February 25, 2025 • 27 mins
Compared to 2023, ransomware attacks increased 4x in 2024. Why? Because it's EASY! With RaaS (Ransomware as a Service), anyone can be a successful bad guy. On average, it only takes someone 74 minutes to pull off a cyberheist. No skills required.
This is the problem. Take a listen to learn the solution.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justin (00:15):
Welcome everybody to episode 40 of unhacked. Guys,
we've been doing this for a hotminute. We're talking about
before we got started here.Brian, Mario, my regular guest.
And today, we're joined by a newface, Matt, and we're gonna do
some introductions here to kickthis off.
I'm Justin Shelley, CEO ofPhoenix IT Advisors. And what we
do is we keep the Russians fromstealing your money. And if
(00:37):
there's anything left, we keepthe attorneys from coming around
and hoovering that up. So,that's what we do. We work in
the Dallas area as well as outwest, Nevada, Utah.
That's pretty much it for themost part. Just just a small
footprint. Mario, tell everybodywho you are, what you do, and
who you do it for. Mario. Mario,are you with
Mario (01:00):
us? Sorry. Brian. My system my screen froze.
Justin (01:03):
Oh, there he is.
Mario (01:04):
I'm here. I'm, Mario Zaki, CEO of Nasdaq. We are
located in New Jersey right outon the side of, Manhattan. We
service small businesses that,wanna be secure from, hackers.
Justin (01:23):
Brian, what do you got for us?
Bryan (01:24):
Alright. Bryan Lachapelle with b four Networks, based out
of the Niagara Region, Ontario,Canada. And, I like to say that
we help business ownersthroughout Niagara and the
Barrie area remove thefrustrations and headaches that
come with dealing withtechnology, whether it be
cybersecurity or just, improvingefficiency in operations.
Justin (01:44):
Beautiful. And Matt making his debut appearance on
UnHacked. Matt, tell us what youdo and who you do it for.
Matt (01:50):
Well, thanks for having me. My name is Matt Horning. I'm
the CEO of Blue Tree Technology.We're based out of Kansas City.
Our goal is to help smallbusinesses take the mystery out
of their technology and tosecure them so they can do what
they do best.
Alright.
Justin (02:04):
Guys, today, we're gonna do something a little bit
different. We've been, we've hadsome guests on recently, and we
used to have more of a scriptedformat. We're breaking down
headlines of the news andlessons learned and stuff like
that. Today, we're gonna kindajust free ball it. So, and I I
will give you the my muse a lotof times is Reddit.
It's a dumpster fire, fire, butit's a it's a great place to go
to see what people are thinkingabout. But I I read something
(02:26):
that actually caught me offguard. Number one, this is
something that was in theentrepreneur subreddit, not in
anything technical. And,somebody posted that, ransomware
attacks quadrupled in 2024, andthis is according to Barracuda.
Two things.
Number one, it was interestingas all the comments on, this
(02:46):
post, people were justannihilating him saying, why are
you why are you telling us this?This is just an ad, whatever.
Nobody gave a shit is my point,which was kinda scary to me
because this really isimportant. And in the
entrepreneur subreddit,everybody's just blowing it off.
So I'm like, okay.
We have a bigger problem than Ithought on that front. And then
the other problem that and I'mI'm trying to not be too
(03:09):
transparent here, but this kindacaught me off guard that
ransomware attacks hadquadrupled in 2024 because, not
that I've let my guard down atall in working to prevent
ransomware attacks, but I havealso kind of added my attention
or my added to my focus, which,you know, the more you add to
your focus, the more it'sdiluted. I'm looking at BEC
(03:30):
attacks. You've got emailcompromises and, you know,
Microsoft three sixty five.People are getting in there and
and so, anyways, it was justlike, alright.
Let's sit down today and justtalk about what is going on.
What's the landscape? What areyou guys worried about? What do
you see in the news? What do yousee with your clients?
What do you see with yourprospects? What is keeping your
clients and prospects awake atnight? That's it, guys. That's
(03:51):
the introduction. So I'm justgonna kinda kick this thing to
the other end of the field, andwhy don't you guys pick it up
and run with it?
Bryan (03:58):
Go. Yeah. I can I can give a a a little bit of a head
start here? Ransomware attackshave been increasing, and it's a
combination of many differentfactors, but primarily,
ransomware as a service, whichI'm not gonna get into right
now. I'll let some of the other,hosts here tackle that one.
But criminals cyber criminalsare actually doing what business
(04:20):
owners should be doing, and thatis using artificial intelligence
to rapidly expand their reach.And so they're they're hopping
on to the bandwagon of usingartificial intelligence to craft
new and compelling emails thatare free of grammatical and
English errors. They're able tosend it out in ways that bypass
(04:40):
spam filters, and they're ableto use artificial intelligence
to, tailor their attacks to theindividual receiving it. And so
instead of just big giant blastout to everybody, they're
actually tailoring each andevery individual email and or,
attack vector specifically tothat person that they're trying
to target. So it it's it'sbecoming a lot more focused and
(05:04):
a lot harder to detect them.
In the old days, we'd be like,yeah, just look for spelling
mistakes and look for, you know,things that don't look right,
bad English. You can't do thatanymore. I mean, I Yeah.
Justin (05:15):
Yeah. Sometimes you do still see that, and then you're
just like, Jesus. We're dealingwith an amateur here. But I it
is interesting. You bring up agood point.
And a very over generalizedstatement or observation is that
the bad guys typically pick upnew technology faster than the
good guys do.
Bryan (05:31):
Right. Yep. That's fair.
Matt (05:33):
Of course.
Bryan (05:33):
They have a financial incentive too.
Justin (05:36):
So do we. But but we're asleep at the wheel. Again, on
Reddit, like, entrepreneurs,people who are trying to build
their wealth, that's that's thenumber one goal of an
entrepreneur, but we're notgonna try to protect it. I mean,
come on. Mario, I think I cutyou off.
Did you have something to say?
Mario (05:50):
Well, just to kind of add on to what you guys just said,
it like, you know, the thing iswhen we are sitting with a
prospect and we're telling them,like, they they need, like, a
BDR, they need all this, like,you know, security stuff, they
understand that this stuff isnot adding to their bottom line.
