Ep. 041 - Realities in the Systems That Produce Our Food with James Slaby

James Slaby

Director OT Solutions GTM at Acronis

What does a deep fake phone call scamming your grandma have to do with food manufacturing? More than you think.

In this episode of Bites and Bytes Podcast, host Kristin King and James Slaby discuss the operational technology challenges in food production—from legacy systems running Windows XP to ransomware threats when production lines go down.

James is Director of OT Solutions GTM at Acronis and brings over 20 years of cybersecurity and industry analyst experience from Forrester Research, HFS Research, and technology companies. The conversation covers why food plants can't update their systems, the growing threat of social engineering and deep fakes, and practical strategies like the family password defense.

Topics include:

• Why food manufacturers still run ancient operating systems

• Deep fake threats and how to protect yourself

• Air-gapped systems and OT security challenges

• Social engineering targeting industrial operations

• Legacy technology in food production environments

Whether you're in food manufacturing, cybersecurity, or just curious about the systems behind your food supply, this episode reveals the realities of keeping production running while managing cyber threats.

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Guest Contact Information:
James Slaby’s LinkedIn
Company: Acronis
Role: Director of OT Solutions GTM at Acronis

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Episode Key Highlights:

00:21:42 – Ominous shifts in the threat environment
00:22:00 – Attacks on critical infrastructure
00:24:22 – Challenges facing small farms and businesses
00:31:29 – Equipment life cycles and legacy systems in OT
00:32:05 – Why stability matters in OT environments
00:33:10 – The industrialization of cybercrime
00:33:25 – GenAI tools used by bad actors
00:34:37 – Social engineering in food and agriculture
00:35:54 – The family password conversation
00:36:08 – Deep fake technology and voice cloning threats

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---------------

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🛡️ About AnzenSage & AnzenOT

AnzenSage is a cybersecurity advisory firm specializing in security resilience for the food, agriculture, zoo, and aquarium industries.  AnzenSage offers practical, strategic guidance to help organizations anticipate risks and build resilience.  Learn more about their offerings at anzensage.com.​

AnzenOT:  Industrial Cyber Risk — Simple.  Smart.  Swift.
AnzenOT is the SaaS risk management platform built to bring clarity and control to Operational Technology (OT) cybersecurity.  Designed for critical infrastructure sectors, AnzenOT translates technical risk into clear, actionable insight for decision-makers.  Explore the platform at anzenot.com.
For demo requests or inquiries, email stuart@anzenot.com or kristin@anzenot.com

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Listen to full episode :

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Episode Guide:

00:00:21 – Welcome and episode introduction
00:01:15 – Favorite food and food memory
00:01:23 – Korean fried chicken vs Buffalo wings
00:03:43 – James' food memory with his dad
00:06:03 – How food transports us through memory
00:08:05 – James introduces himself and Acronis
00:10:19 – OT partnerships and automation vendors
00:11:16 – James' career background
00:13:20 – Cloud adoption in OT environments
00:15:09 – Purdue model and air-gapped systems explained
00:19:10 – Enjoying the OT/ICS space
00:21:42 – Ominous shifts in the threat environment
00:22:00 – Attacks on critical infrastructure
00:22:22 – Known vs unknown cyber incidents
00:24:22 – Challenges for small farms and businesses
00:26:22 – Agriculture as critical infrastructure
00:29:20 – Psychological aspects of cyber resilience
00:30:30 – Recovery capability in OT
00:31:29 – Equipment life cycles and legacy systems
00:32:05 – Why stability matters in OT environments
00:32:18 – Recovery when IT is hours or days away
00:33:10 – The industrialization of cybercrime
00:33:25 – GenAI tools used by bad actors
00:34:21 – JBS backup example
00:34:37 – Social engineering component
00:35:54 – The family password conversation
00:36:08 – Deep fake technology and voice cloning
00:37:37 – Closing thoughts and final words
00:37:55 – Episode wrap-up

• Transcript

  00:00:21 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Welcome back to the Bites and Bites podcast.

  ‍ ‍

  00:00:23 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I'm your host, Kristen King.

  ‍ ‍

  00:00:25 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  This is the show where we explore the systems, technology, and human realities behind food and agriculture.

  ‍ ‍

  00:00:31 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  and sometimes the risks that we don't see until they hit us hard.

  ‍ ‍

  00:00:34 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Today, we're joined by James Slaby, Director of OT Solutions, Go-to-Market at Acronis.

  ‍ ‍

  00:00:41 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  James has spent more than two decades analyzing and working in cybersecurity networking and industrial technologies.

  ‍ ‍

  00:00:47 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  In this conversation, we're going to dig into the systems that quietly produce our food, legacy equipment, air gap networks, ancient operating systems still controlling real-world machinery.

  ‍ ‍

  00:00:58 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And what happens when modern cyber threats collide with outdated infrastructure?

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:02 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We also talk about deepfakes, social engineering, recovery planning, and how everyday people, not just IT teams, are becoming part of the threat landscape.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:11 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So let's get into it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:12 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Enjoy.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:15 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Well, as always, before anybody introduces themselves, we're going to go into favorite food and favorite food memory.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:20 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  James, they do not need to be the same thing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Go for it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:23 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Sure.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:23 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So I'm originally a native of Buffalo, New York, and like the rest of my extended family, many of whom are still in that area, I'm kind of obsessed with buffalo wings.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:33 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Of course.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:34 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  But something I discovered, which really surprised me, is that there's a superior gloss on the fried chicken wing, and that is Korean-style fried chicken.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:44 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  What they did

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:45 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I've concluded that makes it even better than my beloved original buffalo wings is that they do a two-step fry.

  ‍ ‍

  00:01:52 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  They first fry the wings in low temperature oil to cook them all the way through, and then they do a second fry in a higher temperature oil to crisp the skin.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:01 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And then they'll hand paint on, there's many sauces, but the two most popular ones are gochujang, which is the Korean version of hot sauce.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:08 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  It's slightly funky, slightly sweet flavor in addition to the capsaicin heat, and then-- Delicious.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:15 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Foley garlic.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:16 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And this is now my go-to.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:18 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  If I show up for like a Super Bowl party or BBQ or something, I'll bring a big bucket of these.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:22 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And in particular, my friend's kids are absolutely crazy for the KOFC, I call it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:29 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So that's it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:30 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So I'm always down for traditional buffalo wings.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:34 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  My local watering hole in downtown Boston is a hundred year old Irish pub.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:39 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Same family has run it the whole time.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:40 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  They do beautiful chicken wings.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:42 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Shout out to JJ Foley's Cafe in Boston South End.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:45 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Koreans have figured out a modest improvement that I think is really worth checking out if you get the chance.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:50 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Yes, I definitely would agree.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:52 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  There is a superior level of fried chicken in that area of the world.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:57 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  The Japanese are also quite good at it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:02:59 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Karaage is, I'm really digging karaage chicken these days too.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:02 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Yeah, it really is.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:03 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I feel like a little side of that with your ramen is just like the perfect meal, like super comforting at the whole thing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:09 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I haven't had that in a minute.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:10 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I should probably get that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:11 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Yeah, I totally understand this.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:12 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  My stepsons are connoisseurs of fried

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:15 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  chicken and chicken sandwiches and anything to do with chicken that's breaded in general.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:19 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And they even have said something similar, like it's just the best chicken, like how it's fried the way it is.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:24 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's kind of like a triple cooked chips or fries for us Americans in the UK.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:29 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  There's just something about it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:30 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Absolutely.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:31 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  My own kind of home cooking efforts always run up against that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:34 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  It's either not cooked all the way through or it's overdone.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:37 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And I think that two-step process kind of solves all problems there.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:40 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Yes, for sure.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:41 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And so your favorite food memory then?

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:43 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I fought long and hard.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:45 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  about this.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:46 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I wasn't a super adventurous eater as a child.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:49 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I was kind of scared of most things, but I really trusted my dad and he was a kind of a 3 a.m.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:57 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  snacker and I was a light sleeper.

  ‍ ‍

  00:03:59 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So I would sometimes hear him stirring in the kitchen in the middle of the night and I would go down and, you know, this is a me four or five years old in my jammies.

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:07 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And he'd be up making some kind of snack that was clearly evocative of the nostalgia of his youth.

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:14 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:15 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  My one sort of fondest memory of those late night meetings with my dad was he would make a sandwich of tinned sardines, raw onions, and yellow mustard on white bread.

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:26 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Wow, that's intense.

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:28 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So, you know, those were some beautiful moments along with my dad.

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:32 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I'm from a big family.

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:33 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  There were eight of us all together.

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:34 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And so the, you know, 10 minutes of time to himself without just sitting there quietly in the kitchen with nothing on, but the fluorescent light coming from the stove top are really cherished.

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:45 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  memories for me.

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:46 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And I've since concluded that while I got braver about food as I got older, particularly as I started traveling internationally for work, that all my dad's favorites were very umami packed.

  ‍ ‍

  00:04:58 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So things like sardines and pickled herring and calves liver.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:03 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Like I was the only one of my five brothers and sisters that liked the liver.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:06 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And I've since realized like, oh, I was like an umami hound.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:10 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And traveling abroad for work, particularly places like China where

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:15 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  A foreign guest would get the red carpet rolled out for them and served an elaborate banquet meal with all the delicious delicacies.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:22 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And, you know, the locals would say, look, you got to eat everything.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:24 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You don't want to insult our host's hospitality.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:27 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And the rule I learned was, don't tell me what it is.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:30 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And then you won't run up against any of my cultural prejudices against, I don't know, sea snake or a deer pizzle, stag pizzle soup.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:39 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Or if I didn't know what it was, then I'd go, oh, this is delicious.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:41 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And then I found out afterwards what it was.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:43 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I'd be like, oh, I would have had a really

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:45 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  hard time eating that if I'd known what it was beforehand.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:48 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So that travel really broke all my old inhibitions about trying new things that I had as a little kid.

  ‍ ‍

  00:05:55 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  But I often, you know, I will still occasionally make that sardine onion mustard sandwich and not think of my dad who's gone some years now.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:03 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's amazing how food can transport you memory wise.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:06 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I just recently asked my grandfather and a cup of coffee makes me think of him.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:10 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So every morning I sit with grandpa and I have a cup of coffee essentially.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:13 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I love that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:14 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I sit

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:15 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It used to be really sad and now I love it because it's something nobody can take away from me.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:18 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's like a complete memory, just like the sardine mustard sandwich and onion.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:21 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Sorry, I forgot about the onion, the pungency of all that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:24 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Yeah, it's really beautiful.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:25 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And you're so right about traveling abroad.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:27 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I think that's when my palate really opened up.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:29 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I think a lot of people probably say the same thing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:31 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  When I went to China for the first time, I actually decided to do myself a real good service and I went to a food St.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:36 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  tour my first night in.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:37 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So I got used to the textures and the flavorings and understood where things were coming from.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:42 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Ended up being a really fun group.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:44 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I remember thinking if

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:45 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  If I didn't do this, I wouldn't have survived the trip at all.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:48 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Also, pro tip, if you don't want to eat anything you don't know, just tell people you're a vegetarian.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:51 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It actually covers almost everything anyways.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:53 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So yeah, that's what I ended up doing a couple times when I was like, I don't know about this.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:58 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Just like, you know, I'm a vegetarian.

  ‍ ‍

  00:06:59 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And they're like, oh, no problem.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:00 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And actually, the vegetables are amazing anyway, so it was totally fine.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:04 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And also the rice and all the things.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:06 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And also, I'm really grateful that I learned how to use chopsticks before I went as well, because that level made-up quite a bit in the eyes of my hosts and was able to.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:15 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  navigate through things successfully, except I had to ask questions like, how do you eat a fried egg with chopsticks?

