Kevin Barona’s leadership journey is a testament to resilience, adaptability, and a strong sense of purpose. In this episode, Kevin shares his path from Capitol Hill to becoming the founder of CI Core Secure, a cybersecurity firm. He emphasizes the critical role leadership plays in shaping a company’s culture, particularly in high-pressure environments like cybersecurity. Drawing from personal experiences, Kevin reveals how leadership is not just about making decisions but also about empowering others to take ownership. He believes in building a collaborative team where success is a collective goal, not an individual one. This mindset has driven his company’s success, even in industries as complex as nuclear security. Kevin also discusses the importance of leading with integrity and creating a culture where team members feel connected to the company’s mission, ultimately fostering long-term growth and innovation.
Want to learn more about Kevin Barona's work? Check out his website at https://cycoresecure.com.
Connect with Kevin Barona on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbarona.
Think you'd be a great guest on the show? Apply at https://podcast.allies4me.com/podcast-guest/.
Want to learn more about Craig Andrew's work at allies4me? Check out his website at https://allies4me.com/.
Key Points and Time Stamps:
- 00:02:00 – Kevin discusses his family background, being a first-generation American, and his inspiration for leadership.
- 00:05:14 – Kevin explains his unexpected path from studying economics to becoming a cybersecurity expert.
- 00:10:01 – The importance of cybersecurity in critical infrastructures, including Kevin's work with nuclear plants.
- 00:16:00 – Misconceptions about cybersecurity: why simple mistakes often lead to major security breaches.
- 00:20:17 – Kevin highlights the importance of businesses safeguarding their data and brand reputation.
- 00:23:40 – The increasing role of cybersecurity in contracts and business growth
- .00:25:38 – Kevin shares his entrepreneurial journey, lessons learned, and how leadership has shaped his company.
- 00:27:32 – Kevin’s passion for creating jobs, building a strong company culture, and fostering leadership within his team.
Transcript
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.
00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.
00;00;51;10 - 00;00;58;26
Craig Andrews
Day I will welcome Kevin Barona. He is the founder and CEO of CI Core Secure.
00;00;58;26 - 00;01;08;04
Craig Andrews
They help folks become compliant in cyber security. And he's secured all sorts of things, including nuclear power plants.
00;01;08;04 - 00;01;18;01
Craig Andrews
But he works a lot with startups and high growth companies that need to have security, compliance. Now,
00;01;18;01 - 00;01;26;20
Craig Andrews
this May, you know, there's some people that are turning out cyber security, but this is going to be an interesting conversation because it's about a lot more.
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Craig Andrews
One of the things I like about Kevin is he is a,
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Craig Andrews
he is part of the American story. He was,
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Craig Andrews
first generation American born and raised in Miami, Florida. And when I asked him, why did you come on the podcast? He said, you know, I just like sharing
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Craig Andrews
knowledge. And,
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Craig Andrews
and so stay tuned. It's going to be an interesting discussion.
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Craig Andrews
Kevin, welcome.
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Kevin Barona
Thanks, Greg. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be on here.
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Craig Andrews
Yeah. So it's you know, there's there's always interest in stories about people.
00;02;02;11 - 00;02;19;29
Craig Andrews
You know, you mentioned your from your parents or from Colombia and I, I said you've got to be the first Kevin. The only Kevin I've ever met from Colombia as how, how did you come up with the name Kevin. It's not exactly a Colombian name.
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Kevin Barona
Okay. Yeah. But you actually be surprised. There's actually a lot of,
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Kevin Barona
a lot of people named Kevin in Colombia.
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Kevin Barona
It's funny because. So I have a younger sibling as well, and his name is Matthew.
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Kevin Barona
So we both have, you know, American names.
00;02;33;16 - 00;02;36;18
Kevin Barona
I mean, we're both first generation here, but,
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Kevin Barona
like I was mentioning before,
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Kevin Barona
there seemed to be a movie,
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Kevin Barona
very popular movie around the time that I was born.
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Kevin Barona
Kevin Costner was the lead actor.
00;02;46;02 - 00;02;53;14
Kevin Barona
Don't ask me what movie, because I'm not. I'm not sure what it is. I feel like I have to call my parents right after this podcast to figure it out, but,
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Kevin Barona
you know, my father was a huge fan of Kevin Costner. Still is. And,
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Kevin Barona
that's how Kevin, you know, that's how I became Kevin.
00;03;01;20 - 00;03;12;02
Craig Andrews
Wow. It's it's fascinating. And it's, you know, in some of them, it's just, you know what? I well, I know of many,
00;03;12;02 - 00;03;29;11
Craig Andrews
you know, many immigrant stories of, of the past, you know, just coming, coming to America and falling in love with America and just assimilating. Not not that we're perfect, but there was something, I guess, something here that attracted them here.
00;03;29;14 - 00;03;29;24
Kevin Barona
Yeah.
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Kevin Barona
Well,
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Kevin Barona
my father was always very, you know,
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Kevin Barona
ambitious.
