- It's lunch time, and this is Brad Anderson's Lunch Break.
Two of my favorite things about Microsoft
are the smart people that constantly visit campus
and the great fleet of shuttles.
Whenever I can, I try to take advantage of both
of these things, and I grab lunch with some
of the tech industry's best and brightest.
(bright, happy music)
Today I'll finish up my conversation
with veteran tech journalist, Tim Anderson.
(car revving)
One of the challenges that just about every organization
in the world is now grappling with is, as the data moves out
to the Cloud, and the data moved to mobile devices,
the traditional perimeter-based security model they've used
is just no longer effective.
- Sure.
- So what we believe is in this mobile
and Cloud-first world, identity becomes the new perimeter,
and we believe that, in terms of Enterprise Mobility,
identity is like the most foundational piece.
And so, as you give advice or as people ask you questions
to get your perspective,
'cause you've got so much historical perspective,
talk about the importance of identity
in this mobile-first, Cloud-first world.
- Well, so it is what we care about,
identity, every organization - Yeah.
has got data that it cares about,
and what we care about most, in terms of security,
is who has access to that data.
- [Brad] Exactly.
- And also we, perhaps, care about who doesn't have access
to that data, - (laughing) well said.
so clearly it's, identity is at the heart of that.
- So as we take a look at the data breaches,
that it seems like we read about just
about every week, - Mhm, yeah.
like 70 percent or more of those eventually trace back
to somebody's credentials having been compromised,
a phishing attack or they had weak credentials.
In that world, most organizations basically have
to take an assumption that they've been breached,
that they have identities that somebody is using
to steal or attack them.
How can organizations protect themselves?
- I think, one thing I've noticed, is that the answer
to that question varies according to the size
of the organization, so in the smaller businesses,
I still see a lot of very poor practice and security
because it's not really understood.
I think a lot - Yep.
of education has to happen then, I do think that the Cloud
is an enabler here, because the Cloud services
are giving smaller businesses a taste
of enterprise level computing, which is a lot better
than they've perhaps had in the past.
Now in a large organization, I mean a lot of it is around
about handle credentials and authentication,
so we need to do multifactoral - Yep.
authentication, and try and move on from passwords.
- Yeah.
So Tim, you know, you've had this incredible perspective
for 30 years in technology, so think of someone who's like
at the early to midpoint of their career,
and they're asking you for advice on managing
and growing their career and impact.
What advice would you give 'em?
- One of the things I've been a bit surprised by
is that even though computing is,
in one sense, the cutting edge of modern life,
of great change, IT professionals can be quite conservative
in their attitudes, - Yeah.
And I think it's important to keep learning,
I think it's important to go to events, to read books.
Keep enjoying it if you are a developer, for example,
remember the magic of it, remember the magic of programming
and seeing something before your eyes turn into a project
that has intelligence and has a user interface
and delights users, and just keep a sense
of the magic of it that will keep you motivated
to do what you do best.
- That's great advice.
Tim, it's always a pleasure to see ya,
I always look forward to seeing every time
we get to meet up - No it's been great,
at an event. - thank you very much.
We gotta make sure we go do this again.
- Sure, yeah.
- Alright, alright thank you very very much.
- Thank you.
(door closing)
- [Narrator] Next time on Brad Anderson's lunch break,
- So your two terms are transatlantic flights,
or World of Warcraft. - Okay.
Okay, do you know much about World of Warcraft?
- A little bit.
I had to stop playing - Alright.
so I could finish - Work? (laughing)
writing my dissertation, yes.
- Okay, alright here we go.
You would do something unspeakable
in exchange for an upgrade.
- Transatlantic flight.
- You know, I've got hundreds and hundreds of engineers
who have built ARM Print products for,
for some of them decades, we've had to go through
that same cultural transition internally
that many customers right now are facing,
as we're helping them and pushing them to move to the Cloud,
but we've had to go through it first.
(happy, bright music)