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:20 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  That was kind of wild.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:21 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I learned they taught me how to tear it with the chopsticks and things like that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:24 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And they later served on when I was in Japan quite frequently.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:27 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I could just survive.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:28 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So yeah, there's like these little things that you kind of pick up as you go and fix your palate and learn how to eat the food properly.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:34 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Because there's such an etiquette in how you eat as well in these places that can be really offensive if you do it wrong too.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:40 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  But yeah, China definitely opened up my horizons with food.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:44 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And to this day,

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:45 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I don't think I've had food that even rivals it in some ways, because we don't really make it in the States the same, obviously.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:51 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Maybe a few places, but nothing really formal.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:53 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Yeah, I do miss a couple things for sure, but that's fantastic.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:57 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Thank you for sharing that memory, and that's really beautiful.

  ‍ ‍

  00:07:59 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Thanks, James.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:00 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to everyone that's listening, because now they've already heard that we're foodies, so that's clear.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:05 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Yeah, so food nerds is my preferred term.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:08 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Use that to remind myself that, like any nerd of any stripe, we're useful to know when you have a problem.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:15 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  problem to solve, like, okay, I've got vegetarian halal and meat and potatoes eaters.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:20 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  What's one place that can serve all their needs?

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:22 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  It's like, oh, I've got several suggestions for you there.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:25 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  But also like nerds, we can be painful to get cornered at a cocktail party and droning on and on about our latest cooking excursions or restaurant experiences.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:36 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So I'm James Flavey.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:37 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I'm the Director of Cyber Protection at Acronis.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:40 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  My core responsibilities these days are around our operational

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:45 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  technology solution.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:46 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So Acronis is in the business of endpoint security, backup disaster recovery, and remote endpoint management.

  ‍ ‍

  00:08:55 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And that gets used by our customers around the world in a bunch of different ways.

  ‍ ‍

  00:09:01 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So one example is managed service providers.

  ‍ ‍

  00:09:03 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  We're basically IT outsourcers for small businesses, use our platform to serve as the IT and cybersecurity department for small businesses.

  ‍ ‍

  00:09:11 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  A large chunk of our business goes out that way.

  ‍ ‍

  00:09:14 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And then there's our OT business, which is quietly kind of our big success story in the enterprise.

  ‍ ‍

  00:09:20 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And what we do is provide cyber resilience for PC-based platforms,

  ‍ ‍

  00:09:25 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  In OT environments, so data systems, HMIs, data historians, any Windows or Linux-based system that's used to control lower-level technology like sensors, actuators, programmable logic controllers, IoT devices, on and on and on like that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:09:46 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Our other kind of great strength there is our partnerships.

  ‍ ‍

  00:09:49 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Most of the major automation vendors in the world use Acronis as their OT resilience solution for, so they are either reference selling us, white labeling us, or co-branding our solution to their customers saying, Look, if you want to keep our automation equipment, minimize downtime, you want to tick this box on your order, and then they get Acronis.

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:10 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Having their kind of endorsement, having tested and field tested our technology

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:16 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  in referring to it is probably our biggest strength.

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:19 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You know, there's a challenge being a company that's whose much of their business is in IT going into operational technology environments.

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:26 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Like what do you know about agriculture?

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:28 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  What do you know about mining?

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:30 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  What do you know about robotic logistics warehouses?

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:35 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You're in IT in those kind of office environments or home office environments.

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:40 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And that's a legitimate criticism of a lot of vendors in our space, but we've been

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:46 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  been around for over 20 years and working in industrial environments for that long.

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:51 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  But the best endorsement of that is the kind of people who use us and that reference us.

  ‍ ‍

  00:10:58 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You know, think of like Emerson and Rockwell and Yokogawa and ABB.

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:04 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  These are all among the kind of giants of industrial automation worldwide.

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:08 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And having their endorsement, their armor on this really gives us a lot of credibility up in that space.

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:14 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  That's great.

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:15 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Thank you for this reference.

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:16 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  How did you get into this company?

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:18 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Where'd you come from before?

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:19 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Give me a little bit of your background so we can lead the listeners to why we're talking.

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:23 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So my career has kind of two halves.

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:25 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I started as a systems engineer in the networking business in the early days of the build-out of internet infrastructure worldwide.

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:33 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So I worked for one of the two big router companies, and I went from systems engineer to...

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:39 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  product manager to product marketing person, and from product marketing into solutions and vertical marketing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:45 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And doing that for a number of networking vendors and later cybersecurity vendors, that's probably half my career.

  ‍ ‍

  00:11:51 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  The other half I've spent as an industry analyst at companies like Forrester Research, the Bygone, Yankee Group, and some smaller boutique kind of research companies, initially covering networking and the later cybersecurity.

  ‍ ‍

  00:12:07 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  That's what I was doing before

  ‍ ‍

  00:12:09 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  When I joined Acronis, I was at a boutique house called HFS Research and writing about cloud security.

  ‍ ‍

  00:12:16 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  This was a little over 10 years ago.

  ‍ ‍

  00:12:18 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And the challenge there was convincing enterprise buyers that the cloud was a safe place to play, that there was still resistance at that time to moving your sensitive data into the cloud.

  ‍ ‍

  00:12:28 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And my research basically showed that like, well, they're actually better at cybersecurity than you are.

  ‍ ‍

  00:12:33 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So you're probably okay to start taking advantages of the scale and cost economies of SaaS.

  ‍ ‍

  00:12:39 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  and cloud computing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:12:41 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Acronis hired me originally to help them with some demand Gen.

  ‍ ‍

  00:12:46 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  problems, but then they took their first splash in the cybersecurity pool, and I was one of a handful of people in the company who had a cybersecurity background, so they moved me into a product marketing role.

  ‍ ‍

  00:12:58 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  That evolved into a solutions marketing role.

  ‍ ‍

  00:13:00 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  After some years of being far too quiet about our OT story, they decided that we should really tell the world more about that, and that's the kind of role that I

  ‍ ‍

  00:13:09 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  and now is kind of educating our customers, our prospects about what we're doing in OT.

  ‍ ‍

  00:13:15 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Historically, we're famous for backup and security, but on the IT side of the house.

  ‍ ‍

  00:13:20 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And it's interesting that you spent time talking about moving to the cloud for enterprise, and now the conversation of moving to the cloud for OT is happening, and everybody is anti it for the moment, and that's okay.

  ‍ ‍

  00:13:33 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I understand the on-prem bit and how important that is.

  ‍ ‍

  00:13:37 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So in a way, you've kind of recycled your

  ‍ ‍

  00:13:39 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  career a bit, because here we go, we're into this whole new section of cloud-based OT and ICS.

  ‍ ‍

  00:13:46 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I don't mean everybody needs to switch there, and that's a big debate for another show, but it is definitely something that's on the horizon, and especially when it comes to different critical infrastructure that's mobile and moving, logistics, transportation, agriculture, Bing, seafood, fleets, you name it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:03 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Those are going to require cloud for quite a bit of things, especially when you

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:09 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  take into account the ability to have more real-time data and make better decisions.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:15 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  That's going to be an interesting moment.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:17 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And at the moment I'm proceeding and I'm cautiously optimistic about it, but also I completely understand the on-prem moment because it's much easier to go unplug something if something goes wrong than it is to shut down the cloud.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:28 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I mean, we really can't shut down the cloud.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:31 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Yeah, adopting is going to be really interesting in these different sectors, I think, coming up James.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:34 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  That's a really, you just made me go very curious in my mind.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:37 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I was like, yeah, that's really interesting because I just had this conversation

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:39 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  a couple of days ago with the utility company and how they're really anti-cloud because they can't control it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:45 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  They feel as much as they can with on-prem.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:47 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  The physical, cyber-physical aspects are very much a real thing, even for the practitioners who manage and run.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:54 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's not just what you do in the digital world has an impact on the physical world.

  ‍ ‍

  00:14:57 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We need to be able to impact the physical world if we have something that we feel is going to cause a problem as well.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:02 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So thank you for making me go down that rabbit hole in my mind while you were talking, because that's exactly what I was like.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:07 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I think it's a really trenchant point rate.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:09 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  now in that we really have to meet our customers wherever they are on that adoption curve.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:16 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Okay, quick pause because James just mentioned a couple things that people in operational technology or OT say casually, but everyone else hears it like someone suddenly switched the podcast into Klingon.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:28 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Let me translate.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:30 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  First up, the Purdue model.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:32 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Think of

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:32 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  like a very structured, layered cake.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:35 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  At the top, you've got your business systems, so your e-mail, billing, accounting, all the non-glamorous things that make up a company.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:41 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  At the bottom layer are the systems that directly interact with the physical world.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:46 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  The machines, the sensors, and controls that actually move product, keep temperature stable, grind feed, pump water, and run a packaging line.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:54 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And the pull point is everything has its place, and those layers aren't supposed to mix freely.

  ‍ ‍

  00:15:59 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You don't want someone in the office accidentally interacting with the same

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:02 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  network that controls your refrigeration system.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:04 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Just like you don't mix raw chicken juice with cake frosting.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:08 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Same energy.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:09 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Next term, air-gapped.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:11 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  This one is literal.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:12 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  The system is physically isolated from the internet.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:15 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  No Wi-Fi, no cloud, no remote connection, nothing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:19 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's like a walk-in cooler with no outside door.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:21 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  If you want access, you have to already be inside the building.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:25 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Great for reducing cyber risk, terrible when you need urgent help, and your IT person is 3 states away.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:30 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And then we get into the big one.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:32 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Why OT systems don't patch like your phone or your laptop?

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:36 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  In OT, patching can break things, not metaphorically, but physically.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:40 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  A control system might be running on a 15 to 20 year old operating system because...

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:46 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It controls a mixer or an evaporator or a bottle line, and the vendor-qualified software hasn't been updated in a decade.

  ‍ ‍

  00:16:54 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Updating it might introduce a glitch, remove support for a driver, or change timing, and in OT, timing matters.

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:01 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's not negligence, it's just reality.

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:04 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  If you patch something that's been quietly running a pasteurizer since 2005, you might not just break the software, you might break the pasteurizer, and the cheese, and the day everyone's working there.

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:15 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So when James talks about

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:16 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  stability, long life cycles, and not poking things until you're absolutely needing to.

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  That's why.

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  OT lives firmly in the category of, please don't touch that unless something is actually on fire.

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:28 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Because in food and agriculture, touching the wrong system at the wrong time can cause downtime, spoilage, food safety issues, employee safety issues, and a very awkward call explaining why your cold storage suddenly isn't cold.

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:41 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  All right, back to James.

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:45 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  For instance, one thing that we do that is allow for a completely premise-based solution.

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:50 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So if you're doing Purdue model segmentation or air gapping, that's not a problem for us.

  ‍ ‍

  00:17:56 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You find that many tech solutions now require management from a cloud-based console.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:02 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And that's not going to fly in an air-gapped environment.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:04 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  It's going to be very difficult if you're Purdue-based.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:07 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  But we also have customers who have started opening up those environments.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:11 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So for instance, we're able to feed into a kind of

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:14 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  a corporate central console with information about OT environments at factories, say, that are scattered around the world.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:22 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And it kind of, it's a one-way feed for a lot of these folks.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:26 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  They don't want to break Purdue in doing it, but we can help them do that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:30 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And because we integrate data protection backup with cybersecurity, we can pull them along into better endpoint protection as they open things up more and open up attack surfaces to things like ransomware.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:44 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  that they didn't have to really worry about when they had the kind of the castle with the moat kind of approach to security.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:51 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Yes, I completely get that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:53 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I feel like sometimes that's the good old days and we all wish for that again.

  ‍ ‍

  00:18:56 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  But here we are in a new digital world where anybody can pretty much touch you at any time, which is terrifying in itself.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:02 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I can't take those rose tinted glasses off.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:05 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We all see it for what it is now.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:06 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So, and this is just a swing back just a tad.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:08 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I have so many thoughts here.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:10 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  How do you like being in the OTICS space?