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Kevin Barona
New. He always had a dream,
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Kevin Barona
dream was always to come to America.
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Kevin Barona
He tried every, you know,
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Kevin Barona
every, every opportunity, every option that he found.
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Kevin Barona
He was lucky enough to,
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Kevin Barona
get a job,
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Kevin Barona
with a company in Colombia that place them,
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Kevin Barona
in the US.
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Kevin Barona
And he moved, you know, he got married to to my mother.
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Kevin Barona
They moved,
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Kevin Barona
to Miami.
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Kevin Barona
And then, you know, I, I popped out, you know, ten months later and,
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Kevin Barona
you know, the rest is history. Just because,
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Kevin Barona
you know, they they decided to stay here.
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Kevin Barona
Me and my brother were born here, here in Miami.
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Kevin Barona
And,
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Kevin Barona
you know, there was no looking back after that.
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Craig Andrews
Yeah, I, I've been South Florida more recently, but I think I've, I've only been in Miami once, and that was a long time ago. That was,
00;04;19;16 - 00;04;34;29
Craig Andrews
94. That was fall of 94. And the thing that I loved about most is I would go in the Little Havana and I would get Cuban coffee and what they would offer to serve like a group of four I would get for myself.
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Kevin Barona
Yeah, yeah.
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Craig Andrews
At one point, somebody behind the counter said, this is a local gringo.
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Kevin Barona
Yeah. That that will get you going for sure.
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Kevin Barona
If you ever have,
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Kevin Barona
you know,
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Kevin Barona
what do you call it, writer's block or anything like that. You have a hard time,
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Kevin Barona
trying to get back to work. You know, a little cafecito will definitely get you going. Yeah, it's for sure.
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Craig Andrews
So,
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Craig Andrews
Yeah. And I still love it. I mean, as as we're talking them drinking the lowest for us. So they're brewed right for our call. And,
00;05;06;06 - 00;05;07;05
Craig Andrews
So,
00;05;07;05 - 00;05;14;02
Craig Andrews
how did you get from Miami to cyber security and what was what was that path?
00;05;14;05 - 00;05;30;25
Kevin Barona
Yeah, it's pretty interesting. It's always like one of those stories where you at the moment, you really didn't know what was going on, right? You just kind of took the next logical best step. And then looking back and you start connecting all the dots, you're just like, wow, this means total sense of where I am today.
00;05;30;25 - 00;05;36;16
Kevin Barona
I actually never majored in anything technology related.
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Kevin Barona
I never really saw myself in anything, you know, technology related. My father was a software engineer. Still is.
00;05;44;01 - 00;05;53;16
Kevin Barona
You know, so I saw him. I, you know, growing up, just being around computers and all that never really interested me. So I never really thought I would end up where I am today.
00;05;53;16 - 00;05;55;03
Kevin Barona
I majored in economics.
00;05;55;03 - 00;05;55;21
Kevin Barona
I went to,
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Kevin Barona
Florida State.
00;05;56;18 - 00;06;00;14
Kevin Barona
Just, you know, shy of the Georgia border.
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Kevin Barona
And I really thought I was going to become, you know, something of an economist,
00;06;04;08 - 00;06;06;14
Kevin Barona
maybe pursue my MBA.
00;06;06;14 - 00;06;12;06
Kevin Barona
Just, you know, having something to do with finance, maybe, or just learning business. And,
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Kevin Barona
you know, finding, finding some type of role within that skill set.
00;06;16;13 - 00;06;17;08
Kevin Barona
But,
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Kevin Barona
one thing led to another, you know, I, I met a lot of people in college and,
00;06;20;28 - 00;06;23;00
Kevin Barona
met some really good friends who,
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Kevin Barona
moved to DC,
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Kevin Barona
after after college,
00;06;25;24 - 00;06;30;02
Kevin Barona
there was an opportunity for me to do an internship in Capitol Hill.
00;06;30;02 - 00;06;37;24
Kevin Barona
And I thought, you know, this this is my opportunity, right, to to to kind of start expanding, you know, that I was an economics major.
00;06;37;26 - 00;06;44;27
Kevin Barona
Working in government kind of made sense. I was like, you know, maybe I'll end up, you know, somewhere these large state departments and,
00;06;44;27 - 00;06;49;21
Kevin Barona
federal departments where, you know, you're kind of just cranking out data and all this stuff. And,
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Kevin Barona
very quickly, you know, when I was on Capitol Hill, found out that that wasn't it wasn't what I wanted.
00;06;55;14 - 00;06;59;18
Kevin Barona
I just thought it was something completely different. Politics. It's just for me.
00;06;59;18 - 00;07;01;09
Kevin Barona
Just seem like a mess.
00;07;01;09 - 00;07;04;28
Kevin Barona
It's, some shady stuff that, you know, some shady people.
