CyberWire Daily - LIVE! From Philly [Threat Vector]

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

While we are taking a publishing break to observe Washington's Birthday here in the United States, enjoy this primer on how to create a podcast from our partners at Palo Alto Networks direct from the CyberMarketingCon 2024. Podcasts have become vital tools for sharing knowledge and insights, particularly in technical fields like cybersecurity. "Threat Vector," led by David Moulton, serves as an essential guide through the complex landscape of cyber threats, offering expert interviews and in-depth analysis. In this session, David will discuss the process behind creating "Threat Vector," highlighting the challenges and rewards of developing a podcast that resonates with industry experts. Attendees will learn about the foundational elements of podcasting, from initial concept development to content creation and audience engagement. David's approach integrates his extensive background in storytelling, design, and strategic marketing, enabling him to tackle intricate cybersecurity topics and make them accessible to a broad audience. This session will dive into how to present intricate cybersecurity topics in an accessible and engaging manner and explore various techniques for producing compelling content and effective strategies for promoting a podcast to a wider audience. Join David and guest host David J. Ebner of Content Workshop for an informative discussion on using podcasts as a medium for education and influence in the cybersecurity field. This session is ideal for anyone interested in starting a podcast or enhancing their approach to cybersecurity communication. Join the conversation on our social media channels: Website: http://www.paloaltonetworks.com  Threat Research: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/LifeatPaloAltoNetworks/⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/palo-alto-networks/ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@paloaltonetworks Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PaloAltoNtwks⁠⁠⁠⁠ About Threat Vector Threat Vector, Palo Alto Networks podcast, is your premier destination for security thought leadership. Join us as we explore pressing cybersecurity threats, robust protection strategies, and the latest industry trends. The podcast features in-depth discussions with industry leaders, Palo Alto Networks experts, and customers, providing crucial insights for security decision-makers. Whether you're looking to stay ahead of the curve with innovative solutions or understand the evolving cybersecurity landscape, Threat Vector equips you with the knowledge needed to safeguard your organization. Palo Alto Networks Palo Alto Networks enables your team to prevent successful cyberattacks with an automated approach that delivers consistent security across the cloud, network, and mobile. ⁠http://paloaltonetworks.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Level up your security game now. Register at start.paloaltonetworks.com slash symphony2025. Welcome to Threat Vector, the Palo Alto Networks podcast where we discuss pressing cybersecurity threats and resilience and uncover insights in the latest industry trends. I'm your host, David Moulton, Director of Thought Leadership at Unit 42. Today we're bringing you something special and a little different. A live episode recorded at the Cyber Marketing Con in Philly in December 2024. I had the privilege of attending the conference to talk about Threat Vector and share a behind-the-scenes look at how we create

this show. It was an incredible opportunity to connect with other cybersecurity storytellers. And for this episode, I hand over the hosting duties to David J. Ebner, president of Content Workshop. David is a fantastic storyteller and someone who truly understands the power of content in cybersecurity marketing. Before we dive in, I want to take a moment to celebrate something exciting. Threat Vector just received an award

from the AVA Digital Awards 2025 Competition. This international competition recognizes excellence in digital communication and we're incredibly honored to be recognized among top-tier podcasts, video productions, and digital content creators. A huge thank you to our listeners, guests, and the entire team who make this podcast possible. Now, as I mentioned, this episode is a bit different from our usual content. It's a behind the scenes look at this podcast's journey so far. If that's not your usual area of interest, don't worry. We'll be back on Thursday

with our regular cybersecurity focused episode. But for now, let's take you to Philly, where we recorded this conversation as part of my Cyber Marketing Con talk. So those of you who have not had a chance to meet David Ebner, he's the president over at Content Workshop. We met last year at this conference, but in Texas. And David and I have gotten to know each other.

David grew up in the fried chicken capital of the world. And he's the only person I've ever met personally that's dunked on LeBron James. So those are my two interesting facts about David Ebner at a content workshop. David, thank you. Can I get some applause for our special host? And I'll be the first to admit that all good stories have a kernel of truth in them.

But that story he just told about me, that kernel is infinitesimal. You can guess which one is true and which one is false. Thanks again for having me, David. It's an honor to be here. Before we get too deep into the interview, I want to talk about equipment. Do you need a studio? Do you use a studio? Do you use a studio?

