Cyber Security, AI & The Future of Business with Jason Murrell

00;00;21;08 – 00;00;27;20
Speaker 2
Welcome to REDD’s Business and Technology podcast. I’m your host, Nigel Heyn. And today I’ve got a very special guest, Jason Murrell. Welcome, Jason.

00;00;27;21 – 00;00;30;28
Speaker 1
Very special. I like the sound of that. Finally, we can make it special.

00;00;30;29 – 00;00;39;27
Speaker 2
Flying especially from Melbourne. So I appreciate it. You know, taking the time. Look for those who don’t know who you are. Can you give us a bit of background? You know, we’ve come from. And what are you doing today?

00;00;40;00 – 00;01;00;21
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, probably cyber background. We can go back further than that. We we sort of spoke a bit beforehand, but from a cyber point of view, really, it was from domain names and the hosting that we had as a client get, get hacked and lost 780,000. So it was three property settlements down. So we were selling, you know, dot com dot aus and some hosting with it.

00;01;00;23 – 00;01;17;05
Speaker 1
They sort of pointed the finger at us. But when we investigated it, it was one of those, you know, men in the middle of text loading. And, and that sort of started the journey into cyber. And I’ve had the bug ever since. So everything we’ll talk about today will be, cyber related. And it starts really from, you know, cyber aware and the awareness piece and, and really rolled from there.

00;01;17;08 – 00;01;21;04
Speaker 2
And today chair of the Australian Cyber Network. Yeah. What does that involve Jason?

00;01;21;09 – 00;01;39;08
Speaker 1
Well that’s we’ve set that up as a not for profit, and going for charitable status on that. So it’s sort of by industry and for industry. So I was previously heading up, Aus cyber, which was funded by the government dizer in particular, what department? Industry, Science and resources. And there was a lot of work done, probably over $30 million.

00;01;39;08 – 00;01;56;06
Speaker 1
So it was one of Malcolm Turnbull strategies back to make us a smarter nation and invest in innovation and the cyber pot. And I think our cyber was the longest running one out of those growth centres that he had actually set up there. But it sort of come to a natural conclusion. And the Australian Cyber Network is really set up from there.

00;01;56;06 – 00;02;11;24
Speaker 1
So we got all the assets that would sort of grown from there because the industry was, you know, cottage industry very still is really to a degree. But now there’s over 315 businesses, you know, sort of listed, in here as cyber businesses. And so I really it’s to try and help the industry grow to the next stage.

00;02;11;25 – 00;02;20;10
Speaker 1
Yeah. It’s sort of gone through that metamorphosis of that starting stage. And with the 2030 strategy, sort of an ideal time to sort of ramp that up and sort of grow from there. Yeah.

00;02;20;10 – 00;02;29;18
Speaker 2
Fantastic. I know you’re super passionate about cyber protecting businesses. Yep. Can I ask you a question in your eyes and all the people you talk to meet and say, are we winning or are we losing like.

00;02;29;19 – 00;02;48;10
Speaker 1
Well, losing big time, you know, I mean, the stats probably reflect it, but it’s probably worse than the stats, like the, you know, the Australian Cyber Network. You know, when when you look at the reports from ICAC, our ESD report, you know, at the end of last year it was a tech reported one every six minutes. It was up from one every eight the year before.

00;02;48;12 – 00;03;05;28
Speaker 1
But I think it’s a lot more than that because I had a friend of mine, actually call me his daughter got, a cyber, incident happened where she was, know, eight and a half months pregnant. She’s changing. The nephew of, her child. She’s pregnant. Another one gets a call, accidentally transfers $20,000 that didn’t get reported.

00;03;05;28 – 00;03;18;16
Speaker 1
Right. So. And I know there’s a lot of those because. Because I work in the field. Like who? You get calls from people all the time saying, oh, this happened. Now what do we do? You know, they’ll they’ll ask you the question and, and you go through the process. Right. And, you know, we were doing some stuff even last week with Michelle McGuinness.

00;03;18;16 – 00;03;39;19
Speaker 1
So by Tom and I, Murph and we did Cisco Sydney where she was the keynote speaker. And then we did some recordings with her and met with the team, you know, home Affairs in in on Friday. I think everyone knows that’s a lot worse than what it is out there, but it’s how do we fix that? You know, and that’s that’s the the billion dollar question or billion dollar question, really, what’s going to be $10 trillion over this year?

