Ep. 100: AI, Deepfakes, and Cybersecurity: Why Protection Must Come First

Ep. 100: AI, Deepfakes, and Cybersecurity: Why Protection Must Come First

Released Thursday, 10th April 2025
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Ep. 100: AI, Deepfakes, and Cybersecurity: Why Protection Must Come First

Ep. 100: AI, Deepfakes, and Cybersecurity: Why Protection Must Come First

Ep. 100: AI, Deepfakes, and Cybersecurity: Why Protection Must Come First

Ep. 100: AI, Deepfakes, and Cybersecurity: Why Protection Must Come First

Thursday, 10th April 2025
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0:00

Welcome to the Shift Happens podcast,

0:02

where we explore the latest trends

0:04

and insights in the digital workplace.

0:06

From the role of AI in the workplace

0:08

to the future of remote work, we cover it

0:11

all. Tune in as we chat with

0:13

industry leaders and experts. Whether you're

0:15

a season pro or just getting

0:17

started in the digital landscape,

0:19

we've got you covered. Subscribe to Shift

0:21

Happens wherever you listen to podcasts

0:23

and stay ahead of the curve.

0:26

Shift Happens podcast. Welcome to the

0:28

Shift Happens podcast where we

0:30

explored the latest trends in

0:33

technologies transforming the future of

0:35

work. Today, we mark a

0:37

huge milestone for the podcast.

0:39

Our 100th episode. We're celebrating

0:41

with a conversation that couldn't

0:44

be more relevant. Cybersecurity, AI

0:46

and innovation with Melissa Mulholland,

0:49

CEO of crayon. She's been

0:51

with Intel and Microsoft and

0:53

now leads crayon. where her

0:56

team helps businesses stay secure

0:58

while moving forward with AI

1:01

and new technology. We're talking

1:03

security without the roadblocks, a

1:05

deep fake scam story, and

1:08

tips for global leaders to

1:10

prioritize cyber security. Let's get

1:13

into it. Hey

1:22

everybody, welcome back to another

1:24

episode of Ship Happens and

1:26

so excited today to catch

1:28

up with a great friend. We've

1:31

talked here and there through the

1:33

years, but I'm excited that we

1:36

have this dedicated time for her

1:38

to share her journey and also

1:40

her insight into what's happening in

1:43

the industry. So welcome Melissa, so

1:45

good to see you. Oh, it's great

1:47

to get here next. The pleasure is

1:49

all in my. Thank you so much

1:51

for the opportunity. A-B-E-D. Well, thank you

1:54

again for being here, and that shift

1:56

happens. We have a lot of listeners

1:58

from around the world. We're... we've

2:00

been doing for the last five

2:02

years and really talking about the

2:04

shifts in the industry. Now before

2:07

I jump right into it, the

2:09

first question I always ask

2:11

is the song that best

2:13

describes the change in transformation

2:16

that we're going through and why did

2:18

you pick that song? It's a

2:20

great question because I listen to

2:22

music a lot every day when I

2:24

run outside. And I tend

2:27

to pick things that

2:29

have immorational and upbeat, I

2:31

say, to get me going.

2:33

And I always say my

2:35

greatest ideas come when

2:37

I'm exercising. So I

2:39

picked High Hopes, my panic

2:41

of disco. Because, well, why

2:43

am I like rock music?

2:46

But the second is, I

2:48

think a motivational song that

2:50

thinks about... How do this

2:52

strive for success? And striving

2:54

for success is something that

2:56

every day I have an

2:58

expression where I just put

3:00

my best foot forward. And

3:02

then anytime, change is constant.

3:04

You know, that's awesome. That's in

3:06

my running playlist too. I love,

3:09

I love, love the first part where

3:11

it says, you know, Mama said,

3:13

fulfill the prophecy, be something greater,

3:15

go make a legacy, manifest

3:17

destiny, right? And that always sticks

3:20

in my head. this is another day

3:22

we're gonna make it happen it may

3:24

not be that big thing I'm looking

3:26

for but today we're gonna make

3:28

it happen so really good zone

3:31

and you're right it resonates with

3:33

this times of frankly you know

3:35

every day it's a time of

3:37

change sometimes we perceive a big

3:39

change small change but I live

3:41

in DC everything's changing every day

3:43

so so that's a good motivational

3:46

song for sure Absolutely.

