Gene Reich of Tracless

[00:00:01] Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Today is the very last edition of MSP Initiative for the month of July 2024. This is MSP Talk.

[00:00:13] And at the beginning of all these sessions, we get some housekeeping done. So we're going to do exactly that.

[00:00:17] Get into the good stuff. MSPinitiative.com. This is pretty much where we park most of the stuff that we do.

[00:00:24] So, for example, this session, we are recording it. I'm going to park it on MSPinitiative.com under sessions, our YouTube page, our podcatchers.

[00:00:31] In video and audio format, you know, it might be easier if you listen to audio if you're driving.

[00:00:36] I digress. Whatever works for you. Like, follow, share, subscribe. It's all there for you.

[00:00:41] We are coming up, believe it or not, into August. Summer is just going by at warp speed for our friends here on this side of the globe.

[00:00:49] But we have MSP Community Minds in Denver coming up September 25th and 26th.

[00:00:55] We had our earlier one in the year in Nashville. Went real well. We're actually returning back to Denver.

[00:01:00] We first launched MSP Community Minds in Denver last year. We have our agenda posted. We have all of our MSP panelists listed.

[00:01:08] We have all of our expert speakers. And what their two-plus-hour workshops are going to be, this is not one of these.

[00:01:15] Come for 45 minutes. Death by PowerPoint. Swipe your credit card if you want more.

[00:01:18] We are actually letting you walk out with absolutely education, education, education, with no hook at the end.

[00:01:25] This is for you. And as long as you make it there, there's absolutely no cost to you to be at this event as an MSP.

[00:01:32] Obviously, you've got to get there. I understand time and money and traveling and all that jazz, but all for a good cause.

[00:01:37] So hopefully we'll see you out in Denver in September 25th, 26th.

[00:01:42] Then we have the remainder of our MSP Community Black parties for the rest of the year.

[00:01:45] And as you, if you've been around for a while, would know, September, October, November, it gets busy.

[00:01:51] But before we even get there, we're going to be in IT Nation Australia in about three weeks-ish, three and a half weeks.

[00:01:57] So if you're headed to IT Nation Australia, the first night of the conference in Sydney, we'll be holding an MSP Community Black party in Darling Harbor.

[00:02:06] So check us out. We'll be August 21st from 830 till a little after midnight.

[00:02:12] We'll be at Cargo Bar right down the street from where the conference hotel is.

[00:02:15] Literally just walk. No need to catch an Uber, cab, bus. It's all there for you.

[00:02:20] Then we decide, hey, if going all the way to one side of the ocean isn't good enough, let's go back to the other side.

[00:02:26] So we're going to Berlin for our first ever PAX 8 Beyond in Germany.

[00:02:31] This is the first of its kind, so why not bring the Black party along?

[00:02:35] It'll be on October 14th, which is the second night of the conference, starting at 9 p.m.

[00:02:41] And we'll be announcing the venue that we've secured there. It's going to be fun.

[00:02:46] I saw it myself. Promise we aim to please.

[00:02:50] Then we come back to Miami here domestically for DattoCon in Florida, in South Beach, Miami.

[00:02:57] So this will be October 29th. We'll be holding a Black party again, 9 p.m.-ish until you're ready to call it a night.

[00:03:04] Might not need to actually go anywhere. Might be having this on-site at the conference property where DattoCon is being held.

[00:03:11] So stay tuned. We'll give you more information on that.

[00:03:12] Then we circle back to IT Nation Orlando, the big one in November that we do every year.

[00:03:17] And this is where we're going to be bringing back a soon-to-be-announced act.

[00:03:22] Two years ago, All-American Rejects last year, the combination of Better Than Ezra Sugar Ray Tonic.

[00:03:28] This year will be to be determined. This will be the first night of IT Nation in Orlando.

[00:03:33] And this is our big one to anchor the year.

[00:03:35] But there's one more right after that, a week later, back to Sydney again.

[00:03:41] And we'll be doing on November 12th for DattoCon Sydney, our last event of the year.

[00:03:48] So as you can imagine, we love racking up airline miles.

[00:03:51] We hope you do too.

[00:03:52] If you do, please come and enjoy yourself at one of these community events.

[00:03:57] We have some community offers, just deals or hookups from around the industry.

[00:04:00] Take advantage of them if you want.

[00:04:01] And lastly, our industry calendar, which quite frankly is going to be busy between now and the end of the year.

[00:04:06] So if you want to find yourself out and about and hopefully learning something, but maybe catching a beer too,

[00:04:13] you will find all those events.

[00:04:15] They're listed for you around the globe.

[00:04:18] So there's all of our housekeeping.

[00:04:20] Thank you for giving me a little bit of time to do that.

[00:04:23] MSPinitiative.com is where it's all at.

[00:04:24] And that is off the list.

[00:04:27] And we get on to the good stuff we bring back.

[00:04:30] This is not his first time on the podcast, but Gene from Traceless Returns.

[00:04:35] How are you doing, Gene?

[00:04:37] Hey, George.

[00:04:38] Thanks for having me.

[00:04:39] Doing good.

[00:04:40] Just basically doing well.