00;03;39;19 – 00;03;53;16
Speaker 1
They believe in cybercrime, which is higher than illegal drug trade. You know, so, you know, as a criminal, why would you bother trying to get drugs across the border and all that sort of stuff? We get online and buy something on the dark web and start working for nothing. And Mike, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

00;03;53;16 – 00;04;03;15
Speaker 2
Really scary numbers. Look, in your opinion, where we we’ve fallen short. What’s the deficiencies that the business owners, you know, government legislation just talk to us all together.

00;04;03;15 – 00;04;24;04
Speaker 1
It’s just it’s the basics, right? It’s, you know, and we’ve often spoken about the slip, slop, slap a cyber. What is that? And so the government did act now stay secure as a campaign last year, which was, they said passphrases password managers just as good. If you if you really put that out there, you get a free password manager like Bitwarden or one password or whatever multifactor authentication updates weren’t available.

00;04;24;04 – 00;04;39;22
Speaker 1
Right. So and that’s pretty good. I think there was an IBM study that showed that if you had, unique passwords or password manager and multifactor authentication, you could avoid 71% of all attacks. Just having that extra layer makes a difference. When we sort of spoke about it, it’s not put in business right from the start, is it?

00;04;39;22 – 00;04;57;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. When you set up business, they say to you, go get your business registered, you know, because I want to get the tax and all that sort of stuff. But my belief is we need to go all the way back to schools and teach the fundamentals. We’re giving kids devices in their hands before they can speak. You know, you see parents using that as a babysitting device, but what do they got access to from there?

00;04;57;19 – 00;05;15;07
Speaker 1
You know, like it’s it’s almost like throwing the keys to The Karate Kid and say, good luck on the road. You know, we take them through 120 hours of driving and they get to watch us do that a lot. But online, I think we need to sort of go back with a fair way to go forward. We’re trying to unlearn bad habits in the workplace, and it’s people who run these companies who don’t know the first thing about cyber.

00;05;15;12 – 00;05;16;28
Speaker 1
Trying to teach it.

00;05;17;00 – 00;05;23;21
Speaker 2
What’s your answer? I know you’re working on a couple of things with SMB 1001 DSI. Can you show the, listeners where you’re at with that?

00;05;23;21 – 00;05;41;27
Speaker 1
Yeah. So Dynamic Standards International, which it is now, we’ve got a group of people, smart people. I mean, you’ve had The Godfather, Darren Hopkins on here a few times. He’s on the steering committee with me. So I’m chairing that committee, and we’re passionate about basically helping businesses with the basics. It needs to be simple to start with the six stages.

00;05;41;27 – 00;06;05;04
Speaker 1
Just those six steps are taken the bronze level. Go to silver, get gold. You can be handheld through the process, you know, with a MSP or Mssp, but it’s really about how do we get the foundations built in businesses, you know, and some of them we’re going to have to retrofit. Obviously when people start. But the the basics of this is going to get someone up to a protected standard that’s going to make them less vulnerable and less likely for an attack.

00;06;05;04 – 00;06;23;20
Speaker 1
So, I think the stats are 97.8% of businesses in Australia, you know, class in the SMB, senior level, I think, or 98. It’s actually, I think 98%, you know, so but they’re not getting looked after. Yeah. It’s the big in the town that have the budget and seem to look out for themselves, the big banks and all those people that we know we see on the ASX.

00;06;23;20 – 00;06;42;07
Speaker 1
But that’s not where the criminals are looking. They’re looking at that next level down. Right. You know the guys you look into protecting girls is that that’s where they’re actually targeting. They’re saying easy to get in, less secure not having the security teams in there. They’re more the sitting ducks they’re looking for. And so it’s really just building those fundamentals in there to make sure that you’re on the same page.

00;06;42;07 – 00;06;57;27
Speaker 1
I think for a business like yourself or any business that deals with small business to having something like the SMB 1001, it’s not like I’m telling you to put this in your business, because I want to make some money out of you, which you might not be doing, but that’s perception is like you need to do this to be secure.

00;06;58;00 – 00;07;10;25
Speaker 1
Okay, that’s a lot of money. But with the SMB, you can say, here’s where you said, here’s a roadmap going forward. Now we can work a budget that fits in with there to to sort of moving forward. You know, I think that sort of makes it a bit more of a comfortable conversation on both sides of the fence.