3:48

The world is changing and we need

3:50

to just be open-minded to it and

3:52

you realize that yeah, we've got to

3:54

take advantage of it every day. For

3:56

sure. Now speaking of change, you've

3:59

had an amazing... journey for our

4:01

listeners that don't know you or

4:03

have not met you. Maybe you

4:05

can start with your journey,

4:07

your career, how it started,

4:09

and then you know that

4:12

meme, how it started, how

4:14

it's going, and where you

4:16

are where you're at today

4:18

in your journey, especially looking

4:20

after a large organization like

4:22

Korea. Oh, wow. I mean, I've been

4:24

in this industry, well it

4:26

seems like a long time, but...

4:28

I started my background in the

4:30

tech sector at Intel as a young

4:33

intern. And if anybody knows

4:35

anything about Intel, it's a

4:37

very egalitarian type company where

4:40

everybody is treated equally. And

4:42

that concept at a very young

4:44

age really resonated with fee. At the

4:46

time the company was going through

4:49

a significant amount of, let's say,

4:51

cost reduction as companies tend to

4:53

go through from time to time.

4:55

And I was inspired to think about

4:58

how do you reduce costs in other

5:00

ways. So it was the forefront of

5:02

my career in that Intel produces

5:04

chips, as we all know, and

5:06

I thought at the time, let's

5:08

turn that into recycled material and

5:11

put solar panels on top of

5:13

their buildings. And they, let's say, allowed

5:15

me or empowered me to take

5:17

this idea to the CFO at

5:19

20 years old. And the company

5:21

ended up implementing it. and became

5:23

one of the greatest companies

5:26

in the United States about

5:28

quite. But the reason I tell

5:30

that story is it was a

5:32

pivotal moment for me where I

5:34

realize any idea that you put forward,

5:36

go and chase it, ache outside the

5:39

box, because people will give you

5:41

chances. And that really shaped, let's

5:43

say, my move into technology where

5:46

I joined Microsoft that was there

5:48

for 12 wonderful years,

5:50

working with partners. helping them

5:52

build out cloud businesses and

5:55

practices, which then led me to Krayon

5:57

because I got to meet them and Krayon's

5:59

because this is all about being

6:02

close to the customer. I was eager

6:04

to be part of and to shape

6:06

and be, but say, evolution and

6:08

growth at this company. And I'm

6:10

the CEO now. I've been here

6:12

for four and a half years. But

6:14

if I look back at my career, it's

6:16

all been threaded through technology,

6:19

innovation, and really transforming

6:21

that into ways that you

6:23

can drive impacted society at

6:25

the end of the day. So

6:28

that's been an incredible journey and

6:30

I'm proud of what's been cheap,

6:32

but more importantly, I think it's important

6:34

to stay humble and recognize that,

6:37

you know, I had a sickest

6:39

can of support along the way

6:41

as well. Yeah, that's awesome, right?

6:43

And I echo that sentiment. If

6:45

you think about our industry, technology,

6:47

I think it's a great equalizer. It

6:49

doesn't matter, like you said,

6:51

you know, you started 20 years

6:54

old, contributed one idea, made a huge

6:56

impact. It doesn't matter if you're

6:58

at that age, at that stage, or

7:01

your much more senior role, like today,

7:03

I'm sure there's other impacts

7:05

that not only you're

7:07

providing the organization, but

7:09

certainly enabling and empowering, paying

7:11

it forward to other colleagues

7:13

you have as well. Well,

7:16

speaking of innovation, right, we're

7:18

in this time of, like we

7:20

said, change, a lot of things going

7:22

on between AI, global economy,

7:24

innovation is still... important and

7:26

needs to be at the

7:28

forefront. And how do you balance that now

7:30

with the current need to enhance

7:33

things like security for your

7:35

customers, for the broader industry?