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:12 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Because you came originally, you didn't come originally from there.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:14 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I think a lot of us who are in OTICS, generally speaking, came out of IT back in the day.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:19 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  But how do you like being on the OTICS side a little bit more than you?

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  you were before.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:23 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Do you feel welcomed?

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:24 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Are you enjoying it?

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:25 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I have lots of opinions, obviously, but I would love to hear yours.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:28 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Well, it's completely fascinating to me because, you know, who wants to kind of shunt along in the same lane in technology forever?

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:36 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  It's kind of one of the great things about being in tech is that there's some kind of transformative wave that comes along every few years and you've got to kind of constantly be learning, right?

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:48 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You know, we're all sharks, right?

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:50 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  If we slow down, we

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:52 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  will die.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:53 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  But I particularly love digging into the industrial side of things.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:57 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I think about kind of my roots.

  ‍ ‍

  00:19:59 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I have a family who are farmers.

  ‍ ‍

  00:20:02 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So this is cousins and second cousins and uncles and great uncles in Broome County and Shenango County, New York.

  ‍ ‍

  00:20:10 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  This is kind of upstate New York near the Pennsylvania line.

  ‍ ‍

  00:20:15 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And, you know, getting together with that family in those days meant paying horseback riding one uncle

  ‍ ‍

  00:20:22 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  was cattle breeder.

  ‍ ‍

  00:20:24 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So when you went to get the adults a beer, you had to make sure to go to the right refrigerator in the kitchen because the other one was full with stuff that wasn't for human use.

  ‍ ‍

  00:20:37 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Yeah, I got you.

  ‍ ‍

  00:20:38 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You know, I've kind of grown away from that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:20:41 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You know, my folks moved to New England and I became, you know, the city kid with the job in networking and cybersecurity, which, you know, was a little better understood nowadays, but

  ‍ ‍

  00:20:52 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  in my career, it was sort of impossible to explain to people who weren't in tech what the heck it was that we did.

  ‍ ‍

  00:20:58 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And so, but again, you have, there's also some reuse of challenges.

  ‍ ‍

  00:21:03 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You alluded to this transition from a kind of premise-based computing to the cloud, and there is a similar kind of transition going on here and similar difficulties.

  ‍ ‍

  00:21:14 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Absolutely understand the resistance.

  ‍ ‍

  00:21:16 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Like you spent your whole career making sure that nothing messes with this great automation set of

  ‍ ‍

  00:21:22 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  that you have where downtime is extremely expensive, tinkering is really discouraged, right?

  ‍ ‍

  00:21:28 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Let alone opening up the environment to potential new threats.

  ‍ ‍

  00:21:32 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So these are concerns that I understand and have heard before.

  ‍ ‍

  00:21:37 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And frankly, we're in a period where we haven't figured out all the issues yet.

  ‍ ‍

  00:21:42 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And we're starting to see really ominous shifts in the threat environment where critical infrastructure, which ag is now considered a part of by

  ‍ ‍

  00:21:52 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  cybersecurity standards bodies and national governments is really increasingly becoming targeted.

  ‍ ‍

  00:21:58 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I don't know how much you talk about attacks on the show, but I just look at there's been a bunch of them over the in recent years and they seem to be growing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:06 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Probably the JBS attack, I think is the one that probably most people who aren't in tech are probably aware of.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:13 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  But you know, I don't want to I can reiterate a bunch of them.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:16 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I imagine this is something that your audience is well familiar with.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:19 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We do talk about it quite frequently.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:20 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I think that they're great

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  great examples, but I always say they're the known ones.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:25 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's the unknown that scare me half to death because those big corporations had to, because they're publicly traded, because the SEC regulations, so of course we're going to find out about them.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:34 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  But we don't know always what the issues are.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:38 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Like the Amazon distribution one, that one that supplied for Whole Foods, we don't know what happened, but it reads like ransomware.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:44 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We can speculate based on knowledge of the industry, but they have not disclosed what it was.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:49 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I feel like there should be some type of disclosure within these

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:52 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  particular rules that tells you what it is.

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:55 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  How are you going to prepare an industry for something if we don't know what it is?

  ‍ ‍

  00:22:58 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Just an attack doesn't, I mean, that's like saying Godzilla attacked and you're just going to, that's it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:03 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You don't know how he attacked, where he came from.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:05 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Was it another creature involved?

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:07 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We don't know.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:08 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We just know that it happened.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:09 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So I think we're doing a bit of a disservice to the food and ag industry by not having more disclosure.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:14 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And then you, on top of it, if there's a small, medium-sized farms or different CPGs or small businesses and things like that, we don't know.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  if they got hit.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:23 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's kind of word of mouth, it's community.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:24 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And as you know, James, there's a lot of shame that comes with being in an attack, so people don't want to talk about it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:30 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And then if you are in food and ag, it's an OT issue as well as an IT issue, generally speaking, because everything intersects with the physical world.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:37 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  The incidents that are happening are becoming more frequent, yes.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:40 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I think that it's an iceberg issue.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:42 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I think that we see just the small tip of what's actually going on.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:46 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Also, we have nation states that are involved.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:49 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  The dairy industry's been getting punched in the face, literally, lately.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:52 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And now we've have loss of life.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:54 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Cows are passing because they don't have access to real-time data when they're distressed.

  ‍ ‍

  00:23:58 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So there's a lot of things going on here.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:00 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And also we have the ag tech community that's innovative and excited and pushing forward and all this great investment.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:08 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And they're not doing it securely.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:10 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's not secure by design.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:11 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So we've got these other things that are being added where different considerations for security have to be put into place.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:17 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  But again, this falls back onto places that don't have teams, don't have OT, don't have a SIEM, don't have a

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  a sock, don't have a knock, don't have any of this stuff.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:24 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And it's just, you know, Mr.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:26 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  and Mrs.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:26 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Farmers that are standing there going, I need to put this wearable on my cow so I know when it's going to drop a calf.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:33 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I mean, is it secure?

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:35 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I don't know.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:35 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It connects to my phone.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:36 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Is my phone secure?

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:37 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I assume.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:38 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And there's all these questions around that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:40 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I don't want people in food and agriculture, this is my biggest fear, to just put their heads in the sand like an ostrich.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:45 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I want people to be informed on risk and blended into their safety practices as much as possible.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:50 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Have their stop-drop-roll type moments.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:52 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  because these are the people that feed us.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:54 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  This is what creates our memories of our childhood and various other aspects of our lives.

  ‍ ‍

  00:24:59 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  The idea of that being attacked is so disturbing to me and viscerally disturbing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:05 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Like I am horrified by it every day.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:08 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And these people that have to be resilient in a different capacity than already they're doing, because being a farmer is very complicated and hard nowadays.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:16 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And it's not an easy path.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:18 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And we need more first-gen farmers.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:19 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And it's really hard to get in.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:20 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And there's all these different parts of the ag business that are just a lot.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:24 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's A lot.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:24 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And then you want to add a cybersecurity level onto it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:27 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I know I understand in a lot of ways why mental health is such a huge issue in that particular industry and why I continually talk about this and why I advocate and why I have this show and why I work with the industry the way I do.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:39 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  because we need more people to come along and make it normal.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:41 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Like it's normal to talk about an attack.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:43 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's normal to talk about what we got to do to fix it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:45 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Or it's normal to have a resilience conversation so, you know, you can bypass you and you could survive whatever happens.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:50 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And that's...

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:52 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  That's the real trick of it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:54 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And again, like I said, going back to your original statement, we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg.

  ‍ ‍

  00:25:58 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  There's so much more going on and it's scary.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:01 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  There's so many like little nuances to this and it's, and I'm glad that people are waking up that agriculture is part of critical infrastructure, even though the US didn't add it to the list until 2020.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:13 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Like I still don't know why they didn't add it sooner.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:15 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Everybody else had it on there.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:16 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  But I think that the more people who get educated in what agriculture is and what the business is,

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's not as simple as people think it is.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:24 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It looks simple for the most part.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:26 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  People make it look easy, but it's not.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:28 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And also, it's such a big industry.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:30 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's an industry-wide big thing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:31 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's not just the small farms.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:33 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's also the grain silos and it's the distribution networks and it's the transportation that goes around it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:39 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's the cold storage.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:41 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  The cold storage is like a whole thing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:43 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Like that's getting attacked too.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:44 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And it's wild to me that as OT, we are very much system thinkers.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:49 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You know, when something happens over here, it happens over here.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:52 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And yet we're the weirdos because nobody actually thinks like that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:26:55 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Apparently that's not common as people remind me all the time, because I'm like, well, why didn't people realize that if they'd have this, it's cause and effect?

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:01 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Why wouldn't they?

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:02 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  They're like, oh, well, you're a nerd, basically back at me.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:05 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I'm like, I didn't realize that's what it was.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:07 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I'm sure, and you already strike me as a systems thinker, James.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:10 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So I think that you completely get what I'm saying.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:12 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And maybe that's why you've taken to OT quite well, like a fish and water.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:18 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's definitely something that you're enjoying.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:20 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I can tell you're enjoying because the way you talk about it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So that's great.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:24 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I'm glad that you can pull from your roots.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:26 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You understand what farming looks like.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:28 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  How else are we going to have great food stories and culture and tradition if we don't have people doing that and keep doing it securely?

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:36 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I don't think that every farmer needs to go out and take a cybersecurity course necessarily.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:40 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I don't know if we're quite there yet.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:41 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We might be at that tipping point, but I don't know.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:44 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's going to be hard because we're going to have to adapt tech that we have for them in that regard.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:49 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I mean, yeah, sure.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:50 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Food manufacturing, absolutely.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:51 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You can have all the bells and whistles and all the things.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:53 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  The CPG is the same thing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:27:54 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  To have it on a farm level is going to be complicated and really take some real ingenuity to create something that can give a better monitoring experience.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:03 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I don't think we're quite there yet.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:05 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I think we're getting there.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:06 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I just wish that AgTech would start creating things more securely.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:08 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  That would be my one wish.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:10 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  If people asked me what my wish was for the world, AgTech creates things securely so farmers don't have to worry.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:19 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And thank you for listening.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:20 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to like, comment, follow, and share it with someone who'd appreciate it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:26 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Every bit of support helps more people find these conversations, and I'm so grateful for all the messages.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:32 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  all the feedback and all the stories you've been sending.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:35 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Thank you for reaching out and letting me know how much the show has resonated with you.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:38 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And because we're heading into the holiday season, I want to encourage you to help where you can.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:43 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Donate to a local food pantry.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:45 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You could find one at findhelp.org.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:48 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Call a local farm and ask if you can sponsor a farm share for a family in need.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:51 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's easy to find a place to start by going to localharvest.org.

  ‍ ‍

  00:28:55 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Reach out to a local school and see if you could support them for breakfast or lunch, or just be a grocery buddy for someone nearby who could use the help.

  ‍ ‍

  00:29:03 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Food insecurity isn't just an American issue, it's worldwide.

  ‍ ‍

  00:29:06 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And while I'm not sponsored by any of these organizations, I believe if we have tools or resources, we can use them to make sure people have access to food.

  ‍ ‍

  00:29:15 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Thank you for caring, and back to the episode.

  ‍ ‍

  00:29:20 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  It's funny, when you talk about the psychological aspect of it, that really plays to something important that I've seen going on in recent years.

  ‍ ‍

  00:29:29 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Again, Acronis started as a backup company and then we got into the cybersecurity business and coined this term cyber protection, which was the idea that defense and recovery should be integrated.

  ‍ ‍

  00:29:39 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I've kind of seen the world come around to that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:29:42 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  If you look at recent additions of cybersecurity regulations or recent

  ‍ ‍

  00:29:48 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  revs of cybersecurity standards, or you look at the requirements that you're getting from your insurance company, if you want a cyber insurance policy to help mitigate the cost of recovering from a ransomware attack, for instance, they have all placed this new emphasis on recovery.