00;07;10;27 – 00;07;33;09
Speaker 2
And I know we’ve we’ve done quite a few events now, you know, just promoting cyber said SMB one month last month. And, you know, in terms of just the simplification of it, yeah, it’s a standard it’s best practice. You know, I follow this. You talk to them before about having a multi-factor authentication, you know, a password. If there’s one question that someone’s asked you like, Jason, what should I do to help my business be better with cyber?

00;07;33;12 – 00;07;34;16
Speaker 2
How do you answer that?

00;07;34;18 – 00;07;52;09
Speaker 1
Well, again, I think when we built cyber, we’re like after, you know, the, the stuff that happened when you domain cyber where it was we what liable at that program. But it’s more the awareness and it’s the awareness part where we’re really slow on. So the training is a key thing. And I think that gets overlooked a lot as well.

00;07;52;09 – 00;08;08;28
Speaker 1
So it’s the education piece could actually really open. As I said, going back to school would help. But you need to re-educate people already past that point, you know. And and that is in the workplace. And I think we built in the hills chicken like the SMB 1001 now in the back of that so that people can sort of then measure against and see where they might be short.

00;08;08;28 – 00;08;27;24
Speaker 1
But I think those foundational stuff are really good, right? You know, if you do have, I mean, have strong, unique passphrases passwords, whatever you going to do there, but don’t repeat it across the board, right? Yeah. That makes it pretty simple for people. The multifactor where it can be applied should be applied everywhere, you know, as well. And you know, obviously updating usually patching a vulnerability.

00;08;27;24 – 00;08;33;22
Speaker 1
So they allow another update. I shouldn’t do it, but it usually should because it’s usually patching something. It’s a vulnerability.

00;08;33;25 – 00;08;48;10
Speaker 2
When you say you shouldn’t and it’s usually a bit too late. So yeah that’s right. Yeah. Really good feedback there. Just talk about the government I know you’ve been quite you know they listen to you. You’re a strong voice there. Is there anything you feel that you know, they should be doing more or you know, how is the engagement going there?

00;08;48;10 – 00;09;02;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s good, I think. But the thing is, it shouldn’t be all the government’s responsibility. I think the government of pulling the right levers at the moment, I think the 2030 strategy and the team at Home Affairs, and they’re doing a fantastic job. You know, when we look at it, they are listening. And they don’t just listen to me to listen to the industry.

00;09;02;25 – 00;09;18;14
Speaker 1
And, and I think they’re spreading that voice a bit more. It used to be probably too much listening to the top in the channel. People had a vested interest in it, and it has spread a bit wider now, and they’re actually taking on board a lot more of the community, you know, as a whole. So I think that’s a key thing.

00;09;18;14 – 00;09;36;01
Speaker 1
Look, I don’t have a horse in the race. This is not about me, and it’s not about me making money. It’s actually quite the reverse. It’s cost to me to do what I do. But the thing is, they’re passionate about getting it turned around that I’ll do whatever it takes to get there. You know, but I did give myself a time horizon myself to say if I can move the needle in the next 2 or 3 years, then I’ll be out.

00;09;36;01 – 00;09;50;26
Speaker 1
I’ll go do something else, maybe go create another business, you know? But, yeah, I just think we’re the precipice now. We either it’s now or never. I don’t think there is a we’re we’re a long way behind in a lot of fronts. And if we don’t sort of pull the trigger on things now, we could be in big trouble.

00;09;50;27 – 00;10;09;24
Speaker 2
Yeah. And as a true entrepreneur, you always want to find a solution. And yeah, you know, two year horizon sounds great on that two horizon crystal ball. And where do you see the future. And like I say we’re losing the battle. You know we try and do these podcasts to try and educate people because I know from speaking firsthand, we’ve got hundreds of customers, and I still see occasional boards that I present to.

00;10;09;24 – 00;10;23;03
Speaker 2
And they say, oh, look, Nigel, it all sounds good, but, you know, why would the AI hack I want to know a threat actor. I want to target us. They just use that education piece. Right. So if you want a crystal ball the next two years, where do you think we will end up going? As a, as a, as a country really as Australia.

