PrOTect It All

Hosted by Aaron Crow | Operational Technology & Cybersecurity Host

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129

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Oct 2026

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PrOTect IT All with Aaron Crow delivers weekly episodes focused on cybersecurity and operational technology, tackling emerging threats across industrial control systems, AI security, and IoT threats. The show emphasizes enterprise risk management, manufacturing security, power grid security, and threat intelligence, providing listeners with authentic conversations from security leaders and practitioners. It’s a resource for those committed to real-world IT operations security and understanding AI risks in critical infrastructures.

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October 26, 202655 min

They Deserve to Be Defended: OT Defense, Transitioning Vets and Weaponized Sneaker Net

Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep129/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ The small water utility down the road cannot afford a big consultancy, and it still has to be defended. Erin Burns is building a company around that problem. Erin is an Army veteran with roughly two decades in cyber operations and the founder of EVR:RDY Defensive Operations Group. He and Aaron take on the question every transitioning veteran asks, how do I get into OT, and the problem behind it: automation is closing the entry-level door just as small utilities need defenders most. They get into hiring troubleshooters instead of job reqs, engineering a low-cost data diode, why a tool nobody runs is worse than no tool, the air gap myth, and how Erin's team weaponized sneaker net to get packet capture out of sites that will never allow remote access. Key takeaway The utilities that cannot afford a big consultancy still have to be defended. If you mandate a standard, fund it, and build the people pipeline the same way you build the product: with problem solvers, hands-on apprenticeship and tools small operators will actually use. A tool nobody uses is worse than no tool. Chapters 0:00 Cold open 0:25 Intro 0:46 Meet Erin Burns 2:26 The question every transitioning vet asks 3:23 Hard hats and factory floors 5:43 Automation is closing the entry-level door 8:03 Ignore the job req 11:06 A pilot with local water sites 12:17 Automate to lower the noise floor 14:19 No juniors means no seniors 16:36 The operator wearing every hat 17:55 Engineering a low-cost data diode 19:28 Dave's network and the XP box 21:44 School lunches, police cruisers and cyber 26:19 A tool nobody runs 27:11 Why investors hate this model 28:53 The cellular modem nobody questioned 30:51 How many air gaps have you seen? 34:38 The historian under the tablecloth 36:31 What do you do with packet capture? 39:50 The air gap myth 46:04 Two different runbooks 49:50 Who defends the sites that can't pay? 53:57 Where to find Erin and EVR:RDY 55:20 Outro About the guest Erin Burns is an Army veteran with roughly two decades in cyber operations and defensive work, and the founder of EVR:RDY Defensive Operations Group, a company focused on affordable OT/ICS defense for critical infrastructure operators with limited budgets and resources. He came up through special forces support and early military cyber, became a cyber warrant officer, and by his account spent five years on an Army cyber team defending OT environments, on factory floors and in hard hats. He is now building EVR:RDY around that experience, with a focus on water utilities and other sites that cannot afford commercial tooling. EVR:RDY: https://evrrdy.com EVR:RDY pilot program: https://evrrdy.com/pilots Erin on LinkedIn: https://ww... Chapters (00:00:00) - Cold open: they deserve to be defended (00:00:25) - Intro (00:00:47) - Meet Erin Burns (00:02:26) - The question every transitioning vet asks (00:03:23) - Hard hats and factory floors (00:05:43) - Automation is closing the entry-level door (00:08:03) - Ignore the job req (00:11:06) - A pilot with local water sites (00:12:17) - Automate to lower the noise floor (00:14:19) - No juniors means no seniors (00:16:36) - The operator wearing every hat (00:17:55) - Engineering a low-cost data diode (00:19:28) - Dave's network and the XP box (00:21:44) - School lunches, police cruisers and cyber (00:26:19) - A tool nobody runs (00:27:11) - Why investors hate this model (00:28:53) - The cellular modem nobody questioned (00:30:51) - How many air gaps have you seen? (00:34:38) - The historian under the tablecloth (00:36:31) - What do you do with packet capture? (00:39:50) - The air gap myth (00:46:04) - Two different runbooks (00:49:50) - Who defends the sites that can't pay? (00:53:57) - Where to find Erin and EVR:RDY (00:55:20) - Outro