  ‍ ‍

  00:30:06 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So if you look at NIST CSF 2.0, the NIS2 regulations in the EU, or you've talked to your insurer recently, a few years ago, they were all about make sure you're using multifactor

  ‍ ‍

  00:30:18 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  authentication and that you're encrypting your data and that you have antivirus protection.

  ‍ ‍

  00:30:23 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Now there are new planks in those standards and those regulations in those insurance requirements that say, make sure you're following industry best practices for backup.

  ‍ ‍

  00:30:33 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Have an incident response plan in place.

  ‍ ‍

  00:30:35 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Think about disaster recovery.

  ‍ ‍

  00:30:38 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And this kind of recovery capability in OT takes on new dimensions.

  ‍ ‍

  00:30:44 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  The downtime costs tend to be much, much greater, right?

  ‍ ‍

  00:30:48 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So the idea of being able to recover very quickly is important.

  ‍ ‍

  00:30:52 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Another issue that you have is you don't have trained IT people around in many of these environments.

  ‍ ‍

  00:30:58 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You're out on an oil rig, or you're in a mine at the edge of the jungle, or a remote distribution facility, or you're in a farm in the heartland.

  ‍ ‍

  00:31:09 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You don't have IT people who are, you know, at your beck and call.

  ‍ ‍

  00:31:13 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And if you are air gapped for security reasons, people that might

  ‍ ‍

  00:31:18 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  be able to help you with the remote tools, say try to come up RDP into your desktop, they can't do that, right?

  ‍ ‍

  00:31:24 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Another issue that you've got is the equipment life cycles involved in OT.

  ‍ ‍

  00:31:29 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  This technology is designed to last 10, 20, even 30 years, whereas IT people are used to cycling through stuff every three to five years, doing constant updates.

  ‍ ‍

  00:31:39 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  In many OT environments, we see Windows XP PCs being used to control the environment or really ancient builds of Linux.

  ‍ ‍

  00:31:48 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  You don't want to update those or patch them if you can help it, because you might lose some functionality or break your ability to monitor or control or configure the lower level operational technology.

  ‍ ‍

  00:32:01 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So stability is super, super important in these environments.

  ‍ ‍

  00:32:05 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So one of the ways that we address this is that we never walked away from those old operating systems.

  ‍ ‍

  00:32:12 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Another big issue is how do you recover if IT is hours or days away?

  ‍ ‍

  00:32:18 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  We've made it simple enough that you can basically do a recovery from a local backup and the ability to restore from a known working image uncorrupted by ransomware or without the update that you just did that broke something.

  ‍ ‍

  00:32:33 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And to do that in a matter of minutes, that's super, super valuable, right?

  ‍ ‍

  00:32:37 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  When the clock is ticking on that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:32:41 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Kind of grappling with those realities of operational technology environments has really to deal with these kind of

  ‍ ‍

  00:32:48 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  requirements where it's like, what's your story for backup?

  ‍ ‍

  00:32:51 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  How quickly can you recover?

  ‍ ‍

  00:32:53 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  What is your plan in the event of a cyber attack or a hardware failure or somebody plugging something into the machine like a USB stick that they shouldn't?

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:03 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And this gets more important as these environments open up and as just in general, the threat environment has gotten more dire.

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:10 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I know you're well familiar with the kind of the ongoing industrialization of cybercrime and how that's meant that it's cheaper,

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:18 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  to mount more and more frequent attacks.

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:21 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  The sophistication is getting higher.

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:23 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Now we've got Gen.

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:25 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  AI tools being used by the bad guys so that phishing attacks are getting more effective, right?

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:31 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  The phishing emails are perfect and the calls to action are more compelling and they can mount them at greater scale.

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:38 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So all these things, these pressures are starting to come to bear on OT environments.

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:44 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So you need to start thinking about improving your cyber defenses

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:48 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  But your last line of defense always is the ability to quickly recover, right?

  ‍ ‍

  00:33:53 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So you want to do as much as you can to reduce the risk of cyber threats with defensive measures.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:00 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  But our adversaries are generally a step ahead of us and, again, can enlist armies of not very bright people to do most of the dirty work for them in ways that we can't possibly keep up with the frequency and the growing sophistication of the attacks.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:15 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So you really need that break

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:18 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  in case of emergency recovery mechanism.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:21 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Yeah, I think it's super important to note the backup aspect, like in JBS's example, if they were able to come back up faster and they couldn't because that was broken as well.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:30 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So there was a lot of aspects about it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:32 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  I think the thing about food and agriculture that I've noticed more and more is the social engineering component.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:37 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You already mentioned fishing as a great example.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:40 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Doxing is super popular now too.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:42 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Deep fakes are heavy in the industry as well.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:45 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And AI is driving that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:46 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's learned behavior.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:48 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  For everything that is good, it's also equally evil.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:50 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's really just there.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:52 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And I think the social engineering aspects around OT are going to hit a breaking point at some point, I think.

  ‍ ‍

  00:34:58 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We are definitely at a place now where educating people on how to behave and how to be defensive as well as responsive is becoming, I think, more of the norm.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:08 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We're not quite there yet, but I think people are getting it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:10 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And that makes me really happy because when we go to things like backups and being more proactive, it's going to be a lot more easy to adopt.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:18 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  stopped moving forward.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:19 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And yeah, there's some really nasty people out there doing really horrible things, obviously.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And it's so scary that you could just dial it up as a service now.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:27 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Just hacking as a service, ransomware as a service, whatever you want to call it, is terrifying.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:31 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And you're right, they're ahead of us in a lot of ways, because we're still playing catch up.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:35 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You know, we don't know what's in our systems.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:38 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We don't have asset control.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:39 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  We don't understand who's accessing when.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:41 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  There's all these different aspects.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:42 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Or you don't have any people.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:44 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You mentioned that earlier.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:44 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  There's no people to do the work.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:46 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So it's left up to people

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:48 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  who aren't technical to deal with it.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:49 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And they're just trying to get by.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:51 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And that's really the heart of the matter, especially in food and ag.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:54 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I recently had the family password conversation with my extended family.

  ‍ ‍

  00:35:58 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  We were all together for a kind of a reunion.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:01 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And the concern I had was around deep fake technology, particularly around voice, which is extremely easy to do.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:08 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And the scenario I painted was, grandma gets a phone call from someone who sounds exactly like one of her grandchildren, who's saying, oh, I was in a car accident.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:18 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  and they put me in jail and I need money to bail me out.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:22 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I don't want to spend the weekend in jail, grandma.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:24 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Can you help me out?

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:26 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And of course, that's not my nephew.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:29 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  That is a deepfake of his voice, which you only need about a 30-second audio sample to do a convincing deepfake.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:36 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So not everyone in my family knows a passphrase that they can challenge a caller in a dire situation like this and say, What's the family passphrase?

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:44 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  And if they don't know it, then they know it's a fake.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:46 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  So I'm

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:48 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  and spreading that stratagem around or around my extended family and friends is too.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:54 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's an excellent strategy.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:56 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It's an excellent strategy and it should be updated annually as well.

  ‍ ‍

  00:36:59 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You don't want to, you should have a different one every time.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:01 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Basic human behavior one-on-one based, and it's such an easy thing to do and such a simple thing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:07 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And that doesn't necessarily imply just for those phone calls and those scams.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:11 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It could be if you're out and about and you have an emergency, you could just say the password and people will know that you're in trouble.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:16 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Those kind of things.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:16 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It also goes into those places.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:18 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  places.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:18 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Sadly, I think we live in a world where we're going to all need those for various reasons at some point, and it's a good thing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:23 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So that's an excellent thing to do with your family.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:26 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  James, this has been a great conversation, and I have really enjoyed your wisdom because you're speaking truth to a lot of things that are happening, and you have a really good vision of what's going on and what needs to be done.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:36 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  So thank you so much for that.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:37 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  As we're leaving, any final words?

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:39 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Sure, Kristen.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:40 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  I just want to say, likewise, what a great pleasure it's been to be part of your podcast.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:45 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Thanks so much, James.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:46 James Slaby

  ‍ ‍

  Thanks again, Kristen.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:55 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And that's a wrap up today's episode.

  ‍ ‍

  00:37:57 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  A big thanks to James for joining me and sharing his perspectives on the realities of inside the systems and critical infrastructure.

  ‍ ‍

  00:38:02 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  And to you, thank you for listening, for sharing, and for being a part of the community.

  ‍ ‍

  00:38:07 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  If you enjoyed today's episode, remember to like, comment, follow, and share.

  ‍ ‍

  00:38:10 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  It really helps others find the show and keep these conversations growing.

  ‍ ‍

  00:38:14 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  You can also check out my Substack and the Bytes and Bytes podcast website for

  ‍ ‍

  00:38:18 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  additional content, behind the scenes updates, and reflections on the various episodes.

  ‍ ‍

  00:38:22 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  The link is in the show notes.

  ‍ ‍

  00:38:23 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Until next time, stay safe, stay curious, and I'll see you on the next one.

  ‍ ‍

  00:38:28 Kristin King

  ‍ ‍

  Bye for now.

  ‍ ‍

  ‍ ‍

  Audio file

  James Slaby_mixdown.mp3

  Transcript

  00:00:21 Kristin King

  Welcome back to the Bites and Bites podcast.

  00:00:23 Kristin King

  I'm your host, Kristen King.

  00:00:25 Kristin King

  This is the show where we explore the systems, technology, and human realities behind food and agriculture.

  00:00:31 Kristin King

  and sometimes the risks that we don't see until they hit us hard.

  00:00:34 Kristin King

  Today, we're joined by James Slaby, Director of OT Solutions, Go-to-Market at Acronis.

  00:00:41 Kristin King

  James has spent more than two decades analyzing and working in cybersecurity networking and industrial technologies.

  00:00:47 Kristin King

  In this conversation, we're going to dig into the systems that quietly produce our food, legacy equipment, air gap networks, ancient operating systems still controlling real-world machinery.

  00:00:58 Kristin King

  And what happens when modern cyber threats collide with outdated infrastructure?

  00:01:02 Kristin King

  We also talk about deepfakes, social engineering, recovery planning, and how everyday people, not just IT teams, are becoming part of the threat landscape.

  00:01:11 Kristin King

  So let's get into it.

  00:01:12 Kristin King

  Enjoy.

  00:01:15 Kristin King

  Well, as always, before anybody introduces themselves, we're going to go into favorite food and favorite food memory.

  00:01:20 Kristin King

  James, they do not need to be the same thing.

  00:01:22 Kristin King

  Go for it.

  00:01:23 James Slaby

  Sure.

  00:01:23 James Slaby

  So I'm originally a native of Buffalo, New York, and like the rest of my extended family, many of whom are still in that area, I'm kind of obsessed with buffalo wings.

  00:01:33 James Slaby

  Of course.

  00:01:34 James Slaby

  But something I discovered, which really surprised me, is that there's a superior gloss on the fried chicken wing, and that is Korean-style fried chicken.

  00:01:44 James Slaby

  What they did

  00:01:45 James Slaby

  I've concluded that makes it even better than my beloved original buffalo wings is that they do a two-step fry.

  00:01:52 James Slaby

  They first fry the wings in low temperature oil to cook them all the way through, and then they do a second fry in a higher temperature oil to crisp the skin.

  00:02:01 James Slaby

  And then they'll hand paint on, there's many sauces, but the two most popular ones are gochujang, which is the Korean version of hot sauce.

  00:02:08 James Slaby

  It's slightly funky, slightly sweet flavor in addition to the capsaicin heat, and then-- Delicious.

  00:02:15 James Slaby

  Foley garlic.

  00:02:16 James Slaby

  And this is now my go-to.