00;10;23;05 – 00;10;44;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well look I’m, it’s been led from the top. Like it’s actually really inspiring to hear someone like Michelle McGuinness and, and you know, that alignment with the strategy and where they’re really trying to push it and the whole team. I think last year they did 22 different exercises, you know, like is in full on sort of full blown attacks, you know, to, to get companies to go through that because, yeah, you can shuffle bits of paper on a table and say, we’ve gone through an exercise.

00;10;45;00 – 00;11;09;22
Speaker 1
It’s a bit different going through a bit more of a full scale exercise. Right. So I think that there is a lot of stuff happening there. But I think as an industry we are still too segmented and siloed and people are still looking out for themselves in their self-interest. I often see, you know, in the dark web side, if I find a ransomware kid or, you know, email compromise phishing kit that works, I’m telling everyone about it and saying, I’m going to sell it to you, but get involved, right?

00;11;09;25 – 00;11;23;25
Speaker 1
If we find something on the good side, we tend to go the other way. And so I’m going to make something out of this, and I’m not sharing this with anyone, you know. And the Intel doesn’t seem to get spread. So if something happens there’s only certain people knowing about it, not the whole industry, you know. So I think as an industry, we need to support government.

00;11;23;25 – 00;11;41;29
Speaker 1
We need to back academia. We need to really look after the community and think a bit broader because, you know, it is the more vulnerable in the community, the getting hit. It’s people that are going through cancer treatment. The lady got a call from a scam, said from overseas. She said, I just got back from, you know, I’ve got stage four cancer.

00;11;41;29 – 00;11;57;28
Speaker 1
I’ve just got chemo done. She had 57,000 on the account. The person just grind it out without even a thought, don’t care. Like it’s just there’s no empathy there or anything. So that’s what upsets me is that these are the people getting it. You know, we see the big attacks which made all the press, but none of those companies got hurt from it.

00;11;57;28 – 00;12;13;18
Speaker 1
They got a little dip in share price and they’re back and running and you know, no problem. And I think that it didn’t hit the Australian economy or public as much as the thing that didn’t move the needle on those is someone had to go change their driver’s license or, you know, I had to change some phone numbers or details.

00;12;13;18 – 00;12;40;12
Speaker 1
But did they lose that much financially? And I think though big attacks, as in scale of people, and there’s a lot of our data out there on the dark web that can be used against us now, but, you know, do people care? And so I think going forward is we’ve already seen with AI how much of a change that’s made on machine learning, you know, so things like ChatGPT, you know, being able to voice clone and, you know, do AI videos and stuff like that, you know, needing to like a having a conversation.

00;12;40;12 – 00;12;53;08
Speaker 1
If you called me, if we had a word that I knew that we had a word that was only known between us, you know, that we should be using in our families and stuff like that, we’re going to have to get on our toes a bit more, because the way we’re being attacked is a lot more targeted and lot more skilled.

00;12;53;08 – 00;13;02;21
Speaker 1
There isn’t the Nigerian letter scam anymore that you go, that’s obviously dodgy. They’re really targeting and actually giving specifics on on you. Your family and know a lot more about you.

00;13;02;23 – 00;13;16;19
Speaker 2
So someone who’s been, you know, in the forefront. Can you share with our listeners some examples of some real world examples that you’ve heard of or been involved in from a from a business point of view? Because I know when people listen, you know, I get comments going, oh, I heard on your podcast, you know, same thing happened to me.

00;13;16;19 – 00;13;19;01
Speaker 2
Like as any examples that you’re comfortable to share.

00;13;19;01 – 00;13;36;28
Speaker 1
It’s way too often like it’s it is constant every week. I remember just before Christmas, not this year, but the year previous, a large concreting company lost 800,000 in a man in the middle attack. And that’s a that’s all wages. If I’m gone. I mentioned at the top here about that 782,000. That was free property settlements that fell over.

00;13;36;28 – 00;13;55;14
Speaker 1
So it was actually a small Gold Coast law firm was doing property settlements. It was a West African crime gang. It’s in a you over quite a limit for Microsoft. They had gone in there. They clogged the password, watch the Gmail account for three weeks and saw that she was transferring or putting money into these, this trust account.