00;07;04;28 - 00;07;06;19
Kevin Barona
It just seemed to me like a kind of like,
00;07;06;19 - 00;07;09;00
Kevin Barona
like high school all over again. Right? So,
00;07;09;00 - 00;07;12;12
Kevin Barona
immediately we found out that that wasn't for me.
00;07;12;15 - 00;07;13;15
Kevin Barona
And I turned out,
00;07;13;15 - 00;07;18;21
Kevin Barona
to to leaving Capitol Hill. I ended up working for a large federal contracting,
00;07;18;21 - 00;07;20;25
Kevin Barona
firm consulting firm. And,
00;07;20;25 - 00;07;34;10
Kevin Barona
one of the most in-demand roles was cybersecurity analysts, just because they were learning a lot of cybersecurity contracts. You know, a lot of the government, you know, this is when, like, cybersecurity kind of started picking up,
00;07;34;10 - 00;07;37;15
Kevin Barona
you know, back in the 20 tens, early 20 tens.
00;07;37;17 - 00;07;38;01
Kevin Barona
And,
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Kevin Barona
I decided to pursue it.
00;07;39;09 - 00;07;46;05
Kevin Barona
You know, I wanted I wanted to try out a project. I had someone who pretty much brought me on board, and,
00;07;46;05 - 00;07;49;22
Kevin Barona
I really started gaining interest in it. So,
00;07;49;22 - 00;07;57;03
Kevin Barona
you know, long story short, it just became something that I just naturally took, you know, some some steps, just things that made sense for me.
00;07;57;05 - 00;08;03;01
Kevin Barona
And then looking back at it, I was like, okay, this makes a lot of sense of why I'm here today.
00;08;03;01 - 00;08;06;08
Kevin Barona
But, yeah, don't don't want to, you know, don't want to bore you with with all the,
00;08;06;08 - 00;08;08;20
Kevin Barona
the extra facts in there, but.
00;08;08;22 - 00;08;09;06
Craig Andrews
Was that,
00;08;09;06 - 00;08;18;22
Craig Andrews
Booz Allen Hamilton, was that the. Yeah. Yeah, obviously very big, company. You know, it's funny that you said that,
00;08;18;22 - 00;08;20;18
Craig Andrews
Capitol Hill seemed like high school
00;08;20;18 - 00;08;22;11
Craig Andrews
all over again.
00;08;22;11 - 00;08;25;22
Craig Andrews
I remember a number of years ago, the,
00;08;25;22 - 00;08;37;00
Craig Andrews
you know, the control of the House of Representatives changed. And whoever had control, they changed the locks on the congressional, you know, in the library so that the other party couldn't get in.
00;08;37;00 - 00;08;57;04
Craig Andrews
I'm like. And I got initially really upset with the folks that did that. And then I realized the same thing had been done in reverse, you know, 2 or 4 years earlier, you know, when Congress was in the other hands and I remember thinking exactly that same thing. I'm like, you guys are like, not even high school. This is like junior high stuff.
00;08;57;04 - 00;09;02;03
Craig Andrews
You guys. Yeah. You guys need to sit in the corner and, you know, think about what you've done.
00;09;02;06 - 00;09;03;21
Kevin Barona
Yeah. They also have the,
00;09;03;21 - 00;09;09;16
Kevin Barona
superlatives in their. And they do it once a year, you know, like best looking,
00;09;09;16 - 00;09;25;20
Kevin Barona
most athletic. Right. And then it's, it's a competition. And I just remember vividly seeing people like literally like really try to land those superlatives. And in my head I was just like, man, this just reminds me of of school again, I get it.
00;09;25;20 - 00;09;28;24
Kevin Barona
Is it is a popularity, you know,
00;09;28;24 - 00;09;31;22
Kevin Barona
contest to, to a certain extent.
00;09;31;24 - 00;09;34;13
Craig Andrews
And these people are running their lives.
00;09;34;15 - 00;09;38;15
Kevin Barona
Yeah. And that that was another shocker for me. I just a lot of the,
00;09;38;15 - 00;09;47;00
Kevin Barona
you know, congressmen had, you know, their teams, right. And a lot of these the people who were on these teams, there were very young people,
00;09;47;00 - 00;09;59;19
Kevin Barona
early mid 20s, late 20s. And in my head I remember thinking like, really like, you know, kids, like, fresh out of college are the ones running pretty much the country because they're the ones, you know,
00;09;59;19 - 00;10;01;09
Kevin Barona
putting together the legislation.
00;10;01;09 - 00;10;01;24
Kevin Barona
Right.
00;10;01;24 - 00;10;12;27
Kevin Barona
Communicating it with other congressmen or, you know, other teams or their offices and stuff like that. So in my head, I was I was quite surprised at how, you know, the back end and how it worked.
00;10;12;27 - 00;10;15;02
Kevin Barona
It's just because, you know, you don't really see that,
00;10;15;02 - 00;10;21;03
Kevin Barona
unless you're working there. So it was it was, you know, it's quite an eye opener for me.
