YouSaid · the spoken record

Sudhakar Ramakrishna

lines on the record: 34
first: 2021-10-07
most recent: 2021-10-07
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And then be humble. There is no such thing as I won't be breached because I'm too secure or too smart. You could be breached.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll go back to the basics in that, Bob. And the unfortunate fact is if you're a business leader, it's probably more likely that you have to deal with this issue than less likely, no matter what your level of preparation is. So you might as well start thinking about a framework similar to what we did with Secure By Design. Two is I would be relentless in my communication with my customers and my partners and my employees in terms of what happened, what do you know, what are you doing, and what's next. There's no reason to hide from those facts and getting out there is more important than anything. Three is leverage others. And they could be competitors, they could be unrelated, but it didn't matter. So making this a community vigil, community event, and learning from others and applying to your”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What's at stake for Sullivans now is taking the obligation of being thrust into the limelight, I would say Solovins was perfectly happy not being in that limelight and simply focusing on customers forever and ever. But now that we have been thrust into this spotlight, we have to be more transparent, be more collaborative, galvanize the industry around these topics and make it okay to speak up about those and actually actively contribute to that. So speaking of contributions, the innovations that we are doing in building better and more robust supply chains, we could use that as proprietary information, but we have decided that we're going to publish that broadly for the benefit of the broader community. So that is an obligation that has got a certain cost involved in it. And so my commitment is that we will continue to support.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it was definitely not what I signed up for, but I look at it as an opportunity, as I like to say, an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to serve and an opportunity to grow.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Customer budgets are not increasing commensurate to their needs and their complexity. So what can we do as solo means to support them in those needs? And so that requires us to continue to deliver powerful solutions to address those multitude of needs, but do so in a simple fashion that increases the productivity of our customers.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Would say it did change it indelibly, but hope for the better. In 2021, we basically established one primary goal, which was support our customers come back online and customer retention is our number one priority. And so eight months or two quarters plus into this journey, I am pleased to say that that has panned out. Equally, we have ambitious plans of continuing to build on our capabilities customer environments are becoming more and more complex, as we all know. Cloud and deployment of cloud both pre-COVID and post-COVID are accelerating that creates many more areas there could be security issues, management issues, monitoring issues for customers. And in this world,”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Unfortunately, I think the basics still remain the same, Bob. And this is more of a human and a behavioral aspect, which is as long as it doesn't hit me, I continue to believe it won't hit me, right? And this is true in jobs and in economies. And unfortunately, true in security as well.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The first thing I would focus on is awareness inside the company. Security awareness, security training, and behavioral training of the employees more than any technology that we can deploy, that has to be a priority. Phishing attacks and spear phishing attacks are one of the most common ways in which threat actors gain access to your environment. The percentage of users that are clicking on synthetic attacks is still very, very high, as high as 40% in an enterprise. We did a recent IT trends report where we interview various professionals in the IT sector, what are the trends, what are the concerns, lack of trained personnel always seems to be at the top of the list. And so we just need to keep training our people better and better. And better”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, as long as we stay true to what we are trying to work towards, which is first and foremost, learn from this and improve. Many customers since the time of the breach have expanded with SoloWinds because of how we are approaching the Secure By Design tenants. The fact is many of my customers are also producers of software, so they appreciate that if it can happen to us, it can happen to them as well. They want to protect themselves ahead of time, so to speak, but it also allows us to serve them on a broader scale and as a result enjoy better business success as well.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. And I've been asked why did you think you were picked? Why were you the victim? And I have been describing it to some degree as this is the price you pay for ubiquity, meaning we are deployed in over 300,000 customers and so we can be a very large target. So for instance, if you look at breaches that are reported, I should say security vulnerabilities that are reported in the industry, Microsoft ranks very high in the list. I attribute that to their ubiquitous.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and more specifically in this case, software supply chain. In a traditional supply chain, let's say physical parts, let's say you're assembling a television set, you are taking electronics from different sources, putting it in a supply chain, and then assembling it towards the end and shipping off a finished good. The process in software supply chain is very similar in the sense that you take various pieces of software or code as it's called and you compile them. So compilation is similar to assembly, and after you compile it, you ship it. So what does supply chain attack is? Is from the time you collect all these pieces of code to the time you compile them, if a threat actor were to inject, let's call it another piece of code into that and you inadvertently compile it and ship it in S”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To the approach of saying we are going to be transparent, collaborative, and communicative. Two is focus all your energies on the problem at hand and not try to deviate from it. It was painful, I will tell you, because it should not have been called the SoloVince breach. As you said, even the government agrees with that. Would I wish that there was a more generic name attributed to it? Yes, but I would say that by serving the primary obligation we have in the long run, I'm confident we'll come out better.