00;13;55;16 – 00;14;13;14
Speaker 1
They stopped the, emails going out. Change the details, send it off. 723 Property summons. They were out of business six months later. The law firm, themselves, you know, so it’s it’s having to go. I said, my friend, you know, the other way. 20 grand. They they knew about her, your bank account and details.

00;14;13;14 – 00;14;31;19
Speaker 1
They said to her that, you know, now we know. And we should give advice. Stop. Call the bank. Right. The banks are going to call you and do that sort of stuff. But it’s just the timing of it, right? Yeah, sometimes just the timing. And you get a call and she said five minutes later, yeah. Imagine being eight and a half months pregnant, you know, another young kid and you get this and stuff.

00;14;31;19 – 00;14;45;05
Speaker 1
And that sinking feeling when you just got to have a kid, you know. So it’s it’s those are the things that I think and these stories, it’s like you remember when they showed the car crash stories and people drink, drive or not wearing a seatbelt and, you know, all those sorts of things. So but we do need more of that.

00;14;45;05 – 00;14;59;29
Speaker 1
So they’re good stories to tell in to wake people up. But as you said, yeah, boards and I have the same conversations. Why would having this why would they look at us? Why would they target us, you know, well, why would they call a concrete company or a, you know, a small local law firm doing property settlements on the Gold Coast with only ten staff?

00;14;59;29 – 00;15;04;15
Speaker 1
You know why? Because you’re an easy target. Because they go for the lowest hanging fruit.

00;15;04;17 – 00;15;22;04
Speaker 2
And I think currently, for me, it’s only going to get worse because we’re talking off a earlier. Is that quantum computing. Yeah. Artificial intelligence cyber like the trilogy is really, you know, heating up. And, you know, businesses are way behind in a lot of those. So can you share us a bit about, you know, where do you see that going?

00;15;22;05 – 00;15;35;00
Speaker 1
Well, you look at wars now. Wars are like, remember when the Russian Ukrainian will happen. Remember Elon Musk had to step into the Ukrainian side to give them the links to get them online because the Russians had taken them off line first. And that was, you know.

00;15;35;03 – 00;15;36;17
Speaker 2
And it took all this oxygen wasn’t.

00;15;36;17 – 00;15;51;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. And the Crimea stuff because, yeah, he didn’t wanna start a war, but he wanted to protect the the hospitals and everything else could run. He wasn’t trying to get involved in the war per side, but to make sure they could be protected and actually look after the citizens and stuff like that. So that is the the tenant of war, you know, and that that is the easiest way to use something.

00;15;51;28 – 00;16;08;19
Speaker 1
I mean, you see drone attacks now going around. You see the drone, there’s a soldier in the middle of a paddock and bang, that is taken out, you know, so the level of where war is going on, warfare, it’s a cyber war on all fronts. You know, we’re being attacked all the time, and you’ve got to make sure that you’re protected and just go from that.

00;16;08;24 – 00;16;23;04
Speaker 1
I mean, zero trust is the term we use in the industry, but just trust nothing and nobody. So if it is the bank or someone hang up, call your bank or go to the website, the proper website, call the proper number on there and go and talk to them directly. Did you give me a call about that? No, we didn’t know.

00;16;23;04 – 00;16;37;08
Speaker 1
Yes we did. Well okay I need to verify that. And yeah communicate that way. You know, so we just have to be ultra cautious because even stuff that looks like they can, you know, do it with text messages makes it look like it’s coming from a legitimate source and everything. Don’t click on anything. Don’t do any sort of stuff.

00;16;37;08 – 00;16;48;29
Speaker 1
We’ve been drilling in for years, but we just got to keep saying the same thing. It’s like the slip, slop, slap or click like front and back or whatever. We just need to keep nicely in saying don’t do it. Stop. Slow down. Yeah, don’t act quickly to slow down.

00;16;49;02 – 00;17;09;05
Speaker 2
And zero trust you touched on it before. That’s the default. Unfortunately, we live in a society, right? Yep. Talk to us a bit about in terms of, you know, if you were a crystal ball. Yeah. How a small business could just be better protected. You talked about that education. You talked about, you know, putting in MFA, putting in better passwords, things like that.

00;17;09;05 – 00;17;31;04
Speaker 2
Like, how was a board that really sees technology as a foreign concept, right. So, you know, the reason businesses like us exist or many shows running security provider is they want to outsource everything to us. I guess the challenge we find and why we want to try and do these podcasts from an education point of view, is really how do you convince someone that they need something that they haven’t been impacted by or they can’t see?

