Gula Tech Cyber Fiction

Ron Gula interviews Matt Devost about the state of cybersecurity, red teaming, threat intelligence and advising  Michael Mann during the making of the Blackhat motion picture staring Chris Hemsworth. Matt is the CEO & Co-Founder of OODA LLC. Matt is a technologist, entrepreneur, and international security expert specializing in counterterrorism, critical infrastructure protection, intelligence, risk management and cyber-security issues. Matt co-founded the cyber security consultancy FusionX from 2010-2017. Matt was President & CEO of the Terrorism Research Center/Total Intel from 1996-2009.

Ron Gula interviews Nick Shevelyov of Silicon Valley Bank and author of Cyber War and Peace, about investing in cyber, his experience validating technologies, and helping advise early stage companies to develop products that are more likely to succeed in establishing themselves and getting critical investment.  The pair then dive into a deeper discussion of Nick's recent book and how it helps—through historical storytelling—to provide non-technical business leaders a useful perspective for thinking about cyber risk in their organizations. 

Ron Gula interviews Brian Hubbard and Joy Beland, experts from Edwards Performance Solutions, on the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification.  This framework--of critical cybersecurity training, certification, and third-party assessment within the US Defense Industrial Base--helps protect Federal Contract Information and other unclassified information.  Understanding this can be critical to those seeking to get contracts with the Department of Defense and other US federal departments and agencies.

GTA President and preeminent technologist Ron Gula discusses cybersecurity and developing engineering products so that they are secure by design.

GTA President Ron Gula explains the best principles of developing a pitch deck when seeking investments.

Ron and Cyndi Gula interview Jon Hoeber, a Hollywood screenwriter and producer that has been part of the team behind some of the Transformers movies, the Red series, and the Meg, about the movie industry, cybersecurity and hacking in tv and movies, and how to make pitches—in Hollywood and in business more generally.  

Ron Gula interviews LTG (Ret.) John Mulholland, a retired Green Beret who led US special operations and served as the senior military official at CIA, about the US military response after 9/11, the recent departure of the US and Western allied military forces from Afghanistan, the modernization of warfare, and science fiction.

Ron and Cyndi Gula interview Richard Thieme, respected technology commentator, about DefCon, hacking culture's evolution over the decades, religion, and literature.

Ron Gula interviews Dr. Daanish Maqbool, the CEO of Wave Engine Corp., about innovation in jet propulsion, drones, developing products in the government space and transitioning to commercial markets, and how technologies are portrayed in Batman, Avengers, and other high-revenue movies.

Ron Gula interviews Dave Baggett, the current CEO of Inky who previously worked on hit video games, about cybersecurity, early coding on vintage PCs, and the development of the video game industry.  

Ron Gula interviews Peter Singer, a Senior Fellow at New America, a Professor at Arizona State University, and all-around cybersecurity advocate, on cybersecurity; recruitment, retention, and education in the field; his fiction and non-fiction writing, and great books and movies that influenced his growth and perspective. 

Ron Gula interviews Rick Gordon, the founder of Mach 37 and the Managing Director at MITRE Engenuity, about his experiences in investing in startups and the potential for venture capital in the DMV area.  Ron and Rick discuss the differences between developing a product and building a company, as well as the work that accelerators do to help companies grow.

Ron Gula interviews Eli Sugarman, of Facebook Oversight Board and formerly the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, about his experiences working with and funding cybersecurity nonprofits and his current work at Facebook on free speech and privacy policy.  Eli and Ron also talked about classic science fiction (scifi) books and movies, as well as those about hackers.

Ron and Cyndi Gula interview Larry Sjelin and Julina Macy of the Center for Information Assurance and Security (CIAS) at the University of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA).  UTSA's CIAS was the first place winner of the Gula Tech Foundation's March 2021 grant competition for non-profits focused on increasing public cybersecurity awareness.  Ron and Cyndi discussed Data Care and cyber education, including CIAS' efforts to increase interest among K-12 students in cyber through their innovative card game.

Ron interviews David Horowitz, the founder and CEO of Retrium, about Agile retrospectives and teamwork. Ron and David also discussed their respective experiences in building start-ups. David highlighted some of the differences in the kind of training that you can receive in cybersecurity depending on where you get it (4-year universities, community colleges, and on-the-job). Ron and David also talked about coding.

Ron and Cyndi interview Philip Niedermair, the Founder of the National Cyber Group and a member of the Gula Tech Foundation advisory board, about Cyber Education and Development and Retention of the Cyber Workforce.  They also discussed the Cyberspace Solarium effort.  Additionally, they discussed leadership and some interesting stories about US naval history.