[00:04:42] Enjoying summer, getting some time with the family.

[00:04:47] Yeah, it's good.

[00:04:48] How about you?

[00:04:49] How's life been?

[00:04:51] Well, it's been a busy, busy year.

[00:04:53] And now that we're officially in the second half of it, and as you can see, lots of stuff going on.

[00:04:58] You know, just kind of enjoying the last few weeks of summer before, you know, all of the events start getting a little bit closer together and bigger and louder.

[00:05:08] So, it's nice to get a little bit of non-airplane time in, especially with, you know, I was actually flying back from the Berlin, Dublin, London trip two weeks ago, right at the beginning of CrowdStrike.

[00:05:24] Which was, which is still being talked about, as it should, in my opinion.

[00:05:30] You can talk a little bit about that if you want.

[00:05:32] But yeah, current events.

[00:05:33] Yeah, traveling is, especially when flights get delayed and canceled.

[00:05:38] And, you know, for the first time ever, we're hearing about boarding passes being handwritten.

[00:05:42] I don't know if we'll ever see that again.

[00:05:43] We'll see.

[00:05:45] What a time to be alive.

[00:05:47] Right?

[00:05:48] I mean, could you imagine?

[00:05:49] Like, it wasn't even like triple carbon copy paper.

[00:05:53] It was like, let's cut the printer paper in half and start writing out boarding passes.

[00:05:57] Oh, man.

[00:05:58] I mean, because you travel way more than I do.

[00:06:01] What's a, like, on average, the year, how many flights do you do a year?

[00:06:05] That's a good question.

[00:06:06] I know my worst year, I did a little, like, you know, like somewhere between two and 220,000 air miles.

[00:06:13] I hopefully don't get to that point this year, but the Australia trips surely do rack up, you know, like 20,000 miles, you know, each way.

[00:06:23] Most flights I've done in a year, I have to go back and look.

[00:06:25] I would say maybe 30 to 40 flights a year could be quick down the, you know, Orlando, like every other event.

[00:06:33] Or it could be a little bit more, you know, a little bit more international travel, especially this year.

[00:06:38] Because, like, you know, finally everything was back to normal and, you know, it was a little bit easier to not have to go through and jump through all these hoops.

[00:06:46] So I will say that I haven't been, you know, haven't been to Germany before.

[00:06:54] So, you know, just did kind of jumped in there early to check out the scene for Pax Ape on Berlin.

[00:07:02] And you would think, like, the airport business is a science, right?

[00:07:06] And, like, they understand capacity and planning.

[00:07:09] Like, you know, like MSPs have to figure out.

[00:07:11] Like, if there's an outage, Microsoft was down today, 365.

[00:07:14] And that, surprise, maybe not 365, 363, 2, 1.

[00:07:20] Yeah.

[00:07:20] Like, when there's, like, an outage of that, you know, especially, you know, CrowdStrike is, you know, very, very recent.

[00:07:27] Like, you got to realize that, like, all hands on deck.

[00:07:30] Phones are going to blow up.

[00:07:31] Systems are going to, you know, be loaded.

[00:07:33] Like, everybody's standing in line calling the emergency number, right?

[00:07:35] You know, kind of thing.

[00:07:36] You know, like, you would think from a capacity standing plan point, like, there's a plan in place.

[00:07:41] But for an airport business, like, you know what flights are scheduled.

[00:07:44] You know how many people are supposed to be going in between these terminals and airports and passports.

[00:07:49] And, you know, border and all this, whatever.

[00:07:51] And, like, you know, it was just a little bit mind-boggling to me, Gene, for, you know, as much as, you know, that's not a –

[00:07:59] It's a very mature business that should have a very mature business plan and operation plan.

[00:08:03] Like, when you have, like, a couple hundred people standing in line and only one person checking passports.

[00:08:08] Yeah.

[00:08:09] How does that work?

[00:08:10] It doesn't make sense.

[00:08:10] If anything, there's lessons to be learned, for sure.

[00:08:13] Yeah, we have, on the MSP side, a startup that's working on improving the user experience of an airport in general.

[00:08:23] And, you know, yeah, when I got into the weeds with the founder, found out, okay, there's, like, a lot of stuff left to be desired in your experience of being in an airport, finding info, getting to where you want to be, making it more comfortable.

[00:08:40] Like, a lot of little things presented in a different way would completely change the airport experience as we have it today.

[00:08:48] So, yeah, right for innovation.

[00:08:52] Yeah, and it was interesting.

[00:08:55] You know how, like, you go into a lot of MSP, you know, offices that got, like, you know, the dashboards and the gauges and the wallboards.

[00:09:02] And, you know, it was funny.

[00:09:03] I was in Heathrow waiting for my, you know, last leg home in the middle of CrowdStrike.

[00:09:09] And they had their, you know, London Heathrow Airport had their KPIs rolling through on one of the screens.

[00:09:15] They're like, hey, this is on-time flights, you know, traveler satisfaction percentage, cleanliness score.

[00:09:22] And I was like, wow.

[00:09:23] I was like, and they posted online, too.

[00:09:25] They're like, if you want to learn more, go to this.

[00:09:27] And I was like, this website.

