Alon Nachmany, AZEN Consulting | RSA Conference 2023

This is texturung TV. Hey everyone. Good morning.

Well, maybe it's the afternoon where you are, but we're live in the morning here. We are at RSA conference for our day three coverage. It's Wednesday.

I love doing these first thing in the morning interviews. It's a little quiet. It's still people are still filling in.

I mean there's 40 something thousand people here and it's been it's been a return to normalcy. I would say at RSA great great show. Anyway, I want to bring to you I guess my first guest this morning is my neighbor from back home in Boca Raton, Florida.

We have to come out here to San Francisco to do a video. But such is way of things that RSA. I want to introduce you to alone nachmani alone.

Welcome. How are you? Great to see you.

So you couldn't come down the block you had to come across the country. Oh, so does I just want to see you? All right.

Hey, I want why don't we start with? Tell him give a little of your background what you've done where what you're up to and sure we'll go from there. Sounds good.

Hi everybody. My name is Alona honey. I've been AC show for five years for three different companies to publicly traded Financial companies on Wall Street one company.

No how to classified but we work is it a tech company? Is it a real estate company depends and I you know, I watched the series on Apple or whatever. Okay.

So now what do you think? Is it a financial review real estate? I think it depends what day it is.

But I call it a real estate company fair enough. So that was the other company. I was a season 4 and then I've also spent some significant time on the vendor side.

I was with appview X and their field see so I was with bromium and did a lot of endpoint security for some financials. That Simon Crosby's company. Yes.

It was good friend. Yeah, great guys a great company got sold off to HP. Yeah, and then I also got to spend some time at cyberbit Albert's commercial Branch.

Yeah and did some really great OT security there actually, so We're out here in RSA. It's certainly seems back. I mean, look, I'm here at RSA twenty something years, but along what's your impression if you want to share with you audience?

Sure. So we did this last year. I remember last year when we spoke.

We said, you know, it was great to finally be back in person and be out here and Connection people's hands after we didn't do it for so long and covid. This year exploded it looks like you know. Nobody anticipated the amount of boost that people I mean remember the corridor in between used to be empty now, it's jam-packed and there's like four or five different rows of just being able to walk Hard always full in 20, you know in 2020 was right before.

covid and Literally, it wasn't even before Kobe. It was right when covid started and that was the first year. I saw them fill the card up between North and South last year was certainly a In retrospect last year, I think was a dip your water tip your toe in the water.

Yep. We came out here with 12 people six went home with covid. And and I've heard of a lot of other people went home with covid.

Yeah and become the joke you go to a conference and you get covid on the way. In fact, yeah. Okay ws3.

In fact, but nevertheless. I think that was last year. I think covid's in the rearview mirror.

I think there's 40 something thousand people here. And that's tested me to that but we're also I mean just in terms of further Evidence we came directly here from Amsterdam kubecon Club nativecon. They capped their attendance at 10,000.

It was sold out with a two thousand person waiting list crazy, so It's it's you know, we're back. Yeah. No, we're back to to do a car we're back but I was here in 2020.

I was here in 2019 and 2018 and 2017 and all the way back together 2001. not only is there a lot of people here the enthusiasm and excitement and Buzz is off the charts here this you know, it's not even that it's I'm seeing So much more going on off the conference floor. And so I mean you walk up the street here to Starbucks.

It's packed with people having meals designer. And I mean, I haven't beats every restaurant every hotel is full. The problem is there's not as many restaurants as there used to be because a lot of them closed.

but and what's interesting is don't forget. This is all taking place on a backdrop of layoffs in the tech industry to high interest rates. You know questions around the economy, but I you know as I've always said I think cyber or security is I call it is somewhat Recession Proof.

You know. It is more insulated than others, but then there's a big butt here. I think the conversations are changing the conversations used to be about how can I protect you and what am I protecting and what am I doing?

and the conversations are now turning to Where they should be how am I offsetting your risk? How am I? increasing your Roi on Cyber so that as a SEO you can go into the board meeting and you can actually talk about the value that cyber brings is it is it recession-proofed two degree into a point because you know, the company's gonna get hacked and at that point, you know, the bottom line is gonna be affected.

That's that's really the value that we bring. I think the the conversation or at least the the Viewpoint is changing and I truthfully I think I think it's something that's been due in something that that had to happen. You know last year.

I heard a vendor say to me. Oh, well, we're in cybersecurity, you know budgets don't matter. We'll get a blank check you won't and you shouldn't and you shouldn't back then and you shouldn't tomorrow look.

com 2008. As Alan Greenspan called it when you get irrational exuberance in a market. Where it doesn't matter I'd like, you know, I'll give you a one-page of fun my company or I I'm I'm getting I'm getting customers or users at all costs.

Yep. That's not a sustainable model. It's not it's what goes up has to come down.

There has to be a sense of normalcy. Yeah, and I think that's what we're dealing with but in a normal environment people need cyber people need security out. It is much more insulated to economic ups and downs than other areas in Tech.