Right? They're not the the if wewhatever we're giving them is
(06:11):
not making them more money.Alright? But with these guys, if
they actually test and purchasesome of the stuff, they can
actually test against it and seeif it will for them, it's even
more like, it will eventuallyadd to their bottom line.
So they are able to invest insome of the stuff because they
(06:31):
if they can go get around it, itactually is gonna make them
money. And the other thing thatI was gonna say too is it with
the way we work and with AI andstuff like an automation and
stuff like that, we we're tryingto get this like, the computers
to do a lot of the stuff on theback end by itself. And that's
what these guys have alreadystarted doing. Now with AI and
(06:55):
they're getting templates,they're putting in the software,
and they're just letting it runby itself. All they have to do
is install, like or maybeupload, like, a CSV file with,
like, emails or they're havingit automatically scrub like
LinkedIn knowing to know who theCEO is or CFO or whatever o or,
(07:17):
you know, you know, c suite.
It's automatically doing thework. So a lot of times, this
stuff is almost now set it andforget it and just wait for the
money to come
Matt (07:28):
in. Yeah. You're 100
Justin (07:30):
And I think you tried to check that a couple times. What
did you have to say?
Matt (07:33):
You're 100% correct. The you're dealing with a criminal
that is motivated by money, andyou're dealing with a
notification system that is notnot doing the job for small
business. The only time that youdeal with when you're because we
(07:53):
mostly live in the small mediumbusiness space, you don't hear
in the newspaper that, you know,10 small businesses went out of
business yesterday because ofransomware.
Bryan (08:03):
They're just too small to report on.
Matt (08:04):
100% is Hollywood events, MGM, pipelines, governments and
even those hospitals and eventhose are only getting to local
unless it's a nationwidehospital. So you live with a
large portion of the populationout there. And we're talking
about business owners, managersof those businesses that it's,
(08:26):
oh, I'm too small and I'm not athreat. They won't come after
me. I don't have anything.
And the question comes down tois, is can they survive a hit?
Statistically, that's not true.Sixty percent of businesses are
going out of business within sixmonths of a major cyber event.
Justin (08:44):
Yeah.
Matt (08:45):
That is detrimental to the person that built that business
and potentially their retirementand their family and their kids
college fund. They don't thinkof at that point of view, I'm
too small. I'm nothing. It's I'mnot you know, I don't have the
budget, whatever. And it comesdown to two things on that one
knowledge
Bryan (09:05):
of
Matt (09:05):
what their costs are. So are they charging enough for
their own services to toactually protect them to run
their business correctly? Okay.And our and knowledge about what
happens when it does happen. Canthey survive that target?
They survive. They got allinvestors that will that will
fund them out of it because theywant to keep that going. But can
(09:26):
a small business owner reallystomach a $50,000 bill? Hundred,
150,000? When does a cutoffhappen?
And that is something that theyneed to really look at.
Justin (09:37):
I mean, you said something horrible.
Bryan (09:38):
The statistics say that most businesses will fail after
a breach.
Matt (09:42):
Yeah. 100%.
Justin (09:43):
Well and also, I think everybody here has heard this
from a prospect, hopefully notfrom a client, but definitely
from prospects where they'llsay, I don't have anything to
protect. I don't have anythingthat the bad guys are after.
Right? Is anybody here not heardthat? It's probably one of the
most common pushbacks that I getwhen I'm trying to help a
business protect themselves.
(10:05):
And I just started saying, well,do you have a bank account?
Matt (10:09):
Do you have a
Justin (10:09):
case of college? That that's all they're after. %,
they're after your money. Andand you don't think you've got
anything to protect, but goddamnit. If you've got $5 in the
bank, you've got something toprotect.
Bryan (10:19):
Well, I I can add to that too. It's not even just about
money. Let's say you have nomoney. Let's say you
legitimately have nothing thatthat you believe the criminals
want. You have contacts, youhave friends, you have business
colleagues, and your reputationis something you wanna keep.
They hack you, they're gonnafind out that you have nothing
that they want, but they mightyou might know somebody they
(10:40):
want and they might be able touse you as a vector to bounce
and to get into another,business who does have something
they want. But now it camethrough you and now it's your
reputation. They're pissed offat you because you're the one
who exposed them because youwere too, shortsighted to say
like, you know what? I I I don'thave anything that people would
want, so I won't botherprotecting myself. Now all of a
(11:01):
sudden, you're sending out spamand junk email and and infecting
your peers and your friends andyour colleagues, and they're
losing millions of dollars, andthen you're gonna wish you had
it in place.
Justin (11:12):
Yeah. I I don't disagree with that at all. I will say
though that our prospects, thepeople that we are are trying to
help, they do have real moneythat needs to be protected. And
they do have real reputationlike you said, you know, and and
these are the these are theentities we're trying to help
people protect. Well keep thehackers out of your bank
accounts.
Keep the government out of yourbank accounts, and keep the
(11:34):
attorneys out of your bankaccounts. This is over and over
the problem that we're dealingwith. And reputation, sure,
that's gonna prevent you frombuilding in the future. What you
have right now has to beprotected because if, like we
say on, you know, title of theshow, unhacked, you don't get
unhacked. If this happens, ifyou get breached, your
reputation is shit, your bankaccount is shit, and now you're
(11:55):
you're in the middle of alawsuit for I mean, now we're
talking about you you're gonnahave to make money just to pay
back what, the attorneys arecoming after you for.
So it's just you can't waituntil it happens.
Matt (12:06):
Well, and and we all deal with client we are dealing with
clients right now. I mean,there's some of us that are
dealing with 11 owner ofbusinesses, right? They one
employee, it's the owner andthat's it, right? Yeah. But, you
know, if you have one employee,you need to think outside of
yourself.
So as a business owner, if I godown, we have 10 employees.
(12:28):
Okay. Nine other families areaffected. Okay. And if I can't
bring the business back up, thatmeans there's probably nine
other families who can't make ahouse payment or a car payment.
Right.
Bryan (12:40):
Right.
Matt (12:41):
Or a child care payment, whatever their their life is
drastically affected because ofmy shortsightedness. And I think
and I believe that we as ITprofessionals and security
professionals need to spend moretime educating that side of it.
You're right. Your business maynot have financially a lot, but
(13:06):
can you take a hit and can youbring it back up and then be
able to make payroll? Becausestatistically, when a hacker
gets into an environment,they're sitting there for six
months before you even knowanything.