[00:09:29] And I was like, huh, who would have thought?

[00:09:30] Like, a lot of commonality between what I was seeing.

[00:09:33] And I was like, this is a good, you know, this is a good trend, right?

[00:09:37] Like, we're seeing these best practices being followed, you know, across industry.

[00:09:44] Yeah, 100%.

[00:09:45] 100%.

[00:09:45] I mean, you know, so from an MSP standpoint, and, you know, between me and you, we got a lot of years in the trench here, right?

[00:09:51] In the sandbox, you would think like, hey, you know, all these people are like, hey, this is a very mature industry now.

[00:09:59] I don't know, man.

[00:10:00] There's a lot.

[00:10:01] There's still a lot to be improved on, right?

[00:10:03] I mean, and unfortunately, the spotlight gets put on our part of the world, our little sub-industry, if you would, when big things happen, right?

[00:10:12] And like, not to keep on breaking the crowd strike, but like, that was a headline, right?

[00:10:16] Like, we probably have all heard of crowd strike in our business, but the average everyday person probably couldn't even tell you what that was, but now they can.

[00:10:25] Yeah, my mom knows, you know, what crowd strike is, right?

[00:10:30] So, like, and this is the person that calls you to tell you that the computer's not turning on, right?

[00:10:34] I mean, like.

[00:10:35] 100%.

[00:10:36] 100%.

[00:10:36] Yeah, it was, yeah, the only thing I could compare that Friday to was in New York when we had the blackout.

[00:10:45] I think it was Hurricane Sandy.

[00:10:46] And it was like, you know, speaking of being in the trenches, things were different.

[00:10:53] You know, we had a lot of local servers, a lot of raid devices, a lot of prosumer raid devices.

[00:11:01] And I mean, everything got shut off, got a hard shut off.

[00:11:07] So even if it had like a battery that eventually ran out and it eventually got hard shut down, right?

[00:11:14] Because it was very difficult to move around during that.

[00:11:20] And like, oh, we're just going to turn everything back on and hopefully don't lose data and don't have to restore data.

[00:11:27] And it was pretty, and everybody wanted an onsite that morning when power came back for the most part.

[00:11:35] And it was just like, you know, pretty wild.

[00:11:39] That was a wild experience.

[00:11:40] The crowd strike thing, we're, the MSP is a crowd strike partner.

[00:11:44] So it was really wonderful to see the team execute during a, what do you call it?

[00:11:56] Like all hands on deck moment.

[00:11:58] And I think the clients were really understanding and, you know, we were pretty good after the first half of the day.

[00:12:05] But I just, I got, my heart just felt for all the people who didn't record BitLocker keys or had it, but the tool didn't work or, you know.

[00:12:20] And of course, I think Microsoft, I didn't try this, but I think they came out with something where it's like, hey, reboot it 16 times.

[00:12:27] You don't need a BitLocker key or something like that.

[00:12:29] And so maybe that worked for some people.

[00:12:32] I mean, I think everybody, if you've been in this business long enough, you know that there are days like that, right?

[00:12:40] Like bad things happen.

[00:12:42] It's funny, and I've always found that ironic and everybody has a different kind of opinion on this.

[00:12:47] But like when it's a headline thing, when it's Microsoft or Amazon going down, all of a sudden they're like, oh, okay.

[00:12:53] But when it's not anything with that name, all of a sudden you're the worst person ever and what the hell are you doing?

[00:12:59] And like all the, you know, like it's just kind of interesting to me the dichotomy between those two scenarios.

[00:13:05] Yeah, I think people have gotten used to it and kind of expect it with the internet the way it is.

[00:13:11] I didn't post this, but I, you know, felt like it was a good opportunity to make t-shirts and mugs saying it wasn't DNS.

[00:13:19] Yes.

[00:13:22] I feel like that's just such a rich comment every time EWS goes down, you know?

[00:13:27] No, 100%.

[00:13:28] And, you know, the funny part is, you know, you see all the forums, the discords, the slacks, the reddits, and there's a lot of people came back.

[00:13:38] They're like, well, this is why you shouldn't have, this is why you should go back to prem, on prem.

[00:13:41] And I'm like, hmm.

[00:13:43] I was like, I'm not sure.

[00:13:45] That's the whole answer.

[00:13:46] I think a hybrid approach is something that's worth investigating and a legitimate plan, like a DR plan, not just a backup.

[00:13:54] But like a, what's your, what's your, what's your backup from a business operations DR type conversation?

[00:14:01] You know, the airlines were handwriting reporting passes.

[00:14:04] That was their backup plan.

[00:14:05] And I'm like, hmm, okay.

[00:14:06] I'm not sure that was the first plan they probably had, but that's what they ended up on.

[00:14:10] Yeah.

[00:14:12] So, like, I think that that part kind of gets, maybe not the attention that it maybe, you know, should get normally.

[00:14:19] Yeah, 100%.

[00:14:21] It's, it's so hard going from like firefighting mode to emergency disaster planning mode.

[00:14:29] And it's, it's a real tough one to, to get as an MSP to get around that.

[00:14:37] Yeah.

[00:14:38] Yeah.

[00:14:39] No, I get it.

