'm gonna go in and basically teach him
and give him nuggets of knowledge
and to me the whole butterfly effect is the way that
you don't change the world
by necessarily talking to 50,000 people
you change the world by talking to five people
and then if those five people talk to five people
that talk to 10 people that talk to 15 people
all of a sudden you make a big
big impact so
(17:39):
what I always try to do is leave nuggets
that are very interesting
or fascinating or unusual
or different so it sticks in their mind
and then what I always ask people is
tell at least five other people what I told you
and then it it
it's sort of it's sort of the Amway model used uh
for for South Health
where it's basically
you sort of recruit an army around you
(17:59):
and that's sort of one of the big things in my career
that has also helped me is I
my network is really the key to my success
like people always go Eric
how are you so successful
how do you get on these shows
and these books and everything else
it's essentially throughout my career
I always help people
and the thing I always do when I help people
a lot of times my friends criticize me
(18:20):
cause I don't charge and people like Eric
I wanna pay you I'm like
here's the payment at some point in the future
I'm gonna text you with a favor
will you honor that favor
and and usually they say yes
now
they don't really recognize what they're getting into
cause sometimes the favor is pretty big
but but my whole thing is if
if I'm gonna help out a friend
or help out you or help out anybody else
(18:42):
I would much rather you pay me with a favor
in the future than with money
cause
a favor in the future is gonna be worth a lot more
than 1,000 10,000 or 100,000 dollars
you're you're giving away your new book too right
exactly yeah
you you and that that's the thing too
is whenever I do a book
I always buy 5,000 copies and now a lot of people say
(19:04):
well you're doing that'cause you're basically
buying yourself onto the bestseller list
I'm like oh
that's actually a good idea
I didn't even think about that
but that's a side but but
we end up selling enough books
that I don't actually need it
that's not why I do it
but my thing is if I'm writing a book
it's to share it with other folks and
and I always buy 5,000 copies give them away
and then the other thing I do
(19:25):
which shocks a lot of people
is all of the advancement and revenue
cause normally with a book
you're not gonna get rich
but you're gonna make a couple hundred k is
I always donate it to charities
to me books is not about making money
it's about giving back and helping others
what what's the what's the title of your new book
(19:46):
uh where can people find it
and do you want to tell a story from you
you so so the new book is Cyber Crisis
and it's really sort of the shift in my career
it's my a seventh book
and if you look at my first five books
they're all super technical because in 1999
(20:06):
when I wrote my first book Hackers Beware
there was a shortage
of technical knowledge like there were really no books
this was this was sort of before a lot of the uh
hacking exposed books and other books were out there
there really weren't any books
to educate or help people
so I'm one of those that always try to give back
so that's why I wrote Hacking Exposed
Network Security Bible Advanced Persistent threat
(20:27):
was really to train technical people
and then about five years ago
I'm like you know
some there's enough smart technical people that
there's enough colleges that are teaching and using my
uh network security bible as a textbook
the problem is
the masses don't understand cyber security
and so five years ago I wrote uh
sort of the the switch my sixth book
(20:47):
which was Online Danger and that one
I basically gave away to school districts
because teachers need to be educated on the dangers
cause they're basically teaching our kids
and they didn't really understand
just how bad the exposure is
and then uh the last year or two
I realized business owners
like CEOs are scared to death of cyber
(21:08):
but most of their cissos are too technical
and can't speak English are you preaching to require
yeah they scare the heck out of them
but they can't give them answers
so that's why I wrote a cyber crisis
and then sort of a a little leak
I can't give you all the details
cause we're still in the signing stages
but probably in the next 5 days
I'm gonna sign another book
(21:29):
which is gonna be on the merging of AI
and cybersecurity instead of what the value benefits
pros and cons are of really where AI
could potentially change how we think and how we act
and and to me if we're not careful of what we do
not to get too melodramatic
but but to me
if we give away too much of our knowledge to AI
and train those models
it could potentially lead to the extinction
(21:51):
of the human race
because what if we give all our knowledge
where computers now can outthink us
and then what happens when a computer
is smarter than us or thinks they're smarter than us
and starts doubting humans
and they're smarter better and faster
that could create a scary world
so I'm sort of to doing
it's a little more of a futuristic
book that I'm writing
but it's really to help warn people
(22:12):
that we're in a really slippery slope
right now with AI
and if we don't slow down and think about it
it's not gonna end well for our great
great grandchildren so
I'm guessing
you're against the 10 year moratorium on AI regulation
on which one did you see that
there's a gonna be a moratorium on AI
regulation in the US for 10 years yeah
(22:32):
yeah
I I mean I'm sort of mixed feelings is on the one hand
I I think AI is super powerful as a tool
but a lot of people are using it as a replacement
for human interaction
and that's where I think it becomes dangerous
like to me if a doctor is gonna use AI
(22:52):
to research and help a patient
I think that's amazing but now if a patient
instead of interacting with a doctor
interacts with AI to get their diagnosis
and takes the doctor out of the loop
that's when I think it becomes dangerous
so I'm sort of the middle of the road where it's like
I I piss both sides off because I like some of it
but not all of it so yeah
(23:12):
I was I was listening to some podcast where they
compared it to like The Last Mile
where like the AI is doing most of the freight
you know with like the long distance stuff
but the human needs to be there for the last mile
for the white glove service to deliver it
and to create the context from the AI
yeah kind of like the model I see like working the best
(23:34):
yeah and then I saw one of your videos
where you're talking about
you just have to be very specific
and I like that
you talked about when you're dealing with AI
that you gotta be very specific
it's like hey
here's the task you don't say hey
make a can and you're in your
you would have to be specific about how make a green
can this is served yeah
and in the video made an analogy
like in marketing where they have a B with testing
(23:57):
you really gotta work with the
cause if you just take it at face value
and there's no guard rails
you're gonna get screwed cause why did
and he also made a really good point about creativity
they they're still computers
they still can't count from one
they still have to count from zero
so they're not very creative
(24:19):
that that's what I do I like using him to do like
research and analysis and correlation
like I'll be honest with you uh
yesterday when we were preparing for this
I actually I have two AI
twins that I brainstorm with every morning at 4:00am
it's it's it's really fun
me me screaming and yelling at computers
it's great times imagine three Erics in a room
that's a scary place but I but I basically said hey
(24:41):
I'm going on this great podcast uh
and I I just want you to give me sort of
a summary of some of the episodes
what are some of the questions
what are some of the themes
uh that could have taken me like 30 minutes to do
AI gave me a great summary of your two backgrounds
and the questions and things like that
it gave me a one page summary
so I could read and be prepared
but I still showed up and I think that's the trick is
(25:04):
if we get to the point where
I send my AI agent to do interviews
that that's when we lose the emotional touch
because we're not talking to a human
what did AI say about us
that's actually
really good things hey
I'm here must have said good things right
if it said bad things I wouldn't have shared
you wouldn't risk your reputation
(25:26):
I'll be honest with you the thing
the thing it said the most that I really liked is
very friendly down to earth and easy to talk to
so I'm like cool
I'm gonna get along well with these guys and yeah
speaking of which
part of what you do is coaching CISO's
Bulletproof Cyber being one of the
entries where people can get to know you
(25:47):
how do you transition like an engineer
manager of it or even a technical CISO into
a board member level CISO
the short answer which is sort of a a little bizarre is
uh you sort of have to get a personality and
(26:08):