Ron interviews Bob Zukis about how to improve corporate governance, and discussed the implications of Sarbanes-Oxley for incorporating proper expertise into Board of Director decision-making. Bob is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and was one of the founders of the Digital Directors Network; Bob discussed his book, The Great Reboot, which thought about the opportunities that Covid has provided for a reset of America's corporate sector.  Bob's discussion of complex systems and the impact of problems is important and he provided great examples ranging from the catastrophic 1986 Challenger accident to getting a flat when driving your car.

Ron and Cyndi Gula interview Lauren Buitta - national security expert and founder and CEO of Girl Security. We discuss Girl Security's national security focus to encourage young women to enter cybersecurity and national security career paths. Girl Security was a recipient of a grant from the Gula Tech Foundation. We also discuss a variety of national security news, trends and as always, science fiction that shows us what type of future might be heading our way. 

Ron interviews General Thomas Ayres (retired) about his recent Wall Street Journal op ed (A Maritime Solution for Cyber Piracy) about giving private companies "Letters of Marque" to defend themselves in cyberspace. We discuss his experience as a military lawyer. the complex issues of cybersecurity policy and his experiences helping set up Space Force. 

Ron and Cyndi Gula interview Tony Cole and speak about the use of cyber deception to thwart and frustrate hackers. We also speak about the cyber industry, Tony's career in cybersecurity and some great works of science fiction influencing the industry. 

In 2010, Doug Howard, CEO of managed detection and response company Pondurance, wrote a cybersecurity book called Security 2020 in which he and 50 leading experts made predictions about what cybersecurity would be like in 2020. They were correct on many different trends such as the recent impact of the COVID pandemic, the rise of botnets, exposing documents from famous pundits and nation state cyber warfare. There were also many other predictions that border on science fiction plots.  

Cyndi Gula and I interviewed Mac Conwell for episode 20 of Gula Tech Cyber Fiction. Mac runs Rare Breed Ventures which does seed investing in tech start-ups. We spoke a lot about the venture process, why Mac started Rare Breed and some of his portfolio investments. 

Ron and Cyndi Gula interview Chris Kubecka about her time at Saudi Aramco performing incident response against Iranian intrusions, the state of Middle East cybersecurity relations, how the cybersecurity conference scene has changed over the last few years and how we can teach more people about #DataCare and inspire them to join this exciting career field. Chris is the Distinguished Chair at the Middle East Institute Cyber Program and consults with a variety of world governments on cybersecurity policy. 

Ron interviews author and cyber journalist Deb Radcliff about her fiction book, Breaking Backbones in which a group of hackers take on an evil corporation which controls the world's information. They also discuss Deb's background running the SANS Analysts program and some of the cyber stories she covered as a journalist. 

Suzanne joins Ron for episode #17 and discusses her time running DHS's critical infrastructure programs, her continuing work on the CyberSpace Solarium commission, election security and #DataCare. She also reflects on a 2010 Huffington Post article she wrote titled "No More Secrets" which talks about a world in which we have no secrecy or privacy and how this type of transparency can be a positive force for businesses. Suzanne is a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and board members of both Defending Digital Campaigns and Girl Security. Her Twitter handle is @SpauldingSez.

In episode 16, Ron interviews NFL football player & tech investor Kelvin Beachum. Kelvin has played football for several teams and recently joined the Arizona Cardinals. He has also become an avid tech investor in drones, clean energy, robotics and cybersecurity. Ron and Kelvin speak about tech investing, increasing tech diversity, Data Care and how science fiction shapes technology. Kelvin can be followed on Twitter @KelvinBeachumJr.

Episode 16's guest is former New Jersey CTO, Dave Weinstein. Ron and Dave speak about the early days of Cyber Command, being CISO and CTO for the state of New Jersey, running Claroty's threat intelligence team and consulting in the operational technology space as a McKinsey Associate Partner.  

Dr. Eric Cole is our guest for episode 14 of Gula Tech Cyber Fiction. Eric and Ron speak about why we need certifications for Chief Information Security Officers, marketing terms like "zero trust" and "artificial intelligence", cybersecurity risk frameworks, Data Care and a good bit of hacker science fiction. Dr. Cole started his career doing cybersecurity at the CIA, has a PHD in computer science, has authored 8 computer security books including Cyber Crisis which will be available soon and runs Secure Anchor consulting which provides cybersecurity expert witness services and security consulting. 

Ron interviews Bryan Ware who started out his career as a commercial tech entrepreneur, served as a senior DHS cybersecurity executive and now runs Next5 - a technology-focused business intelligence and strategic advisory firm. We discuss all sorts of cybersecurity technologies, the latest in United States cyber policy, toast Chris Krebs and share some bourbon. 