And a lot of times the onlyreason you know is because they
made themselves known. And youand that's when you get a little
(13:27):
screen says pay bitcoin. By thattime, they mapped who the
controller is, how much moneyyou have in your bank account,
when payroll hits, what countthat money goes into and how
much is there. Right.Conveniently, that that that
that ransomware event is usuallywhat All the money that's in
(13:48):
payroll is it's a crazy number.
And what's the other thing theylook for? They're looking for
your cyber insurance.
Justin (13:55):
I was gonna say insurance. They wanna know how
much you're gonna pay out on theinsurance policy.
Matt (13:59):
So so reading this article, you know, four times it
was a four times it went in lastyear. Well, cyber insurance is
still paying these theseransoms. They have an incentive
to continue growing. Of course,they're gonna grow. I I'm not
surprised.
I, I wish I wasn't surprised. I,I, it's sad to me that it's
(14:20):
still growing. I would like tosee it go the other way even a
little bit.
Bryan (14:24):
Right.
Matt (14:24):
But, you know, dealing with the fact that we have an
industry that, you know, that isforced to pay because they're
not they're not they're notdoing they're not pre active.
You know, they are they arereactive to the scenario. And I
always find it interesting thatthere's no budget until there's
something that happens and allof a sudden there's a budget.
Bryan (14:44):
Yeah. But I would like to, like, jump on the the
ransomware as a service becauseI think that's a game changer
for the cyber criminals. Like,we we talk about how, you know,
we're trying to help our clientsprotect their systems, and they
they have essentially IT as aservice. Like, they can buy us
(15:04):
as a service. Right?
Our services are our our talentand our pool of knowledge and
our tool sets. The criminalshave something similar. Right?
Yep. They you don't need to bean expert in technology to now
ransom other people's networks.
You just subscribe to aplatform. They give you all the
(15:24):
tools and all the services onhow to ransomware. They give you
email templates, and they giveyou the recipe on how to make it
successful. And within a shortamount of time, I think I'm I'm
I'm reading here about seventyfour minutes start to finish,
they could they could then be ontheir way. Someone who's never
done it before could be on theirway into, ransoming them, you
(15:47):
know, putting out emails andransoming their first client.
Matt (15:50):
It's amazing. Their
Bryan (15:51):
first their first client. I'd say client.
Justin (15:53):
Listen. That's how they see it. It's business to them.
This is business. Right.
Matt (15:57):
It's it's an amazing business model, and it's funny
because you deal with a lot ofpeople out there that never
consider it that
Bryan (16:02):
way. Yeah.
Matt (16:03):
It's a it is a ironed out process with standard, operation
procedures. Okay. That isleveraging, latest technologies
that is drilling into people's,livelihoods on a daily basis.
(16:25):
And it's not a matter of if,it's a matter of when. And not
to scare the business ownersthat are listening to this, What
layers do you have in place thatif when it happens, how quickly
can you recover and stop it?
And that's the goal is to getthe.
Bryan (16:45):
Or even know what happened in the first place.
Mario (16:46):
Yep. We're working like, we're dealing with technicians
that are making sales. Like,imagine your your support team.
If you tell them, like, listen,we're gonna give you guys an x
amount of, you know, profitevery time you close a ticket.
And the bigger the ticket, themore money you make.
I know my guys are gonna betaking, you know, 10 times more
(17:08):
tickets than, you know, theynormally do. But, you know, I I
I'll probably get broke. But,you know, that that's that's
just the way it is. It's likethese guys are they're pretty
smart. They are, you know,investing in in in whatever
tools they think is gonna beable to help them make a sale.
And they're they're hungry, andthey they're they know they're
(17:31):
protected.
Justin (17:33):
Yeah. Alright. So guys, I'm gonna I'm gonna take us home
here. We're gonna keep today alittle bit shorter than normal.
But what I wanna do, I'm gonnago around the room, each one of
you, Mario, Matt, then Brian.
And I want I want you to answerone or all of these three
questions. Alright? Questionnumber one, what are you worried
about based on what yourobservations are? Number two,
(17:53):
what are your clients worriedabout based on their
observations? And then numberthree, is there anything that
you see in the news that keepsyou up at night?
Alright. So take one or allthose. We'll try to keep it to a
couple minutes each, and andtell me what you're seeing out
there and what we all need to beaware of. Mario, thoughts?
Mario (18:14):
You know, for me, I I worry that there may be, you
know, some a gap somewhere orsomething that ever slips
through the crack or that, youknow, one day that they're these
guys are going to figure out howto get around the layers of
security that we put in place,and do we need more, layers?
(18:36):
What I think customers areworried about is, do we have too
many layers? This is all costingme too much money. Nothing has
ever happened. Do I need tospend this much money?
Yeah. You know? And, you know,as far as seeing things on the
news, I, I'm not gonna lie. Tobe honest with you, I stopped
(18:56):
watching the news. I I you know,it it's because, you know, the
rare times where my wife has thenews on or whatever, it it's
depressing.
It it just too depressing. Youknow? Now I'm strictly on on
Netflix or whatever is, youknow, on Hulu that it was
prerecorded.
Justin (19:16):
Fair enough. Fair enough. I I will argue that I
watch the news, but I do it in avery different way. And, you
know, this today was kind ofinspired by something I saw on
Reddit, but it is it isinformation that that got it. It
scares me sometimes.
Matt, what do you what do yougot for this?
Matt (19:33):
What keeps you have a nice vendors?
Justin (19:36):
Vendors. Okay. Tell me more.
Matt (19:38):
We we are so reliant on other companies to provide a
service. And no matter how muchhow much stuff we do to vet them
and work with them, there werehumans were all flawed.
Justin (19:57):
Yep.
Matt (19:57):
Software is written by humans. And you have the it's
realistically it comes down totheir ability to understand the
risk. And there are vendors outthere. We all know of some that
honestly either don't care,don't understand the risk or
completely ignorant and justthey are clueless. And our job
(20:19):
is to figure out who those areand to move away from them and
stop feeding the money.
But that's the one that keepsyou up at night. Is that a
vendor that we've brought insomehow that that has more more
bite in our business than weshould. And this is as a
business owner and as businessowners out there. Okay. They
should be vetting their vendors.