  00:02:18 James Slaby

  If I show up for like a Super Bowl party or BBQ or something, I'll bring a big bucket of these.

  00:02:22 James Slaby

  And in particular, my friend's kids are absolutely crazy for the KOFC, I call it.

  00:02:29 James Slaby

  So that's it.

  00:02:30 James Slaby

  So I'm always down for traditional buffalo wings.

  00:02:34 James Slaby

  My local watering hole in downtown Boston is a hundred year old Irish pub.

  00:02:39 James Slaby

  Same family has run it the whole time.

  00:02:40 James Slaby

  They do beautiful chicken wings.

  00:02:42 James Slaby

  Shout out to JJ Foley's Cafe in Boston South End.

  00:02:45 James Slaby

  Koreans have figured out a modest improvement that I think is really worth checking out if you get the chance.

  00:02:50 Kristin King

  Yes, I definitely would agree.

  00:02:52 Kristin King

  There is a superior level of fried chicken in that area of the world.

  00:02:57 Kristin King

  The Japanese are also quite good at it.

  00:02:59 James Slaby

  Karaage is, I'm really digging karaage chicken these days too.

  00:03:02 Kristin King

  Yeah, it really is.

  00:03:03 Kristin King

  I feel like a little side of that with your ramen is just like the perfect meal, like super comforting at the whole thing.

  00:03:09 Kristin King

  I haven't had that in a minute.

  00:03:10 Kristin King

  I should probably get that.

  00:03:11 Kristin King

  Yeah, I totally understand this.

  00:03:12 Kristin King

  My stepsons are connoisseurs of fried

  00:03:15 Kristin King

  chicken and chicken sandwiches and anything to do with chicken that's breaded in general.

  00:03:19 Kristin King

  And they even have said something similar, like it's just the best chicken, like how it's fried the way it is.

  00:03:24 Kristin King

  It's kind of like a triple cooked chips or fries for us Americans in the UK.

  00:03:29 Kristin King

  There's just something about it.

  00:03:30 James Slaby

  Absolutely.

  00:03:31 James Slaby

  My own kind of home cooking efforts always run up against that.

  00:03:34 James Slaby

  It's either not cooked all the way through or it's overdone.

  00:03:37 James Slaby

  And I think that two-step process kind of solves all problems there.

  00:03:40 Kristin King

  Yes, for sure.

  00:03:41 Kristin King

  And so your favorite food memory then?

  00:03:43 James Slaby

  I fought long and hard.

  00:03:45 James Slaby

  about this.

  00:03:46 James Slaby

  I wasn't a super adventurous eater as a child.

  00:03:49 James Slaby

  I was kind of scared of most things, but I really trusted my dad and he was a kind of a 3 a.m.

  00:03:57 James Slaby

  snacker and I was a light sleeper.

  00:03:59 James Slaby

  So I would sometimes hear him stirring in the kitchen in the middle of the night and I would go down and, you know, this is a me four or five years old in my jammies.

  00:04:07 James Slaby

  And he'd be up making some kind of snack that was clearly evocative of the nostalgia of his youth.

  00:04:14 James Slaby

  And

  00:04:15 James Slaby

  My one sort of fondest memory of those late night meetings with my dad was he would make a sandwich of tinned sardines, raw onions, and yellow mustard on white bread.

  00:04:26 James Slaby

  Wow, that's intense.

  00:04:28 James Slaby

  So, you know, those were some beautiful moments along with my dad.

  00:04:32 James Slaby

  I'm from a big family.

  00:04:33 James Slaby

  There were eight of us all together.

  00:04:34 James Slaby

  And so the, you know, 10 minutes of time to himself without just sitting there quietly in the kitchen with nothing on, but the fluorescent light coming from the stove top are really cherished.

  00:04:45 James Slaby

  memories for me.

  00:04:46 James Slaby

  And I've since concluded that while I got braver about food as I got older, particularly as I started traveling internationally for work, that all my dad's favorites were very umami packed.

  00:04:58 James Slaby

  So things like sardines and pickled herring and calves liver.

  00:05:03 James Slaby

  Like I was the only one of my five brothers and sisters that liked the liver.

  00:05:06 James Slaby

  And I've since realized like, oh, I was like an umami hound.

  00:05:10 James Slaby

  And traveling abroad for work, particularly places like China where

  00:05:15 James Slaby

  A foreign guest would get the red carpet rolled out for them and served an elaborate banquet meal with all the delicious delicacies.

  00:05:22 James Slaby

  And, you know, the locals would say, look, you got to eat everything.

  00:05:24 James Slaby

  You don't want to insult our host's hospitality.

  00:05:27 James Slaby

  And the rule I learned was, don't tell me what it is.

  00:05:30 James Slaby

  And then you won't run up against any of my cultural prejudices against, I don't know, sea snake or a deer pizzle, stag pizzle soup.

  00:05:39 James Slaby

  Or if I didn't know what it was, then I'd go, oh, this is delicious.

  00:05:41 James Slaby

  And then I found out afterwards what it was.

  00:05:43 James Slaby

  I'd be like, oh, I would have had a really

  00:05:45 James Slaby

  hard time eating that if I'd known what it was beforehand.

  00:05:48 James Slaby

  So that travel really broke all my old inhibitions about trying new things that I had as a little kid.

  00:05:55 James Slaby

  But I often, you know, I will still occasionally make that sardine onion mustard sandwich and not think of my dad who's gone some years now.

  00:06:03 Kristin King

  It's amazing how food can transport you memory wise.

  00:06:06 Kristin King

  I just recently asked my grandfather and a cup of coffee makes me think of him.

  00:06:10 Kristin King

  So every morning I sit with grandpa and I have a cup of coffee essentially.

  00:06:13 Kristin King

  And I love that.

  00:06:14 Kristin King

  I sit

  00:06:15 Kristin King

  It used to be really sad and now I love it because it's something nobody can take away from me.

  00:06:18 Kristin King

  It's like a complete memory, just like the sardine mustard sandwich and onion.

  00:06:21 Kristin King

  Sorry, I forgot about the onion, the pungency of all that.

  00:06:24 Kristin King

  Yeah, it's really beautiful.

  00:06:25 Kristin King

  And you're so right about traveling abroad.

  00:06:27 Kristin King

  I think that's when my palate really opened up.

  00:06:29 Kristin King

  I think a lot of people probably say the same thing.

  00:06:31 Kristin King

  When I went to China for the first time, I actually decided to do myself a real good service and I went to a food St.

  00:06:36 Kristin King

  tour my first night in.

  00:06:37 Kristin King

  So I got used to the textures and the flavorings and understood where things were coming from.

  00:06:42 Kristin King

  Ended up being a really fun group.

  00:06:44 Kristin King

  I remember thinking if

  00:06:45 Kristin King

  If I didn't do this, I wouldn't have survived the trip at all.

  00:06:48 Kristin King

  Also, pro tip, if you don't want to eat anything you don't know, just tell people you're a vegetarian.

  00:06:51 Kristin King

  It actually covers almost everything anyways.

  00:06:53 Kristin King

  So yeah, that's what I ended up doing a couple times when I was like, I don't know about this.

  00:06:58 Kristin King

  Just like, you know, I'm a vegetarian.

  00:06:59 Kristin King

  And they're like, oh, no problem.

  00:07:00 Kristin King

  And actually, the vegetables are amazing anyway, so it was totally fine.

  00:07:04 Kristin King

  And also the rice and all the things.

  00:07:06 Kristin King

  And also, I'm really grateful that I learned how to use chopsticks before I went as well, because that level made-up quite a bit in the eyes of my hosts and was able to.

  00:07:15 Kristin King

  navigate through things successfully, except I had to ask questions like, how do you eat a fried egg with chopsticks?

  00:07:20 Kristin King

  That was kind of wild.

  00:07:21 Kristin King

  And I learned they taught me how to tear it with the chopsticks and things like that.

  00:07:24 Kristin King

  And they later served on when I was in Japan quite frequently.

  00:07:27 Kristin King

  I could just survive.

  00:07:28 Kristin King

  So yeah, there's like these little things that you kind of pick up as you go and fix your palate and learn how to eat the food properly.

  00:07:34 Kristin King

  Because there's such an etiquette in how you eat as well in these places that can be really offensive if you do it wrong too.

  00:07:40 Kristin King

  But yeah, China definitely opened up my horizons with food.

  00:07:44 Kristin King

  And to this day,

  00:07:45 Kristin King

  I don't think I've had food that even rivals it in some ways, because we don't really make it in the States the same, obviously.

  00:07:51 Kristin King

  Maybe a few places, but nothing really formal.

  00:07:53 Kristin King

  Yeah, I do miss a couple things for sure, but that's fantastic.

  00:07:57 Kristin King

  Thank you for sharing that memory, and that's really beautiful.

  00:07:59 Kristin King

  Thanks, James.

  00:08:00 Kristin King

  Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to everyone that's listening, because now they've already heard that we're foodies, so that's clear.

  00:08:05 James Slaby

  Yeah, so food nerds is my preferred term.

  00:08:08 James Slaby

  Use that to remind myself that, like any nerd of any stripe, we're useful to know when you have a problem.

  00:08:15 James Slaby

  problem to solve, like, okay, I've got vegetarian halal and meat and potatoes eaters.

  00:08:20 James Slaby

  What's one place that can serve all their needs?

  00:08:22 James Slaby

  It's like, oh, I've got several suggestions for you there.

  00:08:25 James Slaby

  But also like nerds, we can be painful to get cornered at a cocktail party and droning on and on about our latest cooking excursions or restaurant experiences.

  00:08:36 James Slaby

  So I'm James Flavey.

  00:08:37 James Slaby

  I'm the Director of Cyber Protection at Acronis.

  00:08:40 James Slaby

  My core responsibilities these days are around our operational

  00:08:45 James Slaby

  technology solution.

  00:08:46 James Slaby

  So Acronis is in the business of endpoint security, backup disaster recovery, and remote endpoint management.

  00:08:55 James Slaby

  And that gets used by our customers around the world in a bunch of different ways.

  00:09:01 James Slaby

  So one example is managed service providers.

  00:09:03 James Slaby

  We're basically IT outsourcers for small businesses, use our platform to serve as the IT and cybersecurity department for small businesses.

  00:09:11 James Slaby

  A large chunk of our business goes out that way.

  00:09:14 James Slaby

  And then there's our OT business, which is quietly kind of our big success story in the enterprise.

  00:09:20 James Slaby

  And what we do is provide cyber resilience for PC-based platforms,

  00:09:25 James Slaby

  In OT environments, so data systems, HMIs, data historians, any Windows or Linux-based system that's used to control lower-level technology like sensors, actuators, programmable logic controllers, IoT devices, on and on and on like that.

  00:09:46 James Slaby

  Our other kind of great strength there is our partnerships.

  00:09:49 James Slaby

  Most of the major automation vendors in the world use Acronis as their OT resilience solution for, so they are either reference selling us, white labeling us, or co-branding our solution to their customers saying, Look, if you want to keep our automation equipment, minimize downtime, you want to tick this box on your order, and then they get Acronis.

  00:10:10 James Slaby

  Having their kind of endorsement, having tested and field tested our technology

  00:10:16 James Slaby

  in referring to it is probably our biggest strength.

  00:10:19 James Slaby

  You know, there's a challenge being a company that's whose much of their business is in IT going into operational technology environments.

  00:10:26 James Slaby

  Like what do you know about agriculture?

  00:10:28 James Slaby

  What do you know about mining?

  00:10:30 James Slaby

  What do you know about robotic logistics warehouses?

  00:10:35 James Slaby

  You're in IT in those kind of office environments or home office environments.

  00:10:40 James Slaby

  And that's a legitimate criticism of a lot of vendors in our space, but we've been

  00:10:46 James Slaby

  been around for over 20 years and working in industrial environments for that long.