October 19, 202658 min

Trust Is Not a Security Control: Blast Radius and the Management Plane

Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep128/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ Zero trust asks whether something should be allowed. Zach Miller asks a different question: if it is allowed, and something blows up, how far does it go? Zach is a cybersecurity engineer in Colorado Springs who came up through K-12 network support on a shoestring budget, defense contracting and managed services. On the side he runs Skip to Secure, where he publishes research on trust concentration and management-plane abuse, including his Blast Radius framework. He and Aaron trace one pattern through five years of incidents. Kaseya and SaltStack in 2020 and 2021, then Stryker in 2026: each time the management platform itself became the way in, and the authority it already held decided how far the damage went. Segmentation is the fix everyone already knows. It is still a hard sell. What you will take away Why trust is something you delegate, not a security control, and how to put a limit on it What Zach's blast radius framework measures: reach, scope crossing, standing privilege, human concentration, automation visibility and recoverability Why the same PLC with the same vulnerabilities is not the same risk on a turbine as it is on an ice machine Why attacks now look like a normal workday from a cloud address, not a foreign IP in the logs Why one any-any rule undoes 477 good ones, and why a firewall starts from deny Why you verify every piece of work an AI agent hands back, however good the prompt was In this episode 5:03 Sleeping under the conference table 8:30 The open proxy everyone borrowed 10:24 From K-12 to defense contracting 12:59 How careers really get built 16:36 Where is the puck going? 23:22 A heat map for the smoker 25:41 Verify everything the agent does 32:31 Attacks that look like a normal workday 34:33 The work laptop on the home network 39:15 Security is never done 41:39 Where the word firewall comes from 43:33 The same failure, five years apart 44:21 What blast radius measures 46:28 The turbine and the ice machine 49:43 When the right account does the wrong thing 51:53 A firewall with one any-any rule 54:08 Where to find Zach's research About the guest Zach Miller is a cybersecurity engineer based in Colorado Springs. He started as a network and switching specialist supporting K-12 education, then moved through defense contracting, consulting and managed services into cybersecurity engineering. Through Skip to Secure, his independent research and training effort, he publishes white papers on trust concentration and management-plane abuse, including the Blast Radius framework and the LOLMgmt paper on living-off-the-land management attacks. Blast Radius white paper and scoring workbook: https://github.com/ridgestoneco/blast-radius LOLMgmt white paper: https://zenodo.org/records/21255394 Zach on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin...

