- Welcome to The Shiproom
where we learn from tech leaders
at some of the world's most successful companies.
I'm Brad Anderson.
I'm the vice president of Microsoft 365.
Welcome to The Shiproom.
Today I'm joined by the chief cybersecurity officer
for Siemens USA, Kurt John.
Siemens has had operations in the U.S. for 160 years.
Today there's 50,000 employees
and it's all up to you to protect
all those people, devices and IP.
- Good to be with you, Brad.
- You were recently listed in Security Magazine as one
of the most influential people in the security industry.
So thank you for finding the time
to meet with us today on The Shiproom.
When you think about the move to the Cloud
that has been happening for the last decade,
that's just really accelerating now.
What's your perspective on how using the Cloud
and the intelligence that comes from the Cloud,
how can that help you better defend the assets
that you're responsible for?
- I think Cloud is inevitable.
It's just way too cost effective.
You can scale quickly.
What I'm most excited about
is some of the really innovative security features
that Cloud providers are offering.
No, not all Cloud providers are created equal.
So I think it's really important that
for the people who want to utilize that resource,
they need to be really diligent and intentional
in checking to make sure that Cloud offerings
really give you three things:
flexibility, of course, that's mostly a business decision
to be able to scale and reduce as much as you need to
in order to manage costs.
Control.
You need to be able to exercise the right amount
of security controls within the environment.
And the final thing you need is visibility.
You really wanna be sure that you have your eyes
on everything that's happening in the Cloud.
So at any time, if you need to adjust
either because of business conditions
or because of some type of threat from an adversary,
you're able to do that.
- Hey, it looks like there's something going on
with Teams here.
Are we getting a call?
- Oh, hey, Brad Anderson,
from that thing with the baboons,
the United Nations summit, you know.
I am a huge fan.
- I have no idea what you're talking about.
- Wait, what's today?
Nevermind.
That hasn't happened yet.
I am Doctor Brown, Doctor Tarkinga Brown
and unlike my brother who is time hopping
in a stainless steel hatchback,
I'm dancing up and down the space time continuum
for purely scientific reasons.
Siemens basically leads the world in patent filings
at a rate of...
Let's see, 33 per day.
That's a grand total of 65,000.
See, I am going to go over some important patent filings
and then you'll tell me if those exist in this timeline,
or if I have to go some time else to find them.
- Sounds good.
- Patent number 20060207518A1.
It's a machine that will pet your dog for you
while playing a recording of your voice
telling it, "A very good boy."
- Seeing as how much people love their pets,
I'm gonna go with real.
- Patent number 256265 is an alarm clock
that wakes you up by dropping a pile of corks on your face.
Anyone get the cork alarm?
- I'm going to go with false.
- That's an actual one.
Right on the face.
Patent number 4605000A, very important.
I's a green house helmet that allows you
to breathe fresh air directly from plants wherever you go.
- It's crazy that I have to think about
that one for a second.
Let's go with false.
- Patent number 762935.
A doll with a compartment for an urn containing the ashes
of a loved one which also plays back
a recorded message from the deceased.
- I suppose if I said yes on the pet patting,
I probably should say yes on that.
So let's go with yes.
- That's a real one, but it is a bit of a bummer.
I'll give you that.
- Wow.
- Patent number 1138TK421.
A spin talk oscillator
with anti-parallel, coupled ferromagnetic layers,
magnetic dampening, and a 1.21 gigawatts capacitor.
- That sounds like the patent for the DeLorean,
so I'm going to say false.
- Well, I can tell by your computer technology,
you probably don't have that one quite yet.
Well, I think I'm about six timelines off course.
Ah, but before I go, just one last question.
There's always a great conversation between the CIO
and the CISO and the people operating the business units
about how to store data on Prem versus Cloud.
Now, how do you make decisions
about where data should go
and what do you need both places to do better?
That's it, bye.
- I'll start with the latter.
What we need in both places is an ability
to extend what's on the enterprise, into the Cloud.
And then from the Cloud's perspective,
to be able to push information back to the enterprise.
What we wanna do is make the relationship
between the enterprise and the Cloud
as seamless as possible.
On what's most important,
how well does that Cloud provider deploy security controls
and how comfortable does it make me so that if I were
to encounter some type of threat or adversary,
I can wrap my hands around it
through good protection mechanisms,
through good detective mechanisms,
and through good reporting.
- I was curious to get your perspective on the diversity
of attacks and tactics that you have to be protecting from.
How important is diversity in your team
in ensuring that you can protect Siemens?
- That's a really good question.
I have two answers there.
I think the one answer I think you will hear
from most CISOs is that diversity in the team
immediately skyrockets creativity.
So you have a team that's both physically
and cognitively mentally diverse.
It's just wonders what they can accomplish together.
But the other part of diversity
which is really important to me, it's social equity.