00;10;21;05 - 00;10;27;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, kind of getting back to the cyber security,
00;10;27;06 - 00;10;30;12
Craig Andrews
if you remember, back to 2020,
00;10;30;12 - 00;10;40;09
Craig Andrews
I think it was SolarWinds played a role in the biggest hack of computer government computers in history and was all tied to,
00;10;40;09 - 00;10;48;05
Craig Andrews
an intern that had some easy password that they left out visible on the internet.
00;10;48;07 - 00;11;04;06
Kevin Barona
Yeah. So I think a common misconception in cybersecurity is, you know, as soon as you say it, people are thinking, you know, the guy in the hoodie, right in the laptop trying to get into your network. They're trying to crack some, you know, crazy code.
00;11;04;06 - 00;11;08;26
Kevin Barona
But in reality, it's maybe the most simple things that you can think of, right?
00;11;08;26 - 00;11;18;13
Kevin Barona
Like picking up a USB and plugging it, plugging it into your laptop. You know, when you have no idea what that USB is, probably shouldn't do that.
00;11;18;13 - 00;11;25;20
Kevin Barona
Having the same passwords for all your accounts, right? Like an easy password. Something something. 1234.
00;11;25;20 - 00;11;31;20
Kevin Barona
Or just, you know, leaving your laptop open, right? Like these, these things are very simple.
00;11;31;20 - 00;11;41;08
Kevin Barona
And it's, it's usually when you hear about a hack or a breach, it's something when you find out what the source was or like, for real, like, that's how that happened. That's crazy.
00;11;41;08 - 00;11;55;06
Kevin Barona
So it goes, it goes to say security or cyber security is a lot about human interaction with computers, right? So at the end of the day, what you're doing is you're trying to change a culture,
00;11;55;06 - 00;11;56;25
Kevin Barona
and you're dealing directly with humans.
00;11;56;25 - 00;12;07;14
Kevin Barona
You're not necessarily, you know, thinking about how to fortify, you know, I mean, you are to fortify your network, fortify your, your laptop. But at the end of the day, human
00;12;07;14 - 00;12;15;18
Kevin Barona
computers only do what humans tell them to do up to this point, right? I mean, you have AI now, who knows? Who knows what kind of mess we're going to get into with that?
00;12;15;18 - 00;12;21;13
Kevin Barona
But, you know, the human ultimately is the one who dictates what's going to happen, right? So,
00;12;21;13 - 00;12;35;22
Kevin Barona
a lot of it has to do with, with human psychology, with, with, you know, how they interact with computers and, you know, the digital life. So it's pretty interesting. And once I heard that from somebody, once someone told me that I was like, this makes a lot of sense.
00;12;35;22 - 00;12;45;22
Kevin Barona
You know, that's the way I look at it, you know, now, now. So it's just it's really interesting.
00;12;45;24 - 00;12;59;22
Craig Andrews
I mean, some of the horror stories I've heard and I've seen lists like, you know, the, you know, the top ten lists of passwords and like, one of the top ten passwords is password one, two, three or something like that.
00;12;59;25 - 00;13;03;09
Kevin Barona
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it's the,
00;13;03;09 - 00;13;08;29
Kevin Barona
the oldest, you know, oldest trick in the book, I guess. So, yeah. A lot of people just use the one, two, three.
00;13;08;29 - 00;13;19;27
Kevin Barona
They do it to take, you know, keep it memorized. I mean, I used to do that as well. Now, like, once a year, I, I mean, I have a password manager now, once a year, I go back and I checked.
00;13;19;27 - 00;13;20;28
Kevin Barona
No,
00;13;20;28 - 00;13;44;11
Kevin Barona
all my passwords, making sure, you know, none of them are duplicates. Just because if you learn one, right, or you find one or you're able to crack one, you know, most likely that person is using it for, you know, who knows how many accounts 20, 30 accounts might be your bank account. You know how you how you pay your taxes, log in to IRS and all this stuff.
00;13;44;11 - 00;13;59;24
Kevin Barona
So like it's it's pretty. It could be pretty damaging, right. For for a person if they're not carefully, choosing their passwords and using the right applications. You just maintain that that password manager.
00;13;59;26 - 00;14;11;23
Craig Andrews
You know, I can sort of understand for individuals, but I can't understand why businesses in 2024 haven't mandated that all of their employees use a password manager.
00;14;11;26 - 00;14;15;10
Kevin Barona
Yeah. It's tough. It's tough to get, you know,
00;14;15;10 - 00;14;22;05
Kevin Barona
it might be easier when you have a small company, right? 5% and 10%, but or ten people.
00;14;22;05 - 00;14;28;29
Kevin Barona
But if you have a large organization with, you know, 300 or 500 people, how do you get everyone on board, right? Like,
00;14;28;29 - 00;14;32;02
Kevin Barona
how do you how do you verify that everyone's using that?