00;17;31;04 – 00;17;46;03
Speaker 1
It’s it’s a hard sell isn’t correct. It’s a it is a hard sell. It’s like insurance or anything like that. Right. But we talk about a cost of living crisis. You want a cost of living crisis, get a cyber attack happen to your business. Right. So, you know, what are you going to spend to protect it? I think it’s almost I use the same analogy is back at your house.

00;17;46;03 – 00;18;05;22
Speaker 1
So how much do you want to protect your house? You know, do you feel you need did locks and screen doors and locks on windows and cameras? And just think of how how far you want to take that as a back to buy. So what are you to do to monitor it. And I think with businesses you’re going to go what level of risk more willing to take and what am I willing to cover for that risk.

00;18;05;22 – 00;18;22;11
Speaker 1
You know, in that in that loss scenario. So a small business I think they’re saying is average $50,000 loss, right. You know, in a in a small business, you know, attack. Now that’s a lot for anyone in anyone’s language. Right. And that’s enough to take some businesses out. But it can be a lot higher. We we spoke you know those other ones were closer to $1 million.

00;18;22;14 – 00;18;37;25
Speaker 1
How much it’s going to cost you as a risk to lose that. How much do you want to protect yourself against that. You know. So I think it really needs to be a conversation. Don’t be stupid about it, but be actually quite smart about what do you have to protect? Are you taking online payments or where are those vulnerabilities in there?

00;18;37;25 – 00;18;51;22
Speaker 1
You know, depending on your business, you really need to say what parts we need to cover. If you’re transacting online and you’re online and out in the open a lot more, you need more protective mechanisms. If you’re a manufacturing business, you still have options where you might have machines onto the internet and stuff that people could attack you that way.

00;18;51;22 – 00;19;08;21
Speaker 1
So you just need to know where your most vulnerable points are and actually go back from there like you do with any other part of your business. What do we need to gather? And I think occupational health and safety is something that people in business get. I mean, as a board member or as a director of a company, if someone kills himself on the worksite, you’re personally liable for that.

00;19;08;23 – 00;19;27;05
Speaker 1
I think if you take the same lens and look at cyber in the same way and think of it as a, as an another attack vector like that, I think we give it more of that. Workplace occupational health and safety thing is, remember, if there’s a spill in Niger, someone would sign out, oh, we better put a sign that to warn other people with cyber, sometimes people make a mistake, but they don’t report well because I feel embarrassed.

00;19;27;05 – 00;19;41;16
Speaker 1
I clicked on something and I think I might have opened something up, but I don’t want to tell anyone. I think we need to change that culture around that. Is that report. It. If it looks suspicious, report it. And and that’s again, not just at the macro level, but at the micro level that we can all help each other by reporting back what we say.

00;19;41;18 – 00;19;49;13
Speaker 1
So I think looking at from more of an occupational health and safety and how much do we need to insure ourselves against those sorts of things online. Are we willing to take or risk.

00;19;49;16 – 00;20;06;25
Speaker 2
Yeah. Fantastic. Changing gears. Yeah. Instead of talking just about doom and gloom from cyber, we know it’s relevant. But I know we spoke of them beforehand about I found that you’re in the process of raising you know, I think it’s fantastic. You know, there should be more and more investment around, you know, AI and quantum and cyber AI.

00;20;07;00 – 00;20;20;23
Speaker 2
That is the trilogy we keep talking about. For those listeners out there, do you want to share it? I guess you know what you’re focusing on next and, you know, how can they be part of it? Can they spread the word? How can they help you? Because ultimately you’re going to be hoping, you know, Aussie founders and develop some solutions that could change your world.

00;20;20;23 – 00;20;38;06
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, the thing is that, like you having an entrepreneurial background, I’m always looking for solutions to how can we fix things. So we’ve got, at this stage probably committed about and probably will. We’re sitting here well in February now by sort of probably April or May this year, we’ll kick off our first hopefully, camp. But we want to yeah.

00;20;38;07 – 00;20;55;00
Speaker 1
Basically get sovereign capability is something mentioned in the 2030 cyber strategies that we need to build our own capability here. And what happens often, Nigel, is the companies are really big and good. Atlassian. You know, just so we talk about bug crowd or you know, because I do all these different companies, they end up going off shore and I’ll go set up.