and you sort of have to speak a new language and
and that was one thing why I transitioned is
cause I realized I was doing well in my career
like I was making a lot of money
and I was the brains behind several companies
I mean that was one of the reasons
we talked about John Mackey
I basically
helped them revamp their entire product line
to help them sell to Intel
(26:29):
but what I realized is
a lot of people didn't really like to be around me
and I wasn't really
invited to a lot of the board meetings
and everything else they
they they
I I
I said a joke
they would open the door and throw in some uh
some Taco Bell that's if you
if you want me to be motivated
give me Taco Bell and Mountain Dew
I'm old school and I'll
I'll do anything for you I'll be
I'll be loyal to you to the end of the day
(26:50):
especially if you do extra nacho cheese sauce
that stuff's great uh
and uh
so are you a
I was always the last better or are you hiring what
OG Mountain Dew or Baja Blast
I'm old school
you just gotta go with the straight green stuff right
but the Baja blast isn't bad either
so yes it's good too
but uh
so so I realized hey
if I really want to expand my career and
(27:13):
and I was looking at other folks and what I realized
like with Bill Gates and Paul Allen and all them
they didn't make their money on selling the companies
they made their money on the investments that they made
and as I told you people
relationships started becoming really important to me
so I started going to a lot of these events
like Tony Robbins and Brendon Burchard
(27:35):
and what I realized is I was the only geek in the room
like most technical geeks
would not go I mean to Tony Robbins he's amazing
but it's freaking weird my friends like you're
you're sitting there
dancing and hugging people and back rubbing
and I'm like this is just like way out
there's way too many people touching me
it's like way outside of my comfort zone
I mean that that that's the normal geek crowd
(27:56):
it definitely is it and what I realized is that
a lot of technical
people are just never trained on business
they're never trained on profits
revenues and all that
and most of us during my security career
I was always trained on
make the system as secure as possible
and like one of my beliefs for the longest time
which was false
is security is more important than the business
(28:18):
like if there's something that could go in
and negatively impact the business
from a cyber security standpoint
you shouldn't do it
and what I quickly realized is that's false
if cybersecurity negatively impacts the business
you're wrong
you have to show how it's a business enabler
and how you can enhance and help the business
(28:38):
and so I started taking business courses
reading business books reading spreadsheets
you know
I mean PNL statements and all that stuff and realized
oh wait a second
if I can actually go into a boardroom
and I can go in instead of saying
you're gonna get hit life is bad
the sky is falling
you have all these risks your systems are unpatched
which means nothing if I can go in and go listen
(29:00):
you have a 90% chance of losing $20 million
and I could reduce that risk by 300 k
I don't know a single executive on the planet
that's not gonna write me a check
because it's a great return on investment
I mean everyone would do that
so what I started realizing is
if I could go in and show a proper ROI for my security
(29:22):
money never becomes a problem
I could always get the money
because you're going in and basically
explaining it in a way where it's a no brainer
you go up to anybody and say uh
if if you give me uh
20 20 million I'll save you this or that I mean
they're they're always gonna do that right
I'll give you $200 you give me 20 million
I'll take that deal every day of the week
so it's just how you speak
(29:44):
and I sort of all of a sudden
when the CISOs were having trouble getting budgets
I noticed I could walk into a boardroom
and get whatever budget they needed
and how you present it speak it or analyze it
so then I'm like okay
if I go in and just do consulting
I'm gonna maybe be able to help eight companies a year
(30:05):
but if I train and this is the butterfly effect
if I train cisos I can actually help 30 cisos a year
and now that's 300 companies
in 10 years and then those cisos train other cisos
so that's why I'm like
contrary to many people
where you hold your knowledge inside
I'm like what if I share my knowledge with the world
what if I share my knowledge with other cisos
(30:26):
to make them smarter and better
and that's that's sort of where I'm going
for the next couple years of my career
is just sort of sharing that knowledge of how to speak
business how to be likable
how to build rapport
how to go in and do ROI on your security
and then all of a sudden we're going to make security
people so much more successful
absolutely
(30:46):
it is I found the other side of that
where I'm trying to get something across the line
and the system will start bringing up Wire
Shark and logs yeah
and the money to like
we have no idea what you're talking about
all we know is you're asking us for 300 grand
we have no idea what you're talking about
so I like the way you word this like hey
if I can save you 20 million by saving paying 30
I don't know 300 grand
(31:08):
that's a much more compelling argument
cause you're speaking their language
by the way though
it doesn't work as well with your spouse
I always go into my wife and say and say listen
you got a really good return on investment on me yeah
she doesn't buy it so not as well at the home
but it does work good in business
I didn't close my wife on that one either exactly hey
(31:28):
you got a good return on your vestment here
I can counter that one exactly
you don't wanna go down that road my friend trust me
I tried it it doesn't end well
I'm a big believer
I don't think I can get in fights and I know I'm
I'm gonna lose
and I know the punch is gonna knock me out
the one I don't see and guarantee
(31:49):
she's gonna come at something that I'm not gonna
oh
I was I was also gonna ask you about like Huawei like
like I noticed in the UC system they have a lot of um
like Chinese nationals that work like in um
the computer science department students
graduate students
(32:09):
and they go on to get jobs that like Cisco
Huawei whatever like everyone is anti
China that I hear a lot
but I don't to be contrarian but from my perspective
it's not a threat
because they're writing the code anyway
and they're writing it right there
along with the Americans
(32:30):
and the code has to be vetted before it
it goes into production like a data center
what are your thoughts do you think it's
it's okay to have people that are Chinese nationals
working in the grad students on um
in computer science programs
cause here in California
like where are you looking by the way
I'm in Ashburn Virginia
right outside of Washington
DC oh boy you're in the
(32:52):
the heart of it oh yes
alright
data center
our world is right there yes
that's I I really get sidetracked
so what are you what are your thoughts on that
do you think we should have regulations about
Chinese nationals being the grad students in these
computer science departments
I I mean
to to me
like the stuff with
with sort of going against the nationals and uh
(33:14):
even like with TikTok and everything else
it is so counter intuitive to logic
and here here's what I mean
we're sitting there and worried about TikTok
cause it's Chinese owned or worried about
Chinese nationals going to US universities
but here's the reality
take any electronic that you rely on
take your iPad take your laptop
(33:36):
take your cell phone take your TV
take the computer chips from your car
and flip them over
what are the three words in every single one of those
made in China
so I'm sitting here going like this ship has sailed
my friends like like all of the hardware
I mean the whole tariff thing that I mean
(33:57):
you saw
apple was terrified that they wouldn't be able to
be able to produce iPhones because the
the chips the brain of the iPhone comes from China
so I'm like I'm like
wait a second why are we banning TikTok
when we're allowing all the hardware and everything
else into the car I mean
it's just it's just bizarre to me
it doesn't make any logical sense
(34:18):
it's just like these inconsistencies
and how we're passing laws
and I'm sort of with you
is source code and hardware is verifiable
I mean I mean apple
when they get the the Chinese chips into the US
they run verifiable diagnostics I mean
they they know what the chips do and how they operate
I mean with there was a lot of the concern
(34:40):
there were false rumors in my opinion
that TikTok
had malware and monitoring agents and everything else
and guess what they gave us the source code
I looked at the source code for TikTok
and there's no backdoors there's no malware now yes
could there be social manipulation and other factors
but that's gonna happen anywhere else but
but it's one of those where it's like
will hand select one or two areas and say China is bad
(35:04):