(20:41):
They should be vetting their I.T. Company. They should be
vetting, you know, their theirsoftware packages and stuff like
that. That's the stuff thatkeeps you up at night.
Justin (20:51):
And I really like that. And, you know, it's kind of the
point of what we're trying to dohere on this podcast is help our
clients, our prospects vet us,vet our industry because it it
can be tricky since we're sounregulated. But you're
absolutely right. It is on us toin turn vet the people that
we're doing business withbecause that can get passed
right through to our clients.That's kinda scary
Matt (21:12):
for sure.
Justin (21:14):
Brian. Okay. Well, Well, the
Bryan (21:16):
thing that worries me the most is that, business owners
think the security is a one anddone. It's not. Criminals
innovate on a regular basis, andwe have to do the same. But time
and time again, I meet withpeople and they say, oh, you
know what? We've got anantivirus, sir.
We've got we've got it covered.And they're not actually taking
proactive steps on an ongoingbasis. They think it's a one and
(21:37):
done. Like like the people thatI've talked to, the clients that
I have, a lot of them are justworried about saving dollars.
But in my opinion, it's a pay menow or pay me later situation.
You could avoid the oil change,but eventually you have to pay
the piper. Right? Something'sgonna happen, and it's gonna be
a lot bigger than if you hadjust taken taken the
(21:57):
precautionary measures. And whatkeeps me up at night? Honestly,
I hate to say it, but it's AIand how quickly criminals are
engaging with AI and able toleverage it to take advantage of
people that in ways that wewould have never thought that
would have been possible just afew short months ago, and
they're now leveraging it,faking live, you know, Zoom,
(22:20):
meetings where you think you'retalking to somebody and you're
not.
It's just a completelyartificial person being played
by, you know, an actoressentially that's superimposing
in real time who you thinkyou're talking to. It's it's
just absolutely incredible thethings that they're able to do
now.
Matt (22:35):
And it does not take Am I the AI guy?
Bryan (22:38):
Yeah. And it does not take it does not take a
technical technically experttechnical expert to make it
happen either. My accountmanager or my service manager
within a matter of fifteenminutes using publicly available
tools was able to completelymimic my entire voice and, and
and create, like, a publicservice announcement for the
staff indicating that I was inlove with Apple. And anybody who
(22:58):
knows me knows that is not true.Anyway, it was it was a it was a
funny thing, but it's justincredible where it's going.
And, that that keeps me up atnight.
Justin (23:07):
I think you need to share that video or whatever it
is because I wanna I'm
Bryan (23:10):
on a
Justin (23:11):
podcast here. Yeah. That's our intro and outro from
now on. Brian's avatar talkingabout Apple.
Bryan (23:18):
Yeah. Nice. Yeah.
Justin (23:21):
Oh, so guys, here's what keeps me up at night. And quick
backstory, I I first got intopodcasting. It was just absolute
nonsense. Me and a buddy, wedrank relatively heavily. There
were times I didn't remember thesecond half of the podcast.
It was a little bit embarrassingalso. It was a blast. One thing
he would say all the time is,like you know, because we talk
(23:43):
about current events or what,you know, whatever. It's a
horseshit that's going on outthere if this was during COVID.
You know?
So, in in talking about thenews, what do you see on the
news? He would constantly say,be your own reporter. Don't
worry about what other peopleare observing. Go out there and
make your own observations.Mhmm.
And I got to a place where, youknow, even now, I when I see a
(24:05):
news headline, I will rarelyread any details from the
reporter, but I will immediatelygo to the comments. And I wanna
know what people are thinking.What are they talking about?
What are they worried about? Andas I do that where cybersecurity
is concerned, more and more, I'mseeing this absolute apathy, and
that's it's what caught myattention with this article.
(24:26):
The the content got myattention, because I'm a tech
nerd and because I live in thisworld of of cybersecurity. But
what truly scared me wasn't thatransomware quadrupled. It was
that people were downvoting thisguy. They were attacking him.
They were saying that he it'sjust an advertisement.
And, I mean, I look at hisprofile. I look at his other
(24:46):
comments. I don't see anythingwhere he's trying to promote
another vendor of any sort. He'sdefinitely not an IT guy. He's
trying to bring information, atleast from my perspective, to
his peers, his entrepreneurialpeers, and tell him, hey, guys.
This is a risk, and we need totake it seriously. And he's just
getting, like, laughed off thestage. That's the problem, and
(25:07):
that's the problem that,honestly, I don't know how to
address. Because if when we doit, when we go out and then and
evangelize this, we come acrosslike salesmen. We yeah.
Do we financially benefit if youbuy our services? Of course, we
do. But, also, you get to keepyour business. You know? So
there's that added bonus.
You get to keep the money inyour bank account. You don't
have to go to court. How's that,guys? That's something, isn't
(25:30):
it? Jesus.
So, I mean, that's Go ahead,Brian.
Bryan (25:34):
Here's what you could do. You partner with a criminal
organization. I'm kidding, bythe way. You partner with a
criminal organization. When youmeet with a client who's who has
apathy, you just forward theirname and and number over to the
criminals.
Justin (25:45):
That's right.
Bryan (25:45):
I'm kidding. Obviously.
Justin (25:47):
From us, or we're gonna get you breached. Oh, god. We're
we're all gonna go now we're allgonna go in court. She Yeah.
Thank you for that, Brian.
You're welcome. I'm gonna goedit that right out of here. I'm
not really. Yeah. I mean, it'sit's it is a scary world, and I
will tell you that I think ournumber one problem in the war,
because this is a war.
We are fighting thugs. We'refighting criminals. We're, you
(26:09):
know, organized crime room,rings, state sponsored crime.
Like, this is huge, this thisbattle that we're fighting. And
the number one problem that Ibelieve we have is a culture
problem.
Bryan (26:20):
Nobody thinks we war. That's the problem. Right. And
until we
Justin (26:24):
fix that, until we we change the culture and the
mindset around this, we're gonnakeep losing. Do you wanna know
why ransomware quadrupled fourtimes? It's because of those
dumbasses on Reddit who aredownvoting the guy that was
trying to help him out. Yeah.That's why.
There's my 2¢. Alright, guys. Weare, we're kind kind of up
against a hard stop, so we'regonna bug out. Thank you for
being here. Matt, debutappearance.