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that has been suggested to me, Bob. And I had the freedom to do that, even from my board. When I think about brand, brand is a function of my people, my products or offerings, and my customers, meaning what value I deliver to them. Yes, name is significant, but those are the three things that we should really be focused on. There are a few reasons why I chose not to think about changing the brand or the name of the company immediately. One is the most critical thing here was addressing the issue at hand, which is the security breach and the safety of the customer segments. So by changing the name and spending time and money doing that, we are distracting from the job at hand and potentially coming across as swiping an issue under the rug. So that is fundamentally a push.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Than I can count. When you have an issue like this, Bob, the first thing that you have to be open to is establishing hypothesis. Could this have happened? Did that happen? So one of the very early hypotheses when you are in a global company with presence all over the world is could this be an insider job? And if it is, then you act on it. In that vein, for instance, we came up with multiple hypotheses. I had the unique vantage point of being an outsider coming in. So I was not biased, so to speak, by anything that was happening inside. So I came up with my set of hypotheses. The team had some, we pulled together and we said we'll go after every one of these and figure out where does it lead us. And many led us to nowhere. So we had to keep reinventing or recreating hypothesis.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Two is given the unique nature of the supply chain attack, how do we protect and secure our build system, software build systems, to the next level? And the third is, can we innovate in the build systems themselves such that it makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a threat actor to break into your supply chain? So those were the three pillars. So the reason for that framework then is if I look at any particular employee in the organization, they should be able to relate to I'm contributing to that pillar and these are my actions. So independence is very, very important because without independence, you cannot act with a sense of urgency. But then interdependence is also extremely important because without that, you cannot support a broader mission or a broader framework. So independence and interdependence kind of became part of the fabric and the value system of the business.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely. So the framework I used here is called Secure by Design, and I'll take you back to the comments about was there anything deficient? Was the investment enough and so on? There's always things that you can do to improve. I'm an engineer. I've built software just like you build quality software. You build secure software. So the framework had three key pillars. One was how do we improve the”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Would say we were leveraging all of those principles across the team. We call ourselves Solarians, by the way. And having them on my side helped me a lot in doing my job.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the approach that we took was first and foremost when you deal with an issue like this, you got to have a framework of how you have to solve this problem. The framework also has to be fungible because you learn new things every day and you have to adapt to it. But there has to be a framework. The second part of it is the transparency associated with it, with employees, customers, your partners on what's happening, what do you know, what is next. you have a framework you have transparency you have to work with a great sense of urgency because you got to act and start making progress but equally you have to demonstrate a sense of humility as you go through this urgency because nobody knows how to solve these problems its framework transparency communications humility and doing it with a sense of calm across the board and so i”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, at some level, Bob, but my focus going to the Senate was to directly and transparently communicate what SolarWinds had done and was committed to doing. This was a great opportunity for three great companies to come out and talk about what we can do for the future.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I believe so. I believe so. And I believe there are some progressive senators like Senator Warner who are talking about how do I indemnify you for coming out early and speaking about these types of issues.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Most definitely at the same time, the point you made about the regulators is a key one. I think more disclosure is definitely important, but it should be done in an environment where victims don't feel shamed about coming out or the discoveries are not done with the intent of leading to punitive measures. That's not to take away accountability and responsibility from enterprises such as us. We have an obligation responsibility and have to take accountability. But if we are constantly worried about who is going to sue us or who is going to be punished for coming out and saying what we think will be better for the larger community, then we are going to be hesitant about doing it.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tight partnership of transparency and collaboration, both amongst the community as well as with the authorities and the regulators. So you mentioned CISA earlier in the conversation and that is a body which we are actively working with to support for two-way collaboration and communication.