October 12, 202657 min

A Guardrail, Not a Stop Sign: Securing AI at Business Speed

Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep127/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ Three months ago Ben Wilcox's company was running roughly 200 AI agents. When he checked the day before we recorded, it was 900. Nobody stood them up on purpose, and every one of them runs under somebody's identity. Ben Wilcox is CTO and CISO at ProArch, which means he carries both sides of the argument: the pressure to adopt AI and move fast, and the job of answering for identity, governance and compliance when the moving fast gets ahead of the preparation. Most conversations about AI risk are one of those two people talking about the other. This one is held by somebody who cannot pass the problem across the table. His position is not that AI is dangerous. It is that AI security does not start with securing the model, it starts with securing the environment you drop the model into: identity, access, data scope, logging and ownership. All things security teams already know how to do. What you will take away Why agent sprawl is already here, and why the real question is who owns an agent when the person who built it leaves How to say no to a risky request and still give the business a path, so the work does not go to shadow AI Why you fork a community MCP server and keep only the 20 of its 107 tools you actually need The vendor due diligence question the questionnaire never asks: who can read the key, and can you get the log Why physical segmentation is coming back for truly critical systems, and why OT never left it How security review can finally run at the speed AI-built code is written In this episode 2:42 Plan for when something breaks 6:31 The risks people are ignoring 10:03 Build it yourself and you support it forever 12:51 200 agents to 900 in three months 20:40 Defending at machine speed 21:46 Physical segmentation is coming back 24:06 107 tools and you only need 20 26:46 How the conversation changes by industry 30:11 Still working on the fundamentals 31:17 Third parties and the weakest link 36:25 A guardrail, not a stop sign 41:46 Bring only the data you need 49:30 Did AI write the book? 51:20 Security finally at development speed About the guest Ben Wilcox is the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at ProArch, a global technology consulting and services firm specializing in cybersecurity, cloud, data and AI, and software development. With more than 25 years of experience in technology, Ben has led enterprise architecture, cybersecurity strategy, regulatory compliance, incident response and large-scale business transformation initiatives. In his dual CTO and CISO role, he helps organizations balance innovation with security, evaluating emerging technologies from both a business and a risk perspective. ProArch: https://www.proarch.com Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-wilcox/ Learn more about PrOTect IT All: Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/

October 5, 202656 min

AI Is the New Shadow IT: Why Blocking It Never Worked with Jack Smith

Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep126/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ Shadow IT used to be a server in a closet. Today it is Linda from sales uploading confidential quotes to whatever AI tool she found first, and your corporate data leaving with it. Jack Smith has spent more than 25 years in enterprise IT, across infrastructure, networks, datacenters, cloud and incident management, and he hosts the IT Horror Stories podcast. His argument is that AI is not a new problem, it is the latest version of an old one, and that the reflex to block it at the firewall has never worked and will not work now. Aaron and Jack get into where AI genuinely helps, where it quietly does not, and the question of what happens when a system that gives a different answer every time is asked to make a decision that has to be the same every time. What you will take away Why blocking AI tools fails the same way blocking USB sticks and webmail failed The difference between a tool that optimises your work and a tool you hand your work to Why analytics and diagnosis are the strong case for AI, and treatment is not The training gap: staff get GDPR training and security training, and no AI training at all A one question test anyone can apply before pasting company data anywhere In this episode 1:19 Twenty five years, from floppy disks to AI 10:45 Shadow IT used to be a box in a closet 12:31 Why blocking it never works 19:53 You cannot throw people in the deep end 21:48 When a wrong answer can kill someone 25:40 The answer everybody hates: training 27:54 Never give AI your production environment 41:20 Ask who owns your AI policy 44:38 Who actually gets rich 47:08 The Times Square test About the guest Jack Smith has spent more than 25 years working in enterprise IT across infrastructure, networks, datacenters, cloud and incident management. He hosts IT Horror Stories, a weekly podcast about real-world IT incidents, what went wrong, how they were fixed, and what we can learn from them. IT Horror Stories podcast: https://ithorrorstories.eu/ "AI Is The New Shadow IT": https://ithorrorstories.eu/#rant07 Jack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franky/ Learn more about PrOTect IT All: Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep126/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ Support the show: https://protectitallpod.com/go/support/podcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PrOTectITAll Email: info@protectitall.co X: https://twitter.com/protectitall Faceboo...

September 28, 20261 hr 5 min

Own Your Industrial Airspace: Wireless, Vendors, and the Parking Lot Crane Hack with Scott McNeil

Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep125/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ A wireless engineer sat in a parking lot, connected to a plant's crane anti-collision network, and had everything he needed to stop the cranes inside 20 minutes. Nobody inside the fence ever knew he was there. In this episode of Protect It All , host Aaron Crow talks with Scott McNeil , Industrial Network and Security Architect II at Global Process Automation (GPA), about the part of the OT network most plants never look at: the airspace. Scott has spent more than 20 years in networking and wireless, the last ten of them entirely in OT, and he sits in the integrator's seat, working across every manufacturer's gear without a product to sell. The conversation starts where most plants actually are: one flat network, off the shelf gear on the floor, and no budget. Scott's argument is that the low hanging fruit costs time and effort, not money, and that a stable network is the foundation for everything security asks for later: segmentation, inventory, monitoring, then a firewall between OT and IT. He walks through war driving your own plant, why a hidden SSID is not security, the wild west of industrial wireless protocols, wireless that was abandoned in power plants years ago and is still on the air, and where wireless earns its place. The second half is about vendors and access. Do not take the vendor's word for it, ask the questions before the gear ships, and treat every third party connection as your own exposure. Scott's rule for remote access is simple: this is my house, vendors connect on my terms, every session logged, with an approve or deny button before anyone gets in. Aaron adds the zip tie in the fan story, a backup switch that had silently failed months earlier and nobody knew until monitoring went on, and the two close on shrinking the wireless footprint that leaves your site and on Scott's podcast, The Industrial Wi-Fi Shop. In this episode, you'll learn: Why a stable network comes before any security project, and what to fix first How to war drive your own plant and what a passive scan of your airspace tells an attacker Why hiding the SSID and relying on obscurity is not a control Which industrial wireless protocols are standards based and which are proprietary risk The questions to ask a wireless vendor before you sign How to run vendor remote access on your terms: logged sessions, approve or deny, no standing tunnels Why monitoring finds failures you did not know you had Tune in to hear why your industrial airspace deserves the same design, monitoring, and ownership as any wired connection. About the guest: Scott McNeil is an Industrial Network and Security Architect II at Global Process Automation (GPA), where he helps manufacturers design, secure, and modernize the OT networks that keep critical processes running: architecture, IT/OT convergence, segmentation, resilient connectivity, and industrial wireless. A longtime wireless engineer, he created and co-hosts The Industrial WiFi Shop Podcast with Jeremy Baker, speaks regularly at OT and industrial cybersecurity events, holds a bachelor's degree in Industrial Technology from East Carolina University with multiple wireless and network certifications, and serves on the UNC Wilmington Cybersecurity Advisory Board. Important Links: LinkedIn of Scott McNeil:

September 21, 202646 min

Regulation Is the Budget Unlock OT Has Been Waiting For: NIS2, the CRA, and Getting the Basics Right with Tobias Nitzsche

Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep124/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ NIS2, the EU Cyber Resilience Act, and CIRCIA are converging between now and 2027, and for the first time the law is pushing cybersecurity requirements upstream into product design and supply chain. What does that actually change on the plant floor? In this episode of Protect It All , host Aaron Crow talks with Tobias Nitzsche , Head of Legislation and Technology for Cybersecurity at ABB Energy Industries, about the shift regulation is driving in OT: responsibility moving from the server rooms into the boardrooms, and from the operator to the manufacturer. Tobias makes the case that what gets regulated are fundamentally the basics: risk assessment, asset inventory, cyber hygiene, and detection. The industry has preached these for a decade. Now the law demands them, which makes compliance the business case that finally unlocks long-overdue modernization budget. His advice: do not treat legislation as a paper exercise. Treat it as a utility. The second half is about recovery, the foundation most plants skip. Aaron and Tobias dig into the vendor-install backup that has never been tested, recovery targets that ignore how long a plant really takes to come back, retain values operators tuned for years that live nowhere else, redundant controllers that are not cyber resilience, and vendor SLAs that send a system engineer when you needed a cyber expert. Tobias's practical pattern: keep a replica of your critical systems, restore into the bubble, and be as intrusive as you like there, scanners and all, without touching production. Also in this one: NIS2 Article 20 and personal liability for executives, why a cyber incident does not need a nation state (bad firmware counts), where AI belongs in the Purdue model and where it does not, AI as the daily brief for the one-person water utility, Aaron's Exchange 5.5 story about the week the executives lost their email, borrowing the safety engineers' hazard studies as risk input, and why you should never fire up a wireless pineapple on an airplane. In this episode, you'll learn: How NIS2, the Cyber Resilience Act, and CIRCIA move accountability to executives and manufacturers Why 24-hour incident reporting starts with detection, and why you can't wing it How to reframe your next modernization budget ask around compliance What a real recovery plan needs: tested backups, plant-realistic RPO and RTO, and captured retain values Why redundant controllers protect against failure, not compromise How to test restores and run scanners safely in a replica instead of production Where AI helps an understaffed operator and where it should never take control Tune in to hear how the biggest regulatory wave in industrial cybersecurity history can become the budget unlock OT has been waiting for. About the guest: Tobias Nitzsche is Head of Legislation and Technology for Cybersecurity at ABB Energy Industries, where he translates the fast-moving regulatory landscape, including NIS2, the EU Cyber Resilience Act, and CIRCIA, into how products are designed and projects are delivered for critical infrastructure. Before this role he was ABB's Global Cyber Security Practice Lead, capping more than 20 years across IT and OT security. Having sat on both sides of the table, first delivering cybersecurity services to critical infrastructure operators and now shaping...