No without it out. I just think again, I think it's more now that we're having these conversations and actually evaluating the value that people bring I also think this is gonna be the time of consolidation. There's no longer.

it's less acceptable for a company to say well I only protect you but if you have this solution already in place and and I'll integrate between us this solution and that Solution that's kind of start gonna start to disappear a little bit more, you know that the kind of specialty area and there's a lot of Seasons that I've been talking to this week that that are just saying, you know My budgets getting tight, not necessarily getting caught. I'd rather spend it on a vendor that's going to cost me 60% but bring me 80% of the solution versus. 10 different vendors and I'm also going to have to worry about the overhead and caring feet and all the Integrations and all that other stuff.

So I think you know, we're gonna see probably in the next year quite a few mergers and acquisitions. That are gonna bring that kind of smaller players into one bigger environment or bigger player together I get it. But listen, it's Steve evolution of the market.

But you know what, but it's also like a forest fire as those consolidate in these big companies get bigger their rate of innovation decreases and fresh growth companies come up underneath and they form the next generation of innovation and in cyber and that brings up the next thing I wanted to ask you about which is, you know, a question. I always heard from all my friends. You know the 20 years I'm coming here is why you come here.

I want to see what's new. I want to see what's new in security. I want to see where the Innovation is.

You know how much vulnerability management can we do? How much network security? Can we do how much what's happening with Cloud security.

So what do you see is kind of the new hot areas the new Innovations. you know, it's it's interesting and I think I'm seeing a lot I mean you know Cloud security and Cloud kind of posture management has been a topic for quite a few years, I think. As a season who has experienced several breaches to breaches as a result of data security not knowing really not knowing where my data was and not knowing as a result what I needed to secure what I needed to invest in.

I'm happy to see that that data security is something that's kind of being concentrated on and something that's definitely growing to me. That's very very important. Yeah, I I think for a long time certainly the last 12 years maybe more.

We we focused on absec and not that abscess not important. Of course you But we focused on abstract I think at the detriment of data set. That's very very key.

And like I said, I'm just I'm happy. I really and a personal level. I'm happy that it's something that's that's getting a priority and something that's really taking effect because I think Again, just out of experience.

It's something that is so important something that should be talked about something. That should be dealt with like, yeah. Not a good quote.

But if you look at AA you can't solve something until you know that you have a problem. Well, so that's the next. Thing that I see too right the whole sort of attack surface management.

That's very prominent here. I've interviewed several people start on the floor, which is you got to know it actually was interviewing the CPO at tenable yesterday, okay. Forget his name of top of my head.

but Nico and and you know, this is a big. A big thing for them right is you've got to know what it is. You defend otherwise, how can you defend it?

And so we've You know with seeing that I think come in very strong that includes your data and where it resides it includes. It includes your third party dependencies. It includes your footprint right attack surface, and that's actually what's gonna help cesos in the boardroom because with that they're going to be able to calculate their risk better.

So when they go to ask for a budget, they're not asking for a budget because I need 10 firewalls and I need to protect this 90th president where I want to buy the next time you drink it right instead of that. They're now looking at you know, what what's the cost of the organization? What is our risk and they're also asking something that I have seen csos do now is they're actually going to the board and presenting.

Hey, here's our evaluation of our risk and just making it up, you know, it's a million dollars. You know, do you want a one-to-one Roi and are you allow us to invest or maybe you're comfortable with risk? Maybe the board, you know to financial organization they trade for a living.

They want to do 80% That's that's a conversation thing to come from the board and that's a business conversation. Absolutely, but that drives so much business here because that's how you decide what it is. Actually I serve you did a few interviews here.

We're for the first time. I'm really seeing Off the shelf solutions that really do help you quantify that risk. Because that's what you know quantifying risk was a bit of like reading golden age or tea leaves, but now we're seeing programs that really apply some algorithms to it.

And and that's a great thing to see as well. I've also seen a lot of people bring over risk assessors from the insurance industry. Yeah.

Well I think the whole cyber insurance thing is driving a lot of risk assessment, but it's also becoming a Year a kid to what the PCI council did for credit cards? I think it's driving that. Oh, yeah without it's driving in security and some minimum standards plus I think that those are the right conversations to be having.

I think I think you know, I've been talking to some vendors and I one of the things I do is I help vendors with their go to market. A lot of them are struggling with you know, my Solutions grade. It's you know from a technical perspective.

It's amazing. It's gonna help people in so many ways and it does but they're what they're having trouble communicating is exactly how do I offset? What risk am I offsetting and by what percentage because that's where the conversations are now headed especially given what's happening in the market, you know between the job market the interest rates the financial markets that that's kind of what's driving these conversations into your point.

From the vendor side we used to look at, you know annual recurring revenue or ARR as kind of the driver it was Revenue. It was never profit. It was never the bottom line.

It was just how many more customers can we get and how quickly that's also changing and and investors are looking into how our company is going to be sustainable how our company's gonna grow because you don't know if it's gonna be sold off in 18 months two years 10 years. Now, they're trying to look at the company itself what it does and how it can be sustainable in the long run. Which absolutely great turn.

No no look. It's so I think a theme is you know cyber security is growing up. It's maturing.

It's getting much more real. It's getting much more. Feed on the ground without a doubt and it's it's really fun to see and it's like a child.

It's it's you grow up and grow up into something good. All right. Hey, man, I appreciate you coming here.

But you don't have to come all the way to California to talk to me. I'll definitely come by your office next week. Hey, man, keep us posted.

A lot knock mommy all the way from Boca Raton Florida here at RSA conference. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back.