but then in other cases we trust them
and use their technology to basically
run our entire infrastructure
it's interesting and speaking of infrastructure I mean
don't we have kill switches on some of our
infrastructure like uh
the solar panels and things like that
is there something to do that
the the the
there absolutely is
(35:25):
but it's the whole Cold War scenario
like if you remember in the eighties uh
Russia had enough nuclear weapons to destroy us
but we had enough nuclear weapons to destroy them
and here's the reality
if either side launched a nuclear weapon
it would destroy the world
yes so it was a deterrent factor so yes
(35:46):
uh Russia
North Korea China are in our infrastructure
and if they wanted to take down
like our electricity or our water
they could but guess what
we could do the same to them
so so
it's one of those where it's sort of mutual
mass destruction where it's like OK
they can take us down but we can destroy you
(36:07):
so it's sort of like that Cold War standoff
where nobody's gonna do it
because it's just not gonna end well for anybody
that's reassuring
everybody
everybody go make your go back
a month's worth of food and water
I remember in the eighties
um they had this thing for in case of a nuclear bomb
(36:30):
we're supposed to go under our desk
I don't know if you experienced this where you live
but they did that to us I was like
wait a minute you're splitting atoms even as a kid
I was like 12 years old like
getting through this desk is not gonna do anything
you know everyone laughs cause they're like like dude
like I live within the blast zone of Washington
(36:50):
DC and everyone's like
you should move farther out and this and that
and my philosophy is listen
if the world's gonna end I wanna go quick
like I I I I don't want
I don't wanna be outside and and and suffer I
I just take me out quick
I'd rather be in the blast on this you mentioned uh
it it does concern me
cause if you've ever been to Ashburn
every piece of land they're building data centers yes
(37:13):
like and
and what most people don't
realize is what you see
above ground is only about half of the data centers
when they build these data centers
you fly over an airplane
and you see these huge ditches
and you're like what are they doing
a lot of these data centers are three to four stories
underground with one story above ground
so like it they are just massive and I'm like
(37:34):
if I'm a foreign country and I wanted to impact the US
you basically take out Asper
but here's the other reality
the US runs the internet like if you take out the US
you take out the internet like Russia
China they wouldn't be able to communicate
outside of their country because we are the internet
we it's a bad thing for us
(37:54):
because we can't segment like Russia does
but it's a good thing for us
where nobody will take us out
so it's one of those yeah
it's a huge threat
but it's also the sort of mass destruction
if you do anything
is that because of DNS
when you need to talk about how we are the internet
like if we shut down America's internet
which is everything is that
because the way DNS is set up
(38:15):
or can you elaborate on that a little bit
sure so
so so it's several things is a lot of the
the core routing and infrastructure uh
the way it's set up today like Australia Australia uh
Russia for them to communicate with China
or Europe or Germany
they have to go through US infrastructure
(38:36):
like you look at the the may East the may West
how it was structured and created
now they're trying to fix that
but they still haven't been able to do that so
so we are basically the backbone
so imagine sort of the
the backbone of the internet is the US
and then all the other countries split off of it
so to go inter country you actually have to go through
(38:58):
US routers and switches uh
to be able to do that and
and then you're right also a lot of the
the servers the data stores
the domain names and all that are basically in the US
I think it might have changed
but I think at least
at least the last time a couple years ago
85% of name resolutions are on US based servers
(39:18):
so once again if
if you go in and using a domain names
which pretty much everyone does
that's gonna be severely crippled
if you take out US infrastructure
like I went to one Welsh and I was shocked
that they had servers all the way up to
the ceiling
like they're breaking every rule in the book was like
hey this is how you connect to China Mike
this is how we have to do it
(39:40):
so that ties into what you're saying
like you can't get to China with that one
Wilshire's just one data center
but you can't get through China
without going through us
with their different countries
so I thought that was fascinating
so okay that makes more sense you're a good teacher
yeah
do you have a some more questions
I mean I got tons of them actually
(40:02):
how much time do you have
I I have some more time
if you want to ask a few more questions yeah
we can definitely keep going this question uh
we're gonna get Star Trek or Sky Net
what's the percentage chance of each
I I I I definitely think Skynet is more probable uh
than uh than Star Trek
(40:22):
just because it seems to be
the focus is more on colonization of planets
as opposed to interstellar
like you look at different rockets and stuff
they're not really warships like I
I don't know if anybody and I'm usually pretty good on
on the R&D and where people are going is you
you look at like what Elon is doing and uh
(40:46):
Jeff Bezos and all those guys they're
they're really trying to build a space travel
not warships
like I don't know anybody who's actually building an
an intergalactic warship that can
go in and target or attack other parties
however you look at the satellite infrastructure
and how that's going and all that
I I
I definitely think that's gonna be much more likely
(41:07):
probability of sort of tracking
and and I think the bigger concern is
a lot of these Hollywood movies
that we thought were a spy
SCI fi like to me
the one that is getting very close to reality
which is scaring me is Minority Report
where you can actually go in
and they're actually doing this now
where they're monitoring and analyzing
(41:28):
people's behavior patterns
and saying
this person has a 90% chance of committing a crime
or murdering people or doing other things
now here's the question what do you do with that
like if you go in and say okay
that there's somebody that has a 90% chance
of killing somebody but he hasn't killed anybody yet
(41:48):
is is that really a threat or is not a like
like it's a
it's really comes up with a very big moral
ethical dilemma of what do you do with that data now
do you go in and monitor them
do you isolate them do you put them in their own camp
which really isn't fair
because they haven't done anything wrong yet
they just have a probability of doing it right right
and you can use that data against anyone exactly
(42:12):
it could be the observer effect
you watching them and causes them to be more paranoid
which causes them to like
you know actually do the crime
you know or
or something like that
it's really getting close to that
especially with all the data and data brokers out there
and the way that AI
is able to look at big data and make
(42:33):
take conclusions from it so yeah
that I knew we thought about Minority Report
we are getting closer to that yep
no no
and you hit the nail on the head is the
the power of psychological influence
like if you go to a kid in 7th or 8th grade and you say
you're not good in math math is not your specialty
(42:54):
you shouldn't major in math
most kids are impacted for the rest of their lives
with the thinking they're not good at math
so so what if you go to somebody and you're like
listen just so you know
you have a 90 percent chance of killing somebody
and you plant it in their head like
like you said are you triggering them now
to actually commit the crime so it's very
(43:15):
it was just a fantasy at that point exactly
don't take me out of context
you guys are definitely not those categories
so we're good
don't move on to that
it's a mild mannered insurance bro
with the fancy office with the blue glass
I love it I love it
(43:37):
that's pretty good um
this is been incredible like you have any anything else
I mean no
you know we have a ton of questions and you know
I'd love to do a part 2 and
and talk more about like how uh
CEOs can talk to boards and and all that stuff
but you know I think we can
maybe you can bring us on
(44:00):
yeah so so yeah
I yeah love to come back on a future show
but yet to me
the big thing I always leave with everyone is
the best way to sort of create the future is planet
so so this is a challenge I always leave with everyone
which shocks everyone but basically how I live my life
how I decide what to do on a daily
weekly basis is I have a 15 year plan
so I so I always challenge people is
(44:22):
instead of everyone sets yearly goals
and they're
they're ridiculous because you never achieve them
and they're
they're not really based on any foundational things
and they're not really realistic
