Are you Secure Enough? Feat: Greg Edwards

Dustin Steffey: 0:00

Hello chop nation supporters. This is your host Dustin Steffey from the podcast chopping with fire. I'm excited to announce our live event tickets have been on sale for a little bit. If you haven't got one already, I recommend going to the link in the episode descriptions under the chase your own dreams live event. Again this event is a limited event. Once the tickets are sold out, they're sold out. Jaden and I both would love to have each and every one of you at our event it is in in the lovely Fort Collins area on November 18. Doors open at 430 event starts at five there will be food, silent auction and the best speakers that we can grab to make sure that you are chasing your own dreams and creating generational wealth again, book your tickets today. Tickets are $15 preorder and if there are any leftover at the door they are 20 so please if you haven't done so already and you have the means to be in the Fort Collins area, book your tickets today

Jaden Norvell: 1:24

welcome back to chopping with fire the number one podcast for entrepreneurship, self development and smart business investments. This podcast has accolades and include a nomination for Best Business Podcast but the 2022 People's Choice Awards, over 25,000 downloads and six months of global support network and over $5,000 raised for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation hosted by yours truly Jaden rush Norville, also hosted and created by the man himself Dr. Dustin Steffey Welcome to chop wood fire Let's chop it up

Dustin Steffey: 2:19

Hello, and welcome to an episode of chopping wood fire. You're joined with your host today Dustin Steffey Jaden is on an airplane forgetting about me so you guys are stuck with me today. With that being said, let's dive right into it. We have some housekeeping things to go over first and foremost, I am excited to announce we have our live event in the calendar right now November 18. Mark your calendars because Jaden and I are going to be live in a city maybe near you. So we will be in the beautiful Fort Collins Colorado area. We are going to have some very special keynote speakers. The event is called the chase your dreams live event. It is going to be predominantly on cryptocurrency and generational wealth. So mark your calendars if you guys are interested in that and you want to start making money and making your money work for you. This is an event that you do not want to miss. We will have food drink. Jaden has terrible haircuts, and some silent auctions and donations for charity. A portion of our proceeds that we get from this event is going to go to the CF foundation. That is our home charity cystic fibrosis. It is a rare lung disease. It's like breathing through a straw. So if you guys stab a straw through your lungs today and try that out, you're not going to like it because it is not very fun to breathe through a small surface area. So please, if you guys have any extra resources in these tough times, please head on over to C F F dot o RG forward slash Donate today or head over to our website chopping wood fire that's ch o p p i n with feiyr.com and hit the donate button so the proceeds can go to cystic fibrosis again, everyone every little bit helps. I don't care if it's a penny 50 cents I'm still grateful you guys even trying so please, please if you haven't done so already, and you can spare it. Let's do it. Let's give back let's help others and let's feel good about giving back and helping another human being social media. Obviously with these updates. You can listen and get updates with our housekeeping on here. Or you guys can be trendsetters and you can go on to social media. We have it all guys a variety. It is like a buffet of social media for us. We have Facebook, LinkedIn, we have a website we have Snapchat, we have Instagram, we have Twitter, we have tick tock come into two space near you. I don't like it but Obviously you guys do so we will have it and potentially a discord. So if you guys haven't done so already, we'd be greatly appreciative if you would take the time to log in, hit that like button, subscribe and keep up with us. Leave us some comments and let's have some fun. Let's choke around together. So again, social media important. We need you please help us out. I think that is everything for housekeeping because I want to dive into our topic today. I think it's a topic that's important. I also think it's a topic that some people overlook. So without further ado, I want to introduce onto our show, Greg Edwards. He is the CEO of Canare. And if I butchered that he'll fix it. He's been tech entrepreneurs since 1998. And he's founded a couple of different businesses. He's successfully been able to scale, grow and sell in and manage these businesses. And he has a boatload of experience. Greg, welcome to the show.

Greg Edwards: 6:08

Dustin, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here today.