00;14;32;05 - 00;14;43;15
Kevin Barona
And that's just that's just the nature of the game. Just getting everyone on board, understanding that security is it's a it's a culture, right? It's a culture that you have to integrate into your business. And,
00;14;43;15 - 00;14;46;08
Kevin Barona
you have to consistently, you know, follow up on it.
00;14;46;08 - 00;14;51;00
Kevin Barona
It's not just, you know, clicking through security awareness training where you just like, oh, God, I have to do this again.
00;14;51;01 - 00;15;04;02
Kevin Barona
You know, I just did this six months ago. It's more of, you know, sending the security awareness training, making sure that they're going through it, maybe sending, you know, once a month, an email being like, hey, this is why we asked you to do this stuff.
00;15;04;02 - 00;15;09;05
Kevin Barona
It's very important. Here's a specific use case, maybe an article or something like that.
00;15;09;08 - 00;15;12;16
Kevin Barona
So it's just the consistency of, of, of,
00;15;12;16 - 00;15;16;11
Kevin Barona
teaching or, or just awareness,
00;15;16;11 - 00;15;19;21
Kevin Barona
for your organization.
00;15;19;24 - 00;15;32;05
Craig Andrews
Now you you've helped nuclear plants. Dial in their cyber security, you know, what's I mean, that's an intriguing what,
00;15;34;22 - 00;15;40;08
Craig Andrews
What's that look like? What? What are they worried about? What are the threats and.
00;15;40;10 - 00;15;49;05
Kevin Barona
Yeah. So the the critical infrastructure of the US or just throughout the world is, is very important to safeguard.
00;15;49;05 - 00;16;06;01
Kevin Barona
I don't know if you've heard, but I think maybe a little over a year ago, there was like, there's an incident where a hacker got into, like, the water system of Tampa or something like that, and they literally had the option of mixing in, like, the dirty water with the clean water.
00;16;06;01 - 00;16;22;19
Kevin Barona
And that literally gets sent to the whole city. Right? And, you know, people start drinking this dirty water. They can obviously, you know, there's complications. People can die. So like critical infrastructure is super important. It's very important for, you know,
00;16;22;19 - 00;16;24;04
Kevin Barona
national security,
00;16;24;04 - 00;16;34;10
Kevin Barona
you know, you you don't want to cause chaos if, you know, there's a blackout for the entire U.S or the southeast region of the US.
00;16;34;13 - 00;16;38;16
Kevin Barona
I mean, these are like, this is how wars are started, right? So,
00;16;38;16 - 00;16;40;23
Kevin Barona
it's extremely important, right, to, to safeguard,
00;16;40;23 - 00;16;43;02
Kevin Barona
the energy right for the US,
00;16;43;02 - 00;16;47;16
Kevin Barona
the water for the US, the roads. Right. The trains, all these things.
00;16;47;16 - 00;16;53;11
Kevin Barona
It's a it's a lot more that like, you know, it's there, but you don't necessarily think about it.
00;16;53;11 - 00;17;03;26
Kevin Barona
Right? Like, okay, what happens if I, we shut down, right? Or what happens if a nuclear plant were to shut down? Like, how many, you know, how many cities would go out?
00;17;03;26 - 00;17;07;01
Kevin Barona
What implications would that have for, you know, hospitals,
00;17;07;01 - 00;17;13;03
Kevin Barona
you know, schools, all these, all these types of, of things. So extremely important.
00;17;13;03 - 00;17;21;22
Kevin Barona
I know it's like one of the largest efforts right now for the government to just make sure they're safeguarding the entire critical infrastructure of the US.
00;17;21;24 - 00;17;24;14
Kevin Barona
Just because you have large governments, you know,
00;17;24;14 - 00;17;29;27
Kevin Barona
Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, who literally,
00;17;29;27 - 00;17;31;00
Kevin Barona
fund,
00;17;31;00 - 00;17;31;27
Kevin Barona
teams,
00;17;31;27 - 00;17;47;22
Kevin Barona
you know, back in the countries to just all day, just try to hack into, you know, the most critical, most critical infrastructures in the US or the rest of the Western world. So it's it's very important to have those safeguards in place.
00;17;47;25 - 00;18;05;06
Craig Andrews
You know, so there's a lot of people that are listening who say, hey, I don't have a nuclear plant. I'm not, you know, the government. I'm not the company. I don't need to worry about this. I'm not a threat. Nobody cares about me. Yeah.
00;18;05;08 - 00;18;05;17
Kevin Barona
Yeah,
00;18;05;17 - 00;18;16;14
Kevin Barona
that's that's also, you know, a misconception. It's, you know, it's not a problem until it is, right? I mean, I've heard of Hvac companies,
00;18;16;14 - 00;18;20;02
Kevin Barona
that use technology for their, you know, their Hvac.
00;18;20;02 - 00;18;25;07
Kevin Barona
I've heard of them get hacked, right? Where basically their whole clientele,
00;18;25;07 - 00;18;29;15
Kevin Barona
the it gets shut down just because the tech that they're utilizing, they can't turn on the AC.
