Cybertraps Podcast

Welcome to the Cyber Traffic Podcast today.

I'm grateful to have one of our great sponsors in TeleTech, grant Erickson here.

Grant, welcome to the show.

Thanks for being here.

Hey, thanks, Jeff.

Thank you so much also for sponsoring and supporting inch 360.

Casey who you work with has been on the board and helped so much with what we've done.

He is awesome, and we just appreciate your support as a whole for the whole.

Inch 360 community.

So thank you for that.

Absolutely.

Security is a super important thing and it's kind of somewhat adjacent to what we do, but it's still just right there, so

Well, and what I appreciate is that in TeleTech is not a security company.

You guys provide other services and and yet you're here supporting this, which means a lot because I believe that security touches all of us in everything we're doing.

you know, I don't think there is a company that's not a security

right?

Yeah,

you know?

exactly.

So, tell us about in TeleTech, what you guys do and all that.

Yeah, so in TeleTech we're based here in Spokane and we really have we're almost all here.

We have a couple people that work remotely, but we do software development.

And all kinds of different things from like large kind of Fortune 50 stuff all the way down to, hey the little cabinet shop out on Sprague that needs to really move their business from where it is today to the next level.

So, and then really focusing on kind of line of business applications, web apps, things like that.

We're not building your aunt's cat website but really that line of business thing.

And then doing things like integrations, we do some staff org really coming in, helping your team level up, that kind of stuff.

So,

So, tell me about what you hope to get out of something like KIN 360.

you know, what I was hoping was really just to see where some of the industry experts are leaning as far as some of the directions.

And it's really twofold.

I mean, number one, when you're working with a company, you wanna make sure that you're doing the best practices for your own company.

It is like the Cobb Wars kids have no shoes, right?

You wanna make sure that you have.

You're doing the things you're asking everyone else to do.

So that's part of it.

I think the second thing is it brings a lot of perspective with respect to where our different clients are coming from, right?

Because we have folks that are just incredibly regulated in industries around security and all that.

And then we have just kind of like you said, like kinda the mom and pop or the nonprofit or whatever.

It's I think those are.

Just really good pieces of input to get to hear where the community is, to hear where some of the new the new threats are coming.

'cause again, security isn't like the main thing that we do, but it touches everything.

Yeah, for sure.

So what are some of your big takeaways from the conference today so far?

You know, I think that there was a lot of discussion about ai, which I thought was really interesting.

And the way different people are approaching that, I think that there's we're really starting to build up some frameworks with respect to AI governance.

seeing that start to happen in more significant ways, which is really cool.

I think we're also starting to see just the maturing of this security space, right?

Because for a while with this knee jerk.

Do all this stuff and make basically the the environment's impossible to work in.

Right.

You would just, you would hamper people to the point where they couldn't even build stuff.

Right.

And I think that is kind of because of tooling and because of some generally accepted guidance is really maturing.

Let's kind of use, maybe use that word folks are able to have the tooling to be able to secure things without debilitating.

The people that use the services that they provide.

/
I, think that's a great way to put it.

And so I, my background's in education as a teacher, the security in some places was so tight that I could not innovate or do anything better because I couldn't try anything new.

And so then in other places it was like, okay, here's a process that you have to go through if you want to try a new software or something like that.

But we'll allow you to try it, but we're not going to adopt it.

And adopt means support, which means fix it when it breaks.

And there are some things that we're not going to support, but you can still use it.

Right?

And we can be flexible and open about it, but we gotta go through a process at least.

And that mindset really was a mature mindset because it wasn't like we're we're just not gonna innovate and we're not gonna adopt anything new.

It wasn't that, it was we'll adopt some things and we'll allow you to try things, and then if it's really great then we might adopt it because you've shown 'em that it's great.

Yeah.

It's really interesting to kinda see that progression and I think there was a lot of discussion today about the real human impacts.

Of security.

I mean, not only as humans being kinda what they call that layer eight, as far as the stack and being probably one of the biggest, not necessarily threats, but just vectors to come in, right?

I mean, threats in certain kind of, if you're looking not disclose information and all that kind of stuff.

But it was interesting and I'd pose, I'm gonna turn around on you and ask you a question.

It.