Dustin Steffey: 6:10

Thank you, buddy. And if I butchered the business, let's correct that. Now.

Greg Edwards: 6:13

You got it. You got it. Perfect. Cynara. Perfect,

Dustin Steffey: 6:16

perfect. So welcome. I am excited to have you I think the topic we're going to discuss today is of the most important and because of where technology's heading. I think cybersecurity is even more important than it has been in the earlier years, like in the 90s, or even 80s. I think it's important, and I think we should dive into it.

Greg Edwards: 6:37

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I and the crypto connection with what we do is important too, and the rise of cybercrime and how that has evolved, along with cryptocurrency is an interesting, interesting topic to dive into too.

Dustin Steffey: 6:53

I agree. 100%. So I think this is going to add value in many facets. I mean, I think every entrepreneur should have a awareness in this almost. So definitely, we're gonna dive into that. But before we dive into business, let's have fun. I want to be able to make sure that everybody knows who's talking right. So they know your name, but they know nothing about you. Let's like, let's like wet that palate a little bit.

Greg Edwards: 7:18

All right, where would you like me to start?

Dustin Steffey: 7:20

Well, we could start with the birth story. If you want, like I came out of the womb, everything's great. Or I mean, wherever you want, wherever you think is pertinent, honestly, like we are a business podcast, whatever you give us, Your blessing us with good information. So wherever you want to start, let's do it.

Greg Edwards: 7:36

Cool. I mean, I would say my I won't quite go to birth, but almost all right. Hi. My technology career started in fourth grade

Dustin Steffey: 7:46

in elementary school. Okay, so we are going to start early, let's

Greg Edwards: 7:49

start early way early. So I was the I was a student liaison for one of the very first computer labs that was put in, in the state of Iowa. And the reason for that was because we had we had an Apple TV at home. And I really was one of the maybe the only kid in the entire elementary that had a computer and had any experience and I was I was programming at that age.

Dustin Steffey: 8:16

I learned on our Apple TV. That was my first computer.

Greg Edwards: 8:20

Perfect. Yeah, I mean that. So that's, that's where my my geekness started. And then I started my, my first company when I was 24. Really only ever had one real job and started a network consulting company in 1998, which many of the listeners may not recall y2k and the technology issues around y2k, but it was

Dustin Steffey: 8:46

remember y2k, the I'm not old.

Greg Edwards: 8:49

It was it was a good time to start a technology company. And from there, I started an off site backup and disaster recovery company called axis backup, sold that to a publicly traded company in 2016. And started what is now Canare, shortly after that, and that's that's where we are today. And Ken Ari is an anti ransomware tool that stops the action of ransomware that's actively running.

Dustin Steffey: 9:19

So it's it's software you put together then like it's an actual software program.

Greg Edwards: 9:24

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Software as a Service. May on we sell through through it providers, which is just just like the company that that I owned. I and so it's it's a good it's, I mean, cybersecurity and cybercrime is such a mess right now that it's, it's a good time to be in that business.

Dustin Steffey: 9:48

Grade fourth grade, buddy like you started right? Like, did you ever imagine in fourth grade that you'd be who you are now.

Greg Edwards: 9:58

So you Hey, this may sound a little conceited. But yes, it was, I think the first like the first business business that I wouldn't necessarily call it a business but my dad owned a gas station and auto repair shop. And I was detailing cars when I was four I think 14 and hiring my buddies to do to do the the hard work.

Dustin Steffey: 10:27

That's awesome. See, that's true entrepreneurship right there and management. You are hired this perfect.

Greg Edwards: 10:34

Yeah, so it was I mean, I knew I wasn't sure exactly what I would be doing, but I knew that I would be a business owner.

Dustin Steffey: 10:41

Okay. Yeah, I mean, the business owner part. Yes. But I guess for me, like, did you think you were gonna be like programming video games or anything? Crazy? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I was I was putting in fourth grade for me. I was taken apart. Gateway computers gateway. Geez, that company still around, I think.