but if you think 15 years out
you can dream
and I believe anybody can do anything in 15 years
so to me if you really sort of want to be successful
and live the best life don't be thinking six
(44:42):
nine or 12 months out think what do you wanna be
where do you wanna go
what do you wanna have in 15 years
and then that starts to shift reality very quickly
and very fast
you do where can people find you Eric
so uh
Doctor Eric Cole d R E R I C C O L E uh Instagram
YouTube LinkedIn uh
(45:04):
I have a personal website
where I do a lot of my blogging
Doctor Eric Cole dot org
d R E R I C C O L E or on a business side
if you wanna bring us in to help your company
securedashanchor.com
awesome thank you so much
this is really exciting entertaining and educational
yeah so thank you
good night night
great time and I
I I
these are my favorite podcast where we just sort of
(45:25):
3 guys sit around and chat and have a good time
so appreciate you guys having me
thank you so much thank you
awesome take care
take care guys thanks everyone for listening
don't forget to like and subscribe
welcome to the Ransomware Rewind podcast
where we put a human face behind cyber security
and today our guest is the one and only cyber Zar
actually was a hacker for the CIA
he's gone on to have successful companies um
he's the host of the CISO excuse me
(01:14):
host of life of a CISO and Bulletproof Cyber sorry
kind of nervous and what I like about
Eric is that he's very human in our space
there's a lot of people that get accomplished
and they have a hard time not speaking in acronyms
and I think everyone who watches
(01:35):
this is gonna get a lot of value
both on the business side and
I appreciate that you see
I'm referred to as a robot
by a lot of my friends and family
so I'm glad to be going as a human a human being
I'm not an AI agent I promise
OK people look just want to dive into your story
can you tell us a little bit about your background
how you were actually working for the CIA as a hacker
(02:00):
and how what you Learned in the environment
is relevant to businesses today
because I saw you speak as well to businesses
and I thought that was exciting
because you're mixing those two worlds yeah yeah
so so I I I'll take you back to to the 1980s right
so so you're gonna be putting on our bell bottom pants
and the BG's right
and and I know it's
(02:20):
it's hard to imagine but
but this was a time in place no computers
no cell phones no nothing
I remember in college
I was working to help fix mainframes in the evening
for IBM and I was given a pager
and I thought I was like the coolest kid on campus
right so it's it's crazy times but but yeah
I was always fascinated in design and architecture
(02:44):
and was actually planning on going to college
for architecture and then a friend of the family said
Eric everything's moving to computers
why don't you major in computer science
well back in the 80s
computer science was electrical engineering
with some programming classes
so here's uh Gigi Eric that wants to program and
and solve problems of taking physics and calculus
(03:06):
and I'm just like
hate life going this is not what I wanna do
and it's crazy cause I'm
I'm a firm believer you gotta listen to your instinct
and I still remember it was a Thursday afternoon
I was in a fourth grade class and I'm like questioning
is this really what I want to do
for the rest of my life cause
cause Fortran was not a fun programming language
I'm like I I
I don't want to do this
(03:27):
and this voice came to me that said
you gotta go to the cop office today
so I get out of class around 3:30
of course
it's raining out like the universe always test you
it's raining out and it's a fit a 10 minute walk
so I I walk to the cop office
I get there at 4:00 they close at 4:30
I'm soaking wet and I walk in and the lady's like
(03:47):
how did you know and I'm like how did I know what
and she's like you must have known and I'm like OK
this is I I have no idea what you're talking about
every two years
the CIA comes to New York City and recruits on campus
and they're gonna be here tomorrow
and we have three slots left
do you want one of those slots
so I'm like cool sure now
(04:08):
it's one of those things at the time
I didn't really process like interviewing for the CIA
I was just a naive kid I didn't even have a suit
like I had to had to stop
put
like a five and dime on the way home and pick up some
like 20 dollar suit which is probably
like the ugliest suit on the planet these days uh
and and I showed up to the interview totally naive
just relaxed I had no idea what was at stake
(04:30):
and I must have did good cause after a
a few trips to Washington
a ton of polygraphs and a ton of uh psych exams uh
that they put me into the CIA and I'm like here
here
here here we go so that's sort of how I got started
it was just sort of me testing and saying
is this what I really wanna do with my life
and then trying it out
at just what happened to be the CIA
that then turned into a 10 year career
(04:52):
that sort of set the stage for the rest of my life
it's fascinating
so it was just like kind of a random event
you didn't even know how they were doing it
and there you were
yeah we're I yeah
I I love the Steve Jobs quote where it's like
when you look back
all the dots seem to line up and make perfect sense
but at the time there's no plan right
everybody thinks I had this brilliant plan
(05:13):
that when I was 6 years old
and I'm in kindergarten I'm gonna work for the CIA no
no no
it was like it just sort of happens you
you mean things unfold and the next thing you know
and
and the funniest thing when I went to work for the CIA
uh I had to interview at different places
so I was interviewing at like a networking shop
and a programming and this uh
security area and everybody was like
(05:35):
go for networking
I remember my adviser at the times like
security is a fad right
it's not gonna take off it's not gonna be a big deal
it's just gonna be segmentation
you need to focus in on networking
but I'm one of those is take advice
but listen to your instinct
so I went in cyber instead and uh
at the time remember
this is when I started working in the cyber security
(05:57):
office it's 1990
the web wasn't invented until 92
Amazon and Google weren't companies until 98
so like this was really early on
so I got in where in the 90s
I mean I'm just messing around with routers
and protocol stacks and packets and
and all that fun stuff
and then the web comes out and applications
and I'm sort of right there
(06:18):
like identifying exploiting vulnerability
so it's really really a fun time and sort of a great uh
period to get into this area
during your time at the CIA
you must have
seen some things before they became public
what private uh
classified threats did you see that later became public
(06:38):
that the public sector didn't take seriously
is that does that question make sense
yeah
yeah yeah
so so so
so probably the biggest one was
just how exposed our critical infrastructure was
so like imagine this this 20 year old in the 90s
(06:59):
sort of talking about critical infrastructure
and electricity and
and one of my it turned out to be
one of my focus areas that I spent about 15 years on is
I'm like listen
what's the difference
between a nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb
there's really not a lot of difference
it's it's it's how you do it
so it's a great person
(07:20):
yeah so
so so I'm like wait a second
nuclear reactors are running on computers
and you mean these these computers aren't patched
they're older systems they're exploitable
like what if somebody gets into them
and can exploit them and turn them against them
and like what
once again crazy talk in the 90s and then of course
(07:42):
uh Stuxnet comes out right with the
with the Iranian uh nuclear reactors
the system sevens of the
the Siemens uh Plcs and essentially uh exploitable
and then
what a lot of people don't even realize with that
is
that that exploit of Stuxnet
it wasn't a one off
it was actually implanted in to the System 7
(08:05):
and manufacturing and there's many other countries
that actually use those systems
so it was one of those where it was like OK
we we were able to attack Iran
but all these other countries
uh also have vulnerabilities
and how are we gonna protect and secure that from
from that being used against us
that's not is a really interesting case yeah
(08:27):
didn't correct me if I'm wrong
did they use
like malware to corrupt the personal computers
emails of a lot of the people that work there
and then somebody brought it into
the nuclear reactor facility
or was it and then another instance
I heard that there was a spy that went in there
(08:50):
and he had this like special malware that go from his
um
his chip to the um software there through the air um
do you remember the details on that
yeah so so so essentially it was code uh
(09:11):
that was put in uh during manufacturing so
so basically like a solar winds type scenario uh
where you basically go after uh
supply chain and but the code was dormant