(26:45):
Hopefully, you'll join us again.Brian, Mario, as always, thanks
for joining us. Guys, saygoodbye, and we'll see you next
week.
Mario (26:52):
Cheers. See you guys
Bryan (26:57):
later.
Welcome everybody to episode 40 of unhacked. Guys,
we've been doing this for a hotminute. We're talking about
before we got started here.Brian, Mario, my regular guest.
And today, we're joined by a newface, Matt, and we're gonna do
some introductions here to kickthis off.
I'm Justin Shelley, CEO ofPhoenix IT Advisors. And what we
do is we keep the Russians fromstealing your money. And if
(00:37):
there's anything left, we keepthe attorneys from coming around
and hoovering that up. So,that's what we do. We work in
the Dallas area as well as outwest, Nevada, Utah.
That's pretty much it for themost part. Just just a small
footprint. Mario, tell everybodywho you are, what you do, and
who you do it for. Mario. Mario,are you with
Mario (01:00):
us? Sorry. Brian. My system my screen froze.
Justin (01:03):
Oh, there he is.
Mario (01:04):
I'm here. I'm, Mario Zaki, CEO of Nasdaq. We are
located in New Jersey right outon the side of, Manhattan. We
service small businesses that,wanna be secure from, hackers.
Justin (01:23):
Brian, what do you got for us?
Bryan (01:24):
Alright. Bryan Lachapelle with b four Networks, based out
of the Niagara Region, Ontario,Canada. And, I like to say that
we help business ownersthroughout Niagara and the
Barrie area remove thefrustrations and headaches that
come with dealing withtechnology, whether it be
cybersecurity or just, improvingefficiency in operations.
Justin (01:44):
Beautiful. And Matt making his debut appearance on
UnHacked. Matt, tell us what youdo and who you do it for.
Matt (01:50):
Well, thanks for having me. My name is Matt Horning. I'm
the CEO of Blue Tree Technology.We're based out of Kansas City.
Our goal is to help smallbusinesses take the mystery out
of their technology and tosecure them so they can do what
they do best.
Alright.
Justin (02:04):
Guys, today, we're gonna do something a little bit
different. We've been, we've hadsome guests on recently, and we
used to have more of a scriptedformat. We're breaking down
headlines of the news andlessons learned and stuff like
that. Today, we're gonna kindajust free ball it. So, and I I
will give you the my muse a lotof times is Reddit.
It's a dumpster fire, fire, butit's a it's a great place to go
to see what people are thinkingabout. But I I read something
(02:26):
that actually caught me offguard. Number one, this is
something that was in theentrepreneur subreddit, not in
anything technical. And,somebody posted that, ransomware
attacks quadrupled in 2024, andthis is according to Barracuda.
Two things.
Number one, it was interestingas all the comments on, this
(02:46):
post, people were justannihilating him saying, why are
you why are you telling us this?This is just an ad, whatever.
Nobody gave a shit is my point,which was kinda scary to me
because this really isimportant. And in the
entrepreneur subreddit,everybody's just blowing it off.
So I'm like, okay.
We have a bigger problem than Ithought on that front. And then
the other problem that and I'mI'm trying to not be too
(03:09):
transparent here, but this kindacaught me off guard that
ransomware attacks hadquadrupled in 2024 because, not
that I've let my guard down atall in working to prevent
ransomware attacks, but I havealso kind of added my attention
or my added to my focus, which,you know, the more you add to
your focus, the more it'sdiluted. I'm looking at BEC
(03:30):
attacks. You've got emailcompromises and, you know,
Microsoft three sixty five.People are getting in there and
and so, anyways, it was justlike, alright.
Let's sit down today and justtalk about what is going on.
What's the landscape? What areyou guys worried about? What do
you see in the news? What do yousee with your clients?
What do you see with yourprospects? What is keeping your
clients and prospects awake atnight? That's it, guys. That's
(03:51):
the introduction. So I'm justgonna kinda kick this thing to
the other end of the field, andwhy don't you guys pick it up
and run with it?
Bryan (03:58):
Go. Yeah. I can I can give a a a little bit of a head
start here? Ransomware attackshave been increasing, and it's a
combination of many differentfactors, but primarily,
ransomware as a service, whichI'm not gonna get into right
now. I'll let some of the other,hosts here tackle that one.
But criminals cyber criminalsare actually doing what business
(04:20):
owners should be doing, and thatis using artificial intelligence
to rapidly expand their reach.And so they're they're hopping
on to the bandwagon of usingartificial intelligence to craft
new and compelling emails thatare free of grammatical and
English errors. They're able tosend it out in ways that bypass
(04:40):
spam filters, and they're ableto use artificial intelligence
to, tailor their attacks to theindividual receiving it. And so
instead of just big giant blastout to everybody, they're
actually tailoring each andevery individual email and or,
attack vector specifically tothat person that they're trying
to target. So it it's it'sbecoming a lot more focused and
(05:04):
a lot harder to detect them.
In the old days, we'd be like,yeah, just look for spelling
mistakes and look for, you know,things that don't look right,
bad English. You can't do thatanymore. I mean, I Yeah.
Justin (05:15):
Yeah. Sometimes you do still see that, and then you're
just like, Jesus. We're dealingwith an amateur here. But I it
is interesting. You bring up agood point.
And a very over generalizedstatement or observation is that
the bad guys typically pick upnew technology faster than the
good guys do.
Bryan (05:31):
Right. Yep. That's fair.
Matt (05:33):
Of course.
Bryan (05:33):
They have a financial incentive too.
Justin (05:36):
So do we. But but we're asleep at the wheel. Again, on
Reddit, like, entrepreneurs,people who are trying to build
their wealth, that's that's thenumber one goal of an
entrepreneur, but we're notgonna try to protect it. I mean,
come on. Mario, I think I cutyou off.
Did you have something to say?
Mario (05:50):
Well, just to kind of add on to what you guys just said,
it like, you know, the thing iswhen we are sitting with a
prospect and we're telling them,like, they they need, like, a
BDR, they need all this, like,you know, security stuff, they
understand that this stuff isnot adding to their bottom line.
Right? They're not the the if wewhatever we're giving them is
(06:11):
not making them more money.Alright? But with these guys, if
they actually test and purchasesome of the stuff, they can
actually test against it and seeif it will for them, it's even
more like, it will eventuallyadd to their bottom line.