  00:10:51 James Slaby

  But the best endorsement of that is the kind of people who use us and that reference us.

  00:10:58 James Slaby

  You know, think of like Emerson and Rockwell and Yokogawa and ABB.

  00:11:04 James Slaby

  These are all among the kind of giants of industrial automation worldwide.

  00:11:08 James Slaby

  And having their endorsement, their armor on this really gives us a lot of credibility up in that space.

  00:11:14 Kristin King

  That's great.

  00:11:15 Kristin King

  Thank you for this reference.

  00:11:16 Kristin King

  How did you get into this company?

  00:11:18 Kristin King

  Where'd you come from before?

  00:11:19 Kristin King

  Give me a little bit of your background so we can lead the listeners to why we're talking.

  00:11:23 James Slaby

  So my career has kind of two halves.

  00:11:25 James Slaby

  I started as a systems engineer in the networking business in the early days of the build-out of internet infrastructure worldwide.

  00:11:33 James Slaby

  So I worked for one of the two big router companies, and I went from systems engineer to...

  00:11:39 James Slaby

  product manager to product marketing person, and from product marketing into solutions and vertical marketing.

  00:11:45 James Slaby

  And doing that for a number of networking vendors and later cybersecurity vendors, that's probably half my career.

  00:11:51 James Slaby

  The other half I've spent as an industry analyst at companies like Forrester Research, the Bygone, Yankee Group, and some smaller boutique kind of research companies, initially covering networking and the later cybersecurity.

  00:12:07 James Slaby

  That's what I was doing before

  00:12:09 James Slaby

  When I joined Acronis, I was at a boutique house called HFS Research and writing about cloud security.

  00:12:16 James Slaby

  This was a little over 10 years ago.

  00:12:18 James Slaby

  And the challenge there was convincing enterprise buyers that the cloud was a safe place to play, that there was still resistance at that time to moving your sensitive data into the cloud.

  00:12:28 James Slaby

  And my research basically showed that like, well, they're actually better at cybersecurity than you are.

  00:12:33 James Slaby

  So you're probably okay to start taking advantages of the scale and cost economies of SaaS.

  00:12:39 James Slaby

  and cloud computing.

  00:12:41 James Slaby

  Acronis hired me originally to help them with some demand Gen.

  00:12:46 James Slaby

  problems, but then they took their first splash in the cybersecurity pool, and I was one of a handful of people in the company who had a cybersecurity background, so they moved me into a product marketing role.

  00:12:58 James Slaby

  That evolved into a solutions marketing role.

  00:13:00 James Slaby

  After some years of being far too quiet about our OT story, they decided that we should really tell the world more about that, and that's the kind of role that I

  00:13:09 James Slaby

  and now is kind of educating our customers, our prospects about what we're doing in OT.

  00:13:15 James Slaby

  Historically, we're famous for backup and security, but on the IT side of the house.

  00:13:20 Kristin King

  And it's interesting that you spent time talking about moving to the cloud for enterprise, and now the conversation of moving to the cloud for OT is happening, and everybody is anti it for the moment, and that's okay.

  00:13:33 Kristin King

  I understand the on-prem bit and how important that is.

  00:13:37 Kristin King

  So in a way, you've kind of recycled your

  00:13:39 Kristin King

  career a bit, because here we go, we're into this whole new section of cloud-based OT and ICS.

  00:13:46 Kristin King

  And I don't mean everybody needs to switch there, and that's a big debate for another show, but it is definitely something that's on the horizon, and especially when it comes to different critical infrastructure that's mobile and moving, logistics, transportation, agriculture, Bing, seafood, fleets, you name it.

  00:14:03 Kristin King

  Those are going to require cloud for quite a bit of things, especially when you

  00:14:09 Kristin King

  take into account the ability to have more real-time data and make better decisions.

  00:14:15 Kristin King

  That's going to be an interesting moment.

  00:14:17 Kristin King

  And at the moment I'm proceeding and I'm cautiously optimistic about it, but also I completely understand the on-prem moment because it's much easier to go unplug something if something goes wrong than it is to shut down the cloud.

  00:14:28 Kristin King

  I mean, we really can't shut down the cloud.

  00:14:31 Kristin King

  Yeah, adopting is going to be really interesting in these different sectors, I think, coming up James.

  00:14:34 Kristin King

  That's a really, you just made me go very curious in my mind.

  00:14:37 Kristin King

  I was like, yeah, that's really interesting because I just had this conversation

  00:14:39 Kristin King

  a couple of days ago with the utility company and how they're really anti-cloud because they can't control it.

  00:14:45 Kristin King

  They feel as much as they can with on-prem.

  00:14:47 Kristin King

  The physical, cyber-physical aspects are very much a real thing, even for the practitioners who manage and run.

  00:14:54 Kristin King

  It's not just what you do in the digital world has an impact on the physical world.

  00:14:57 Kristin King

  We need to be able to impact the physical world if we have something that we feel is going to cause a problem as well.

  00:15:02 Kristin King

  So thank you for making me go down that rabbit hole in my mind while you were talking, because that's exactly what I was like.

  00:15:07 James Slaby

  I think it's a really trenchant point rate.

  00:15:09 James Slaby

  now in that we really have to meet our customers wherever they are on that adoption curve.

  00:15:16 Kristin King

  Okay, quick pause because James just mentioned a couple things that people in operational technology or OT say casually, but everyone else hears it like someone suddenly switched the podcast into Klingon.

  00:15:28 Kristin King

  Let me translate.

  00:15:30 Kristin King

  First up, the Purdue model.

  00:15:32 Kristin King

  Think of

  00:15:32 Kristin King

  like a very structured, layered cake.

  00:15:35 Kristin King

  At the top, you've got your business systems, so your e-mail, billing, accounting, all the non-glamorous things that make up a company.

  00:15:41 Kristin King

  At the bottom layer are the systems that directly interact with the physical world.

  00:15:46 Kristin King

  The machines, the sensors, and controls that actually move product, keep temperature stable, grind feed, pump water, and run a packaging line.

  00:15:54 Kristin King

  And the pull point is everything has its place, and those layers aren't supposed to mix freely.

  00:15:59 Kristin King

  You don't want someone in the office accidentally interacting with the same

  00:16:02 Kristin King

  network that controls your refrigeration system.

  00:16:04 Kristin King

  Just like you don't mix raw chicken juice with cake frosting.

  00:16:08 Kristin King

  Same energy.

  00:16:09 Kristin King

  Next term, air-gapped.

  00:16:11 Kristin King

  This one is literal.

  00:16:12 Kristin King

  The system is physically isolated from the internet.

  00:16:15 Kristin King

  No Wi-Fi, no cloud, no remote connection, nothing.

  00:16:19 Kristin King

  It's like a walk-in cooler with no outside door.

  00:16:21 Kristin King

  If you want access, you have to already be inside the building.

  00:16:25 Kristin King

  Great for reducing cyber risk, terrible when you need urgent help, and your IT person is 3 states away.

  00:16:30 Kristin King

  And then we get into the big one.

  00:16:32 Kristin King

  Why OT systems don't patch like your phone or your laptop?

  00:16:36 Kristin King

  In OT, patching can break things, not metaphorically, but physically.

  00:16:40 Kristin King

  A control system might be running on a 15 to 20 year old operating system because...

  00:16:46 Kristin King

  It controls a mixer or an evaporator or a bottle line, and the vendor-qualified software hasn't been updated in a decade.

  00:16:54 Kristin King

  Updating it might introduce a glitch, remove support for a driver, or change timing, and in OT, timing matters.

  00:17:01 Kristin King

  It's not negligence, it's just reality.

  00:17:04 Kristin King

  If you patch something that's been quietly running a pasteurizer since 2005, you might not just break the software, you might break the pasteurizer, and the cheese, and the day everyone's working there.

  00:17:15 Kristin King

  So when James talks about

  00:17:16 Kristin King

  stability, long life cycles, and not poking things until you're absolutely needing to.

  00:17:22 Kristin King

  That's why.

  00:17:22 Kristin King

  OT lives firmly in the category of, please don't touch that unless something is actually on fire.

  00:17:28 Kristin King

  Because in food and agriculture, touching the wrong system at the wrong time can cause downtime, spoilage, food safety issues, employee safety issues, and a very awkward call explaining why your cold storage suddenly isn't cold.

  00:17:41 Kristin King

  All right, back to James.

  00:17:45 James Slaby

  For instance, one thing that we do that is allow for a completely premise-based solution.

  00:17:50 James Slaby

  So if you're doing Purdue model segmentation or air gapping, that's not a problem for us.

  00:17:56 James Slaby

  You find that many tech solutions now require management from a cloud-based console.

  00:18:02 James Slaby

  And that's not going to fly in an air-gapped environment.

  00:18:04 James Slaby

  It's going to be very difficult if you're Purdue-based.

  00:18:07 James Slaby

  But we also have customers who have started opening up those environments.

  00:18:11 James Slaby

  So for instance, we're able to feed into a kind of

  00:18:14 James Slaby

  a corporate central console with information about OT environments at factories, say, that are scattered around the world.

  00:18:22 James Slaby

  And it kind of, it's a one-way feed for a lot of these folks.

  00:18:26 James Slaby

  They don't want to break Purdue in doing it, but we can help them do that.

  00:18:30 James Slaby

  And because we integrate data protection backup with cybersecurity, we can pull them along into better endpoint protection as they open things up more and open up attack surfaces to things like ransomware.

  00:18:44 James Slaby

  that they didn't have to really worry about when they had the kind of the castle with the moat kind of approach to security.

  00:18:51 Kristin King

  Yes, I completely get that.

  00:18:53 Kristin King

  I feel like sometimes that's the good old days and we all wish for that again.

  00:18:56 Kristin King

  But here we are in a new digital world where anybody can pretty much touch you at any time, which is terrifying in itself.

  00:19:02 Kristin King

  And I can't take those rose tinted glasses off.

  00:19:05 Kristin King

  We all see it for what it is now.

  00:19:06 Kristin King

  So, and this is just a swing back just a tad.

  00:19:08 Kristin King

  I have so many thoughts here.

  00:19:10 Kristin King

  How do you like being in the OTICS space?

  00:19:12 Kristin King

  Because you came originally, you didn't come originally from there.

  00:19:14 Kristin King

  I think a lot of us who are in OTICS, generally speaking, came out of IT back in the day.

  00:19:19 Kristin King

  But how do you like being on the OTICS side a little bit more than you?

  00:19:22 Kristin King

  you were before.

  00:19:23 Kristin King

  Do you feel welcomed?

  00:19:24 Kristin King

  Are you enjoying it?

  00:19:25 Kristin King

  I have lots of opinions, obviously, but I would love to hear yours.

  00:19:28 James Slaby

  Well, it's completely fascinating to me because, you know, who wants to kind of shunt along in the same lane in technology forever?

  00:19:36 James Slaby

  It's kind of one of the great things about being in tech is that there's some kind of transformative wave that comes along every few years and you've got to kind of constantly be learning, right?

  00:19:48 James Slaby

  You know, we're all sharks, right?

  00:19:50 James Slaby

  If we slow down, we

  00:19:52 James Slaby

  will die.

  00:19:53 James Slaby

  But I particularly love digging into the industrial side of things.

  00:19:57 James Slaby

  I think about kind of my roots.

  00:19:59 James Slaby

  I have a family who are farmers.

  00:20:02 James Slaby

  So this is cousins and second cousins and uncles and great uncles in Broome County and Shenango County, New York.

  00:20:10 James Slaby

  This is kind of upstate New York near the Pennsylvania line.

  00:20:15 James Slaby

  And, you know, getting together with that family in those days meant paying horseback riding one uncle

  00:20:22 James Slaby

  was cattle breeder.

  00:20:24 James Slaby

  So when you went to get the adults a beer, you had to make sure to go to the right refrigerator in the kitchen because the other one was full with stuff that wasn't for human use.