so you have to get a way to activate it
and as you know
nuclear reactors are typically air gapped
and segmented so
(09:32):
this part of the story is open to debate
of how they got it but but uh
the version I heard was what
one of the engineers was at a trade conference
and targeted and given a USB drive
and then he took the USB drive back in to the facility
and at his work computer that was behind the air gap
(09:53):
he plugged it in
and then plugging in that USB activated the
the malware on the system
so yeah there's always as you know today with attacks
there's always a human element
like very rarely
do you break into a computer system
without exploiting a human
somewhere along the way and
and either a social engineering
or those types of things
(10:14):
so yeah somehow the engineer got a USB drive
plugged it into the computer
and then that's what activated the malicious code
so that's one of the things I always say is
you can have the best security
and the best technology in the world
but you can't secure stupid
very true
well back then I I don't think they
(10:35):
they thought that that was a
a way that most people got in
but nowadays people are still doing dumb stuff uh
picking up uh
USB drives out of the parking lot of their office uh
there's trade shows of course
where people are giving away uh USBs
they're giving away these chargers that could be uh
could have on them you know
(10:56):
we don't we don't know um
so you know there's a lot of uh
gaps that we could close if we just
you know tell people
you can't use all that swag
if it plugs in because of convention
you know
as much as we like to play trick or treat
at these conventions yup
we're gonna nerd out on YouTube like
(11:17):
did you work directly with John Mccaffrey
when you worked with Ed Mccaffrey
yeah
John was one of the ones that actually recruited me uh
cause I I
I built a company with a 4 other brilliant uh folks uh
TSGI and we sold out to Lockheed Martin
mm hmm and normally
normally when you acquire a company the top execs
(11:39):
I was one of the top uh officer CTO take the buyouts
but Bob Stevens at the time
wanted me to stay on as his chief scientist
and senior fellow to sort of help with a lot of uh
top notch things so yeah
real quick before we get to the Mccaffrey
one of my fun stories at Lockheed was at
on a Saturday morning at 3:00am
(11:59):
I basically get a call that it's like OK
there's a jet a private jet on Dallas Air Strip
be there in 30 minutes
we'll brief you on the plane and it's like oh
this should be good and I'm flying to Texas
and that's when the
Chinese broke into the Joint Strike Fighter
and what a lot of people don't realize with that story
the real interesting twist is
everyone was concerned that the Chinese got basically
(12:22):
the software of
the blueprints for the Joint Strike Fighter
the reality is they had it already
we didn't care about them having it
what we cared about was the integrity issue
is what
back doors or malware that they put in the code
so then they could potentially control or cause the
the aircraft to not operate
the way that it was supposed to
(12:44):
so it's one of those where the public gets one message
where oh
the Chinese have the source code it's like no no
we cared about what did they modify or change
not what did they actually do
and and I actually had a really good gig there
it was one of those that
I was probably gonna stay for a while
had a lot of stock options
I I was a VP I was I was doing really well
it was sort of nice had to buy out from TSG
(13:04):
I and then I get this phone call
uh from this crazy guy where
where I swore it was one of my friends
that was sort of drunk at a bar that
that they were like just pranking me
cause he's like hey dude man
we gotta catch up and meet and this is John
I'm like who the heck is this guy
and and uh I God rest his soul
I mean you
you know he's a no longer with us unfortunately
(13:26):
but an amazing amazing person
but no he
John is definitely the definition of a fine line
between brilliance and insanity
yes where you sort of you cross over that and and my
my favorite John example example is uh
when he sort of had to flee the country and I would
I would fly down uh
to Belize and meet up with him and have dinner
(13:47):
he would always let me pick dinner
and I always picked sushi restaurants
and like after the fourth or fifth dinner
John's like Eric
do you eat anything other than sushi
now by the way I love sushi
but I I said I said I do he goes well
why do you always pick sushi
and at this point I'm like
I had a pretty good relationship with John
so I'm like I'm gonna be honest with him
(14:08):
and I'm like John I'll be honest with you
I love you but you're a lot of mentally unstable
I said I don't want to go to a steakhouse
where there's a knife
because if I say something that pisses you off
you actually might stab me to death
I said you can't do a lot of damage with a chopstick
and it's funny
there's this moment of silence and he looks at me goes
you're a smart man that's probably true and I'm like OK
(14:28):
so so I mean at least he understood and knew
and knew his expectation but yeah
no John was one of those guys brilliant but yeah
you do not want to piss him off cause uh
like some of the stories you heard about
you might not be alive tomorrow
especially if you mess with his dogs yeah
exactly
that's really mean what kind of dogs does he have
no he well
(14:49):
it's really too much but he in Belize
he thought someone killed his dog
I don't know if they did or they didn't
and that's why he got in all that trouble
he's the uh the person that they made John Wick after
got it thank you
John Wick 2 you can get the dog
oh yeah yeah
John Wick's one of my favorite
(15:10):
I I'm actually also I don't watch a lot of TV
but I'm a big movie buff
so I don't know about you guys
I'm excited for a mission impossible this weekend
I don't know if you guys are gonna go see that with
with my man Tom Cruise right
haha yeah
still doing it
he's still doing he's got to be 62 or 63 at this point
good for him he's
he's drawn
he's been there for three years
the impressive thing about Tom Cruise is
(15:31):
he makes it pride he does his own stunts
yeah like he does not have a stunt double
so he was like jumping out of airplanes
he he was I think the first
if I get this correct uh
the first non
military person to actually be allowed to do a Halo
jump wow
cause in the movie I had to do a Halo and
and I did some of that in the CIA
which is super fun where at like 23,000 feet you're
(15:54):
you're jumping out of a plane with oxygen and uh
and like minus 23 degree weather and
and then the fun part is you've got about four seconds
to open up your parachute
cause if you open it up too soon
you show up an enemy radar and you get shot
you open too late and you don't have enough buoyancy
and you hit the ground too hard and die
so it's yeah
it's one of those fun things where
where seven seconds seems like a lot of time
(16:15):
but when you're free falling at 120 miles an hour
it goes by really quick oh
I bet it does
wow how about work stress yeah
and then also we got a bunch of questions for you
sorry we'll be all over the place
I noticed that you mentioned the butterfly effect a lot
where did that come from
(16:37):
that that's a good question
I'm an avid reader
I I love reading and I only read non fiction
like I love reading sort of biographies
I I read a lot of self help books
uh
right now I so sort of going to I
I like reading sort of the classics of uh
modern day sort of stuff
so I'm going through a lot of those old ones
(16:58):
so I don't remember which book I got it from
but but it's one of those where
so to my philosophy on life
where I try to leave everybody
better off than I left them
like
always try to leave nuggets of knowledge and stuff
which uh
some of my kids friends love me cause any
any of their friends that come to the house
I'm not that dad that like goes
where do you go to college
(17:19):
I'm gonna go in and basically teach him
and give him nuggets of knowledge
and to me the whole butterfly effect is the way that
you don't change the world
by necessarily talking to 50,000 people
you change the world by talking to five people
and then if those five people talk to five people
that talk to 10 people that talk to 15 people
all of a sudden you make a big
big impact so
(17:39):
what I always try to do is leave nuggets
that are very interesting
or fascinating or unusual
or different so it sticks in their mind
and then what I always ask people is
tell at least five other people what I told you
and then it it
it's sort of it's sort of the Amway model used uh
for for South Health
where it's basically
you sort of recruit an army around you
(17:59):
and that's sort of one of the big things in my career
that has also helped me is I
my network is really the key to my success
like people always go Eric
how are you so successful
how do you get on these shows
and these books and everything else
it's essentially throughout my career
I always help people
and the thing I always do when I help people
a lot of times my friends criticize me