00;18;29;15 - 00;18;38;13
Kevin Barona
They can't, they can't or they the temperature, they can high the temperature, they can't do anything. Right. So like, it's a lot more prevalent than you think it is.
00;18;38;13 - 00;18;44;00
Kevin Barona
Especially if you're hosting, you should mainly think about it like, what type of data? My hosting.
00;18;44;00 - 00;18;52;06
Kevin Barona
Do I have customers who give me emails, addresses, social security number that that's a thing.
00;18;52;06 - 00;18;54;25
Kevin Barona
And you should definitely be thinking about, you know,
00;18;54;25 - 00;18;56;14
Kevin Barona
security. But,
00;18;56;14 - 00;18;57;28
Kevin Barona
at the end of the day,
00;18;57;28 - 00;19;07;16
Kevin Barona
if it's not, you know, sensitive information, it also is more of a brand reputation, right, that you want to safeguard. Just think about law firms that,
00;19;07;16 - 00;19;15;08
Kevin Barona
you know, big law firms that, you know, there's a lot of clients that trust a lot of information with these law firms.
00;19;15;10 - 00;19;17;12
Kevin Barona
And law firms are targeted a lot.
00;19;17;12 - 00;19;39;09
Kevin Barona
And then, you know, you have a hacker come in and, and just get access to all the data, you know, I don't know, subpoenas or I'm not a lawyer, but, like, you know, very sensitive information that you don't want out there, and they just start releasing this information little by little, unless you pay them, you know, a crazy amount of ransomware, you know, to, to to get that information back or, you know,
00;19;39;09 - 00;19;40;21
Kevin Barona
none of that's guaranteed either.
00;19;40;21 - 00;19;47;10
Kevin Barona
Where you know, your your data is held for ransom, you pay the ransom and then you don't even get,
00;19;47;10 - 00;19;59;13
Kevin Barona
you know, you even get the data back because there's no guarantee that you're going to get the data back. So, I mean, there's been numerous cases like that as well. So it's it's just there's there's a lot there's a lot to factor in.
00;19;59;16 - 00;20;17;05
Kevin Barona
But then the majority of the reasons why customers come to us is because they're either trying to land, you know, a customer, a large customer, and then within those contracts they have certain clauses that are asking them to follow, you know, some type of framework, security framework.
00;20;17;05 - 00;20;23;10
Kevin Barona
And you also need to demonstrate that so that that's why the main reason why a lot of customers come to us.
00;20;23;13 - 00;20;31;16
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And I think there's going to be more movement that way. I you know, a few years ago, I was sitting in a room with,
00;20;31;16 - 00;20;35;07
Craig Andrews
one of the top insurers in the country that provided,
00;20;35;07 - 00;20;47;11
Craig Andrews
cyber liability insurance. And at the time, they were saying when one of their clients gets ransom, they just pay the ransom. I'm like, well, that's just going to drive everything up, okay.
00;20;47;18 - 00;21;01;05
Craig Andrews
And and so I asked him, I said, you know, what are you guys doing to change that? And I've heard more recently is to get cyber liability insurance. You have to show that you've done certain due diligence.
00;21;01;07 - 00;21;02;08
Kevin Barona
Yeah. Yeah. So
00;21;02;08 - 00;21;18;27
Kevin Barona
there's. People don't put that much emphasis on security right now. Cyber security. And it's understandable I get it because it's just it's it's new right. It's it's not new but it's new, right. Like that a lot of people are just beginning to understand the importance of it,
00;21;18;27 - 00;21;23;04
Kevin Barona
especially post-Covid. Right? A lot of people started moving to remote.
00;21;23;06 - 00;21;33;05
Kevin Barona
You really have to start figuring out how do we keep this, how do we keep our data safe? Everyone's all over the place. We don't know who has access to what. So, yes,
00;21;33;05 - 00;21;40;10
Kevin Barona
a lot of the, you know, implementation, a lot of due diligence is you want cyber insurance, you need to demonstrate this, right? You want to land this contract?
00;21;40;10 - 00;21;42;11
Kevin Barona
We want to we want to,
00;21;42;11 - 00;21;54;03
Kevin Barona
protect our reputation. So you need to demonstrate that the data that we're giving you, you're protecting it. So there's there's a lot of that now, for sure. And that's just because it's just going to become more and more,
00;21;54;03 - 00;21;57;05
Kevin Barona
current. Right. So you're going to see that a lot.
00;21;57;07 - 00;22;24;10
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And, you know, I think one of the most interesting ransom cases I had heard was a, a dry cleaner got ransomed, not a big chain. It was just a loan dry cleaner. And if you think about it, they have thousands of garments there where the locations are stored on computer. So they had people showing up something as simple as a dry cleaner wasn't able to get people their garments because their computers were ransom.
00;22;24;10 - 00;22;26;03
Craig Andrews
Then they didn't know where the garments were.