I actually have a picture of my studio. This is this is it guys. It's my my Mac and a microphone. And apparently I didn't put a picture of my headphones in there. But they're just, you know, cans that go on. And I think if you can get a studio or if you have access to one, I would use it, but I don't think you need one. I think you need a consistent place to record so that you're not always dragging out your equipment, trying to set it all up and then break it down.

That was one of the least enjoyable parts on some of the old podcasts that I'd been on was hustling into a call room to try to put something together and then being like, oh God, it's bouncy sound in here. It's ridiculous. Or to go into the place that I thought I was going to record and there's a whole meeting in there and I'm scrambling and telling the guests, I promise I'll be right there. So no, I don't think you need it, but just like a consistent place to record. Well, one thing I have noticed

about the Threatbicker podcast is the phenomenal sound quality. What equipment are you using specifically to pull that off? That was the Shure M7. It's a USB mic. Elliot over at N2K and I were talking about the mic I had before was a Blue Yeti. It's pretty popular microphone.

But every time I would touch anything, you'd get this big boom, and trying to get it to hold the sound, it was just, it was too fiddly. So ended up changing over to the M7 Never Look Back, and then we do ship out audio equipment, we'll ship a microphone to guests if we have time. So what about simply using AirPods or a headset that has a built-in mic?

Yeah, it's a judgment call. I think that a headphone with a boom mic ends up sounding better than AirPods, but AirPods are doable. Sometimes the guest and what they're gonna say is more important than perfect audio. But if you've got somebody who is easy to reschedule and amenable to it, I would say like, hey, can I mail you a microphone,

we'll drop ship it, it'll be there tomorrow, whatever, and then get them on a better microphone. Because you're never gonna get another shot at getting better audio. And all the tools in the world can only do so much. If you're sending your audio engineer something low quality, it better be high content value. Yeah, I can empathize with that.

As an aside, about three years ago, the Myers-Briggs company came to us at Content Workshop to help launch their podcast. They had never done one before. We went back and forth about equipment for the guests themselves. And it was after a couple of episodes where we had to scrub the entire endeavor because the sound quality was so bad

that we literally bought a studio kit and just started mailing it around the world because it was cheaper than scrubbing episodes left and right. Absolutely, no, I think that's the right call. All right, back to the main journey. So here we are, right? We have a great setup.

We have a willing guests. We have an amazing topic. But where the rubber really meets the road is the conversation. So how do you go about developing phenomenal questions for your guests? It goes into understanding the guest, doing some research on them, understanding the topic. Sometimes I'll use LinkedIn to pull data

on the background of a guest and feed that into Threat Vector GPT. It'll give us our C minus, B plus draft. Then it's over to Mike and a human to look at it. These former journalists, I'll come back and look at some of the questions ago. I would never say that out loud to a person in my life. I'm not gonna ask that question.

For me, the podcast is also a place for me to ask smart people really dumb questions or things I'm curious about. So I like to put some of those in as well. And once you have that conversation guide, you recognize that that's all it is. It's going to get you into a direction and something will come up and you just follow it.

See where it goes. And hope that your answers end up being really fascinating and engaging for somebody who's a listener. Yeah, I get that. So you mentioned a bit about the weekly episodes and then the segments that you did before. Talk me through kind of that transition and what was different about those two processes.

So if you can believe it, the segments were actually harder than the long form episodes. I think there's that Mark Twain quote, I would have written you a shorter letter, but I needed more time, something along those lines. Putting together a five to seven minute episode, that's a short amount of time to tell a story

and to have an arc and to introduce the guest, all those things. So when we went to the full-size episode, the freedom of all the time you could have was one of the things that I think we made a mistake early on with some very long episodes because we had it. And we've kind of wheeled back and said, okay, that 30 minutes is just about

the right sweet spot for us. And it's not to say that you can't pull a good segment. It's just, that's a tricky proposition. Yeah, I can imagine that. Okay, let's switch gears just a little bit here. We've talked about lessons learned, we talked about tech and tips. But the real question I have for you today is why? Like why even run a podcast?

What is the benefit of podcasting for you? I love telling stories. It's exciting to me. And to me, a podcast is a storytelling medium. And it's the place that you can go out there and platform somebody's story that's really inspiring. It's the kind of place where you can share a customer win. And if you're into telling stories,

then a podcast is a cool place to go put those together and give them to the world, give them to the audience and see if they're into your stories. Yeah, that's great. And are there any specific stories that come to mind through your journey? Yeah, you know, I'm gonna try not to get choked up when I tell this one.