  00:20:37 James Slaby

  Yeah, I got you.

  00:20:38 James Slaby

  You know, I've kind of grown away from that.

  00:20:41 James Slaby

  You know, my folks moved to New England and I became, you know, the city kid with the job in networking and cybersecurity, which, you know, was a little better understood nowadays, but

  00:20:52 James Slaby

  in my career, it was sort of impossible to explain to people who weren't in tech what the heck it was that we did.

  00:20:58 James Slaby

  And so, but again, you have, there's also some reuse of challenges.

  00:21:03 James Slaby

  You alluded to this transition from a kind of premise-based computing to the cloud, and there is a similar kind of transition going on here and similar difficulties.

  00:21:14 James Slaby

  Absolutely understand the resistance.

  00:21:16 James Slaby

  Like you spent your whole career making sure that nothing messes with this great automation set of

  00:21:22 James Slaby

  that you have where downtime is extremely expensive, tinkering is really discouraged, right?

  00:21:28 James Slaby

  Let alone opening up the environment to potential new threats.

  00:21:32 James Slaby

  So these are concerns that I understand and have heard before.

  00:21:37 James Slaby

  And frankly, we're in a period where we haven't figured out all the issues yet.

  00:21:42 James Slaby

  And we're starting to see really ominous shifts in the threat environment where critical infrastructure, which ag is now considered a part of by

  00:21:52 James Slaby

  cybersecurity standards bodies and national governments is really increasingly becoming targeted.

  00:21:58 James Slaby

  I don't know how much you talk about attacks on the show, but I just look at there's been a bunch of them over the in recent years and they seem to be growing.

  00:22:06 James Slaby

  Probably the JBS attack, I think is the one that probably most people who aren't in tech are probably aware of.

  00:22:13 James Slaby

  But you know, I don't want to I can reiterate a bunch of them.

  00:22:16 James Slaby

  I imagine this is something that your audience is well familiar with.

  00:22:19 Kristin King

  We do talk about it quite frequently.

  00:22:20 Kristin King

  And I think that they're great

  00:22:22 Kristin King

  great examples, but I always say they're the known ones.

  00:22:25 Kristin King

  It's the unknown that scare me half to death because those big corporations had to, because they're publicly traded, because the SEC regulations, so of course we're going to find out about them.

  00:22:34 Kristin King

  But we don't know always what the issues are.

  00:22:38 Kristin King

  Like the Amazon distribution one, that one that supplied for Whole Foods, we don't know what happened, but it reads like ransomware.

  00:22:44 Kristin King

  We can speculate based on knowledge of the industry, but they have not disclosed what it was.

  00:22:49 Kristin King

  And I feel like there should be some type of disclosure within these

  00:22:52 Kristin King

  particular rules that tells you what it is.

  00:22:55 Kristin King

  How are you going to prepare an industry for something if we don't know what it is?

  00:22:58 Kristin King

  Just an attack doesn't, I mean, that's like saying Godzilla attacked and you're just going to, that's it.

  00:23:03 Kristin King

  You don't know how he attacked, where he came from.

  00:23:05 Kristin King

  Was it another creature involved?

  00:23:07 Kristin King

  We don't know.

  00:23:08 Kristin King

  We just know that it happened.

  00:23:09 Kristin King

  So I think we're doing a bit of a disservice to the food and ag industry by not having more disclosure.

  00:23:14 Kristin King

  And then you, on top of it, if there's a small, medium-sized farms or different CPGs or small businesses and things like that, we don't know.

  00:23:22 Kristin King

  if they got hit.

  00:23:23 Kristin King

  It's kind of word of mouth, it's community.

  00:23:24 Kristin King

  And as you know, James, there's a lot of shame that comes with being in an attack, so people don't want to talk about it.

  00:23:30 Kristin King

  And then if you are in food and ag, it's an OT issue as well as an IT issue, generally speaking, because everything intersects with the physical world.

  00:23:37 Kristin King

  The incidents that are happening are becoming more frequent, yes.

  00:23:40 Kristin King

  I think that it's an iceberg issue.

  00:23:42 Kristin King

  I think that we see just the small tip of what's actually going on.

  00:23:46 Kristin King

  Also, we have nation states that are involved.

  00:23:49 Kristin King

  The dairy industry's been getting punched in the face, literally, lately.

  00:23:52 Kristin King

  And now we've have loss of life.

  00:23:54 Kristin King

  Cows are passing because they don't have access to real-time data when they're distressed.

  00:23:58 Kristin King

  So there's a lot of things going on here.

  00:24:00 Kristin King

  And also we have the ag tech community that's innovative and excited and pushing forward and all this great investment.

  00:24:08 Kristin King

  And they're not doing it securely.

  00:24:10 Kristin King

  It's not secure by design.

  00:24:11 Kristin King

  So we've got these other things that are being added where different considerations for security have to be put into place.

  00:24:17 Kristin King

  But again, this falls back onto places that don't have teams, don't have OT, don't have a SIEM, don't have a

  00:24:22 Kristin King

  a sock, don't have a knock, don't have any of this stuff.

  00:24:24 Kristin King

  And it's just, you know, Mr.

  00:24:26 Kristin King

  and Mrs.

  00:24:26 Kristin King

  Farmers that are standing there going, I need to put this wearable on my cow so I know when it's going to drop a calf.

  00:24:33 Kristin King

  And I mean, is it secure?

  00:24:35 Kristin King

  I don't know.

  00:24:35 Kristin King

  It connects to my phone.

  00:24:36 Kristin King

  Is my phone secure?

  00:24:37 Kristin King

  I assume.

  00:24:38 Kristin King

  And there's all these questions around that.

  00:24:40 Kristin King

  And I don't want people in food and agriculture, this is my biggest fear, to just put their heads in the sand like an ostrich.

  00:24:45 Kristin King

  I want people to be informed on risk and blended into their safety practices as much as possible.

  00:24:50 Kristin King

  Have their stop-drop-roll type moments.

  00:24:52 Kristin King

  because these are the people that feed us.

  00:24:54 Kristin King

  This is what creates our memories of our childhood and various other aspects of our lives.

  00:24:59 Kristin King

  The idea of that being attacked is so disturbing to me and viscerally disturbing.

  00:25:05 Kristin King

  Like I am horrified by it every day.

  00:25:08 Kristin King

  And these people that have to be resilient in a different capacity than already they're doing, because being a farmer is very complicated and hard nowadays.

  00:25:16 Kristin King

  And it's not an easy path.

  00:25:18 Kristin King

  And we need more first-gen farmers.

  00:25:19 Kristin King

  And it's really hard to get in.

  00:25:20 Kristin King

  And there's all these different parts of the ag business that are just a lot.

  00:25:24 Kristin King

  It's A lot.

  00:25:24 Kristin King

  And then you want to add a cybersecurity level onto it.

  00:25:27 Kristin King

  I know I understand in a lot of ways why mental health is such a huge issue in that particular industry and why I continually talk about this and why I advocate and why I have this show and why I work with the industry the way I do.

  00:25:39 Kristin King

  because we need more people to come along and make it normal.

  00:25:41 Kristin King

  Like it's normal to talk about an attack.

  00:25:43 Kristin King

  It's normal to talk about what we got to do to fix it.

  00:25:45 Kristin King

  Or it's normal to have a resilience conversation so, you know, you can bypass you and you could survive whatever happens.

  00:25:50 Kristin King

  And that's...

  00:25:52 Kristin King

  That's the real trick of it.

  00:25:54 Kristin King

  And again, like I said, going back to your original statement, we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg.

  00:25:58 Kristin King

  There's so much more going on and it's scary.

  00:26:01 Kristin King

  There's so many like little nuances to this and it's, and I'm glad that people are waking up that agriculture is part of critical infrastructure, even though the US didn't add it to the list until 2020.

  00:26:13 Kristin King

  Like I still don't know why they didn't add it sooner.

  00:26:15 Kristin King

  Everybody else had it on there.

  00:26:16 Kristin King

  But I think that the more people who get educated in what agriculture is and what the business is,

  00:26:22 Kristin King

  It's not as simple as people think it is.

  00:26:24 Kristin King

  It looks simple for the most part.

  00:26:26 Kristin King

  People make it look easy, but it's not.

  00:26:28 Kristin King

  And also, it's such a big industry.

  00:26:30 Kristin King

  It's an industry-wide big thing.

  00:26:31 Kristin King

  It's not just the small farms.

  00:26:33 Kristin King

  It's also the grain silos and it's the distribution networks and it's the transportation that goes around it.

  00:26:39 Kristin King

  It's the cold storage.

  00:26:41 Kristin King

  The cold storage is like a whole thing.

  00:26:43 Kristin King

  Like that's getting attacked too.

  00:26:44 Kristin King

  And it's wild to me that as OT, we are very much system thinkers.

  00:26:49 Kristin King

  You know, when something happens over here, it happens over here.

  00:26:52 Kristin King

  And yet we're the weirdos because nobody actually thinks like that.

  00:26:55 Kristin King

  Apparently that's not common as people remind me all the time, because I'm like, well, why didn't people realize that if they'd have this, it's cause and effect?

  00:27:01 Kristin King

  Why wouldn't they?

  00:27:02 Kristin King

  They're like, oh, well, you're a nerd, basically back at me.

  00:27:05 Kristin King

  And I'm like, I didn't realize that's what it was.

  00:27:07 Kristin King

  And I'm sure, and you already strike me as a systems thinker, James.

  00:27:10 Kristin King

  So I think that you completely get what I'm saying.

  00:27:12 Kristin King

  And maybe that's why you've taken to OT quite well, like a fish and water.

  00:27:18 Kristin King

  It's definitely something that you're enjoying.

  00:27:20 Kristin King

  I can tell you're enjoying because the way you talk about it.

  00:27:22 Kristin King

  So that's great.

  00:27:24 Kristin King

  I'm glad that you can pull from your roots.

  00:27:26 Kristin King

  You understand what farming looks like.

  00:27:28 Kristin King

  How else are we going to have great food stories and culture and tradition if we don't have people doing that and keep doing it securely?

  00:27:36 Kristin King

  And I don't think that every farmer needs to go out and take a cybersecurity course necessarily.

  00:27:40 Kristin King

  I don't know if we're quite there yet.

  00:27:41 Kristin King

  We might be at that tipping point, but I don't know.

  00:27:44 Kristin King

  It's going to be hard because we're going to have to adapt tech that we have for them in that regard.

  00:27:49 Kristin King

  I mean, yeah, sure.

  00:27:50 Kristin King

  Food manufacturing, absolutely.

  00:27:51 Kristin King

  You can have all the bells and whistles and all the things.

  00:27:53 Kristin King

  The CPG is the same thing.

  00:27:54 Kristin King

  To have it on a farm level is going to be complicated and really take some real ingenuity to create something that can give a better monitoring experience.

  00:28:03 Kristin King

  I don't think we're quite there yet.

  00:28:05 Kristin King

  I think we're getting there.

  00:28:06 Kristin King

  I just wish that AgTech would start creating things more securely.

  00:28:08 Kristin King

  That would be my one wish.

  00:28:10 Kristin King

  If people asked me what my wish was for the world, AgTech creates things securely so farmers don't have to worry.

  00:28:19 Kristin King

  And thank you for listening.

  00:28:20 Kristin King

  If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to like, comment, follow, and share it with someone who'd appreciate it.

  00:28:26 Kristin King

  Every bit of support helps more people find these conversations, and I'm so grateful for all the messages.

  00:28:32 Kristin King

  all the feedback and all the stories you've been sending.

  00:28:35 Kristin King

  Thank you for reaching out and letting me know how much the show has resonated with you.

  00:28:38 Kristin King

  And because we're heading into the holiday season, I want to encourage you to help where you can.