[00:14:40] So, you know, we're back.

[00:14:42] But one of the things that I want to point out, this kind of, for people who don't, you know, who don't know Gene and we're going to give him a chance to give a little background.

[00:14:50] But, you know, I think that the SOP, standard operating procedure that everybody goes through when everything's cool, calm, like normal day, nothing's crazy.

[00:15:03] I feel like, and you tell me if you, you see this on your side, Gene, that goes right out the window when something is like overloaded, emergency, all hands on.

[00:15:14] So like, for example, like, hey, that's crime time for somebody to, to really catch somebody not doing what they normally do off guard.

[00:15:27] Get, you know, like the social engineering component of the story, right?

[00:15:31] Like I, in all these articles that during CrowdStrike, the bad guys were using CrowdStrike in order to, you know, get through places they normally wouldn't get through because nobody's like vigilant, right?

[00:15:44] On what they're supposed to be doing.

[00:15:47] Yeah.

[00:15:47] I mean, it's funny.

[00:15:48] I was talking to one of our, our friend friendlies in the MSP and he had like a huge list of known bad actors.

[00:16:01] That spun up URLs that are very remarkably close to the, the other team.

[00:16:14] And it was like, you know, CrowdStrike, fix, fix CrowdStrike, crowdstrike.org, you know, CrowdStrike me, you know, like basically registering all these CrowdStrike-helpdesk.com.

[00:16:32] Right.

[00:16:33] Or they'll replace like, oh, with a zero or like put a hyphen.

[00:16:37] I call them cousin domains, right?

[00:16:39] Like you like, hey, really close attention.

[00:16:42] You would not even, wouldn't even process it, that something was odd, right?

[00:16:47] Yeah.

[00:16:48] Yeah.

[00:16:48] It's tough.

[00:16:50] And it's, you just got to expect that.

[00:16:54] I mean, I think it's very exacerbated technique.

[00:16:59] That's a lot of times simply like, you know, hey, this is urgent.

[00:17:04] I'm in a bind.

[00:17:05] I need your help.

[00:17:06] You know, I'm an important person.

[00:17:09] I've got a deadline.

[00:17:11] Money's on the line, you know, throwing all those items of spice to create urgency around a problem that doesn't exist.

[00:17:19] And this was a perfect time.

[00:17:21] And I don't know, I haven't heard like a lot of fallout, maybe because there's just so much fallout from the literal problem.

[00:17:29] And, you know, the other interesting thing was like, Apple didn't have a problem, right?

[00:17:34] And I didn't know that the reason Microsoft hasn't closed off that kernel layer is because of an EU ruling.

[00:17:42] I read this.

[00:17:43] Yeah.

[00:17:44] Yeah, that was news to me.

[00:17:45] And I'm like, oh, this is, you know, this is interesting, right?

[00:17:48] But I'm confused, Gene, with that.

[00:17:49] So if everybody doesn't know, Microsoft had, you know, I think proactively put out some PR saying, hey, listen, we could prevent this from happening.

[00:17:58] But the legislation of the EU has, you know, like has forced us to keep this open.

[00:18:03] But I'm like, wait a minute.

[00:18:04] If Linux-based operating systems and Apple, for example, like, you know, don't have it open and Microsoft's forced, like what?

[00:18:12] Like that just seems like you're, you know, not fairly enforcing the rules across the board.

[00:18:17] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:18:19] I wish we had a legal expert on this one because that's a curious question that I do not have an answer for.

[00:18:25] But I think, you know, also these, you know, Microsoft gets hit mostly with antitrust stuff and the others do not.

[00:18:36] And I think especially on the operating system side, I don't think it's probably linked to some other greater majority of tech that Microsoft has and how this might affect that or something like that.

[00:18:48] You know, it's probably a software vendor complaining to the EU about, oh, if they close this, I can't do my job.

[00:18:53] And, you know, they're going to close me out.

[00:18:56] Look, they closed out Internet Explorer with, you know, whatever the other one was.

[00:19:00] Slack and Teams, right?

[00:19:02] Where they basically were like, hey, listen, this is just like Internet Explorer and Netscape, right?

[00:19:06] And like they just fast forwarded it into the calendar and said, now it's Slack and Teams.

[00:19:10] And basically they're like, yep, right, upper stamp.

[00:19:13] And then what was the result?

[00:19:15] Well, you know, 22% increase in Teams because it was broken out as a separate SKU.

[00:19:19] And now all of a sudden, you know, you got to subscribe separately to Teams.

[00:19:23] You know, if your grandfathered, like there's a window and then all of a sudden it's going to be removed and you got to pay separate.

[00:19:28] And it's like, okay, well, that stinks.

[00:19:30] But like the net result is Slack's now saying that instead of giving it away for free, there's now a financial value to the product, right?

[00:19:39] And that's what we're priced out.

[00:19:42] Yeah, the bundles, the prices of the bundle increases every year.

[00:19:46] And I mean, this is a playbook all this time for Microsoft and it works.

[00:19:51] So it's pretty good on Slack's side to call this out, I guess.

[00:19:59] And, you know, there's also like the economic benefit of bundling too to consumers, right?