Greg Edwards: 11:02

But yeah. They actually know some of the people. Yeah,

Dustin Steffey: 11:05

yeah. So I was, I was taking them apart. And saying that the stuff in there was garbage and upgrading them with like, brand new, like motherboards and RAM and bigger hard drives. So yeah, yeah. Awesome. When I run a podcast, so clearly, it did not translate to me to just keep going.

Greg Edwards: 11:25

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, things have changed. I mean, I mean, the Apple two II, if you remember, had floppy disks that we're putting in.

Dustin Steffey: 11:37

Because I was playing Oregon Trail buddy, the best game ever.

Greg Edwards: 11:40

It's exactly. And there weren't that actually the very first virus was called creeper. And it was spread via floppy disk. goes way back,

Dustin Steffey: 11:53

right. Yeah. Sounds about right. So for those listeners that hear the term creeper because we still do Yeah, well, it came it came back.

Greg Edwards: 12:02

Right? Great. Many different ways.

Dustin Steffey: 12:05

Oh, yeah. Unwanted still. Yep. Yep. So cybersecurity is a very big topic. And I don't want our listeners to think that this is going to be a long drawn out boring conversation on cybersecurity. But what I would like to do is kind of just bring some awareness to it and help everyone to understand cybersecurity better. So instead of giving a dictionary definition, cybersecurity, in my mind, and Greg will correct me if I'm terrible at this. But cybersecurity to me is being able to protect your assets, your company, your your whatever, you're making any proprietary information that is held digitally.

Greg Edwards: 12:49

Yeah, I mean, you're spot on. I mean, that's exactly what it is. And the the approach that that we take is what's called defense in depth. So it's multiple layers of protecting yourself. It's not just one silver bullet. One, one thing, it's multiple things. And I think that the awareness, especially in the entrepreneurial and startup community, like you're a target, if you if you have a computer, bank account, and an internet connection, you're a target.

Dustin Steffey: 13:20

I think and, and this is just me, and I know that we're trying to upscale our entrepreneurs, because we have a lot of startup entrepreneurs, and we have a lot of people that haven't been in entrepreneurship very long. I think we're even more of a target, because we have so much going on to setup start and get our, our company loading and working, that sometimes we overlook some important details. And this is one of them.

Greg Edwards: 13:46

Yeah, well, and when so the the area that we focus on specifically is ransomware. And so if you think about all of the data that you have, whether you have just single computer or if it's in the cloud, or wherever you have your data, imagine if that is all locked, and now password protected with a password you don't have, and you can't get to any of it. What does that do to your productivity? I mean, it, it I've seen it way too many times, starting back in 2012. And I mean it, it brings companies to their knees, and completely stops productivity.

Dustin Steffey: 14:28

Yeah, and the number one nature of entrepreneurship is to be able to keep going and run at full force and not get stopped because any trajectory or traction that you lose, could be the difference in any business.

Greg Edwards: 14:42

Yeah. And I've seen I've seen ransomware and other cyber crimes take businesses out. I mean, shut them down.

Dustin Steffey: 14:50

Yeah, so obviously, for our listeners and for Greg since fourth grade. This is an important topic.

Greg Edwards: 14:59

For sure. And it's not, the problem is not getting better yet. So it's going to continue to get worse, most of the cyber criminals are not in the US because they can be prosecuted in the US. And in Russia, and even before the Ukraine war, and when we had a better relationship with Russia, even then, cybercrime is not illegal in Russia, to perpetrate against non Russian companies. So there I mean, it is completely legal for a cyber attacker in Russia to steal money and steal data from a US company or any other company as long as they're not in Russia.

Dustin Steffey: 15:45

Well, I'm gonna keep my comments to myself on that, because I have many comments on that. But the unbiased comment is, yeah, we need to protect ourselves.