Even before the pandemic hit,
we heard numbers like 3.1, 3.2 million
unfilled cyber positions.
You know the toll that this pandemic has
had on unemployment.
And so for an industry like cyber,
where we're also having such drastic needs,
or such critical needs to fill, positions to fill,
I think it's really an opportunity for us
to actually contribute to social equity
or so many people who have historically not had access
to certain economic opportunities
or they're socioeconomically disadvantaged.
And so for us to take what is a critical need and to be able
to fill that need while also contributing to social equity,
I think it's a real opportunity
and it would be a shame if we can't grab hold of it
and leverage it.
- Kurt, you have a black belt in TaeKwonDo.
It's just one of the many things
that I'm sure you have in common with Jean Claude Van Damme.
I'm going to read you a series of quotes
and I'd like you to tell me if the quote is
from your fellow martial arts expert
or from the greatest Star Trek captain, Jean Luc Picard.
"When I walk across my living room from my chimney
"to my window, it takes me 10 seconds,
"but for a bird, it takes one second,
"and for oxygen zero seconds."
- Wow, that's deep.
It's Jean Claude Van Damme?
- "Things are only impossible until they are not."
- Jean Luc?
- Alright, "A cookie has no soul, It's just a cookie.
"But before it was milk and eggs,
"and in eggs, there's the potential for life."
- Let's go with Jean Claude Van Damm?
- "Is it possible to commit no mistakes and still lose?"
- The answer to that is yes,
but as to who said it, Jean Luc?
- One of the things I read an interview that you did,
where you talked about how you mentor students
from a number of different universities.
Can you tell us a little about that mentoring
and you maybe advice for mentors and mentees?
- There's a myth that cyber, to be in cyber requires you
to be incredibly technical.
That's just not the case.
Find a discipline that intersects with cyber.
It could be anything from cyber policy,
international relations, all the way through
to the traditional technical roles.
Don't limit your thinking.
Cyber is only as big as you can, you know, make it.
Now for mentees.
Maybe this is advice for myself
from where I first started out?
You really want to remember what it was like
to be 21, 22, 23, you know,
just out of college.
You know, the world's your oyster,
and you really have that get up and go attitude.
You're really gotta view these people
as just a bundle of cosmic opportunity.
And I have this thing that I say
where the world gets a little bit brighter
every time we connect someone with an opportunity.
The reason I'm doing this is actually for my daughters.
So when it's all said and done,
I'd love for them to be able to be in a world
that is a little bit brighter because they have access
to a whole bunch of possibilities.
- You talk about the Charter of Trust.
Can you tell us about it?
- So the Charter of Trust is a collection of companies,
very large companies,
who I would contend have some really good influence
on our society.
And so what they've agreed to do,
they've come together
and they've identified ten principles.
The goal is to build up some strength
behind these principles, and also to make sure
that we keep everyone protected.
- As you've looked at Microsoft 365,
I just would love to hear, you know, your perspectives
on things that we are doing that you find interesting
in management and security and cyber.
- One thing that I do appreciate about Microsoft,
and it's something that I think security needs to nail.
It's being as transparent as possible.
So what you want is to remove the complexity
on the front end around security.
Orchestrate the back end, but this is so that users
can just focus on what it is they need to do
and not have to be the critical component
between a breach and not having a breach.
So I appreciate the variety of ways
that Microsoft has enabled organizations,
or the flexibility to engage with security in a way
that best fits their needs so that employees and users
can focus on actually developing
and delivering value to their customers.
- While we've been talking, our very own Shiproom AI
has been analyzing our conversation.
It's actually come up with the 12 most relevant questions
based upon our discussion.
We call it the Database Dozen.
All right, Siemens is involved in a lot of heavy industry.
So I'm curious, are you forklift certified?
- I not, but I can drive one.
- What is the best color of a Starburst and why is it pink?
Which is more likely to exist, Bigfoot, Dracula
or the Lochness monster?
- I would say a Bigfoot.
- What was the first concert you ever went to?
- It was UB40.
- Could spiders conquer the earth
if they just all work together?
- Oh, for sure.
Especially if I'm the team that's supposed to fight them.
I'm out.
- So what makes a piano grand and not just great?
- Probably its size.
- What's the better 80's franchise, Back to the Future,
Robocop, or Pizza Hut?
- Back to the Future.
- I brought chips and dip to a potluck.
Am I crafty or just lazy?
- A little bit of both.
- All right, well thanks for hanging out with us
in The Shiproom, Kurt.
Now, before we go, if people wanna learn more about you
and what you're doing at Siemens, where would they go?
- They can go to LinkedIn at Kurt M. John,
or they can go to Twitter @therealkurtjohn.
- Thanks everyone for watching.
I'm Brad Anderson.
This is The Shiproom.
We'll see you next time.
- Where is the lens?
Is it right at the top of the--
- It's right in the middle.
- Oh, look at this.