(18:20):
cause I don't charge and people like Eric
I wanna pay you I'm like
here's the payment at some point in the future
I'm gonna text you with a favor
will you honor that favor
and and usually they say yes
now
they don't really recognize what they're getting into
cause sometimes the favor is pretty big
but but my whole thing is if
if I'm gonna help out a friend
or help out you or help out anybody else
(18:42):
I would much rather you pay me with a favor
in the future than with money
cause
a favor in the future is gonna be worth a lot more
than 1,000 10,000 or 100,000 dollars
you're you're giving away your new book too right
exactly yeah
you you and that that's the thing too
is whenever I do a book
I always buy 5,000 copies and now a lot of people say
(19:04):
well you're doing that'cause you're basically
buying yourself onto the bestseller list
I'm like oh
that's actually a good idea
I didn't even think about that
but that's a side but but
we end up selling enough books
that I don't actually need it
that's not why I do it
but my thing is if I'm writing a book
it's to share it with other folks and
and I always buy 5,000 copies give them away
and then the other thing I do
(19:25):
which shocks a lot of people
is all of the advancement and revenue
cause normally with a book
you're not gonna get rich
but you're gonna make a couple hundred k is
I always donate it to charities
to me books is not about making money
it's about giving back and helping others
what what's the what's the title of your new book
(19:46):
uh where can people find it
and do you want to tell a story from you
you so so the new book is Cyber Crisis
and it's really sort of the shift in my career
it's my a seventh book
and if you look at my first five books
they're all super technical because in 1999
(20:06):
when I wrote my first book Hackers Beware
there was a shortage
of technical knowledge like there were really no books
this was this was sort of before a lot of the uh
hacking exposed books and other books were out there
there really weren't any books
to educate or help people
so I'm one of those that always try to give back
so that's why I wrote Hacking Exposed
Network Security Bible Advanced Persistent threat
(20:27):
was really to train technical people
and then about five years ago
I'm like you know
some there's enough smart technical people that
there's enough colleges that are teaching and using my
uh network security bible as a textbook
the problem is
the masses don't understand cyber security
and so five years ago I wrote uh
sort of the the switch my sixth book
(20:47):
which was Online Danger and that one
I basically gave away to school districts
because teachers need to be educated on the dangers
cause they're basically teaching our kids
and they didn't really understand
just how bad the exposure is
and then uh the last year or two
I realized business owners
like CEOs are scared to death of cyber
(21:08):
but most of their cissos are too technical
and can't speak English are you preaching to require
yeah they scare the heck out of them
but they can't give them answers
so that's why I wrote a cyber crisis
and then sort of a a little leak
I can't give you all the details
cause we're still in the signing stages
but probably in the next 5 days
I'm gonna sign another book
(21:29):
which is gonna be on the merging of AI
and cybersecurity instead of what the value benefits
pros and cons are of really where AI
could potentially change how we think and how we act
and and to me if we're not careful of what we do
not to get too melodramatic
but but to me
if we give away too much of our knowledge to AI
and train those models
it could potentially lead to the extinction
(21:51):
of the human race
because what if we give all our knowledge
where computers now can outthink us
and then what happens when a computer
is smarter than us or thinks they're smarter than us
and starts doubting humans
and they're smarter better and faster
that could create a scary world
so I'm sort of to doing
it's a little more of a futuristic
book that I'm writing
but it's really to help warn people
(22:12):
that we're in a really slippery slope
right now with AI
and if we don't slow down and think about it
it's not gonna end well for our great
great grandchildren so
I'm guessing
you're against the 10 year moratorium on AI regulation
on which one did you see that
there's a gonna be a moratorium on AI
regulation in the US for 10 years yeah
(22:32):
yeah
I I mean I'm sort of mixed feelings is on the one hand
I I think AI is super powerful as a tool
but a lot of people are using it as a replacement
for human interaction
and that's where I think it becomes dangerous
like to me if a doctor is gonna use AI
(22:52):
to research and help a patient
I think that's amazing but now if a patient
instead of interacting with a doctor
interacts with AI to get their diagnosis
and takes the doctor out of the loop
that's when I think it becomes dangerous
so I'm sort of the middle of the road where it's like
I I piss both sides off because I like some of it
but not all of it so yeah
(23:12):
I was I was listening to some podcast where they
compared it to like The Last Mile
where like the AI is doing most of the freight
you know with like the long distance stuff
but the human needs to be there for the last mile
for the white glove service to deliver it
and to create the context from the AI
yeah kind of like the model I see like working the best
(23:34):
yeah and then I saw one of your videos
where you're talking about
you just have to be very specific
and I like that
you talked about when you're dealing with AI
that you gotta be very specific
it's like hey
here's the task you don't say hey
make a can and you're in your
you would have to be specific about how make a green
can this is served yeah
and in the video made an analogy
like in marketing where they have a B with testing
(23:57):
you really gotta work with the
cause if you just take it at face value
and there's no guard rails
you're gonna get screwed cause why did
and he also made a really good point about creativity
they they're still computers
they still can't count from one
they still have to count from zero
so they're not very creative
(24:19):
that that's what I do I like using him to do like
research and analysis and correlation
like I'll be honest with you uh
yesterday when we were preparing for this
I actually I have two AI
twins that I brainstorm with every morning at 4:00am
it's it's it's really fun
me me screaming and yelling at computers
it's great times imagine three Erics in a room
that's a scary place but I but I basically said hey
(24:41):
I'm going on this great podcast uh
and I I just want you to give me sort of
a summary of some of the episodes
what are some of the questions
what are some of the themes
uh that could have taken me like 30 minutes to do
AI gave me a great summary of your two backgrounds
and the questions and things like that
it gave me a one page summary
so I could read and be prepared
but I still showed up and I think that's the trick is
(25:04):
if we get to the point where
I send my AI agent to do interviews
that that's when we lose the emotional touch
because we're not talking to a human
what did AI say about us
that's actually
really good things hey
I'm here must have said good things right
if it said bad things I wouldn't have shared
you wouldn't risk your reputation
(25:26):
I'll be honest with you the thing
the thing it said the most that I really liked is
very friendly down to earth and easy to talk to
so I'm like cool
I'm gonna get along well with these guys and yeah
speaking of which
part of what you do is coaching CISO's
Bulletproof Cyber being one of the
entries where people can get to know you
(25:47):
how do you transition like an engineer
manager of it or even a technical CISO into
a board member level CISO
the short answer which is sort of a a little bizarre is
uh you sort of have to get a personality and
(26:08):
and you sort of have to speak a new language and
and that was one thing why I transitioned is
cause I realized I was doing well in my career
like I was making a lot of money
and I was the brains behind several companies
I mean that was one of the reasons
we talked about John Mackey
I basically
helped them revamp their entire product line
to help them sell to Intel
(26:29):
but what I realized is
a lot of people didn't really like to be around me
and I wasn't really
invited to a lot of the board meetings
and everything else they
they they
I I
I said a joke
they would open the door and throw in some uh
some Taco Bell that's if you
if you want me to be motivated
give me Taco Bell and Mountain Dew
I'm old school and I'll
I'll do anything for you I'll be
I'll be loyal to you to the end of the day
(26:50):
especially if you do extra nacho cheese sauce
that stuff's great uh
and uh
so are you a
I was always the last better or are you hiring what
OG Mountain Dew or Baja Blast
I'm old school
you just gotta go with the straight green stuff right
but the Baja blast isn't bad either
so yes it's good too
but uh
so so I realized hey