So they are able to invest insome of the stuff because they
(06:31):
if they can go get around it, itactually is gonna make them
money. And the other thing thatI was gonna say too is it with
the way we work and with AI andstuff like an automation and
stuff like that, we we're tryingto get this like, the computers
to do a lot of the stuff on theback end by itself. And that's
what these guys have alreadystarted doing. Now with AI and
(06:55):
they're getting templates,they're putting in the software,
and they're just letting it runby itself. All they have to do
is install, like or maybeupload, like, a CSV file with,
like, emails or they're havingit automatically scrub like
LinkedIn knowing to know who theCEO is or CFO or whatever o or,
(07:17):
you know, you know, c suite.
It's automatically doing thework. So a lot of times, this
stuff is almost now set it andforget it and just wait for the
money to come
Matt (07:28):
in. Yeah. You're 100
Justin (07:30):
And I think you tried to check that a couple times. What
did you have to say?
Matt (07:33):
You're 100% correct. The you're dealing with a criminal
that is motivated by money, andyou're dealing with a
notification system that is notnot doing the job for small
business. The only time that youdeal with when you're because we
(07:53):
mostly live in the small mediumbusiness space, you don't hear
in the newspaper that, you know,10 small businesses went out of
business yesterday because ofransomware.
Bryan (08:03):
They're just too small to report on.
Matt (08:04):
100% is Hollywood events, MGM, pipelines, governments and
even those hospitals and eventhose are only getting to local
unless it's a nationwidehospital. So you live with a
large portion of the populationout there. And we're talking
about business owners, managersof those businesses that it's,
(08:26):
oh, I'm too small and I'm not athreat. They won't come after
me. I don't have anything.
And the question comes down tois, is can they survive a hit?
Statistically, that's not true.Sixty percent of businesses are
going out of business within sixmonths of a major cyber event.
Justin (08:44):
Yeah.
Matt (08:45):
That is detrimental to the person that built that business
and potentially their retirementand their family and their kids
college fund. They don't thinkof at that point of view, I'm
too small. I'm nothing. It's I'mnot you know, I don't have the
budget, whatever. And it comesdown to two things on that one
knowledge
Bryan (09:05):
of
Matt (09:05):
what their costs are. So are they charging enough for
their own services to toactually protect them to run
their business correctly? Okay.And our and knowledge about what
happens when it does happen. Canthey survive that target?
They survive. They got allinvestors that will that will
fund them out of it because theywant to keep that going. But can
(09:26):
a small business owner reallystomach a $50,000 bill? Hundred,
150,000? When does a cutoffhappen?
And that is something that theyneed to really look at.
Justin (09:37):
I mean, you said something horrible.
Bryan (09:38):
The statistics say that most businesses will fail after
a breach.
Matt (09:42):
Yeah. 100%.
Justin (09:43):
Well and also, I think everybody here has heard this
from a prospect, hopefully notfrom a client, but definitely
from prospects where they'llsay, I don't have anything to
protect. I don't have anythingthat the bad guys are after.
Right? Is anybody here not heardthat? It's probably one of the
most common pushbacks that I getwhen I'm trying to help a
business protect themselves.
(10:05):
And I just started saying, well,do you have a bank account?
Matt (10:09):
Do you have a
Justin (10:09):
case of college? That that's all they're after. %,
they're after your money. Andand you don't think you've got
anything to protect, but goddamnit. If you've got $5 in the
bank, you've got something toprotect.
Bryan (10:19):
Well, I I can add to that too. It's not even just about
money. Let's say you have nomoney. Let's say you
legitimately have nothing thatthat you believe the criminals
want. You have contacts, youhave friends, you have business
colleagues, and your reputationis something you wanna keep.
They hack you, they're gonnafind out that you have nothing
that they want, but they mightyou might know somebody they
(10:40):
want and they might be able touse you as a vector to bounce
and to get into another,business who does have something
they want. But now it camethrough you and now it's your
reputation. They're pissed offat you because you're the one
who exposed them because youwere too, shortsighted to say
like, you know what? I I I don'thave anything that people would
want, so I won't botherprotecting myself. Now all of a
(11:01):
sudden, you're sending out spamand junk email and and infecting
your peers and your friends andyour colleagues, and they're
losing millions of dollars, andthen you're gonna wish you had
it in place.
Justin (11:12):
Yeah. I I don't disagree with that at all. I will say
though that our prospects, thepeople that we are are trying to
help, they do have real moneythat needs to be protected. And
they do have real reputationlike you said, you know, and and
these are the these are theentities we're trying to help
people protect. Well keep thehackers out of your bank
accounts.
Keep the government out of yourbank accounts, and keep the
(11:34):
attorneys out of your bankaccounts. This is over and over
the problem that we're dealingwith. And reputation, sure,
that's gonna prevent you frombuilding in the future. What you
have right now has to beprotected because if, like we
say on, you know, title of theshow, unhacked, you don't get
unhacked. If this happens, ifyou get breached, your
reputation is shit, your bankaccount is shit, and now you're
(11:55):
you're in the middle of alawsuit for I mean, now we're
talking about you you're gonnahave to make money just to pay
back what, the attorneys arecoming after you for.
So it's just you can't waituntil it happens.
Matt (12:06):
Well, and and we all deal with client we are dealing with
clients right now. I mean,there's some of us that are
dealing with 11 owner ofbusinesses, right? They one
employee, it's the owner andthat's it, right? Yeah. But, you
know, if you have one employee,you need to think outside of
yourself.
So as a business owner, if I godown, we have 10 employees.
(12:28):
Okay. Nine other families areaffected. Okay. And if I can't
bring the business back up, thatmeans there's probably nine
other families who can't make ahouse payment or a car payment.
Right.
Bryan (12:40):
Right.
Matt (12:41):
Or a child care payment, whatever their their life is
drastically affected because ofmy shortsightedness. And I think
and I believe that we as ITprofessionals and security
professionals need to spend moretime educating that side of it.
You're right. Your business maynot have financially a lot, but
(13:06):
can you take a hit and can youbring it back up and then be
able to make payroll? Becausestatistically, when a hacker
gets into an environment,they're sitting there for six
months before you even knowanything.