7:37

Can you speak more about that? Because

7:39

that's some of the things we hear

7:42

a lot from our customers. On one

7:44

hand, we want to do AI because

7:46

it's innovative, but at the same time, you

7:48

know, we've got to be on guard,

7:50

we've got to be secure. And oftentimes

7:53

there's a mindset that it's one or

7:55

the other. If you innovate, you can't

7:57

be secure. If you're secure, it's hard

7:59

to... So how do you balance all

8:01

that? It's a great question. I

8:04

view security first and fundamental to

8:06

everything we do. I actually think

8:08

it starts with security. AI is

8:10

important no doubt, but if you

8:12

don't have your data stayed in

8:14

place, you don't have your processes,

8:16

you don't have secure environment, you

8:18

run the risk of a model

8:20

being inc and not constructed correctly,

8:22

it being a risk. So if

8:24

I look at even just copilot.

8:26

But my first thought was as

8:28

a CEO of a completely listed

8:30

company. We need to make sure

8:33

that we have this information contained,

8:35

because you give the wrong information

8:37

to the wrong people, you run

8:39

a risk. So I think you

8:41

need to always make sure that

8:43

security is actually an enabler of

8:45

innovation at the end of the

8:47

day, and you need to always

8:49

have that in place first and

8:51

foremost before you really get fully

8:53

involved into the AI space. You

8:55

know I'm an AI believer through

8:57

and through, but I don't think

8:59

security should inhibit your ability to

9:02

innovate. 100% it's funny to talk

9:04

about copilot. So one of the

9:06

things I always when I talk

9:08

to customers, I show a very

9:10

simple prompt. I said, you know,

9:12

when I work with technology in

9:14

the first time I experience technology,

9:16

I record it. So I recorded

9:18

it in the first prompt I

9:20

put, show me all the files

9:22

that I have access to with

9:24

the word password. And then... true

9:26

enough, I start seeing things I'm

9:28

not supposed to see. And I

9:31

think that's the part of the

9:33

conversation that we should always start

9:35

with. Security is not one of

9:37

those negative, but it's important. And

9:39

if you put that foundation in

9:41

place, then innovation will just thrive

9:43

and grow. Because the last thing

9:45

you want is, sure, we roll

9:47

out Copilot and we didn't really

9:49

think about security and then something

9:51

happened. people got access to the

9:53

information they're not supposed to and

9:55

then now your innovation is squash.

9:57

right? You made a bad impression.

10:00

People had a bad experience and

10:02

that's something you don't want to

10:04

happen. 100% agree with you in

10:06

that regard. And I look back

10:08

and we built our internal secure,

10:10

let me say this, I have

10:12

a belief that you have to

10:14

eat your own dog fruit. So

10:16

we automated our security practice within

10:18

our IT environment. And I'm so

10:20

glad we did because that automation

10:22

now. we can fold in things

10:24

like AI to improve even further,

10:26

but I sleep better at night

10:29

as a CEO, that I know

10:31

that my data is my employees

10:33

are protected, my customers are protected,

10:35

my partners are protected, and my

10:37

partners are protected. That's critical at

10:39

the end of the day. So

10:41

with that discipline and that rigor

10:43

and the learnings you had in

10:45

implementing, have you evolved that to

10:47

essentially help your customers with it?

10:49

Because that's something we do too,

10:51

right? Same story as you being

10:53

a product company. We had to

10:55

build products and make sure we're

10:58

secure and now That learning and

11:00

that technology is now available to

11:02

our customers So I I suppose

11:04

you do the same thing for

11:06

the the the customers you serve

11:08

I ended up even Bringing together

11:10

our cybersecurity practice and our internal

11:13

security team under one unit. I

11:15

feel that they need to innovate

11:17

so that they can be able

11:20

to say improve processes and efficiencies

11:22

because we can be able to

11:25

show customers that we've got first-hand

11:27

experience of, you know, a company

11:29

running 4,000 employees, over 200,000 dent

11:32

customers. If we can do the

11:34

securing it for ourselves, we can

11:36

also support you additionally. So we've

11:39

got, you know, a full security

11:41

minute of service practice today, but

11:43

it's always improved based up of

11:46

our own internal use cases and

11:48

vice versa. Let's say I'm a

11:50

customer, I'm interested in this capability,

11:53

and I come to you or

11:55

your colleagues from around the world.

