Ryan Berg Chats about How to Keep ‘Gum’ Off of Your Cybersecurity ‘Shoe’

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Inner Circle Podcast Episode 041

This Inner Circle podcast episode is overdue. I’ll spare you the reasons and excuses for why there is a delay, but I want to frame the conversation because this episode was actually recorded with Ryan a few weeks ago and it references the Black Hat security conference which is now more than two months in the past.

With that said, I had the privilege of spending an hour or so chatting with Ryan Berg about the state of cybersecurity and some of the current trends and challenges. Ryan is one of the most intelligent and insightful individuals I know in the world of cybersecurity. He holds a number of patents related to cybersecurity and has an established history of success as a founder of cybersecurity companies. Ryan and I are also coworkers at Alert Logic. Alert Logic acquired the endpoint security company he was at–Barkly–at the beginning of this year, and Ryan joined Alert Logic as an Engineering Fellow.

While we were at Black Hat this year, Ryan and I spoke about what we saw on the Expo Floor and the messaging from the hundreds of cybersecurity vendors exhibiting there. Ryan drew an analogy that cybersecurity is like having gum on your shoe, and that customers are searching for vendors that can help them solve the problem and remove the gum, but many of the products actually end up putting more gum on your shoe and just adding new or different issues that companies have to fix.

Our conversation was very interesting. One of the things that I appreciate about Ryan is that he is pragmatic. He has an appreciation for the fact that each company or customer is unique, and also for the fact that different organizations have different philosophies or goals as it relates to cybersecurity. He doesn’t present his view as gospel and assume that it is the best answer for every company. He simply spells out the challenges, and points out the pros and cons, and stresses that organizations must consider all of the above and weigh all of those factors to choose the cybersecurity strategy that makes the most sense for them.

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