It was interesting speaking of that, like we went to Vancouver, British Columbia recently, and there was, my son and I were reading before
we went there and about how Vancouver's such a safe city and all that and we're kind of looking, comparing it to Spokane and all the rest.

And so we're downtown and there's a guard in front of every store.

Yeah.

And it's like, oh,

it's more secure cure.

But it feel there.

There was a price that you paid.

what do you think about that?

Like how do you parse that out?

Yeah.

Well I think that's a good example.

Like it may.

It feels it doesn't feel more safe because there is security everywhere, but it, but you know that if something does happen, then somebody's gonna be there.

And when I think about this in like a cybersecurity perspective, I want there to be tools and support to help me if I get in a bad situation.

But I don't want somebody there waiting for me to make a mistake to say, ah, what are you doing?

You can't come in this store because this store is only for certain people or somebody who has an appointment and that kind of thing is like, oh, that's not really the world that I want to live in.

I, what I want is if I start going down a bad path, I want someone to be like, Hey, this is probably not a good place to be.

You should probably go down this other route and here's the better way to go about Right.

And it's a fine line because having a security guard at every store does not actually make you feel safe.

It makes you feel like you need to be worried about something because they are right.

Absolutely.

It was interesting you bring up this idea of having to wait in line and we went down to Portland and of course when you go to Portland, you're downtown, you go to Voodoo Donuts.

Right, right.

And of course and so we're waiting in this line and there's a security guard that comes out and ushers us into the store.

To one of the two clerks that's taking orders and there's only two people in the store giving, taking orders.

It's raining outside and all that.

It's Portland.

Right.

And it was just interesting and I was thinking about like, like what's the value add of the security guy?

I mean, obviously the people inside feel a little better, but like as far as I'm paying more for my donut, get, what am I getting?

And then what I wanted to post to you is like, where's the right level of transparency, right?

You, like you said, you feel kind of safer maybe, but it also has all these other side effects, and how do we deal with that as a culture?

And where do we try to make it transparent and where do we try to make it more visible?

Yeah.

Well I, I don't know that I have the exact right answer, but one of the things that I think about is how do we.

Create a place where people feel like they can take risks and not be punished for taking risks.

Because if you take a risk and you make a mistake, that's a punishment in and of itself, a natural

Yeah.

Right, You feel stupid,

Yeah.

Yep.

And that, and I can live with that, but if I take a risk and I get my hand slapped by someone in a position authority, then that's a different kind of feeling.

And

it feels pretty different, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

doesn't it?

Yeah.

It doesn't feel.

The same, you know?

So let's take a an example.

So I went to Berlin Germany this summer, and I did not plan my whole itinerary out.

And

beautiful city, by the way.

Love Berlin.

I was so suprised

Yeah.

I went up in this hot air balloon and saw this, awesome thing.

It was very cool.

So anyway, I didn't plan everything out in advance.

So the hot air balloon, for example, was a risk that we took.

Is this going to be a worthwhile.

And fun thing.

And the way that I looked at it was what I'd love to do is I love to get up above and see the whole city.

Everywhere I go, I look for the tallest thing so I see this good view.

I was like, so I'm gonna do that.

And it was good.

It was awesome and I was happy about it.

So not planning that ahead of time was a risk and it turned out to be just fine.

One of the other things that we did is.

We had like two hours before our train left, and so we didn't know where to go and so we had to go figure something out.

We probably rode the subway past something that we could have seen that would've been cool to see, and we didn't get to see it because we went to something else and we may have missed something.

I don't even know if we did or not sure,

sure.

but an experienced guide or someone from there may have said, this is the thing you have to go see.

And would've prevented me from that serendipitous experience of riding the subway and going out to this other place.

So somebody could have slapped me on the wrist and I probably would not, I would've bristled and not liked that.

But just walking around the city, seeing this hot air balloon saying, yeah, let's go try it out.

That was totally worthwhile and I enjoyed it.

Right.

And I think what you seems like you're getting to is this idea of how much of our life is planned uhhuh and almost like planned because of maybe a desire for safety or a desire to maximize or whatever those things are.

And then how much do we just kind of leave to, to see what happens?

Right.

And it is, it's so often that the wonderful things in life happen when you just take an exit or you get off the subway at this spot and maybe nothing happens and you risk.

Quote unquote wasting part of your life because, oh, there was nothing here, but there might have been.

And do we want, how much of our life do we want?