11:57

How would you step me through

12:00

that service offering? Where do we

12:02

start? And when you talk about

12:04

managed services, maybe after the initial

12:07

assessment, what type of engagement model

12:09

you have with an organization, regardless

12:11

of where they are around the

12:14

world? So we always say it

12:16

first starts with the customer assessment.

12:18

We need to understand where that

12:21

customer's environment and diet, what's there?

12:23

business plan, what are they really

12:25

trying to achieve? And getting an

12:28

understanding of their goal, would say

12:30

security stack, as well as their

12:32

data. And then we also have,

12:35

I would say, a managed service

12:37

today. It's a posture managed service

12:40

because we believe that its threat

12:42

protection isn't just a one-point instance

12:44

in time. You have to constantly

12:47

be monitoring and detecting threats. that

12:49

we do as a consistent managed

12:51

service basis. And that improvement with

12:54

new technology is something that we're

12:56

always looking after. And that helps

12:58

mitigate risk in the future as

13:01

well. So we have a multi-step,

13:03

I would say, engagement that we

13:05

do. And it varies depending on

13:08

the customer setup too, because they

13:10

need more additional supported resources. But

13:12

actually, you know, on our side,

13:15

we partner posted it at point

13:17

as well, implementing your. For Vodar,

13:19

internal IT, also partnering with our

13:22

security services, I, for AppPoint M

13:24

through 65, it's helped us a

13:26

lot around our own assessment processes.

13:29

And I think that that's critical.

13:31

It always takes the first level

13:33

of understanding of where our customers

13:36

are at before we can then

13:38

get into the discipline of being

13:40

and developing that in a service

13:43

together. That's awesome. I'm curious. So

13:45

crayon being a global organization similar

13:48

to us. Do you see differences

13:50

around the world with the customers

13:52

you serve? From their perspective, how

13:55

they think about security, the maturity

13:57

around security practices, and if there

13:59

are differences, what are some of

14:02

those key differences? Hello shift happens

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workplace. visit shift happens.to, to register

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today. We'll see you there. Oh,

14:27

that's a great question. Yes, I

14:30

do see differences. I think in

14:32

certain geographies, there still is a

14:34

lot of hesitancy around cloud and

14:37

on-comers-versus-cloud, each data link just seeking.