[00:20:08] And then, you know.

[00:20:09] PSP's take bundling and have adopted that for many, like decades, 20 years they've been doing.

[00:20:15] Correct, correct.

[00:20:16] Correct.

[00:20:19] Yeah, very interesting.

[00:20:22] Thankfully, you know, the internet's back online.

[00:20:25] And I think the funniest meme that I saw was like something about Southwest having two T-Mobile sidekicks, you know, duct taped together as their infrastructure.

[00:20:33] And they're like, who's laughing now?

[00:20:35] You know, and it's like.

[00:20:37] Yeah, I actually really enjoyed that one, Gene.

[00:20:40] Because like Southwest had like a week long issue last year because apparently their staff scheduling system was still running on something running on like Windows 95, right?

[00:20:51] Like it's like some archaic, ancient, never updated, just kept running it because it wasn't broken.

[00:20:57] So don't fix it.

[00:20:58] And then they came out and they're like, we're going to invest a billion dollars to, you know, we're going to fix the problem.

[00:21:04] We promise that we're going to do better.

[00:21:05] And they gave everybody like credits and compensation and what have you.

[00:21:08] And then like during all of this, Southwest is sitting back with their Windows 95 base system.

[00:21:14] And they didn't have a problem.

[00:21:15] No crowd strike there.

[00:21:17] And everybody and like, you know, United American Delta was down.

[00:21:20] It was funny because coming back from Europe, I took like a budget airline from Dublin back to London.

[00:21:25] Then my long haul flight was United back.

[00:21:26] All the budget airlines, like think about their version of like Spirit, Frontier, you know, JetBlue, all those guys.

[00:21:34] Like they just kept running business as usual, right?

[00:21:37] And I was like, huh, I guess they didn't pay for the additional cybersecurity software.

[00:21:42] Yeah.

[00:21:43] Yeah.

[00:21:43] And, you know, some people were, have been talking about, well, you know, they'll never crowd strikes out of business.

[00:21:52] You know, the GDP is going to be affected negatively.

[00:21:54] And how are they going to dig themselves out of this?

[00:21:57] And I wonder legally, there's like always like, hey, in your EULA, what are you able to do?

[00:22:05] And then there's also another great saying that you don't have to be right to sue somebody.

[00:22:13] But, you know, I think my personal opinion on the matter is it was horrible and negligent.

[00:22:19] And you hear that it happened on their Linux build like earlier.

[00:22:23] And, you know, developing software is hard and complex.

[00:22:27] But I think that CrowdStrike is paying, being paid to prevent breaches, right?

[00:22:33] So I think that this would have been way worse if it was a security breach or a supply chain attack.

[00:22:39] And I think that people will be like, well, that day sucked.

[00:22:43] But the four years prior where we literally didn't have a breach, I think that that's, yeah, I think that that's probably what we need to think about here as far as the value proposition of the product.

[00:22:55] 100%.

[00:22:57] Yeah, I think that the dynamic of talking to a check signer that's not technical, right?

[00:23:02] And you're like, hey, you really need to invest dollars in here.

[00:23:05] You really need to increase your budget to do this.

[00:23:07] And then, you know, to them, it's no different than me driving a car, right?

[00:23:11] It's like, hey, a light came on.

[00:23:13] I don't know what this sensor means.

[00:23:14] I have no idea what this code is.

[00:23:15] But all I know is the car needs to run.

[00:23:17] And, you know, then you go in, they're like, well, you need to replace this, this and this.

[00:23:20] And it's an expensive repair.

[00:23:21] And I'm like, I guess.

[00:23:22] I just need my car to run.

[00:23:23] And so, like, then this type of event happens.

[00:23:26] And they're like, well, you took my business down.

[00:23:27] And it's like, oh, I didn't do anything.

[00:23:30] And then it's like, you know, Microsoft went down.

[00:23:32] Or this happened.

[00:23:33] And it's like, yeah, but I didn't know who they were.

[00:23:35] You just provided that, right?

[00:23:37] You chose them.

[00:23:38] Yeah.

[00:23:39] And it's like, oh.

[00:23:40] And then now that conversation happens.

[00:23:42] And then, like, all of a sudden it's, you know, you've almost got, you've taken all these steps forward finally.

[00:23:48] And time and energy and projects.

[00:23:51] And now it feels like you might be taking a step backwards a little bit.

[00:23:55] Yeah.

[00:23:56] Yeah.

[00:23:56] I definitely had an MSP who's like, yeah, I'm just going to use Defender.

[00:24:01] Because if something crazy happens, they're going to be like, well, you know, it's Microsoft.

[00:24:07] So I guess we tried our hardest.

[00:24:08] And it happens all the time.

[00:24:10] And we should expect that.

[00:24:11] You know, it's really kind of an interesting psychology of the consumer of business products that, like, it's okay for some, but not for others.

[00:24:23] It's very inconsistent.

[00:24:25] And that's the hard balancing act, right?

[00:24:28] Because, like, you know, back to this scenario, because it's so new.

[00:24:31] It's like, all right, well, let's say CrowdStrike.

[00:24:34] And many have said their agreements only allow for one month of refunds of whatever the product cost was.