Greg Edwards: 15:55

Yeah, it's in and I don't want to single out Russia alone, because it's lots of other places, too. But yeah, put it in that context of what they're doing is legal, where they are. It's can there's no ethical dilemma for them? I mean, I would still think there would be but there's not, it's almost a Robin Hood effect for them. So what

Dustin Steffey: 16:19

else are you seeing in the landscape of businesses? Like what have you seen in cybersecurity? And like, what are some signs that we can kind of start looking at to arm ourselves and if we need to get in contact with you, obviously, contact you?

Greg Edwards: 16:35

Yeah, so I mean, the things that I've seen, starting back as early as 2012, were really ransomware attacks that dealt with the off site backup and disaster recovery company, we did between 2012 and 2015, fully 20% of our client base was hit by ransomware. And we had to do full on recoveries, because of those attacks. So the the number one attack that that you would see as an entrepreneur, and should be worried about is ransomware. Number two is what's called business email compromise. So this is where they will take over your email account and start acting as you and then the primary goal of that is to then use me exfiltrate cash. And generally, that's through wire transfer, or through fraudulent invoices to get a check, paid, things like that. Those are the two most common ransomware in business email compromised. So the the things to look for are difficult actually. Because these cybercriminals will, will hide their tracks. And so they obviously don't want to be seen. But one of the one of the big things that is happening now, besides the ransomware in the business email compromise, which these this item can lead to that is the phone call you get that says hey, this is support tech from Microsoft, we need to connect with your machine was flagged, and we need to connect to your machine to fix it. Microsoft is never going to call you. If anyone calls you and wants to connect to your machine. Do not let them I mean, it sounds ridiculous. But I've had businesses, friends, I mean, it's relatives, it's crazy the number of people because I always get that call, right of anyone that knows me or they will say Hey, call called Greg, he'll know what to do. So the the indicators are, once you see an indicator, it's pretty much too late. And that's that's unfortunate. So you need to prepare ahead of time.

Dustin Steffey: 19:03

Which it's, it's unfortunate, but most people in this day and age are reactive and not proactive when it comes to that because again, some maybe some never have gone through the cybersecurity issues or have been duped. I've been duped a couple of times. And so I I'm more aware now than most but like it, it is more of a like, you should get ahead of it and be proactive. But let's be realistic here. The reality is, is we're very reactive,

Greg Edwards: 19:35

right? And if I could give one piece of advice to be proactive about it be to get get a password manager and set up two factor authentication. Those those two things will go a long way. There's a whole lot of other things that should be done but a password manager and then setting up two factor authentication on whether it's your Gmail or office 365 I've heard those primary accounts that you use, you've got to have multi factor authentication turned on.

Dustin Steffey: 20:08

So for businesses such as like mine or yours that have their own email that is at your own domain, or those being hacked as well, too. So like, for me, it's Dustin at chopping wood fire. It's not an Outlook or Gmail or anything, it is a private domain.

Greg Edwards: 20:24

Yeah, those are at just as much risk, if not more than if it's okay, Gmail or whatever.

Dustin Steffey: 20:33

Is there a way for us to to factor authenticate for private domains as well?

Greg Edwards: 20:39

Absolutely. So you're most likely that email is hosted somewhere?

Dustin Steffey: 20:45

Yeah. So sit under names cheap, obviously, for the domain. So I can go in there. And I can make adjustments to advanced DNS and stuff. I know we're talking above people's lingo. But for me to you, because you kind of know where my head is with it.

Greg Edwards: 21:02

Yeah, yeah. So you want to turn on, there's two factor authentication for names cheap. And then if your email is hosted through them, or if it's with Gmail or office 365, you then turn on two factor authentication there. Also,

Dustin Steffey: 21:18

it's hosted with them. And then I run it through my Outlook. So I have any changes I make have to go through that first, and then it reflects on my Gmail. Yep. Are my Outlook comm sorry?

Greg Edwards: 21:30

Yep. Yep. So make those changes at Name Cheap and turn on the two factor authentication and anybody listening needs to figure out or ask someone technical? How to turn that on?