14:39

an application need to have in

14:41

which and this fear that affected

14:44

the data into into the cloud

14:46

that all of a sudden my

14:48

environment is vulnerable. I would argue

14:51

that yeah it could be but

14:53

at the same time you're also

14:55

pulling back from innovating and there

14:58

are so many secure measures in

15:00

place. What's quite interesting to me

15:03

is Europe and especially the Nordics

15:05

has been very far ahead of

15:07

dirty and digitization versus... The US,

15:10

which is now becoming even a

15:12

hotter topic, which as an American,

15:14

somewhat surprises me because so much

15:17

technology being started here. Yeah. The

15:19

United States. But give you a

15:21

very simple example. It's not a

15:24

security example, but it just shows

15:26

a digital mindset. When we moved

15:28

from the US to Oslo, Norway,

15:31

we sold our house and, you

15:33

know, buying and selling a house

15:35

in the US is a lot

15:38

of paperwork. And this was the

15:40

rate copet. And I remember they

15:42

said you may have to go

15:45

to the embassy to get a

15:47

notary to sign because we don't

15:49

have digital library. And we thought,

15:52

well, what do we do? We

15:54

can't go to Norway. You can't

15:56

go back to US. How are

15:59

you to do this? So thankfully,

16:01

we found a digital notary to

16:03

do it. And we thought, wow,

16:06

it's mind blowing. Then we went

16:08

and bought our house, you know,

16:11

a month later in Norway, all

16:13

automated to our phone. We clicked

16:15

a button with text. No signee,

16:18

no paperwork, that's it. And you

16:20

buy your house, you buy your

16:22

cars, everything is digital. We didn't

16:25

see anybody. So I think the

16:27

fast pace and the security of

16:29

data, you think about just your

16:32

social security number? I've never put

16:34

that on email and had it

16:36

out. Year, it's very different. It's

16:39

a completely open, transparent society. But

16:41

because there's so much security embedded

16:43

into the mindset and out, and

16:46

in terms of technology, even though

16:48

it a very cloud base. So

16:50

that's just a very simplistic example,

16:53

but society speaking, I do see

16:55

that especially, say, Nordics, Europe is

16:57

further ahead when it comes to

17:00

cybersecurity as a topic than elsewhere

17:02

in the world. You know, I

17:04

recall the conversation, so in one

17:07

of the episodes, I had the

17:09

CIO of Estonia as a guess,

17:11

and we talked about this, and

17:14

it was like, yeah, I don't

17:16

understand why in the US... you

17:18

know, getting a driver's license, you

17:21

have to fall in line three

17:23

hours of DMV, and you say

17:26

Estonia, everything's online, and he did

17:28

say the only thing that's not

17:30

online, he said you can get

17:33

married online, like in a remote

17:35

meeting, but the only thing you

17:37

cannot do online in Estonia is

17:40

getting a divorce. So you have

17:42

to show up in front of

17:44

a judge, but everything else you

17:47

could do online, right? And do

17:49

you think it has to do

17:51

with the regulations too, because, for

17:54

example, we know that You recently

17:56

enacted the EU AI Act and

17:58

in the past GDPR, right? And

18:01

do you think that's driving a

18:03

lot of this high consciousness around

18:05

security and now it's ingrained in

18:08

every single person in Europe? Definitely.

18:10

I'd say there's a different mindset,

18:12

yet EU regulation is one and

18:15

data protection. I learned a lot

18:17

coming to Europe from my head

18:19

of security around data protection and

18:22

how to think about customers. But

18:24

I do believe that it. protect

18:26

the end at the end of

18:29

the customer getting a little bit.

18:31

AI actors, of course, some may

18:34

say, oh, does it stite for

18:36

innovation and creativity, but I actually

18:38

think it holds companies accountable. We

18:41

were early adopters. We have our

18:43

own AI ethics policy in-house that

18:45

we built because we needed to

18:48

save for our organization around which

18:50

it's a use cases, we would

18:52

feel comfortable forward with. We had

18:55

one that was, I won't say

18:57

the country, but they would just

18:59

say not be legal if we

19:02

were to proceed outside of that

19:04

country. And as a list of

19:06

company in the Norwegian Stock Exchange

19:09

and this mobile business, it's important

19:11

that we have our own ethics

19:13

and integrity policy in place that

19:16

we can abide by. To safeguard

19:18

us, to safeguard our customers. And

19:20

I do think that's quite important.

19:23

And when you look at the

19:25

realm of security, AI, and data,

19:27

you don't have some parameters in

19:30

place. I think we do run

19:32

the wrist and now we see

19:34

obviously the world of deep fix,

19:37

you know, has its own breadth

19:39

of life that is of course

19:41

very troubling nonetheless. You know, it

19:44

reminds me part of EU AI

19:46

act, one of the key things

19:49

there is in the area of

19:51

training and awareness around how any

19:53

organization, deploying AI, should equip employees

19:56

with proper training awareness. So how

19:58

do you see training and awareness

20:00

as a role in strength? and

20:03

organizations, cyber security posture, especially in

20:05

this rapidly changing environment.

20:07

It's crucial. I learned this early

20:10

because I happened to work

20:12

at Microsoft where they constantly

20:14

did training emails, issuing like

20:17

examples so that you could

20:19

be alerting. We ended

20:21

up bringing that mentality

20:23

into Cram and I'm going to

20:25

tell you just a little

20:27

personal story. You know, somebody

20:29

that does podcasts and videos,

20:32

you see my voice, my

20:34

native out there, and I had a

20:36

deep sake made of me, and

20:38

yeah, multiple times, and this one

20:41

was transacted in a way

20:43

where an employee bought for a

20:45

second, this has to be Melissa.

