29: The art of the idea, with Al Huger

Our guest today is Al Huger,  Vice President of Cisco’s security platform and response. Al is a well known figure in the vulnerability space, and has developed several patents for cloud managed threat products which hunt down malware. He is also a three time veteran of building security companies, and successfully selling them to large organizations, including Cisco. In this interview there is a huge amount of useful advice for anyone who is thinking of selling a company, or perhaps building your own security company is an ambition of yours.  We also explore the hottest security trends, taking a particular look at the future of end user security and SASE. And we lift the lid on Al’s creative process, as he talks about how he comes up with new ideas. We also talk about culture, the power of his team, and Al’s advice for security leaders heading into the next 6 months. In the studio, Sana leads our intro topic by recapping the best of RSAC 2021. And in Threat Corner, Ben and Hazel have a discussion on a new threat actor category posed by Talos: the privateers, whereby Hazel finally learns the difference between privateers and pirates.Resources mentioned in the episode:Cisco Secure Insights Summit with Al Huger: https://www.linkedin.com/video/live/urn:li:ugcPost:6806262317710491648/Talos blog post on the proposal for a new category of threat actor: https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2021/05/privateer-groups.htmlTime stamps:02:10: Intro topic by Sana - RSAC 2021 highlights11:06: Interview with Al Huger, part 123:27: Threat corner: The new potential threat actor category - the privateers 28:39: Interview with Al Huger, part 248:49: Final thoughts and outro