In episode 12, Trevor Pryce is interviewed by Ron and Cyndi Gula about his latest efforts to bring animation and movie making to Baltimore. We discuss his NFL career, how he got into animation and film making, the fantasy animation Netflix series Kulipari, his current movie, series and video game productions at Outlook and how we can get more young adults into high tech jobs. Plus we name drop Mark Hamill, Ben Roethlisberger, Keith David, JJ Abrams and many other sci-fi and sports icons. 

Ron and Cyndi Gula interview Robert Vaughn and Kendra Parlock of NPower. NPower won a $300k competitive grant from the Gula Tech Foundation and has a mission to move people from poverty to the middle class through tech skills training and quality job placement. We discuss the NPower program, how IT and cybersecurity is taught to the trainees and how our listeners can get involved as guest speakers, mentors, hosting interns and hiring graduates. Kendra is the NPower Executive Director of Maryland and Robert is the Head of the National Instructors Institute at NPower and a former CISO. 

Steve Ryan and Tom Bossert discuss Trinity Cyber's advanced and proven ability to prevent cyber attacks with Ron Gula. We discuss how Trinity Cyber is taking a fundamentally new approach to rapidly remove exploits in documents and interdict botnet command and control for large and small organizations. We also discuss cybersecurity policy since Tom was the former Homeland Security Advisor to President Trump and Steve was the National Security Agency's Threat Operations Center Deputy Director. 

Tony Sager has helped make the internet safer for you and me and he did this while humbly working for the National Security Agency. Tony and Ron discuss his career as a cryptologist, NSA's early work securing computers in the 90s, the "Systems and Network Attack Center" and what it takes to get vendors like Microsoft, the Air Force and security researchers to agree on what makes a computer secure. Tony continues this work today as the Chief Evangelist for the Center for Internet Security. Our title today comes from the byline on Tony's blog - "Sage(r) Cyber" - where he publishes articles about cybersecurity and updated blogs he wrote during his nearly 35 year NSA career.

Ron and Cyndi interview the cast and director of CBS's MacGyver about cybersecurity in entertainment and real life. Lucas Till plays MacGyver, Triston Mays plays a hacker named Riley Davis and David Straiton is the director. We discuss why cybersecurity is difficult to communicate to the general public and why it does not seem exciting. We also talk about how the entertainment industry uses tech and was impacted by the Sony hack of 2014. And lastly, we draw on the team's experiences with Star Trek, X-Men, and science fiction in general and talk about future technologies.

Jeff Man is a cryptologist, network penetration tester, PCI auditor and an evangelist for the cybersecurity industry. I met Jeff when I started working at the NSA in the mid 90s. Jeff and I speak about the current state of the cybersecurity conference industry, attracting more people to this career field and different types of cybersecurity audits and risk modeling. We also drink some good bourbon!

Kiersten Todt shares a variety of insights about her cybersecurity work at both Congress and the White House and gives some perspectives on the major cyber issues facing the country today. She is also passionate about protecting small business and discusses her work as the Managing Director for the Cyber Readiness Institute.

Ron Gula and show guest Deb Tillett, interview video game design legend Sid Meier. We asked Sid about his history starting Microprose, business decisions made along the way and why there aren't any really good cybersecurity themed computer games.

In episode four, Ron Gula spends an exciting hour speaking with former Marine pilot, shuttle astronaut and head of NASA - retried Major General (USMC) Charles Bolden. We spoke about a variety of issues including: How we can encourage more minorities to enter the tech fieldWhy STEM needs to include "art" and "design" becoming STEM+ADHow we can handle disinformation from NASA's deal with moon landing deniersCybersecurity of NASA, reliability of computers & softwareThe commercialization and weaponization of space Charlie Bolden is part of the Bolden Group and leads it with his son Che Bolden and daughter Kelly Bolden. The Bolden Group was founded in 2017 and has a mission to provide singular and trustworthy expertise to cultivate and transform leadership in the areas of Space/Aerospace Exploration; National Security; Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math + Arts and Design (STEM+AD) Education, and Health Initiatives.

Ron Gula interviews Chris Crowley about the results of the 2020 Security Operations Survey. In this hour long interview, we discuss how there are two types of SOCs and how this affects budget, staffing, technology effectiveness and overall cybersecurity.

In our second episode, Ron interviews Ben Adida, founder of voting.works, about their role in helping secure the 2020 US election and all of the different types of controls in place to prevent voting fraud.

In our first ever "Gula Tech Cyber Fiction" show, Ron Gula interviews Cyndi Gula about her cybersecurity entrepreneur background, Data Care and the Gula Tech Foundation - including tips for the upcoming January 4th, 2021 grant applicants.