20:47

And thankfully, we had

20:50

enough training in place that

20:52

they alerted someone, and that

20:54

in this case, the company

20:56

wanted two million. dollars

20:58

basically transferred from an account

21:01

and it felt real and

21:03

if we had not would say

21:06

educated or work wow actually

21:08

faced the serious financial

21:10

fraud but you know people knew

21:12

what to look for and they

21:14

know I said we constantly remind

21:16

people that you know internal the

21:19

way I communicate is going to

21:21

be on the secure environment

21:24

and it's in our own

21:26

I'm not going to communicate with

21:28

you on my personal phone on

21:30

business really. Oh, what's up? Yeah, what's

21:32

up is one that's a very big

21:34

threat for me personally half. It's all

21:36

the time. I can't tell you I

21:38

probably feel like maybe at least

21:40

once we twice waste least a

21:42

couple times a month, it's getting

21:44

reported. So the education and

21:47

constant education. So we do this,

21:49

you know, training, mandatory training. We

21:52

had a policy in place. We

21:54

do... Townhalls, um, company, tauy

21:56

stories, not to fear, to

21:58

much big people. Fearful, but

22:00

at the end of the day, it's

22:02

up to our employees also to carry

22:05

a responsibility. And the role that we

22:07

live in is, there's a lot of risk, so

22:09

we have to make sure that we

22:11

educate people. So training is essential.

22:13

First and foremost. That's right, and

22:16

I've heard about the security trainings

22:18

from Microsoft, where they make it

22:20

into like a show to get

22:22

people interested. So like, what's

22:24

the next season? Because typically security

22:26

training is like boring like I gotta

22:28

I just have to do this but

22:31

now they make it like a spy

22:33

or very so people can't wait when's

22:35

the next security training because I need

22:37

to catch up what's what's going on

22:39

right? Because you're training if it's just

22:41

to check the box you're not going

22:43

to remember in your restaurant being

22:45

engaged and so we tell these stories

22:47

we've even done one where there was

22:50

a voice recording a voice audio now

22:52

if you're friends or someone that here

22:54

of my voice a The deep fake

22:56

wasn't quite correct, but it was good.

22:58

It was really good. As we

23:00

played that reporting. Wow. Okay. This

23:02

is scary. How good AI is getting.

23:04

And at the end of the day,

23:06

it would supply some calling sense

23:08

and judgment to the actions that we

23:10

take. I mean, this is a very

23:13

good point because I read somewhere

23:15

and I'm sure it came across

23:17

this a few months ago. Actually,

23:19

a company in Hong Kong or

23:21

somewhere. with an actual deep fake

23:23

like this and they transferred

23:26

the money. And what's worse, what's

23:28

actually fascinating is they actually

23:30

did a teams or a Zoom

23:32

call. On the other end was a deep

23:34

fake as the CEO or as the

23:36

CFO and they actually made the

23:38

transaction happen. So it's

23:40

getting so real now that you're

23:43

right. education, awareness, and

23:45

even, you know, maybe there's a

23:47

safe word, right? Like, you asked

23:49

me a question, I have to

23:52

say pizza or something, just

23:54

to make it valid.