So there's this CEO of a company called First Descent. They're a biomedical company. And the CEO there is named Jim Foote. And Jim was a he was a CISO, and his son got cancer when he was 17. And they went through the standard care. And unfortunately, Jim's son passed away, died of cancer.

And in that process, they had come to him and said, well, we did everything we can, what do you wanna do now? And he's going, why are you asking me? I'm the IT guy. And so he started this company to take the lessons learned of fighting cyber criminals and dealing with ransomware, which he saw had a massive parallel to cancer and applied that to this biotech company

and dedicated it to it. And look, it's Palo Alto's podcast, but this isn't a pan customer. This isn't a person that's going to tell you that we have an amazing fill in the blank with product name or that they love unit 42. This is just a security guy that had applied those lessons. And that's a story worth sharing and telling.

And I had that opportunity and made the call. So those are, you know, when else do you get to do that in your job? That's pretty amazing. Yeah, that is amazing. It's definitely a story worth celebrating. Are there any other customer stories that stand out like that? Yeah, you know, a lot of times you're looking at like what are the big logos? What are the big, big customers? But sometimes it's the really creative, small companies. The universities is what comes to mind here. There's a Gregory

Jones over at Xavier. And he does some things that I think aren't your traditional security practices to keep that campus secure. You think about like a university, you've got first year students that have never touched a computer, all the way to faculty who wished to never touch a computer

because they like the overhead projector. And like a whole range in between, they all have to be cyber secure. And what Greg was doing was taking like yard signs and sticking them in the grass and reminding people, like, here's your cybersecurity awareness training. Like, while you're on your way to class, change your password, don't click that button,

look out for this fish. And I was like, yard signs? I've never thought that was a market segment that we would want to be in, but he used it to great effect. And I was like, yard signs? I've never thought that was a market segment that we would want to be in, but he used it to great effect, and I was like, let's celebrate this guy. It's like, it's so fun. Yeah, so is that your favorite part of podcasting,

to highlighting these customer stories, or is there something else that stands out as being more fun for you? For me, at my strength finders level, if anyone uses strength finders level, if anyone uses strength finders, number two for me is learning. And this is all a big ruse to get very, very smart people

to sit down with me for an hour and answer my questions and let me learn. And along the way, we record it and edit it and put it out in the world. I mean, I'm only joking a little bit, but no, that's it. Like getting in and talking to incredibly brilliant people that are driven, they're mission oriented

and understanding what they're doing and why they're doing it. It's fascinating. It's fascinating to sit down with them and learn from them. Yeah, I think that comes out in the episodes too. Earlier you mentioned your background in design. I'm interested to know how that's influenced your podcasting experience.

So, design thinking is a approach, I think it's a quasi-engineering design approach, and it moves this idea of the loop. And the idea is that you have a hypothesis and you talk to somebody about the problem that they have, and then you make a little prototype and you test it, and then what works, what doesn't work, you build from that.

And to me, that's what's influencing a lot of the work I do in marketing and specifically within podcasting. And a lot of the stuff that we come up with doesn't work, and we have to iterate, we have to test, we have to move on. So that's the designer in me. Okay, great. So we're going to switch to some questions. Who has a question for David? All right. A little bit,

because I have an inside track on this, and I've seen you operate, David, which is I've seen you run a master class on making the business case to your organization of why you should have this podcast and why you should invest not just your time, but people, resources, energy in creating this podcast. Can you, you know, I think it would be helpful for this audience here. What is that business case? How did you go about that strategy and making that business case of why your organization and your team should invest in this resource?

So first, within Unit 42, where we started at the business unit level, we have incredible stories, and the podcast was a means to tell them. When you think about what happens when somebody comes off of an IR, an incident response, or dozens of them, and you talk to them about what they're seeing, it's fascinating to know what's going on in those situations without revealing sources or violating a privacy with a customer. And then on the other side, an audience wants to know, like, what should we know about what happened? And then if you then go around the other side on marketing, it's at that moment,

I think it was, I heard this last year, CISOs are going, I don't want to read your 50 page report. Okay. I don't want to have to fill out a form. I get it. And, you know, I just want you to tell me the facts. I just want you to get in my ears while I'm doing something else.

And there was kind of an aha moment of like, that all came together and it seemed like there was a gap within the storytelling of security, incident response, the type of security intel that we had in unit 42, all of those things started to make sense. And then it was just a matter of, can we go test it in the market? And if it goes well, fund it, build it,

accelerate it, scale it. If it doesn't go well, why? And if we conclude it's just not wanted, then we move on, right? It's okay, not everything's gonna be successful. That's great. Next question. Can you talk about some of the challenges

that you might have faced along the way in building, similar case question to what you just asked, building the case against vanity metrics and dealing with some of those challenges? Yeah, it's tricky, because there's a point where you're looking at your big top line number and 725,000. That's a splashy number.