And a lot of times the onlyreason you know is because they
made themselves known. And youand that's when you get a little
(13:27):
screen says pay bitcoin. By thattime, they mapped who the
controller is, how much moneyyou have in your bank account,
when payroll hits, what countthat money goes into and how
much is there. Right.Conveniently, that that that
that ransomware event is usuallywhat All the money that's in
(13:48):
payroll is it's a crazy number.
And what's the other thing theylook for? They're looking for
your cyber insurance.
Justin (13:55):
I was gonna say insurance. They wanna know how
much you're gonna pay out on theinsurance policy.
Matt (13:59):
So so reading this article, you know, four times it
was a four times it went in lastyear. Well, cyber insurance is
still paying these theseransoms. They have an incentive
to continue growing. Of course,they're gonna grow. I I'm not
surprised.
I, I wish I wasn't surprised. I,I, it's sad to me that it's
(14:20):
still growing. I would like tosee it go the other way even a
little bit.
Bryan (14:24):
Right.
Matt (14:24):
But, you know, dealing with the fact that we have an
industry that, you know, that isforced to pay because they're
not they're not they're notdoing they're not pre active.
You know, they are they arereactive to the scenario. And I
always find it interesting thatthere's no budget until there's
something that happens and allof a sudden there's a budget.
Bryan (14:44):
Yeah. But I would like to, like, jump on the the
ransomware as a service becauseI think that's a game changer
for the cyber criminals. Like,we we talk about how, you know,
we're trying to help our clientsprotect their systems, and they
they have essentially IT as aservice. Like, they can buy us
(15:04):
as a service. Right?
Our services are our our talentand our pool of knowledge and
our tool sets. The criminalshave something similar. Right?
Yep. They you don't need to bean expert in technology to now
ransom other people's networks.
You just subscribe to aplatform. They give you all the
(15:24):
tools and all the services onhow to ransomware. They give you
email templates, and they giveyou the recipe on how to make it
successful. And within a shortamount of time, I think I'm I'm
I'm reading here about seventyfour minutes start to finish,
they could they could then be ontheir way. Someone who's never
done it before could be on theirway into, ransoming them, you
(15:47):
know, putting out emails andransoming their first client.
Matt (15:50):
It's amazing. Their
Bryan (15:51):
first their first client. I'd say client.
Justin (15:53):
Listen. That's how they see it. It's business to them.
This is business. Right.
Matt (15:57):
It's it's an amazing business model, and it's funny
because you deal with a lot ofpeople out there that never
consider it that
Bryan (16:02):
way. Yeah.
Matt (16:03):
It's a it is a ironed out process with standard, operation
procedures. Okay. That isleveraging, latest technologies
that is drilling into people's,livelihoods on a daily basis.
(16:25):
And it's not a matter of if,it's a matter of when. And not
to scare the business ownersthat are listening to this, What
layers do you have in place thatif when it happens, how quickly
can you recover and stop it?
And that's the goal is to getthe.
Bryan (16:45):
Or even know what happened in the first place.
Mario (16:46):
Yep. We're working like, we're dealing with technicians
that are making sales. Like,imagine your your support team.
If you tell them, like, listen,we're gonna give you guys an x
amount of, you know, profitevery time you close a ticket.
And the bigger the ticket, themore money you make.
I know my guys are gonna betaking, you know, 10 times more
(17:08):
tickets than, you know, theynormally do. But, you know, I I
I'll probably get broke. But,you know, that that's that's
just the way it is. It's likethese guys are they're pretty
smart. They are, you know,investing in in in whatever
tools they think is gonna beable to help them make a sale.
And they're they're hungry, andthey they're they know they're
(17:31):
protected.
Justin (17:33):
Yeah. Alright. So guys, I'm gonna I'm gonna take us home
here. We're gonna keep today alittle bit shorter than normal.
But what I wanna do, I'm gonnago around the room, each one of
you, Mario, Matt, then Brian.
And I want I want you to answerone or all of these three
questions. Alright? Questionnumber one, what are you worried
about based on what yourobservations are? Number two,
(17:53):
what are your clients worriedabout based on their
observations? And then numberthree, is there anything that
you see in the news that keepsyou up at night?
Alright. So take one or allthose. We'll try to keep it to a
couple minutes each, and andtell me what you're seeing out
there and what we all need to beaware of. Mario, thoughts?
Mario (18:14):
You know, for me, I I worry that there may be, you
know, some a gap somewhere orsomething that ever slips
through the crack or that, youknow, one day that they're these
guys are going to figure out howto get around the layers of
security that we put in place,and do we need more, layers?
(18:36):
What I think customers areworried about is, do we have too
many layers? This is all costingme too much money. Nothing has
ever happened. Do I need tospend this much money?
Yeah. You know? And, you know,as far as seeing things on the
news, I, I'm not gonna lie. Tobe honest with you, I stopped
(18:56):
watching the news. I I you know,it it's because, you know, the
rare times where my wife has thenews on or whatever, it it's
depressing.
It it just too depressing. Youknow? Now I'm strictly on on
Netflix or whatever is, youknow, on Hulu that it was
prerecorded.
Justin (19:16):
Fair enough. Fair enough. I I will argue that I
watch the news, but I do it in avery different way. And, you
know, this today was kind ofinspired by something I saw on
Reddit, but it is it isinformation that that got it. It
scares me sometimes.
Matt, what do you what do yougot for this?
Matt (19:33):
What keeps you have a nice vendors?
Justin (19:36):
Vendors. Okay. Tell me more.
Matt (19:38):
We we are so reliant on other companies to provide a
service. And no matter how muchhow much stuff we do to vet them
and work with them, there werehumans were all flawed.
Justin (19:57):
Yep.
Matt (19:57):
Software is written by humans. And you have the it's
realistically it comes down totheir ability to understand the
risk. And there are vendors outthere. We all know of some that
honestly either don't care,don't understand the risk or
completely ignorant and justthey are clueless. And our job
(20:19):
is to figure out who those areand to move away from them and
stop feeding the money.
But that's the one that keepsyou up at night. Is that a
vendor that we've brought insomehow that that has more more
bite in our business than weshould. And this is as a
business owner and as businessowners out there. Okay. They
should be vetting their vendors.
(20:41):
They should be vetting their I.T. Company. They should be
vetting, you know, their theirsoftware packages and stuff like
that. That's the stuff thatkeeps you up at night.