00;20;55;02 – 00;21;12;01
Speaker 1
We don’t have a system here which supports, entrepreneurs and you know, Start-Up. So not yet. Not. Yeah. We’re about to. Yeah. So we want to do it where we basically have a panel of people like, you know, the top entrepreneurs that are actually gone there and done it and leading other ones, you know, and giving a hand up.

00;21;12;04 – 00;21;27;08
Speaker 1
And so we’ll have a fund there that will sit there to solve the top problems that we need to solve for, not just here in Australia, but around the world and Israel as a country, a really good at doing this. So 30% of the billion dollar companies in cybersecurity come out of Israel, not how to work out why there is compulsory service mechanism there.

00;21;27;08 – 00;21;41;04
Speaker 1
You know that you do have to go and work in the Army. But if you’re in a red teaming environment, like working in the cyber part, it’s five and a half years and then they spin teams out after that to basically build businesses. So, you know, like the really big cyber companies, is it 30% for a population of less than 10 million?

00;21;41;04 – 00;21;55;08
Speaker 1
Pretty impressive. And there’s certain models we can copy around the world, but we want to basically make Australia, as Malcolm Turnbull is trying to do a few years ago, more of a smart nation and more innovative that actually we can build these sorts of things and the strategy calls out for it. So we want to try and help assist in that area.

00;21;55;11 – 00;22;13;00
Speaker 2
I mean, fantastic. Yeah. Look, I’m happy to spread the news. Yeah, it’s a great initiative. Probably a final comment because I’m just trying to keep this, short and sweet so our listeners can listen on their drive waiver. Yeah. What do you want to be known as? Jason. Lucky you. I know you’re so passionate about cyber and you know it really leaving a positive impact, but what’s your legacy going to be?

00;22;13;00 – 00;22;31;01
Speaker 1
Yeah, I don’t want to be known per se, myself. I’d love to be the driver behind all of these changes and that I’d love to put us out of business, basically, that we don’t need to do cyber, but the cyber is done and it’s covered, and the people just basically automatic do stuff like you, you know, you brush your teeth before you go to bed as a kid or, you know, you put on a seatbelt as soon as you get in the car.

00;22;31;01 – 00;22;45;15
Speaker 1
I want Cyber Habit to be a similar sort of thing that we just don’t think about. It’s just something we do, and it’s something we do every day, and it just happens and we protect ourselves. So I’d like to put us all out of a job if possible, you know, because if we solve that problem, it’s a pretty big and vexing problem for all of us.

00;22;45;15 – 00;23;02;04
Speaker 1
But yeah, I’d love to be just discover something in that fund or somewhere where it just goes that solves the shit, right? And doesn’t matter about quantum or anything like that. We don’t have to worry about it. Right? And so, yeah, I’d love to be a part of that, in some way, shape or form. But yeah, I’d rather sit behind the scenes rather than in front of a whole.

00;23;02;04 – 00;23;17;01
Speaker 1
The other business of Donald being more behind the scenes. But this one, I say I just need to be a voice out there to try and drag people along. It divides the crowd. But if you stand for something, you know you’re usually going to, you know, turn people away from you and that’s fine. But I’m doing it for the right reasons, I know it.

00;23;17;04 – 00;23;27;01
Speaker 1
I can sleep easy at night, knowing that everything I’ve done in business and everything, I’ve never done anything bad to anyone. So and this is one of those ones where I want to make sure we really move the needle and make a big difference.

00;23;27;03 – 00;23;41;11
Speaker 2
Fantastic. You know, utopias, you know, doing yourself out of a job. So yeah, wish you well and I’m sure you well on your way. Jason, thank you so much for coming on and thanks for being I guess at read. I’m really appreciate it. And we’ll we’ll like to get you back in, you know, a few months time and see how the funds going.

00;23;41;11 – 00;23;49;00
Speaker 1
And I love to go toe to toe with The Godfather. Yep. That’s right. Now here’s yes I got yeah I’ve got to get the fall before he gets the other one.

00;23;49;03 – 00;23;51;06
Speaker 2
Thank you Jason. So great to have you on board. Thank you.

00;23;51;06 – 00;24;02;14
Speaker 1
Very.