Dustin Steffey: 21:45

Yeah, for those of you listening, this is a great. That's a great point, right? So everybody has an email everyone i A lot of people do. It's very rare that I come across someone that does not, if there are important things coming across your email, I do recommend what Greg said, getting that two factor authentication, you can do it, if you have a Google, they have google authenticator, they have a bunch of different ways to have two factor authentication, but it is definitely something you all should be doing.

Greg Edwards: 22:17

Yeah, and to give to give everybody one example of what happens when your email account is taken over this was between a small plumbing operation and a car dealership. So the plumbing operation had one of their email accounts compromised and the attacker was on as them and so they're reading the email chains back and forth. And they knew what car dealership they worked with. And they knew that they had just purchased two new service vehicles. And those hadn't, or they were in the process of purchasing, what they the attackers did is had the the plumbing shop, send payments for the vehicles to completely not the car dealership account. And so it was $107,000. So this wasn't a trivial amount of money, that they ended up ACH and sending. And so that, I mean, that's one example, another that, that I dealt with was they were transferring funds, this was an insurance company, they were transferring funds. And the first transfer was a little under 140,000. The second transfer was like 70, some 1000. And then the third transfer, the bank finally called and said, Hey, are you sure that you want to transfer $368,000 And that's, that's how it got caught after more than 200,000 already going out. So I mean, that's, that's the kind of thing that just having your email compromised can turn into.

Dustin Steffey: 24:05

So I just looked up, how do you recover 100k Plus, and there are no answers to it. So my guess is it didn't get recovered?

Greg Edwards: 24:14

No, no, and the FBI so I've worked with several different FBI agents on these events and that's like nothing like they don't even have time to look at that.

Dustin Steffey: 24:27

I think so i i have been hacked into my bank account and I've lost like three $400 in one transaction. I've lost five grand. The end result that I get usually is the bank reverses it and I get my money back. But I don't think anything ever comes up the investigation. They say they'll investigate but I don't think they ever do really.

Greg Edwards: 24:49

Yeah, in the so those are those were likely personal accounts are in a business account. The bank is not responsible. I at all, it falls back on your business liability insurance. And if you don't have the proper business liability insurance, or the proper liability limits, then that money is just gone.

Dustin Steffey: 25:12

That is such a whole nother topic that you and I can address on a later broadcast because cybersecurity and insurance. I mean, we're growing. We're going in different directions here.

Greg Edwards: 25:23

Yep. Yep, absolutely.

Dustin Steffey: 25:25

But I liked the point that you're driving, which is the fact that if if you're not prepared, and cyber security, we do a lot of business on the internet. We do. We do a lot of business with social media, we all have a computer. And if you don't have a computer, you really do because your phone is a computer even. So we have to protect ourselves. And, again, I feel and maybe I'll be corrected in the comments in our social media, but I feel one of the most neglected things is cybersecurity.

Greg Edwards: 25:59

It is I mean, and the thing is that unfortunately, it's the cyber attackers that are educating the marketplace. It's not I mean, I've, I've been screaming it for 10 years now and and feel like people are finally starting to listen, I mean, it happened, really started with the target attack back in 2014. Like that was the first fortune 500 massive data breach. And once that happened, then fortune 500 all said, Okay, we've got to protect ourselves. So large corporations started protecting themselves and then smaller and smaller corporations started protecting themselves. And what have the hackers done is just gone downstream. I mean, they've gone to the easier and easier targets, because it's not they can't they can't hack into Target anymore, but they can hack into Joe's auto repair.

Dustin Steffey: 26:57

I feel like it's getting easier to be able to hack to it seems

Greg Edwards: 27:01

Oh, yeah, I mean, the tools that are out there, I mean, there's so the, there's what's called White Hat hacking, which is the good guys hacking in to do penetration tests. But the tools that are available to those white hat hackers are, are all the same tools that are available to the black hat hackers. And so you can go and download these tools on GitHub and every other open source resource out there and have the tools available. There's even a Certified Ethical Hacker training that you can take and you do have to go through some background checks to to actually go through that. But I mean, we're we're training people how to hack so that we can we can protect ourselves from the hackers.