if I really want to expand my career and
(27:13):
and I was looking at other folks and what I realized
like with Bill Gates and Paul Allen and all them
they didn't make their money on selling the companies
they made their money on the investments that they made
and as I told you people
relationships started becoming really important to me
so I started going to a lot of these events
like Tony Robbins and Brendon Burchard
(27:35):
and what I realized is I was the only geek in the room
like most technical geeks
would not go I mean to Tony Robbins he's amazing
but it's freaking weird my friends like you're
you're sitting there
dancing and hugging people and back rubbing
and I'm like this is just like way out
there's way too many people touching me
it's like way outside of my comfort zone
I mean that that that's the normal geek crowd
(27:56):
it definitely is it and what I realized is that
a lot of technical
people are just never trained on business
they're never trained on profits
revenues and all that
and most of us during my security career
I was always trained on
make the system as secure as possible
and like one of my beliefs for the longest time
which was false
is security is more important than the business
(28:18):
like if there's something that could go in
and negatively impact the business
from a cyber security standpoint
you shouldn't do it
and what I quickly realized is that's false
if cybersecurity negatively impacts the business
you're wrong
you have to show how it's a business enabler
and how you can enhance and help the business
(28:38):
and so I started taking business courses
reading business books reading spreadsheets
you know
I mean PNL statements and all that stuff and realized
oh wait a second
if I can actually go into a boardroom
and I can go in instead of saying
you're gonna get hit life is bad
the sky is falling
you have all these risks your systems are unpatched
which means nothing if I can go in and go listen
(29:00):
you have a 90% chance of losing $20 million
and I could reduce that risk by 300 k
I don't know a single executive on the planet
that's not gonna write me a check
because it's a great return on investment
I mean everyone would do that
so what I started realizing is
if I could go in and show a proper ROI for my security
(29:22):
money never becomes a problem
I could always get the money
because you're going in and basically
explaining it in a way where it's a no brainer
you go up to anybody and say uh
if if you give me uh
20 20 million I'll save you this or that I mean
they're they're always gonna do that right
I'll give you $200 you give me 20 million
I'll take that deal every day of the week
so it's just how you speak
(29:44):
and I sort of all of a sudden
when the CISOs were having trouble getting budgets
I noticed I could walk into a boardroom
and get whatever budget they needed
and how you present it speak it or analyze it
so then I'm like okay
if I go in and just do consulting
I'm gonna maybe be able to help eight companies a year
(30:05):
but if I train and this is the butterfly effect
if I train cisos I can actually help 30 cisos a year
and now that's 300 companies
in 10 years and then those cisos train other cisos
so that's why I'm like
contrary to many people
where you hold your knowledge inside
I'm like what if I share my knowledge with the world
what if I share my knowledge with other cisos
(30:26):
to make them smarter and better
and that's that's sort of where I'm going
for the next couple years of my career
is just sort of sharing that knowledge of how to speak
business how to be likable
how to build rapport
how to go in and do ROI on your security
and then all of a sudden we're going to make security
people so much more successful
absolutely
(30:46):
it is I found the other side of that
where I'm trying to get something across the line
and the system will start bringing up Wire
Shark and logs yeah
and the money to like
we have no idea what you're talking about
all we know is you're asking us for 300 grand
we have no idea what you're talking about
so I like the way you word this like hey
if I can save you 20 million by saving paying 30
I don't know 300 grand
(31:08):
that's a much more compelling argument
cause you're speaking their language
by the way though
it doesn't work as well with your spouse
I always go into my wife and say and say listen
you got a really good return on investment on me yeah
she doesn't buy it so not as well at the home
but it does work good in business
I didn't close my wife on that one either exactly hey
(31:28):
you got a good return on your vestment here
I can counter that one exactly
you don't wanna go down that road my friend trust me
I tried it it doesn't end well
I'm a big believer
I don't think I can get in fights and I know I'm
I'm gonna lose
and I know the punch is gonna knock me out
the one I don't see and guarantee
(31:49):
she's gonna come at something that I'm not gonna
oh
I was I was also gonna ask you about like Huawei like
like I noticed in the UC system they have a lot of um
like Chinese nationals that work like in um
the computer science department students
graduate students
(32:09):
and they go on to get jobs that like Cisco
Huawei whatever like everyone is anti
China that I hear a lot
but I don't to be contrarian but from my perspective
it's not a threat
because they're writing the code anyway
and they're writing it right there
along with the Americans
(32:30):
and the code has to be vetted before it
it goes into production like a data center
what are your thoughts do you think it's
it's okay to have people that are Chinese nationals
working in the grad students on um
in computer science programs
cause here in California
like where are you looking by the way
I'm in Ashburn Virginia
right outside of Washington
DC oh boy you're in the
(32:52):
the heart of it oh yes
alright
data center
our world is right there yes
that's I I really get sidetracked
so what are you what are your thoughts on that
do you think we should have regulations about
Chinese nationals being the grad students in these
computer science departments
I I mean
to to me
like the stuff with
with sort of going against the nationals and uh
(33:14):
even like with TikTok and everything else
it is so counter intuitive to logic
and here here's what I mean
we're sitting there and worried about TikTok
cause it's Chinese owned or worried about
Chinese nationals going to US universities
but here's the reality
take any electronic that you rely on
take your iPad take your laptop
(33:36):
take your cell phone take your TV
take the computer chips from your car
and flip them over
what are the three words in every single one of those
made in China
so I'm sitting here going like this ship has sailed
my friends like like all of the hardware
I mean the whole tariff thing that I mean
(33:57):
you saw
apple was terrified that they wouldn't be able to
be able to produce iPhones because the
the chips the brain of the iPhone comes from China
so I'm like I'm like
wait a second why are we banning TikTok
when we're allowing all the hardware and everything
else into the car I mean
it's just it's just bizarre to me
it doesn't make any logical sense
(34:18):
it's just like these inconsistencies
and how we're passing laws
and I'm sort of with you
is source code and hardware is verifiable
I mean I mean apple
when they get the the Chinese chips into the US
they run verifiable diagnostics I mean
they they know what the chips do and how they operate
I mean with there was a lot of the concern
(34:40):
there were false rumors in my opinion
that TikTok
had malware and monitoring agents and everything else
and guess what they gave us the source code
I looked at the source code for TikTok
and there's no backdoors there's no malware now yes
could there be social manipulation and other factors
but that's gonna happen anywhere else but
but it's one of those where it's like
will hand select one or two areas and say China is bad
(35:04):
but then in other cases we trust them
and use their technology to basically
run our entire infrastructure
it's interesting and speaking of infrastructure I mean
don't we have kill switches on some of our
infrastructure like uh
the solar panels and things like that
is there something to do that
the the the
there absolutely is
(35:25):
but it's the whole Cold War scenario
like if you remember in the eighties uh
Russia had enough nuclear weapons to destroy us
but we had enough nuclear weapons to destroy them
and here's the reality
if either side launched a nuclear weapon
it would destroy the world
yes so it was a deterrent factor so yes
(35:46):
uh Russia
North Korea China are in our infrastructure
and if they wanted to take down
like our electricity or our water
they could but guess what
we could do the same to them
so so
it's one of those where it's sort of mutual
mass destruction where it's like OK
they can take us down but we can destroy you
(36:07):
so it's sort of like that Cold War standoff
where nobody's gonna do it
because it's just not gonna end well for anybody
that's reassuring
everybody
everybody go make your go back