00;22;26;05 - 00;22;57;28
Kevin Barona
Yeah, yeah. And obviously there's a lot more organizations, companies, different types of industries that are becoming more and more digitized. They're moving you know, to like AWS and moving up to the cloud or storing all their information, you know, up to the cloud. And that's just becoming as soon as you have anything that's digitized, that's when you have to start thinking about, okay, are we safe or can one incident just cause me to go bankrupt and had to shut my business down?
00;22;58;01 - 00;23;04;21
Kevin Barona
So it's not to be dramatic. You know, I think a lot of cybersecurity marketing is like fear driven.
00;23;04;21 - 00;23;16;11
Kevin Barona
We try to stay away from that just because we don't, you know, we're not here to scare people. It's just more like, hey, look at all the possibilities that can happen just to make sure that, you know, you're following these three, four steps, right?
00;23;16;11 - 00;23;19;08
Kevin Barona
To to just drastically reduce your.
00;23;19;10 - 00;23;43;19
Craig Andrews
Your risk. You know, you bring up a really interesting point. Know, I'm a marketer and I've, you know, marketed cyber liability insurance. And it really does feel like you have to scare the crap out of people. I'm like, that's not how I want to make a living, you know, scaring people. So what what do you find that's effective in terms of of moving people to take the right actions?
00;23;43;21 - 00;23;49;06
Kevin Barona
We focus most on money because you know that that is at the bottom line.
00;23;49;06 - 00;23;51;06
Kevin Barona
A lot of people think about,
00;23;51;06 - 00;23;56;21
Kevin Barona
are you either going to make me money or are you going to save money? So we really try to find,
00;23;56;21 - 00;24;01;11
Kevin Barona
kind of a return on investment calculators, which we're working on now.
00;24;01;11 - 00;24;09;06
Kevin Barona
It's it's still hard to pinpoint exactly like a we can, we can completely miss, you know, a few ransomware attacks.
00;24;09;06 - 00;24;32;07
Kevin Barona
This can save you this amount of money or we flip it the other way around where it's, you know, you have you've lost out on 3 or 4 contracts over the past year because you don't have these things in place. Just think about how much more customers you can land. If you have, you know, these five things in place that's going to cost you this versus the contracts that you're landing.
00;24;32;10 - 00;24;37;25
Kevin Barona
You know, you can pay this off and, you know, have a contract or something like that. So,
00;24;37;25 - 00;24;39;09
Kevin Barona
tying it to money,
00;24;39;09 - 00;24;46;03
Kevin Barona
has worked the best for us, even though it's not, you know, the ideal way that we want to sell either.
00;24;46;03 - 00;24;49;26
Kevin Barona
But we we figured, you know, if we get our foot in the door, that's when we can start.
00;24;49;26 - 00;25;03;09
Kevin Barona
Really, the buyer awareness process. Right? So, like, we're, we're introducing, you know, a few concepts. We're introducing why, you know, why we're including these concepts and why it's important.
00;25;03;09 - 00;25;11;23
Kevin Barona
Maybe a few possible scenarios of why, you know, why we need to include this or what. What's the worst that can happen?
00;25;11;23 - 00;25;18;13
Kevin Barona
But it just gives us, like, an in right to, to kind of just, do the educational part.
00;25;18;15 - 00;25;24;14
Craig Andrews
Yeah. You know, so at some point you, you left,
00;25;24;14 - 00;25;28;18
Craig Andrews
Booz Allen and you were later with the Deloitte and,
00;25;28;18 - 00;25;38;18
Craig Andrews
real quick as we wrap up, how what led you to start your own firm and what's been kind of your biggest lesson in that journey?
00;25;38;21 - 00;25;41;07
Kevin Barona
Yeah, I, I always knew I wanted to do something on my own.
00;25;41;07 - 00;25;42;12
Kevin Barona
My father is,
00;25;42;12 - 00;25;46;08
Kevin Barona
entrepreneur, like, he's, you know, he he started his own,
00;25;46;08 - 00;25;49;07
Kevin Barona
consulting firm is where as well, you know, software engineer.
00;25;49;07 - 00;25;54;29
Kevin Barona
I've seen, you know, I mean, I've seen many ups and downs, right? For for a business like that. But,
00;25;54;29 - 00;26;00;11
Kevin Barona
just gave me, you know, gives me the courage right to to go ahead and start my own thing.
00;26;00;11 - 00;26;05;15
Kevin Barona
I just know that, I mean, that's the American dream, right? You come to America,
00;26;05;15 - 00;26;13;29
Kevin Barona
you're able to start a life, you know, able to start whatever business you want and really try to excel in it because there's just so many opportunities.
00;26;13;29 - 00;26;18;21
Kevin Barona
So many opportunities for, for for one, for one person. Right. So,
00;26;18;21 - 00;26;25;08
Kevin Barona
I've always wanted to I, I see this as a way of giving back for me as well, just because, you know, I'm also creating jobs.
