Cybertraps Podcast

welcome to the Cybertrops podcast.

This is a special live
event edition of the show.

Uh, we're here at the Inch 360 event
in beautiful Spokane, Washington.

And today we have Peter Gregory.

Peter's from GCI.

Welcome, Peter, to, uh, Cybertron's

podcast.

Great.

Thank you, Jethro.

It's nice to be here.

And, um, I'm very grateful for GCI because
GCI was a sponsor for, uh, Leadership

Summit that I did several years ago,
and, uh, when I lived in Alaska, and,

uh, GCI's always been a great company,
so it's great to, uh, Reconnect with

anybody from GCI because you guys have
been a supporter of my work in the past.

So I appreciate it

Oh, yeah, very very good GCI is
very bullish on community support

and yeah does lots of sponsorships
Scholarships and so forth and really

goes all in for serving all of Alaska

Yeah, for sure.

So, uh, what brings you
down here to Spokane to

this event, though?

So, I live in, uh, central Washington
State, just a couple hours away,

and, uh, I haven't been to as many
security conferences this year, and

when I saw this one come up, I thought,
great, an opportunity to meet some,

meet some local cyber professionals,
and, you know, some that I know

already, and meet a few new folks.

Learn a few things, uh, and
just some local networking.

Yeah, awesome.

Very good.

So, uh, you came to this conference for
the networking, getting to know people.

Do you serve Washington
as well or just Alaska?

Uh, GCI serves just,
uh, the state of Alaska.

Gotcha, okay, that's what I thought.

it's always good to connect with people
anywhere you go and anywhere you live.

tell us what your main takeaway is
from this conference so far today.

The main takeaway is that I've
learned more about, the What is it?

Inch 360 organization.

This is my first event that I've attended.

I'm interested in getting involved in
local things and have for many years.

I've lived in Washington
State for 30 years.

Most of that in Seattle, but the
last six years in Central Washington.

I'm just interested in getting
involved in the community.

Yeah,

awesome.

And so, working for a company that
is in Alaska, uh, I imagine you

probably travel up there sometimes.

Uh, from time to time.

Every few months, uh, I'm
in Alaska for a week or so.

Uh

huh.

Uh, which is awesome,
because I love Alaska.

So, that's good.

but what's amazing about the way the world
works is that you can live down here in

Washington and, and still be able to.

Do that work from here and not
have to be there physically.

And so what is your role?

What do you do at GCI

for sure?

And I, I've been a full time
remote employee for 10 years.

I've been in GCI about
three and a half years.

I'm the senior director of cyber GRC.

Uh, I have many functions in
cybersecurity, including, but not limited

to risk management controls, policy,
privacy, third party risk management.

Uh, Business Continuity, Disaster
Recovery, Data Governance, Data,

uh, Records Management and Retention
and a few other things besides.

Man, that's a lot of stuff
that you're, that you're over.

So with that, what kinds of things
are you thinking about that people

need to know about right now
as it relates to those things?

One thing that's on my mind a lot in
one of the talks today, uh, zeroed in on

this, uh, is security awareness training
and the fact that every worker in an

organization, regardless of their role,
needs to have some working knowledge of

safe practices, things to always do, other
things to never do, uh, because those,

uh, decisions could, result in a great
deal of harm to themselves personally

or to their organization or both.

Yeah.

And so what are, what are some of
those things that, give me a couple

that everybody should do and a couple
that people should definitely not do?

So a few examples is Slow down when
you're reading your email and think,

give yourself a couple of seconds
before clicking on anything in any

message, even messages that are
internal or appear to be internal,

uh, by people that you work with.

we, we're busy, but you,
you can give, definitely.

Wait a few seconds.

Just give it a little bit of thought.

Does this look right?

Am I expecting to hear from them?

But before acting rashly and it's hard
to slow down people want to just click

quickly through things and and get their
work done and Cyber criminals count on the

fact that we're too hasty at what we do.

We don't slow down to think and that's
why Fishing works for cybercriminal

organizations because they only need
one or two people in an organization

to click to give them that beachhead
which could be a part of a longer

term campaign that could be very
costly for that organization.

Yeah, yeah.

And, uh, so that's one of the things
that you should do is slow down.

Okay?

And then one of the things you shouldn't
do is, uh, Click on anything that you're

not sure about where it came from.

Any other quick advice?

Well, a few of the things in cyber
hygiene, there's so many, but another

one that comes to mind is, regardless of
what we're able to do on the laptops or

desktops issued to us by our employers,
we should refrain from installing any

other tools or software that Maybe we've
used before or at home or in another job

or something that we read about, there
are many good, trusted, safe tools out

there, but there are also many that have
Trojans in them or are harmful in, in

some way that may not be, obvious on
the surface, um, there are unscrupulous,

tool and application vendors and there
are also those that don't practice very

good hygiene, and they get compromised.

Solar winds is the classic example

today.

Yeah, yeah for sure.

this was great to chat with you.

Great to connect with you.

Thank you for coming out here.

Is there any other things you'd
like to say to our audience,

people all over the country?

Slow down and think about what you're
doing on, on your computer and, and

think about the potential consequences.

If you are not an expert
in cyber, find one.

find a good book somewhere that can help
you understand a little bit more about

what good cyber hygiene is all about.

That will, help keep you out of trouble.

Yeah, and I think, uh.

A cyber hygiene, podcast would be
beneficial to talk about, go more into

depth on each of those things and,
and how you can have good hygiene.

So that's a, that's an
idea for me for the future.

You know it.

Thanks for being part of the show.

Appreciate it.

Great.

Thank you, Jethro.