September 14, 20261 hr 5 min

AI in OT: Why Humans Stay in the Loop and the Junior Problem with Jori VanAntwerp

Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep123/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ AI is a consensus engine, and consensus on the internet is frequently wrong. So what does that mean for the people defending power plants, water systems, and factories with it? In this episode of Protect It All , host Aaron Crow welcomes back Jori VanAntwerp , CEO and founder of EmberOT, for a completely unscripted conversation on AI in OT. Two practitioners who use AI aggressively every day make the case for restraint in exactly the places that matter. Jori explains why human in the loop is non-negotiable: AI shapes a junior's output to look senior without the understanding underneath, so you have to be able to interrogate it. Aaron walks through his own sandbox discipline, where AI gets a folder and not the keys, and nothing goes in that he would not publish on the internet. The conversation then turns to the OT reality behind AI-found vulnerabilities, why an attacker who can reach your HMI or PLC does not need your unpatched CVE, teaching AI your voice with markdown primers, the build-versus-buy MVP trap, the submarine principle for modular defense, and why an operator flipping to manual is still the save of last resort. Underneath all of it is the workforce math nobody is doing on air: if one person plus AI does the work of five, nobody is training juniors, and no juniors today means no seniors in ten years. OT's aging-out workforce is the preview. In this episode, you'll learn: Why AI is a consensus engine , and why that framing predicts where it fails Why human in the loop is not optional for anything that matters How to sandbox AI in real workflows: a folder, not the keys How to rank AI-found vulnerabilities against what an attacker in your OT network can actually do How primers teach AI your voice, brand, and rules The build versus buy trap: if a power company builds its own software, it is now a software company The submarine principle: compartments, modular tooling, and swapping tools without ripping out the estate Why analog fallbacks and operators keep saving critical infrastructure The junior pipeline problem : no juniors today means no seniors in ten years Why the entry-level job for OT cybersecurity is IT Tune in for the most honest AI conversation the show has had, from the people who actually run it in OT. About the guest: Jori VanAntwerp is a two-time cybersecurity founder and CEO who has spent over two decades helping industrial and IT/OT organizations reduce risk, strengthen compliance, and mature the way they defend critical infrastructure. He has held executive and leadership roles at McAfee, FireEye, CrowdStrike, Dragos, and Gravwell before stepping into the founder seat, first at SynSaber and now as the Founder and CEO at EmberOT. The result is a vantage point that runs from the boardroom to the packet capture, from silicon to the cloud. At EmberOT, he is focused on bringing visibility, security, and risk quantification to the critical infrastructure the rest of the world takes for granted. From EmberOT: Want to see what is really happening in your OT environment? EmberOT provides flow-first, passive OT visibility and threat detection without requiring proprietary hardware. Learn more about EmberOT...