23:56

Absolutely, and you have to get

23:58

processes and... I mean, I think

24:01

safeguards in this one instance, there

24:03

was a conversation between myself and

24:05

another person which was insane. So

24:07

they did it and it abated

24:10

it to a conversation. It's completely

24:12

artificial. But thankfully, we have safeguards

24:14

in place and, you know, and

24:16

if we caught it, they pushed

24:19

back and it's like, this is

24:21

just can't be real. This is

24:23

the world we live in and

24:25

so at the end of the

24:27

day we need to make sure

24:30

that people are educated first and

24:32

foremost so that we can we're

24:34

human. So with these learnings right

24:36

and unfortunate experiences I'm sure you're

24:39

bringing this to your customer as

24:41

well whatever you're enforcing internally best

24:43

practices and what's a typical response

24:45

or feedback from customers will they

24:48

say it's not going to happen

24:50

to us we're not as big

24:52

as crayon. Or, wow, that's actually

24:54

a good point. We're now going

24:56

to integrate it to our processes,

24:59

our training, and I'm just curious,

25:01

are most customers open to this

25:03

really adopting and taking on what

25:05

you advise them? Developed our cybersecurity

25:08

in practice. I thought that it

25:10

would take a lot longer to

25:12

get off the ground. But the

25:14

reality is as everybody knows that

25:17

they need it. They understand that

25:19

there's vulnerabilities and risks and they

25:21

often need times They don't have

25:23

the right people. They don't have

25:25

the resources to do it. So

25:28

they need guidance and support and

25:30

it's it's a complex space We

25:32

decided to really keep our practice

25:34

focus just purely on Microsoft to

25:37

start because we knew that that's

25:39

you know We are a Microsoft

25:41

house in many respects. We are

25:43

scaling to AWOS and Google, but

25:46

we needed to really develop that

25:48

concrete focus and trust. And so

25:50

we see that this area of

25:52

our business is growing exponentially. And

25:54

I always, if I look at,

25:57

just let's see Generating AI as

25:59

a whole, whatever solution you end

26:01

up choosing. Generating AI is in

26:03

the day, it is a product.

26:06

that you implement. You don't think

26:08

about all the elements around it.

26:10

You're not going to make use

26:12

an ROI out of it. And

26:15

so when we explain this to

26:17

our customers, then they fully understand,

26:19

okay, we got to get our

26:21

security in place first, then we

26:23

can take it to the next

26:26

level. I think that that's important

26:28

for our customers at the other

26:30

day. Well Melissa it's been an

26:32

awesome conversation and we can keep

26:35

going and going and going but

26:37

I'm respectful of your time. Before

26:39

we wrap up what advice do

26:41

you have for our listeners regardless

26:44

they're working in a large organization

26:46

or a small organization on how

26:48

can they be better and prepare

26:50

themselves in the area of security

26:52

so that they're well safeguarded but

26:55

also continue to innovate as they

26:57

adopt new technologies coming in. The

27:00

first I would say is implement security

27:02

from the start and have to do

27:04

it from day one. It's never too

27:06

late. Start now. I would say also

27:08

strengthen the fundamentals of security before you

27:10

go in and adopt AI tools like

27:13

I was just mentioning or engineered AI.

27:15

Make sure that you have that in

27:17

place first because it'll actually let enable

27:19

you to participate much faster once you

27:21

have that in place. And if the

27:23

third goes back to that education around

27:25

fostering a security first culture organization, it's

27:27

so important because we all take the

27:30

accountability each and every day for fishing

27:32

and emails to scams, it starts with

27:34

employee education. And this, if you do

27:36

these three things, I think then you

27:38

will be able to succeed the matter

27:40

what in your organization and your IT

27:42

environment. Awesome. Well, Melissa is always great

27:44

to see you, great to spend time

27:47

with you, and I look forward to

27:49

our next get. together. It

27:51

doesn't matter where in

27:53

the world in the world

27:55

and can continue to

27:57

catch up. to catch up.

27:59

Love seeing you. world. Thank

28:01

you so much

28:04

for having you so much for

28:06

All right. Thank

28:08

you. Tex. All right. Thank you. Shift

28:10

Happens that wraps up

28:12

our up our 100 episode. Huge

28:14

Huge thanks to

28:16

Melissa for sharing her

28:18

expertise and insights. The

28:21

bottom line is line is

28:23

isn't a a It's

28:25

the foundation for innovation. Get

28:28

it it right? Stay ahead and keep

28:30

your team prepared. team Whether you've

28:32

been here since episode one

28:34

or a new listener, here we

28:36

really appreciate you. or a new to

28:39

the next we really

28:42

Until the next time. the

28:44

next 100 Shift

28:46

Happens episodes. Until

28:48

the next time.

28:59

Shift that

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