I don't know how many of the people who are listening get through one minute, two minutes, 10 minutes, 80%, right, those are tougher. Our stream will let us know how far people went and I think the overall reach. But the stream number is this, out of every 10,000, we have 10 streamers. So I'm not sure that it's entirely useful. When you get a customer calling you up and asking to be on the podcast,

I found that to be a far more useful metric or data point to go in with our CMO. So we sat down with the Ooni and we said, look, we have these big numbers, here's our curve. And he's like, great. And I said, this gas and oil company, we're working to release the episode, wants to be on. This university wants to be on.

We've got sellers who have customers that want to be on the podcast. That's an indication to me that this is something that was desirable for our audience and then for our business. And it was a balance of storytelling and metrics together that you needed both. Yeah, I agree.

Time for one more question in the back there. Well, first of all, congratulations for building out your podcast as well if you have, but here's a question. Have you hit a plateau yet, either in terms of subscribers or numbers? And if you had, what have you found that would help you shake loose and get onto that next trajectory?

Or if you haven't, have you thought forward about that? I don't know that we've hit a plateau, but we're paranoid. The numbers that we have today are now zero or baseline for the expectations within the business. So things like the original hashtag that I came up with, threat vector Thursday, rolled off the tongue, it's gonna be awesome, it'll go viral, it didn't. That sort of thing kind of mentally locked us

into a Thursday release. And then we realized maybe we should do Friday social. And then a Tuesday for the segment, and then the segment was a look back. And then just recently, we talked to the team over at NTK about doing a look forward, right? We were thinking like, maybe it's a preview of what's coming. We may experiment with moving to a Saturday or a Sunday

when an executive might have a little bit more time and seeing how that goes. I like the idea of bringing in other hosts. I enjoy this, but I think there are other flavors that we could add to the show. So far, it's been an interview-based show. And I think that there's a lot of pent-up demand for us to say, bring in a threat researcher, bring in somebody who is a

expert on what's happening and say this is what mattered this week. We've specifically been asked about it by customers to do that and so we may change up the format of the show and or spin things off and I suppose anything gets to a plateau, but it's still good. So then it's a question of, is it good enough to keep doing with the time that we have to put into it, the budget that we have to put into it. Okay, David, unfortunately, we're running out of time. In closing, is there something that you've shared with us today that you want to be considered the most important takeaway for the group here? I do. I think it's that experimentation. One of the contrasts that I've noticed between marketing organizations and how that discipline works and how design works is that marketing will figure out

something that works and then they scale it, they optimize it, they run it, and they run it efficiently. And design challenges you to not get into that sameness. It constantly asks you what went well, what didn't go well, what did we forget to do, and to continue to iterate and to experiment. And I think with GPTs, different tools, audiences shifting around, COVID, post-COVID behaviors,

all of those sorts of things, it calls into question, is the thing that you've been doing for 10, 15 months still right, right? Should you iterate? And to constantly experiment, I think that's important. And I think that's the designer in me that's pushing that. And honestly, it's the kind of thing

that I think will go to our guest question of, how do you not plateau? People seek out the new and novel, figure out what's new and novel and do that. Thanks everyone. A huge thank you to David J. Ebner, president of Content Workshop, for stepping in as host. David, your insights and storytelling expertise made this conversation feel like friends chatting, and I'm grateful for your help to make this episode. I'd also like to extend a thank you

to the team at Cyber Marketing Con 2024 for having me speak at their conference this year and for providing such an amazing platform to connect with this incredible community. It was great to share a behind the scenes look at how we create this podcast and discuss the evolving role of content in cybersecurity storytelling.

Remember, this was a special episode and we'll be back on Thursday with our regular programming, diving into the latest cybersecurity threats, insights and expert analysis. That's it for today. If you like what you heard, please subscribe wherever you listen and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Your reviews and feedback really do help us understand what you wanna hear about. I wanna thank our executive producer, Michael Heller, our content and production teams, which include Kenny Miller, Joe Benicourt, and Virginia Tran. Elliot Peltsman edits the show and mixes the audio. We'll be back next week.

Until then, stay secure, stay vigilant. Goodbye for now.