a month's worth of food and water
I remember in the eighties
um they had this thing for in case of a nuclear bomb
(36:30):
we're supposed to go under our desk
I don't know if you experienced this where you live
but they did that to us I was like
wait a minute you're splitting atoms even as a kid
I was like 12 years old like
getting through this desk is not gonna do anything
you know everyone laughs cause they're like like dude
like I live within the blast zone of Washington
(36:50):
DC and everyone's like
you should move farther out and this and that
and my philosophy is listen
if the world's gonna end I wanna go quick
like I I I I don't want
I don't wanna be outside and and and suffer I
I just take me out quick
I'd rather be in the blast on this you mentioned uh
it it does concern me
cause if you've ever been to Ashburn
every piece of land they're building data centers yes
(37:13):
like and
and what most people don't
realize is what you see
above ground is only about half of the data centers
when they build these data centers
you fly over an airplane
and you see these huge ditches
and you're like what are they doing
a lot of these data centers are three to four stories
underground with one story above ground
so like it they are just massive and I'm like
(37:34):
if I'm a foreign country and I wanted to impact the US
you basically take out Asper
but here's the other reality
the US runs the internet like if you take out the US
you take out the internet like Russia
China they wouldn't be able to communicate
outside of their country because we are the internet
we it's a bad thing for us
(37:54):
because we can't segment like Russia does
but it's a good thing for us
where nobody will take us out
so it's one of those yeah
it's a huge threat
but it's also the sort of mass destruction
if you do anything
is that because of DNS
when you need to talk about how we are the internet
like if we shut down America's internet
which is everything is that
because the way DNS is set up
(38:15):
or can you elaborate on that a little bit
sure so
so so it's several things is a lot of the
the core routing and infrastructure uh
the way it's set up today like Australia Australia uh
Russia for them to communicate with China
or Europe or Germany
they have to go through US infrastructure
(38:36):
like you look at the the may East the may West
how it was structured and created
now they're trying to fix that
but they still haven't been able to do that so
so we are basically the backbone
so imagine sort of the
the backbone of the internet is the US
and then all the other countries split off of it
so to go inter country you actually have to go through
(38:58):
US routers and switches uh
to be able to do that and
and then you're right also a lot of the
the servers the data stores
the domain names and all that are basically in the US
I think it might have changed
but I think at least
at least the last time a couple years ago
85% of name resolutions are on US based servers
(39:18):
so once again if
if you go in and using a domain names
which pretty much everyone does
that's gonna be severely crippled
if you take out US infrastructure
like I went to one Welsh and I was shocked
that they had servers all the way up to
the ceiling
like they're breaking every rule in the book was like
hey this is how you connect to China Mike
this is how we have to do it
(39:40):
so that ties into what you're saying
like you can't get to China with that one
Wilshire's just one data center
but you can't get through China
without going through us
with their different countries
so I thought that was fascinating
so okay that makes more sense you're a good teacher
yeah
do you have a some more questions
I mean I got tons of them actually
(40:02):
how much time do you have
I I have some more time
if you want to ask a few more questions yeah
we can definitely keep going this question uh
we're gonna get Star Trek or Sky Net
what's the percentage chance of each
I I I I definitely think Skynet is more probable uh
than uh than Star Trek
(40:22):
just because it seems to be
the focus is more on colonization of planets
as opposed to interstellar
like you look at different rockets and stuff
they're not really warships like I
I don't know if anybody and I'm usually pretty good on
on the R&D and where people are going is you
you look at like what Elon is doing and uh
(40:46):
Jeff Bezos and all those guys they're
they're really trying to build a space travel
not warships
like I don't know anybody who's actually building an
an intergalactic warship that can
go in and target or attack other parties
however you look at the satellite infrastructure
and how that's going and all that
I I
I definitely think that's gonna be much more likely
(41:07):
probability of sort of tracking
and and I think the bigger concern is
a lot of these Hollywood movies
that we thought were a spy
SCI fi like to me
the one that is getting very close to reality
which is scaring me is Minority Report
where you can actually go in
and they're actually doing this now
where they're monitoring and analyzing
(41:28):
people's behavior patterns
and saying
this person has a 90% chance of committing a crime
or murdering people or doing other things
now here's the question what do you do with that
like if you go in and say okay
that there's somebody that has a 90% chance
of killing somebody but he hasn't killed anybody yet
(41:48):
is is that really a threat or is not a like
like it's a
it's really comes up with a very big moral
ethical dilemma of what do you do with that data now
do you go in and monitor them
do you isolate them do you put them in their own camp
which really isn't fair
because they haven't done anything wrong yet
they just have a probability of doing it right right
and you can use that data against anyone exactly
(42:12):
it could be the observer effect
you watching them and causes them to be more paranoid
which causes them to like
you know actually do the crime
you know or
or something like that
it's really getting close to that
especially with all the data and data brokers out there
and the way that AI
is able to look at big data and make
(42:33):
take conclusions from it so yeah
that I knew we thought about Minority Report
we are getting closer to that yep
no no
and you hit the nail on the head is the
the power of psychological influence
like if you go to a kid in 7th or 8th grade and you say
you're not good in math math is not your specialty
(42:54):
you shouldn't major in math
most kids are impacted for the rest of their lives
with the thinking they're not good at math
so so what if you go to somebody and you're like
listen just so you know
you have a 90 percent chance of killing somebody
and you plant it in their head like
like you said are you triggering them now
to actually commit the crime so it's very
(43:15):
it was just a fantasy at that point exactly
don't take me out of context
you guys are definitely not those categories
so we're good
don't move on to that
it's a mild mannered insurance bro
with the fancy office with the blue glass
I love it I love it
(43:37):
that's pretty good um
this is been incredible like you have any anything else
I mean no
you know we have a ton of questions and you know
I'd love to do a part 2 and
and talk more about like how uh
CEOs can talk to boards and and all that stuff
but you know I think we can
maybe you can bring us on
(44:00):
yeah so so yeah
I yeah love to come back on a future show
but yet to me
the big thing I always leave with everyone is
the best way to sort of create the future is planet
so so this is a challenge I always leave with everyone
which shocks everyone but basically how I live my life
how I decide what to do on a daily
weekly basis is I have a 15 year plan
so I so I always challenge people is
(44:22):
instead of everyone sets yearly goals
and they're
they're ridiculous because you never achieve them
and they're
they're not really based on any foundational things
and they're not really realistic
but if you think 15 years out
you can dream
and I believe anybody can do anything in 15 years
so to me if you really sort of want to be successful
and live the best life don't be thinking six
(44:42):
nine or 12 months out think what do you wanna be
where do you wanna go
what do you wanna have in 15 years
and then that starts to shift reality very quickly
and very fast
you do where can people find you Eric
so uh
Doctor Eric Cole d R E R I C C O L E uh Instagram
YouTube LinkedIn uh
(45:04):
I have a personal website
where I do a lot of my blogging
Doctor Eric Cole dot org
d R E R I C C O L E or on a business side
if you wanna bring us in to help your company
securedashanchor.com
awesome thank you so much
this is really exciting entertaining and educational
yeah so thank you
good night night
great time and I
I I
these are my favorite podcast where we just sort of
(45:25):
3 guys sit around and chat and have a good time
so appreciate you guys having me
thank you so much thank you
awesome take care
take care guys thanks everyone for listening
don't forget to like and subscribe
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