September 7, 202646 min

Building the Cybersecurity Community: From 120 People to 3,000 at CYBR.SEC.CON

Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep122/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ Get your tickets for CYBR.SEC.CON., a two-day cybersecurity conference, here: https://www.cybrseccon.com/ What started with 120 people and a homemade Word flyer has grown into a cybersecurity community of more than 3,000. So what does it take to build a community that can scale without losing its personal connection? In this episode of Protect It All , host Aaron Crow sits down with Michael Farnum , CEO and co-founder of CYBR.SEC.Community, and Sam Van Ryder , co-founder and an OT sales expert, to explore the story behind the growth of CYBR.SEC.CON and the community surrounding it. Michael and Sam share how they went from a grassroots cybersecurity gathering to a thriving community while keeping the relationships and sense of connection that made the event special in the first place. The conversation goes beyond conferences. Aaron, Michael, and Sam discuss the challenges facing people trying to break into cybersecurity and OT , why entry-level opportunities can be difficult to find, and what experienced professionals can do to help develop the next generation of cyber defenders. They also share their hands-on efforts to introduce young people to cybersecurity, including bringing 75 high school students into the community, with plans to reach 150. From hiring and firing lessons to career advice, community building, and the future of OT cybersecurity, this episode offers practical insight for anyone looking to grow their career, build meaningful connections, or help strengthen the cybersecurity workforce. In this episode, you'll learn: How CYBR.SEC.Community grew from 120 people to more than 3,000 What it takes to scale a cybersecurity community without losing its personal feel Why conferences can play an important role in cybersecurity careers How to break into OT and cybersecurity when you're just starting out The challenges surrounding entry-level cybersecurity jobs How community and mentorship can help develop the next generation of cyber professionals What CYBR.SEC.Community is doing to engage high school students in cybersecurity Coming September 15 and 16, 2026 CYBR.SEC.CON 2026 brings the cybersecurity community together again on September 15 and 16 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. If you're looking to connect with cybersecurity professionals, expand your network, learn from practitioners, discover career opportunities, and be part of a growing cyber community, CYBR.SEC.CON 2026 is an event worth checking out. Tune in to hear the story behind CYBR.SEC.CON, the people building the community, and why the future of cybersecurity depends on bringing more people into the conversation. About the guests: Michael Farnum is the CEO and co-founder of CYBR.SEC.Community and has worked in IT and cybersecurity since 1994. He founded HOU.SEC.CON. in 2010, which evolved into CYBR.SEC.CON., now attracting more than 3,000 cybersecurity professionals annually. Michael is passionate about cybersecurity community building, workforce development, education, and career development, and is a frequent speaker and podcaster on security leadership and industry trends....