  00:28:43 Kristin King

  Donate to a local food pantry.

  00:28:45 Kristin King

  You could find one at findhelp.org.

  00:28:48 Kristin King

  Call a local farm and ask if you can sponsor a farm share for a family in need.

  00:28:51 Kristin King

  It's easy to find a place to start by going to localharvest.org.

  00:28:55 Kristin King

  Reach out to a local school and see if you could support them for breakfast or lunch, or just be a grocery buddy for someone nearby who could use the help.

  00:29:03 Kristin King

  Food insecurity isn't just an American issue, it's worldwide.

  00:29:06 Kristin King

  And while I'm not sponsored by any of these organizations, I believe if we have tools or resources, we can use them to make sure people have access to food.

  00:29:15 Kristin King

  Thank you for caring, and back to the episode.

  00:29:20 James Slaby

  It's funny, when you talk about the psychological aspect of it, that really plays to something important that I've seen going on in recent years.

  00:29:29 James Slaby

  Again, Acronis started as a backup company and then we got into the cybersecurity business and coined this term cyber protection, which was the idea that defense and recovery should be integrated.

  00:29:39 James Slaby

  I've kind of seen the world come around to that.

  00:29:42 James Slaby

  If you look at recent additions of cybersecurity regulations or recent

  00:29:48 James Slaby

  revs of cybersecurity standards, or you look at the requirements that you're getting from your insurance company, if you want a cyber insurance policy to help mitigate the cost of recovering from a ransomware attack, for instance, they have all placed this new emphasis on recovery.

  00:30:06 James Slaby

  So if you look at NIST CSF 2.0, the NIS2 regulations in the EU, or you've talked to your insurer recently, a few years ago, they were all about make sure you're using multifactor

  00:30:18 James Slaby

  authentication and that you're encrypting your data and that you have antivirus protection.

  00:30:23 James Slaby

  Now there are new planks in those standards and those regulations in those insurance requirements that say, make sure you're following industry best practices for backup.

  00:30:33 James Slaby

  Have an incident response plan in place.

  00:30:35 James Slaby

  Think about disaster recovery.

  00:30:38 James Slaby

  And this kind of recovery capability in OT takes on new dimensions.

  00:30:44 James Slaby

  The downtime costs tend to be much, much greater, right?

  00:30:48 James Slaby

  So the idea of being able to recover very quickly is important.

  00:30:52 James Slaby

  Another issue that you have is you don't have trained IT people around in many of these environments.

  00:30:58 James Slaby

  You're out on an oil rig, or you're in a mine at the edge of the jungle, or a remote distribution facility, or you're in a farm in the heartland.

  00:31:09 James Slaby

  You don't have IT people who are, you know, at your beck and call.

  00:31:13 James Slaby

  And if you are air gapped for security reasons, people that might

  00:31:18 James Slaby

  be able to help you with the remote tools, say try to come up RDP into your desktop, they can't do that, right?

  00:31:24 James Slaby

  Another issue that you've got is the equipment life cycles involved in OT.

  00:31:29 James Slaby

  This technology is designed to last 10, 20, even 30 years, whereas IT people are used to cycling through stuff every three to five years, doing constant updates.

  00:31:39 James Slaby

  In many OT environments, we see Windows XP PCs being used to control the environment or really ancient builds of Linux.

  00:31:48 James Slaby

  You don't want to update those or patch them if you can help it, because you might lose some functionality or break your ability to monitor or control or configure the lower level operational technology.

  00:32:01 James Slaby

  So stability is super, super important in these environments.

  00:32:05 James Slaby

  So one of the ways that we address this is that we never walked away from those old operating systems.

  00:32:12 James Slaby

  Another big issue is how do you recover if IT is hours or days away?

  00:32:18 James Slaby

  We've made it simple enough that you can basically do a recovery from a local backup and the ability to restore from a known working image uncorrupted by ransomware or without the update that you just did that broke something.

  00:32:33 James Slaby

  And to do that in a matter of minutes, that's super, super valuable, right?

  00:32:37 James Slaby

  When the clock is ticking on that.

  00:32:41 James Slaby

  Kind of grappling with those realities of operational technology environments has really to deal with these kind of

  00:32:48 James Slaby

  requirements where it's like, what's your story for backup?

  00:32:51 James Slaby

  How quickly can you recover?

  00:32:53 James Slaby

  What is your plan in the event of a cyber attack or a hardware failure or somebody plugging something into the machine like a USB stick that they shouldn't?

  00:33:03 James Slaby

  And this gets more important as these environments open up and as just in general, the threat environment has gotten more dire.

  00:33:10 James Slaby

  I know you're well familiar with the kind of the ongoing industrialization of cybercrime and how that's meant that it's cheaper,

  00:33:18 James Slaby

  to mount more and more frequent attacks.

  00:33:21 James Slaby

  The sophistication is getting higher.

  00:33:23 James Slaby

  Now we've got Gen.

  00:33:25 James Slaby

  AI tools being used by the bad guys so that phishing attacks are getting more effective, right?

  00:33:31 James Slaby

  The phishing emails are perfect and the calls to action are more compelling and they can mount them at greater scale.

  00:33:38 James Slaby

  So all these things, these pressures are starting to come to bear on OT environments.

  00:33:44 James Slaby

  So you need to start thinking about improving your cyber defenses

  00:33:48 James Slaby

  But your last line of defense always is the ability to quickly recover, right?

  00:33:53 James Slaby

  So you want to do as much as you can to reduce the risk of cyber threats with defensive measures.

  00:34:00 James Slaby

  But our adversaries are generally a step ahead of us and, again, can enlist armies of not very bright people to do most of the dirty work for them in ways that we can't possibly keep up with the frequency and the growing sophistication of the attacks.

  00:34:15 James Slaby

  So you really need that break

  00:34:18 James Slaby

  in case of emergency recovery mechanism.

  00:34:21 Kristin King

  Yeah, I think it's super important to note the backup aspect, like in JBS's example, if they were able to come back up faster and they couldn't because that was broken as well.

  00:34:30 Kristin King

  So there was a lot of aspects about it.

  00:34:32 Kristin King

  I think the thing about food and agriculture that I've noticed more and more is the social engineering component.

  00:34:37 Kristin King

  You already mentioned fishing as a great example.

  00:34:40 Kristin King

  Doxing is super popular now too.

  00:34:42 Kristin King

  Deep fakes are heavy in the industry as well.

  00:34:45 Kristin King

  And AI is driving that.

  00:34:46 Kristin King

  It's learned behavior.

  00:34:48 Kristin King

  For everything that is good, it's also equally evil.

  00:34:50 Kristin King

  It's really just there.

  00:34:52 Kristin King

  And I think the social engineering aspects around OT are going to hit a breaking point at some point, I think.

  00:34:58 Kristin King

  We are definitely at a place now where educating people on how to behave and how to be defensive as well as responsive is becoming, I think, more of the norm.

  00:35:08 Kristin King

  We're not quite there yet, but I think people are getting it.

  00:35:10 Kristin King

  And that makes me really happy because when we go to things like backups and being more proactive, it's going to be a lot more easy to adopt.

  00:35:18 Kristin King

  stopped moving forward.

  00:35:19 Kristin King

  And yeah, there's some really nasty people out there doing really horrible things, obviously.

  00:35:22 Kristin King

  And it's so scary that you could just dial it up as a service now.

  00:35:27 Kristin King

  Just hacking as a service, ransomware as a service, whatever you want to call it, is terrifying.

  00:35:31 Kristin King

  And you're right, they're ahead of us in a lot of ways, because we're still playing catch up.

  00:35:35 Kristin King

  You know, we don't know what's in our systems.

  00:35:38 Kristin King

  We don't have asset control.

  00:35:39 Kristin King

  We don't understand who's accessing when.

  00:35:41 Kristin King

  There's all these different aspects.

  00:35:42 Kristin King

  Or you don't have any people.

  00:35:44 Kristin King

  You mentioned that earlier.

  00:35:44 Kristin King

  There's no people to do the work.

  00:35:46 Kristin King

  So it's left up to people

  00:35:48 Kristin King

  who aren't technical to deal with it.

  00:35:49 Kristin King

  And they're just trying to get by.

  00:35:51 Kristin King

  And that's really the heart of the matter, especially in food and ag.

  00:35:54 James Slaby

  I recently had the family password conversation with my extended family.

  00:35:58 James Slaby

  We were all together for a kind of a reunion.

  00:36:01 James Slaby

  And the concern I had was around deep fake technology, particularly around voice, which is extremely easy to do.

  00:36:08 James Slaby

  And the scenario I painted was, grandma gets a phone call from someone who sounds exactly like one of her grandchildren, who's saying, oh, I was in a car accident.

  00:36:18 James Slaby

  and they put me in jail and I need money to bail me out.

  00:36:22 James Slaby

  I don't want to spend the weekend in jail, grandma.

  00:36:24 James Slaby

  Can you help me out?

  00:36:26 James Slaby

  And of course, that's not my nephew.

  00:36:29 James Slaby

  That is a deepfake of his voice, which you only need about a 30-second audio sample to do a convincing deepfake.

  00:36:36 James Slaby

  So not everyone in my family knows a passphrase that they can challenge a caller in a dire situation like this and say, What's the family passphrase?

  00:36:44 James Slaby

  And if they don't know it, then they know it's a fake.

  00:36:46 James Slaby

  So I'm

  00:36:48 James Slaby

  and spreading that stratagem around or around my extended family and friends is too.

  00:36:54 Kristin King

  It's an excellent strategy.

  00:36:56 Kristin King

  It's an excellent strategy and it should be updated annually as well.

  00:36:59 Kristin King

  You don't want to, you should have a different one every time.

  00:37:01 Kristin King

  Basic human behavior one-on-one based, and it's such an easy thing to do and such a simple thing.

  00:37:07 Kristin King

  And that doesn't necessarily imply just for those phone calls and those scams.

  00:37:11 Kristin King

  It could be if you're out and about and you have an emergency, you could just say the password and people will know that you're in trouble.

  00:37:16 Kristin King

  Those kind of things.

  00:37:16 Kristin King

  It also goes into those places.

  00:37:18 Kristin King

  places.

  00:37:18 Kristin King

  Sadly, I think we live in a world where we're going to all need those for various reasons at some point, and it's a good thing.

  00:37:23 Kristin King

  So that's an excellent thing to do with your family.

  00:37:26 Kristin King

  James, this has been a great conversation, and I have really enjoyed your wisdom because you're speaking truth to a lot of things that are happening, and you have a really good vision of what's going on and what needs to be done.

  00:37:36 Kristin King

  So thank you so much for that.

  00:37:37 Kristin King

  As we're leaving, any final words?

  00:37:39 James Slaby

  Sure, Kristen.

  00:37:40 James Slaby

  I just want to say, likewise, what a great pleasure it's been to be part of your podcast.

  00:37:45 Kristin King

  Thanks so much, James.

  00:37:46 James Slaby

  Thanks again, Kristen.

  00:37:55 Kristin King

  And that's a wrap up today's episode.

  00:37:57 Kristin King

  A big thanks to James for joining me and sharing his perspectives on the realities of inside the systems and critical infrastructure.

  00:38:02 Kristin King

  And to you, thank you for listening, for sharing, and for being a part of the community.

  00:38:07 Kristin King

  If you enjoyed today's episode, remember to like, comment, follow, and share.

  00:38:10 Kristin King

  It really helps others find the show and keep these conversations growing.

  00:38:14 Kristin King

  You can also check out my Substack and the Bytes and Bytes podcast website for

  00:38:18 Kristin King

  additional content, behind the scenes updates, and reflections on the various episodes.

  00:38:22 Kristin King

  The link is in the show notes.

  00:38:23 Kristin King

  Until next time, stay safe, stay curious, and I'll see you on the next one.

  00:38:28 Kristin King

  Bye for now.

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