[00:24:40] I don't know if that's true, but I've seen this in a lot of cases.

[00:24:45] So let's say you spent $10,000 on CrowdStrike licensing that month because you're, you know, whatever size company.

[00:24:51] But you took a $10 million loss, you know, during that time because you couldn't fly planes, right?

[00:24:57] Like, I don't know, whatever it is.

[00:25:01] And so here's a problem.

[00:25:03] If you're the MSP who's the guy bundling or reselling the licensing downstream or subscription downstream, like, they come to you because that's where the money flows, right?

[00:25:13] And then, like, you know, so now you're in between the guy who's actually, you know, typing the code out and the actual consumer of the, you know, the solution.

[00:25:24] And, like, that's not a convenient place to be either.

[00:25:27] Yeah.

[00:25:28] And I wonder how many people or large enterprises exercised loss of business coverage around cyber incidents.

[00:25:40] And if this was, like, in the checkbox, not in the checkbox.

[00:25:43] And I think at the end of the day, a lot of people are saying, like, oh, CrowdStrike is going to be paying all this money.

[00:25:49] I think insurance companies are going to get their asses handed to them for claims that are totally legitimate.

[00:25:54] Like, I'm not saying people are doing something illegal or unruly or whatever and fair.

[00:26:01] But, I mean, think about what Delta's claim in their insurance is going to be.

[00:26:06] I mean, here's the thing, and somebody brought it up in a prior episode, but your cyber policy probably doesn't cover this.

[00:26:15] You would need an actual, like, disruption of business, loss of business type either policy addendum, like a separate conversation from general business insurance and or cyber liability coverage.

[00:26:28] And for the people who did have it, something tells me in the 2025 renewal there's got to be exclusions.

[00:26:37] Yeah.

[00:26:38] Things are going to change again, and it's going to be very pro the insurance company.

[00:26:43] Yeah.

[00:26:44] I don't think anybody would have expected, like, you know, cyber events happen every day, right?

[00:26:49] But I think this was caught a lot of people off guard, right?

[00:26:54] Right.

[00:26:56] So I think it will, I think somewhere down the line, and it won't take long, this will change how the business runs, right?

[00:27:03] How the, you know, the circle of technology ultimately operates.

[00:27:09] And, you know, this is one of those things where you got to just be cognizant and make the adjustments, right?

[00:27:13] And like, hey, guys, if the manufacturer is going to be, if insurance coverage is going to take exclusions, you probably have to amend your master services agreements, legal documents, whatever, to make sure that you're not taking the liability that they're trying to shed either.

[00:27:31] Yeah, totally.

[00:27:34] What a business.

[00:27:35] Until the next one.

[00:27:36] Until the next one.

[00:27:37] I think clients generally felt grateful.

[00:27:40] You know, they're like, hey, thank you, like, in it together.

[00:27:46] It was a good time to really, like, to show good faith and service to people.

[00:27:53] And listen, this is one of those times, just like, you know, at the beginning of COVID, where, like, everybody in there, you know, and anybody who had a computer or device needed to be remote, but, like, overnight.

[00:28:04] I think the industry, you know, you know, I ever hear the, hey, top three hated industries, right?

[00:28:13] Mechanics, lawyers, IT, right?

[00:28:15] I thought dentists were up there, too, but I hear you on.

[00:28:19] Right?

[00:28:19] Yeah, so.

[00:28:20] I hear you.

[00:28:20] But at the end of the day, like, why?

[00:28:22] People don't understand it, nor do they want to understand it.

[00:28:25] They just expect it to work all the time, which, as we know, is not how it works.

[00:28:29] So I feel like there's a lot of underappreciation, right?

[00:28:33] Like, the people who are on the front lines of the IT and managed services industry get yelled at, screamed at.

[00:28:38] They're the problem.

[00:28:39] They're the blame.

[00:28:40] And all they're trying to do is be available and helpful, right?

[00:28:43] And so I feel like there's a lot of, you know, a lot of love that should be going out to the people who did all hands on deck and had to figure it out and get into it.

[00:28:53] And you know what?

[00:28:56] I, you know, I guess, you know, everybody votes with their wallet, right?

[00:29:00] You know, at the end of the day, right?

[00:29:02] When that renewal or that contract or the next conversation comes up.

[00:29:06] But yeah, I would think the clients that were negatively affected who were able to get to someone who did get a phone call answer, who did get help, you know, in timely fashion.

[00:29:16] You know, like they should be, they should be happy that, that, that was in place because a lot of other people didn't have that luxury.

[00:29:24] Correct.

[00:29:25] Correct.

[00:29:26] Crazy.

[00:29:27] 100%.

[00:29:27] So Gene, for people who like we're halfway through, but like I usually do this in the beginning, but it's a good time to do it now.

[00:29:33] Like, obviously they've heard that you have, you have some startups, you build some software.

[00:29:38] You also have an XB space, but why don't we round it out for them?

[00:29:41] Give them a little bit of background.

[00:29:42] We'll talk a little bit about Traceless as well.

[00:29:45] Yeah.

[00:29:45] Okay, good.

[00:29:46] Good.

[00:29:46] Good to circle it back.

[00:29:48] Yeah.

[00:29:48] I feel like second time.

[00:29:50] So we just got right into ketchup.

[00:29:52] So yeah, Gene Rich, I live in New York state, about an hour and a half north of the city.

[00:29:58] Three kids are all under five.

[00:30:01] So it's quite a time to be alive right now for me.

[00:30:05] But it's great.

[00:30:07] Grateful for it.

[00:30:08] Been in the MSP space for 19 years.

[00:30:12] I'm a part of a mostly Apple focused MSP.

[00:30:17] So a little bit.

[00:30:18] I always tell people, if you have an Apple question, just hit me up on LinkedIn or send me an email.

[00:30:23] I'm happy to help.

[00:30:25] You know, it's like, you know, the history of the space for me has been very community driven.

[00:30:32] And the soul of that is very rich.

[00:30:36] And I've been helped a lot by other MSP owners in other ways, whether it's best practices, choice of tools, configuring tools.

[00:30:47] And I always offer that.

[00:30:48] So yeah, so that's one of the practice areas of focus.

[00:30:53] And then got into security and started Traceless.

[00:30:58] And we're focused on helping MSPs and IT departments protect against phishing attacks on their help desks.

[00:31:06] And also ensuring that sense of information, whether it's text or files, is not being left at rest.

[00:31:14] And we're working on some very interesting products in the chat space that are dropping this quarter.

[00:31:20] So I'm excited.

[00:31:21] It's been fun.

[00:31:22] And, you know, it's really when you dial it back, the reason Traceless was started was to help, you know, cyber incidents from starting.

[00:31:31] And at the end of the day, that's like the focus is really helping protect these pieces of technologies and businesses.

[00:31:42] No, 100%.

[00:31:43] I mean, and I kind of mentioned that earlier, right?

[00:31:47] Like, hey, when all things are clicking and everybody's following the right way, you know, like, then you avoid the MGM incidents.

[00:31:56] You avoid the, hey, like, let me give you an example of something that you don't really think about.

[00:32:01] Like, somebody sends in a request.

[00:32:03] Hey, I need a copy of all my statements.

[00:32:05] You know, I need a statement or I need a copy of invoices or can you show me my payment history?

[00:32:09] You're like, well, it's not a password reset.

[00:32:11] So, like, not a big deal, right?

[00:32:13] Just hand that information.

[00:32:14] I was like, well, no, like, even in something as basic as that, you should be validating that the person who is coming in is who they say they are and that they're actually supposed to be able to get that information, right?

[00:32:26] Like.

[00:32:27] 100%.

[00:32:28] You're like, but wait a minute, that's harmless information, right?

[00:32:30] It's not like we're sending money across.

[00:32:32] And it's like, no, listen.

[00:32:34] If you get enough pieces of information, then all of a sudden that collection of that information leads to bad day.

[00:32:41] Correct.

[00:32:41] Or it's just another piece of information that attackers use.

[00:32:45] Like they say, like crumbs to go to the next crumb to then create a larger attack.

[00:32:53] It's, yeah.

[00:32:54] And then all of a sudden, right?

[00:32:56] Like you're getting, you know, like, you know, just like back to the comment we made earlier about cousin domains, right?

[00:33:02] It's like DocuSign.com.

[00:33:04] That's the right domain.

[00:33:05] But if you're getting a DocuSign.net and they copied all the HTML in the normal email, you, it's pretty, you're like, oh, okay.

[00:33:12] You didn't even think twice, but not bad, right?

[00:33:15] Like they got you.

[00:33:16] So like when somebody is actively targeting you, they can get pretty crafty.

[00:33:24] Yeah.

[00:33:25] I mean, also look, did you read about the Proofpoint breach?

[00:33:28] Oh, I missed that one.

[00:33:29] Tell us about it.

[00:33:31] So basically Proofpoint had, I think they had some, like a lot of accounts compromised.

[00:33:42] I don't know the, like how they got in, but basically it allowed for people to send spoofing emails from verified valid domains hosted through Proofpoint.

[00:33:53] Hmm.

[00:33:55] That's not good.

[00:33:56] No, no, not good at all.

[00:33:59] And again, like these things happen, right?

[00:34:01] Like it's not good.

[00:34:03] Does that mean Proofpoint is a bad company?

[00:34:08] No.

[00:34:08] No.

[00:34:08] Like, is it mean that they have a new vector that they weren't aware of?

[00:34:12] Of course.

[00:34:13] But yeah.

[00:34:16] Kind of takeovers.

[00:34:18] Pretty tough.

[00:34:19] You know, I think.

[00:34:20] Like, and like a lot of, a lot of smart people in the, in the sandbox that talk about this stuff all the time.

[00:34:26] But, and I try and just bring a little bit of, I don't know, common sense to the conversation, but it's like, hey, listen, this is why you should only use Microsoft.

[00:34:36] All in Microsoft.

[00:34:37] I was like, well, Microsoft has their own problems, right?

[00:34:39] Like the whole, all your eggs in one basket cliche still holds.

[00:34:43] Right?

[00:34:43] So like you, you should diversify within reason, within affordability, within time, you know, output.