August 31, 202645 min

What Makes a Cybersecurity Startup Valuable in the AI Era? A VC's Perspective

Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep121/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ AI has made it easier than ever to build a cybersecurity product. But has it also made it harder to build a valuable cybersecurity company? In this episode of Protect It All, host Aaron Crow sits down with Ken Elefant, Founding Managing Director of the venture group at Sorenson Capital, for a candid conversation about what really makes cybersecurity startups succeed. Ken shares a venture investor's perspective on the rapidly changing security market, including why simply wrapping a product around an LLM may not create lasting value, how AI is accelerating commoditization, and what founders need to do to build a meaningful competitive advantage. The conversation goes beyond technology to explore the often-overlooked role of people, process, market positioning, and execution. Aaron and Ken discuss the importance of finding the right "wedge" into enterprise security, solving real customer problems, differentiating in crowded markets, and building companies that can create lasting value rather than chasing the latest technology trend. They also draw on lessons from successful cybersecurity exits and the changing threat landscape to examine what investors are looking for as AI reshapes both cybersecurity products and the businesses behind them. Key Learning: What venture investors look for in cybersecurity startups Why AI-powered security products can quickly become commoditized How founders can find a strong market wedge Why solving a real customer problem matters more than adding AI The role of people and process in building successful security companies How cybersecurity startups can differentiate in an increasingly crowded market What founders and operators can learn from successful security exits Where AI is creating genuine opportunity and where the hype may be ahead of the value Key Moments: 03:43 Using AI in podcasting 07:41 Trusting vendors and cybersecurity risks 10:59 Building Connections for Early Investments 15:19 Investing in emerging tech markets 17:45 Supporting AI-based startup growth 20:19 Building simple websites for businesses 26:03 Attracted to boring, overlooked markets 27:21 Building compliance products at Industrial Defender 30:16 Investing in defense tech startups 33:20 Experienced founders leveraging AI for products 38:32 Navigating fast-changing tech landscape 40:09 Importance of Building Trust in Business Whether you're a cybersecurity founder, investor, security practitioner, technology leader, or entrepreneur, this episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at how experienced investors evaluate innovation in one of the fastest-moving areas of technology. Tune in to hear what separates a promising cybersecurity idea from a company capable of creating lasting value. DISCLAIMER : "Any portfolio companies mentioned in this episode are investments of Sorenson Capital funds and do not represent all fund investments. A complete list of investments is available upon request. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation to buy securities." About the guest : ...

August 24, 202650 min

Million-Dollar Buttons: How Offshore OT Is Embracing Containers and Modern Cybersecurity

Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/ The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/ This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep120/ The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/ Offshore oil and gas operations don't have the luxury of simply shutting everything down and starting over. In this episode of Protect It All, host Aaron Crow sits down with Josh Herr and Matt McLendon to explore the real-world challenges of modernizing cybersecurity and technology in offshore operational technology (OT) environments. From million-dollar equipment and aging control systems to virtualization, containers, and edge computing, this conversation reveals what it actually takes to keep critical industrial operations running when technology fails, hardware is difficult to replace, and downtime can come at an enormous cost. Aaron, Josh, and Matt share stories from the field, including the creative decisions operators sometimes have to make to keep one rig running when another goes down. They also explore the gradual shift from legacy Windows and Sun workstations toward Linux, containerization, and newer approaches to managing industrial systems. But this isn't simply a conversation about replacing old technology with new technology. It's about understanding the realities of OT cybersecurity, where reliability, availability, safety, cost, and security all have to work together. Key Learning: Why offshore OT environments present unique cybersecurity challenges How legacy systems continue to influence modern industrial operations Why containers and virtualization are gaining ground in OT How operators balance cybersecurity with uptime and reliability The surprising realities of maintaining aging industrial hardware What the shift from Windows to Linux can mean for OT environments How creative problem-solving can keep critical operations running Where AI, containers, and modern infrastructure could take OT next Key Moments: 06:16 Frustrations with vendor costs and delays 09:34 Offshore connectivity and autonomy challenges 13:02 Managing power plants across Texas 16:19 Challenges with industrial HMIs and alarms 19:40 Vendor control and security policies 21:16 Component delays and industry characters 24:08 Final integration testing and safety factors 28:20 Vendor management challenges with outdated tech 34:02 Missing sysadmin skills in industry 35:59 Challenges with ARM architecture 41:09 Managing hardware life cycles 44:23 Concerns about AI and open source 45:43 Future of JavaScript and integration Whether you work in oil and gas, industrial cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, engineering, or OT operations, this episode offers an honest look at the gap between cybersecurity theory and what actually works in the field. Listen in for the war stories, lessons learned, and "art of the possible" approaches helping bring modern technology into some of the world's most challenging OT environments. About the guests: Matt is a multidisciplinary team leader and technology practitioner with experience spanning electrical systems, controls, automation, data systems, and IS/IT. His background includes offshore oil and gas electronics, systems administration, and computer hardware, with a strong emphasis on troubleshooting and componen...

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