Justin (20:51):
And I really like that. And, you know, it's kind of the
point of what we're trying to dohere on this podcast is help our
clients, our prospects vet us,vet our industry because it it
can be tricky since we're sounregulated. But you're
absolutely right. It is on us toin turn vet the people that
we're doing business withbecause that can get passed
right through to our clients.That's kinda scary
Matt (21:12):
for sure.
Justin (21:14):
Brian. Okay. Well, Well, the
Bryan (21:16):
thing that worries me the most is that, business owners
think the security is a one anddone. It's not. Criminals
innovate on a regular basis, andwe have to do the same. But time
and time again, I meet withpeople and they say, oh, you
know what? We've got anantivirus, sir.
We've got we've got it covered.And they're not actually taking
proactive steps on an ongoingbasis. They think it's a one and
(21:37):
done. Like like the people thatI've talked to, the clients that
I have, a lot of them are justworried about saving dollars.
But in my opinion, it's a pay menow or pay me later situation.
You could avoid the oil change,but eventually you have to pay
the piper. Right? Something'sgonna happen, and it's gonna be
a lot bigger than if you hadjust taken taken the
(21:57):
precautionary measures. And whatkeeps me up at night? Honestly,
I hate to say it, but it's AIand how quickly criminals are
engaging with AI and able toleverage it to take advantage of
people that in ways that wewould have never thought that
would have been possible just afew short months ago, and
they're now leveraging it,faking live, you know, Zoom,
(22:20):
meetings where you think you'retalking to somebody and you're
not.
It's just a completelyartificial person being played
by, you know, an actoressentially that's superimposing
in real time who you thinkyou're talking to. It's it's
just absolutely incredible thethings that they're able to do
now.
Matt (22:35):
And it does not take Am I the AI guy?
Bryan (22:38):
Yeah. And it does not take it does not take a
technical technically experttechnical expert to make it
happen either. My accountmanager or my service manager
within a matter of fifteenminutes using publicly available
tools was able to completelymimic my entire voice and, and
and create, like, a publicservice announcement for the
staff indicating that I was inlove with Apple. And anybody who
(22:58):
knows me knows that is not true.Anyway, it was it was a it was a
funny thing, but it's justincredible where it's going.
And, that that keeps me up atnight.
Justin (23:07):
I think you need to share that video or whatever it
is because I wanna I'm
Bryan (23:10):
on a
Justin (23:11):
podcast here. Yeah. That's our intro and outro from
now on. Brian's avatar talkingabout Apple.
Bryan (23:18):
Yeah. Nice. Yeah.
Justin (23:21):
Oh, so guys, here's what keeps me up at night. And quick
backstory, I I first got intopodcasting. It was just absolute
nonsense. Me and a buddy, wedrank relatively heavily. There
were times I didn't remember thesecond half of the podcast.
It was a little bit embarrassingalso. It was a blast. One thing
he would say all the time is,like you know, because we talk
(23:43):
about current events or what,you know, whatever. It's a
horseshit that's going on outthere if this was during COVID.
You know?
So, in in talking about thenews, what do you see on the
news? He would constantly say,be your own reporter. Don't
worry about what other peopleare observing. Go out there and
make your own observations.Mhmm.
And I got to a place where, youknow, even now, I when I see a
(24:05):
news headline, I will rarelyread any details from the
reporter, but I will immediatelygo to the comments. And I wanna
know what people are thinking.What are they talking about?
What are they worried about? Andas I do that where cybersecurity
is concerned, more and more, I'mseeing this absolute apathy, and
that's it's what caught myattention with this article.
(24:26):
The the content got myattention, because I'm a tech
nerd and because I live in thisworld of of cybersecurity. But
what truly scared me wasn't thatransomware quadrupled. It was
that people were downvoting thisguy. They were attacking him.
They were saying that he it'sjust an advertisement.
And, I mean, I look at hisprofile. I look at his other
(24:46):
comments. I don't see anythingwhere he's trying to promote
another vendor of any sort. He'sdefinitely not an IT guy. He's
trying to bring information, atleast from my perspective, to
his peers, his entrepreneurialpeers, and tell him, hey, guys.
This is a risk, and we need totake it seriously. And he's just
getting, like, laughed off thestage. That's the problem, and
(25:07):
that's the problem that,honestly, I don't know how to
address. Because if when we doit, when we go out and then and
evangelize this, we come acrosslike salesmen. We yeah.
Do we financially benefit if youbuy our services? Of course, we
do. But, also, you get to keepyour business. You know? So
there's that added bonus.
You get to keep the money inyour bank account. You don't
have to go to court. How's that,guys? That's something, isn't
(25:30):
it? Jesus.
So, I mean, that's Go ahead,Brian.
Bryan (25:34):
Here's what you could do. You partner with a criminal
organization. I'm kidding, bythe way. You partner with a
criminal organization. When youmeet with a client who's who has
apathy, you just forward theirname and and number over to the
criminals.
Justin (25:45):
That's right.
Bryan (25:45):
I'm kidding. Obviously.
Justin (25:47):
From us, or we're gonna get you breached. Oh, god. We're
we're all gonna go now we're allgonna go in court. She Yeah.
Thank you for that, Brian.
You're welcome. I'm gonna goedit that right out of here. I'm
not really. Yeah. I mean, it'sit's it is a scary world, and I
will tell you that I think ournumber one problem in the war,
because this is a war.
We are fighting thugs. We'refighting criminals. We're, you
(26:09):
know, organized crime room,rings, state sponsored crime.
Like, this is huge, this thisbattle that we're fighting. And
the number one problem that Ibelieve we have is a culture
problem.
Bryan (26:20):
Nobody thinks we war. That's the problem. Right. And
until we
Justin (26:24):
fix that, until we we change the culture and the
mindset around this, we're gonnakeep losing. Do you wanna know
why ransomware quadrupled fourtimes? It's because of those
dumbasses on Reddit who aredownvoting the guy that was
trying to help him out. Yeah.That's why.
There's my 2¢. Alright, guys. Weare, we're kind kind of up
against a hard stop, so we'regonna bug out. Thank you for
being here. Matt, debutappearance.
(26:45):
Hopefully, you'll join us again.Brian, Mario, as always, thanks
for joining us. Guys, saygoodbye, and we'll see you next
week.
Mario (26:52):
Cheers. See you guys
Bryan (26:57):
later.
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