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My view on this, and this is a view that I've held well prior to joining Solovince, is that every enterprise must look out and protect its infrastructure, its data sources, and do the very best to train its users, meaning its employees, to protect its assets. At the same time, I also believe that it is important for us to be part of this community. You probably have heard me use the word community vigil as it comes to security because the simple matter is that threat actors have to be right once to breach through. We have to be right every single time to protect ourselves. And especially when a threat actor is a nation-state actor, it is very difficult for any one company, no matter how many resources we have or how large we are, to be fully protected. So in that world, we have to have a very”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly that they downloaded. So that is the largest possible set of customers that could be impacted. But as you know, in these cases, what happens is customers sometimes download them but don't deploy them, in which case there is no harm done. In some cases, customers deploy them, but configure it in such a way that the software is not able to connect back into the internet, in which case again the malware cannot do anything. So if you start sifting through those, eventually it came out to be an estimate of less than 100. Some said 60, but let's just say less than 100. Our focus was, let's assume all 18,000 were impacted, touch each one of them, make sure that they were updated and upgraded, and worry about the rest after that fact.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let me actually set some context on that, Bob. The way we came up with the initial estimate of the 18,000, which is what we were reporting, was because of our data that said 18,000 customers approximately downloaded that piece of software.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If I can be so bold as to say if a determined nation state is after you, they can probably create an attack and breach through anything. So it is less to do with one specific company's resources or posture. But equally, I'll be the first one to say that in every one of these attacks, you can always learn something that had you done those things could have either dissuaded somebody or prevented but this is the nature of our industry. This is the nature of the security industry because if we had a blueprint for having no breaches at all, we would probably all be adopting it.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The tools we were using to establish our security posture were consistent with the industry average and in some cases better than industry average. So it wasn't so much a negligence or a deficiency. We were the victims of one of the most sophisticated and I would say patient attacks which has been attributed to a nation state.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, first and foremost, I did look at the security posture of Solomon's like many CEOs who come into a new situation, you have already met the team, you've understood the situation, and you start building your 90 100-day plans. In my case, I had to basically throw everything out the window and reset my plan. Because what needed to be done at that point in time, given the event is taking care of your employees and taking care of your customers. That was the primary and, I would say, the only obligation. My previous experience dealing with cybersecurity issues definitely did help me address this. You look at what were the security investments, where they commensurate for a company, our size and scope, were they any obvious deficiencies and so on. And the way I would describe it is Solomon's investments in security as well as”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely, Bob. As you said, this was an eventful phase of my career and my life. You don't really prepare for these types of situations, but our collective experience over the years allows us to create a set of guiding principles. And if you have the humility to continue to learn and iterate on those, then you can start making progress. So that's the approach that I took.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To turn the negatives of the crisis into an opportunity. Cybersecurity needs to be anticipated, Sadocker says, because no matter who you are, it's going to find you at some point one way or another. Bob Saff”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's Sadakaramakrishna, CEO of Solar Winds, the tech provider that became synonymous with cybersecurity risk late last year after a sophisticated attack compromised its software, potentially infecting thousands of organizations. I'm Bob Saffian, former editor of Fast Company, founder of the Flux Group and host of Masters of Scale Rapid Response. I wanted to talk with Sadocker because in our increasingly digital world, cyber risk has become an ever present threat to scaling, whether you're a startup, a brand name platform, or even a government. Sadockar joined the company soon after the breach was discovered, thrust into a crisis that included leadership challenges, technology challenges, and business challenges. His experiences illuminate what you can control and what you can't, and how putting in place what he calls a framework can clarify your actions. He also discusses the brand hurdle solar wind's faces and the ways in which he's trying to”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every enterprise must look out and protect its infrastructure, its data sources, and do the very best to train its users to protect its assets. At the same time, it is very difficult for any one company, no matter how many resources we have or how large we are, to be fully protected. That we have been thrust into this spotlight, we have to galvanize the industry and speak up and actually actively contribute to that.”
2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
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2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
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2021-10-07 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: SolarWinds: Urgent lessons from a cyberattack, w/ CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT