Tom: Hello and welcome back to this next TomCast from GuardSight. We are a tactical cybersecurity-as-a-service organization dedicated to helping businesses protect their data, their assets, and their endpoints. Today, we have the founder and CEO of GuardSight, John McGloughlin. Welcome, John.
John: Hey, Tom. Thanks, man. Thanks for the invite. Before we get going today, I just wanted to congratulate you, today is a special TomCast. This is TomCast number 50, and that’s a great feat, Tom, and so congratulations on all the success and all the great feedback we get from the outside and the inside for that matter and I wanted to give you kudos for that, your contributions to our team, your contributions to the community, and the amount of work that goes into TomCast is also, people probably don’t know, quite a bit of work, so I thank you for you taking your time and a lot of that is done on the weekends when you record them and so we really appreciate what you do. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that but before we do that, what I’d like to try to do is so just to give the audience a perspective of me recalling the origination of the TomCast and it’s possible that my version might be a little bit different than yours. So what I’ll do is I’ll give my version and then allow you to give your version. So, Tom, for people that are listening, used to come to the same dojo that I roll at in for Jiu-Jitsu. Actually, Tom is one of the guys who got me introduced to it and so I go up there and rolled. This is up in Parowan, Utah. And so, as I remember it, I think I had you in a rear naked choke and was whispering in your ear something like, hey Buttercup, I’ve got a good idea for this thing I’m calling the TomCast and then that’s how it came about. So, is that how you remember it?
Tom: Absolutely not. I do remember being at the dojo, yes. And I do remember it was before we started warming up, but yeah, there was no joke.
John: Just seems my version is so much better but whatever. So, I alluded at the top of the show just about the amount of work that goes into TomCast to give people an idea of what that production process looks like.
Tom: Well, the production process typically is like the concept of the TomCast itself. It comes out of an idea of what we feel like the general public could use some educational and awareness on things like that. We come up with those topics and we basically write a script. I then record myself reading that script and then we go into a production phase because where we initially started posting these before we started posting them on the GuardSight website was solely on LinkedIn and LinkedIn does not allow the upload of an audio file so we had to convert an audio-only file into some sort of video type of file. That’s where the production aspect comes from as we have to convert the simple mp3 recording into a video file, which is where we see the shield and the various graphics going around the shield. So, I mean, it’s a little bit of an in-depth process, but we have it pretty down pat now.
John: Outstanding. So, give us an idea what you believe is the value of the TomCast. What’s a value proposition for the TomCast for those people that listen to it every week or every other week?
Tom: Again, same as the coming up with the topic, it’s trying to find relevant topics and information that are going to help arm the listeners with knowledge moving forward regarding cybersecurity. Some of them have been a little broader than just cybersecurity, but the main focus is various cyber security topics whether it’s ransomware or phishing or one of these other things. This is our way of giving the listeners information that helps them protect themselves.
John: Outstanding. Yeah. Very, very cool. So, if you think back through 49 TomCasts, before this one, what was your favorite Tomcast?
Tom: Forty-nine was a very important one to me. It resonated quite a bit with me and that was leadership and then there was one late last year regarding effective management. Those are of particular interest to me because a lot of organizations out there do not train their management, do not train their leaders. You’re promoted into a position and expected to learn it yourself. And so that’s, again, a very passionate topic of mine. But as far as going way back, I would say, the social engineering, educating people in a different type of phishing, vishing, smishing, spearfishing, wailing, that kind of things, so they know what to look for. Again, it’s an educational type of activity that we’re trying to help people out there arm themselves with.
John: Yeah, it’s cool. It’s interesting you picked the leadership on that. That, of course, is one of my favorite topics and we work really hard here at GuardSight of developing leaders from the ground up including putting teams through leadership training, people through leadership training here. I think it’s one of the issues we have in cyber. We have a weapon saturation problem because we think we just keep buying a weapon that’s going to solve the problem and it’s not. It’s about the operators and how we function as a team, how we lead those operators through those missions. It’s interesting that you thought that that was the most favorable. I enjoyed that one too. I can’t recall all of my favorite TomCasts, but it definitely would be in the top three or four, for sure. So what are you looking forward to when covering future TomCasts?
Tom: Well, I want to cover some absolutely riveting topics that everybody is really looking forward to and that’s diving into some future areas of compliance which I know a lot of people roll their eyes with, but when you’re dealing with healthcare, for example, you need to be educated on what HIPAA is. Sarbanes-oxley. The various areas of mist that we haven’t covered in the series, as well as I want to get a deeper dive into supply chain risk management and assessments and things like that because these are relevant topics you see in the headlines and I want to, again, help arm our listeners on how to better prepare themselves so they’re not in the headlines.
John: Yeah, good stuff. That’s really good stuff. All right, well, again, I’ll just close it out by before you end with all your post fix stuff, which is, you know, just thanks a bunch, man, for number 50. Congratulations on getting to 50 TomCasts. That’s an amazing feat for us. We’ve exceeded all expectations, done it right. You are amazing, the work that you do, your contributions toward the GuardSight team are extremely valuable, and your commitment to our success is extremely valued. The education that you’re giving the community. You should be super proud of yourself. Thanks a lot and keep kicking butt.
Tom: We here at GuardSight, thank you for taking the time to listen to this TomCast. For more information on various cyber security tips, head on over to our website. Check out more TomCasts. Those are located over on www.guardsight.com/tomcast or if you would like more information on what GuardSight can do for you, head on over to www.guarsight.com and contact us. There are several free cyber security tools out there that can help you improve your overall security posture. We love to hear from you. Thanks.
