CyberWire Daily - Natali Tshuva: Impacting critical industries. [CEO] [Career Notes]

Episode Date: September 5, 2021

CEO and co-founder of Sternum, Natali Tshuva shares how she took her interest in science and technology and made a career and company out of it. Beginning her computer science undergraduate degree at age 14 through a special program in Israel, Natali says it opened up a new world for her. Her required service in the IDF found Natali as a member of Unit 8200, the Israeli intelligence. In the Israeli corporate space following the IDF, Natali discovered how cybersecurity could actually create impact in the real world environment and found a way to combine her cybersecurity expertise with the passion to impact critical industries like the medical industry. Natali recommends that those entering the field get some hands-on experience and use your unique strengths to find a way to make the world a better place. We thank Natali for sharing her story.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Cyber Wire Network, powered by N2K. and VPNs, yet breaches continue to rise by an 18% year-over-year increase in ransomware attacks and a $75 million record payout in 2024. These traditional security tools expand your attack surface with public-facing IPs that are exploited by bad actors more easily than ever with AI tools. It's time to rethink your security. Thank you. Learn more at zscaler.com slash security. My name is Natalie Chuba, and I'm Stanum CEO and co-founder. I always knew I wanted to do something which is either related to science or medical. Actually, I wanted to become a doctor, but at 14, I started my undergraduate degree in computer science. And this was the first time I got to understand how things work behind the scenes, whether it's the games I like to play or building software that can actually improve human lives.

There was a special program for talented kids in my city and in my area in Israel. I figured this will probably be an interesting thing to do and to learn something new, which I always love doing. It was a new world for me, including advanced math and algorithms and software development. and algorithms and software development. And from that point on, it was very clear to me that I wanted to complete this challenge. So like many people in Israel, this was time for IDF, for the army. I was trained to go to Unit 800, which is the Israeli intelligence unit. A lot of cybersecurity experts in Israel go through this training, which involves

vulnerability research and exploitation. Also, not a lot of girls attend this training course, unfortunately. Following that, I joined different companies in the Israeli cybersecurity space, like Celebrite, an expert in extracting encrypted and deleted information to help law enforcement units put pedophiles in jail, stop human trafficking. For me, it was how cybersecurity could actually create impact in the real world environment. At the age of 25, I finished my master's in computer science. And if you remember, I mentioned wanting to become a doctor. At the age of 25, that was the last point in time where I could make that decision.

So I actually took some time for self-searching. I went to operating rooms, discussed with professors about a combination of math and medical research. This is where I found out about therapeutic medical devices, remote care devices that improves patient lives and even can give better treatments that could save lives. This is where I realized how those devices are lacking the proper cybersecurity controls to enable this connectivity, to enable these smart solutions. And this was the first initial passion to combine my cybersecurity expertise with the passion to impact critical industries like the medical industry, and following that also critical infrastructures, smart cities,

railways, power grids, which are the industries that Sternum is focused at the moment. moment. There are a few key aspects in the way we do things. First is transparency and truthfulness. The second one is in Unitate 200, there is a saying that nothing is impossible. there is a saying that nothing is impossible. I think that the understanding of that meaning and the fact that we approach the most impossible challenges with the idea that we can actually make a solution possible is also what motivates us to get out of the box and create innovative solutions. I think the challenges I'm facing, obviously some of them relate to my gender, but honestly,

most of them probably relate to my job. As a CEO coming from a technological background, I needed to get a grasp of my business understandings. If you're just getting started, my best advice would be to actually get hands-on. The fact that I went through the path of actually reverse engineering, reading binary code, actually finding vulnerabilities myself, building exploitations myself, got me a real understanding of how cybersecurity exploitations look like. Don't stay high level. Give yourself the time to dive deep.

Give yourself the time to be truly hands-on, to understand the things from bottom up. And then you'll have the understanding also for product innovation and for new technologies. For me, when I get up in the morning, I understand the tremendous and countless opportunities that we have as a company to make sure that this entire connected environment is safe from threat actors. I think each and every one of us can make the world a better place. The key here is to try to think what are the unique characteristics that you have as an individual that you can do even better than others.

Through understanding this unique strength that you have and where you can actually impact the world to be a better place, for me this is the most satisfying thing we can do and aspire to. Hey everybody, Dave here. Have you ever wondered where your personal information is lurking online? Like many of you, I was concerned about my data being sold by data brokers. So I decided to try Delete.me. I have to say, Delete.me is a game changer.

Within days of signing up, they started removing my personal information from hundreds of data brokers. I finally have peace of mind knowing my data privacy is protected. Delete.me's team does all the work for you with detailed reports so you know exactly what's been done. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete.me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20% off your Delete.me plan when you go to joindelete.me.com slash N2K and use promo code N2K at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindelete me.com slash N2K and enter code N2K at checkout. That's joindelete me.com slash N2K code N2K.