Dustin Steffey: 27:54

Yeah, I mean, they've had many shows, movies, documentaries on like some of these hackers that we bring in and they're like, renowned hackers that were like, taking people's money, and now they're working for the government actually, like, protecting people's money. Like we we have a we have some big names that we have under our belt here. Right? Yeah, absolutely. That's what I should have gotten into when I was younger, I shouldn't learn because those people are making some money.

Greg Edwards: 28:24

Yeah, you just want to be on the good side, especially here in the US because because the US government will definitely take you down if you're a hacker based in the US. Hey, a black hat hacker.

Dustin Steffey: 28:39

I couldn't be a hacker. It was a joke. Like, even if I tried like it would be an epic fail on my end.

Greg Edwards: 28:47

So it's definitely something that that I could could do and did do on the on the white hat side, but not not something that I ever wanted to break the law and do.

Dustin Steffey: 29:01

The biggest break the law that I ever had was maybe Limewire when I was younger, and that's about it. And now even then the penalties are steep even on that actually.

Greg Edwards: 29:14

Oh, yeah. Well, and now now you definitely wouldn't want to do it. But you know,

Dustin Steffey: 29:19

I have an IQ Why do I need to do that? I can listen to whatever I want.

Greg Edwards: 29:24

Right? Well, but 20 years ago that wasn't that wasn't

Dustin Steffey: 29:28

a pain. I mean, look at look at what happened with NASA. This is dating us, Greg but Napster remember Napster?

Greg Edwards: 29:35

Oh, yeah, definitely, man.

Dustin Steffey: 29:41

So we've we've talked about and we've brushed on cybersecurity and not really brush we've actually gone into good detail about it. We've gone into good details on kind of some small things that you can do to protect yourself. And I think we've generated overall awareness but what we haven't gotten into is the services that you provide I'd with your company and what you do and what you can really do to help out our entrepreneurs and make sure that they're ready.

Greg Edwards: 30:08

Yeah, so So canary is specifically an anti ransomware tool. And what we call it is, is a post execution termination algorithm. So what that that's just a fancy way of saying that we recognize ransomware actively running and kill it. So something that people can reach out, our website is Canare, see a nauri.com canare.com. And reach out to us and we'd definitely be happy to get you set up with ransomware protection.

Dustin Steffey: 30:41

Perfect. And I'll have that in the episode description. And I'll make sure everybody can get a hold of that. Also, if you go to the chopping wood fire website, Greg's going to have an awesome picture, probably not from fourth grade, so don't worry. And it'll have links to his business. Perfectly if there's one big key nugget that you want to leave with the guests, because I think it's super important. Like what would that be?

Greg Edwards: 31:05

So the big thing is that awareness that you as an entrepreneur are a target of cybercrime, and you have to protect yourself and do the, you know, the small things that that I suggested, definitely do those and then dig in and and figure out the other things that you should do to protect your business.

Dustin Steffey: 31:28

I think that's great advice. I think that's all great, Greg. I mean, when with us established as a podcast, you even had me thinking, Yeah, well, thinking about certain things, right? Because we we reach a global audience too. And so I think we're we're a lot more susceptible to certain things to you because now we're known and people are gonna try to come after us in a negative way for cybersecurity as well.

Greg Edwards: 31:57

Right? Well, and and for you guys, yourselves, you should turn on two factor authentication on your Facebook and social media accounts.

Dustin Steffey: 32:06

Yeah, yep. Already is don't

Greg Edwards: 32:08

worry. Good. Good.

Dustin Steffey: 32:11

Greg, thank you for coming on. We appreciate you.

Greg Edwards: 32:15

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Dustin Steffey: 32:38

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