So regulated, and how much do we want to just live and have some open space

there.

Yeah.

Yep.

And for me, I lean towards open space.

I lean towards the freedom more more often than not.

And I bristle whenever there's like control or you have to do it this way.

So that's the same approach that I take with security, that I want to have the freedom to do what I want to and what I need to.

And if I have to put in some safeguards, like putting a password on my wifi at home It's very worth it to have that.

So I know it's just me and my family on the wifi and there's not anybody else who could be doing something and my neighbors aren't using up all my data or whatever.

And so those things are worth it.

Having a good password and a password manager, those things are worth it to me because it doesn't increase the control.

It helps me know that what I'm doing is gonna work out.

Right.

And some of my concern, I think even when you think about things like the ability to crack passwords with quantum and some of things that, that may be coming, yeah.

And what it means for what we may have to do to secure things.

And as bad actors use AI to do things that, like for example, my father had a situation where a credit card was delivered to his house from a major reputable credit card company.

And he activated it and within one hour there was a charge.

Oh my gosh.

And what was weird was that then someone called him.

From the bank, quote unquote bank, and said, Hey, we've noticed a fraudulent charge on your account.

The account number, well, he gave, they gave him the last four and told him how much the charge was for and said, we think we have an inside job here.

Please don't tell the bank because we believe there's somebody internally working, but we need you to help us work on this as we're trying to diagnose.

And the whole thing turned out to be a scam.

Like the whole, I mean.

The sophistication of what's going on is unbelievable.

I'm just wondering like, how much, what does life look like as we move forward into a place where there are so many bad actors where there really
the idea of having consequences for these bad act is incredibly hard to, I mean, hey you're gonna get X, Y, z whatever life in prison if you do this.

These people are never caught.

for the most part.

So what are your thoughts on how do we move forward with a life?

That people really wanna live in response.

I mean, in a world where you have these risks

Yeah.

That, that's a tough question because the risks exist because we are alive, and that's all there is to it.

We live in a chaotic world, and so we cannot prevent every bad thing from happening.

And so what we need to do is prevent the things that.

We can, and that makes sense.

And so for example, you can't prevent that you're gonna get in a car accident, but you can wear a seatbelt to reduce the possibility that you're gonna die in it.

And that isn't always gonna work.

And to some people losing a limb could be worse than death and they'd prefer to be to die in that situation.

And that's their own personal perspective on life.

And so I think you have to allow some sort of risk.

You have to allow for that to happen.

But wherever you can stop bad actors, I think we need to work really hard to do that.

So those scammers who are creating a credit card, sending it to your dad and then scamming him those people definitely need to be stopped.

We don't need to allow that kind of free will to happen because you're disadvantaging other people.

But what's your thought on that?

You know, it's interesting and it's all, like you said, it's a matter of extent, right.

Like, am I going to get in my car and put on a full seat harness and make so it takes three or four minutes to get in and outta my car just because I wanna be safe?

Like I'm not willing to go to that level, but I also want to be able to keep my money in a bank,

Yeah.

right?

And have that money be safe in the bank.

And I'm not worried every night about whether somebody's gonna take my money because like even something fundamental like that, if we lose trust in banking,

Yeah.

our society actually crumbles.

I mean, there's societies around the world that they don't have this concept of I do something today.

As an investment for tomorrow, like, or as an investment for next month or for my children even.

Like there's societies that don't have that because they don't know.

I mean, somebody's just gonna come steal, whatever the thing is, right?

I mean, that's been happening.

I mean, the way we live right now in the United States is actually somewhat of an anomaly when you look at it on the course of world history, right?

We live this idea that I can count to.

to

On tomorrow, what I'm investing in today, I is a somewhat of an except for the very wealthy throughout the, his, the world.

Hi, world history.

Yeah it's a really interesting time and I just have grown to have a lot of appreciation for what we have today especially in the developed world that allows us to, to enjoy the level of freedom to make these choices.

Like we were talking about, do I stop, do I get off on the subway?

Do I even travel to Berlin or things like and I'm just very thankful for that.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

That's a great way to end it.

I appreciate it, grant.

Everybody check out in TeleTech and teletech.com, right?

Yep, that's it.

And

appreciate you sponsoring and supporting Inch 360.

Thanks, grant.

Great,

Thanks.