00;26;25;11 - 00;26;30;26
Kevin Barona
I'm also being able to bring, you know, some people on board, maybe that I can also,
00;26;30;26 - 00;26;43;00
Kevin Barona
coach as well, just give them the, the tools to just really tell them, like, hey, this is something you also want to do, like just learn from my mistakes, right? Or, or just learn from, like, what we're doing here.
00;26;43;00 - 00;26;47;25
Kevin Barona
And then, you know, there's no doubt in my mind that you can, you know, go out and excel in what, what you're doing as well.
00;26;47;25 - 00;26;48;20
Kevin Barona
So,
00;26;48;20 - 00;26;49;26
Kevin Barona
it gives me a lot of,
00;26;49;26 - 00;26;56;01
Kevin Barona
you know, there's a lot of passion for me in this, especially, you know, when I'm bringing on a lot of team members.
00;26;56;01 - 00;26;57;22
Kevin Barona
It motivates me right to to,
00;26;57;22 - 00;27;04;15
Kevin Barona
to not just excel career wise, but also seeing that I'm making an impact on on other people, other families as well.
00;27;04;15 - 00;27;05;18
Kevin Barona
So it's,
00;27;05;18 - 00;27;18;25
Kevin Barona
it was my way of finding my way. And it's been it's been I mean, we've only been live for a year and a half, but it's, you know, every day I do wake up motivated.
00;27;18;25 - 00;27;21;27
Kevin Barona
Like I mentioned to you, I just got married, you know, a week ago,
00;27;21;27 - 00;27;27;07
Kevin Barona
I was out of work for two weeks, and, you know, I woke up on Monday just being really excited.
00;27;27;09 - 00;27;32;06
Kevin Barona
I was like, I'm ready to tackle. I'm ready to seize the day. I'm ready to seize the rest of the year.
00;27;32;06 - 00;27;37;10
Kevin Barona
And I'm just excited. I'm excited for, you know, what's coming for us, what's coming for, you know,
00;27;37;10 - 00;27;42;08
Kevin Barona
my teammates, my family and all that. So it's it's a lot of upside for us.
00;27;42;11 - 00;27;46;15
Craig Andrews
That's awesome. One, congratulations on your marriage. And,
00;27;46;15 - 00;27;59;28
Craig Andrews
and I think it's, you know, I think it's good for leaders to step away from work at time and, and see what happens when you're gone. Yeah.
00;27;59;28 - 00;28;05;21
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Chance for people to step up and chance for you to find out what's what's working and what's not.
00;28;05;23 - 00;28;09;18
Kevin Barona
Yeah. And I have no complaints. I just everything was handled beautifully.
00;28;09;18 - 00;28;22;10
Kevin Barona
I purposely, you know, I kind of want to see that how that worked as well. And I just think the team that I have for sure is just they, they understands. Right? Just because we, we really try to mesh the, the culture that we're looking for, right?
00;28;22;16 - 00;28;26;02
Kevin Barona
We try to find a cultural fit for for everybody who's joining us.
00;28;26;02 - 00;28;31;16
Kevin Barona
We very early on we try to explain like what the objective is for the company,
00;28;31;16 - 00;28;38;24
Kevin Barona
that we only work for the company. We're not really necessarily working for the CEO or founder. We're all collectively trying to build something together. And,
00;28;38;24 - 00;28;40;21
Kevin Barona
it really depends on all of us.
00;28;40;22 - 00;28;45;02
Kevin Barona
It's not just one person. So it's resonated very well.
00;28;45;04 - 00;28;50;13
Craig Andrews
That's awesome. Well, Kevin, how can people reach you?
00;28;50;16 - 00;28;52;03
Kevin Barona
I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.
00;28;52;03 - 00;28;53;09
Kevin Barona
Kevin Barona,
00;28;53;09 - 00;28;57;20
Kevin Barona
I try to be active on Twitter as well. It doesn't work as well for me, but,
00;28;57;20 - 00;28;58;28
Kevin Barona
LinkedIn is definitely,
00;28;58;28 - 00;29;00;07
Kevin Barona
the way to go. And then,
00;29;00;07 - 00;29;08;06
Kevin Barona
if anyone wants to reach out. Also, our website, cyber secure.com, those are probably the best ways.
00;29;08;08 - 00;29;14;08
Craig Andrews
Excellent. Yeah. And we'll have those links in the show notes. Well, Kevin, thanks for coming on. Leaders and legacies.
00;29;14;10 - 00;29;17;09
Kevin Barona
Thanks, Greg.
00;29;17;09 - 00;29;44;03
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this
00;29;44;03 - 00;29;45;28
Craig Andrews
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00;29;46;00 - 00;30;09;10
Craig Andrews
Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend, or posted on the socials. If you know someone who would be a great guest, tag them on social media and let them know about the show, including the hashtag leaders and legacies. I love seeing your posts and suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content to make sure you don't miss anything.
00;30;09;12 - 00;30;17;17
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe your thumbs up! Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me.
00;30;17;17 - 00;32;19;22
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Alize for me.com. or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