[00:34:51] For reason.

[00:34:52] Right?

[00:34:52] So that you, you have layers in place that are a little bit desegregated, that can be that one thing that trips up the bad guy, slows them down and, you know, quick enough for you to close the door.

[00:35:04] Right?

[00:35:04] And like, unfortunately, you know, you're hearing about some of those layers are, are the attack vector.

[00:35:10] Well, I think, I think everybody needs to do their part.

[00:35:14] And I, and like, listen, it's a tough, you know, like you said, building software is tough.

[00:35:18] Running an MSP is even, I think even harder because now you've got to deal with a lot of different pieces rather than just one thing.

[00:35:27] You know, I, I just, to that, to that end, right?

[00:35:30] Like the outcome, we're, we're trying to work backwards from outcome, right?

[00:35:33] When you sell this type of service, everybody uses things like peace of mind, right?

[00:35:40] Business office, uptime, like want to keep things rolling.

[00:35:44] Let us take care of the part that you don't have time to spend on.

[00:35:47] So you can concentrate on your business.

[00:35:50] All true, all great, but still there's a problem.

[00:35:55] Yeah.

[00:35:57] So, you know, at the end of the day, like you just need to be nimble and you need to understand your, your, your, your capabilities, right?

[00:36:05] And don't over promise on the deliver, but also make sure that you're, you know, I think one of the, you know, the biggest piece of advice I've ever heard.

[00:36:14] And I will regurgitate here in our industry, Gene, a little, a lot of transparency is not a bad thing, especially when it comes to upstream vendors, right?

[00:36:27] Do not set, do not take the liability of Microsoft on your, on your shoulders, right?

[00:36:31] Don't take the liability of Amazon CrowdStrike.

[00:36:33] Like, Hey, we chose these companies because they're the best.

[00:36:38] You know, this, this is how we were, you know, here's how we were given the reports, Gartner, whatever, right?

[00:36:44] They're at the top.

[00:36:45] And so that's why we've gone there.

[00:36:47] It's a little bit pricey, but you know, that's what it takes to be at the top of the food chain.

[00:36:51] Okay.

[00:36:52] And the same token, right?

[00:36:53] Like I chose, we went with who the industry analysts said were the best, right?

[00:36:58] That's how we chose, you know, that's, and here's the documentation.

[00:37:02] If you're curious, you can go check it out.

[00:37:04] But at the end of the day, like you are aggregating a lot of different things in order to deliver an outcome.

[00:37:10] But I would be very transparent with the pieces in place.

[00:37:14] Yeah.

[00:37:15] I strongly agree.

[00:37:16] And I think people were empathetic to it, not as much as like, oh, Microsoft.

[00:37:22] Okay.

[00:37:23] Like, I think that that's like where we're at with Microsoft problems, but I think people understood it.

[00:37:28] So, and probably heard the worst of it on the news.

[00:37:32] And as long as they weren't part of Delta or whatever, I think people were, were generally like accepting.

[00:37:41] Well, they weren't, they weren't held up, but you know, at the end of the day,

[00:37:45] one of the other pieces of advice that you should take away from this session, in my opinion, and I said it, but I'm going to redial in on it.

[00:37:52] You know, like you use a tool like Traceless, which is meant to, you know, make sure stuff doesn't get, you know, off the rails into places it shouldn't or verifying people to make sure that they are legitimately who they say they are.

[00:38:05] Whatever that additional safety measure step you put in place, right?

[00:38:09] In order to check your boxes, cross your T's, dot your I's.

[00:38:13] You know, that's the part you usually forget when you're in the middle of a flood, right?

[00:38:19] Like when it's just bombarded, right?

[00:38:21] But that's the time when you should be extra careful.

[00:38:25] Like, even if it's painful, even if you got somebody screaming at you on the line, you know, take a chill pill, take a breath, but do, do that part.

[00:38:34] Because, you know, that's where somebody is going to get through.

[00:38:39] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:38:40] Yeah, 100%.

[00:38:42] 100%.

[00:38:43] Now, to all those frontline people out there, you know, that you're the first line of defense, right?

[00:38:48] Like, really does start with you, you know.

[00:38:52] Maybe a couple more pizzas and beers, you know, should be coming through as a result.

[00:38:56] But, you know, like if you can't cover that part of it, then bad things usually stem from it.

[00:39:03] So, and like that conversation is never good after the fact, right?

[00:39:06] Because there's a whole lot of blame game, finger pointing, and all the other stuff that comes from that.

[00:39:11] But for people out there who do not even have it in place in normal times, and I know there's, I don't know what the percentage is, Gene, but it's more than 50%.

[00:39:20] In my opinion, you're not having something in place.

[00:39:24] Oh, it's probably like 90s.

[00:39:27] It's a very high, it's crazy.

[00:39:29] If it's 90, it's even scarier, right?

[00:39:32] Do put something in place now.

[00:39:34] Yeah.

[00:39:35] And quite frankly, it's more of a human being step than anything, in my opinion.

[00:39:39] Yeah, make a process.

[00:39:41] Don't buy a tool.

[00:39:42] Raise awareness.

[00:39:43] Build a process.

[00:39:45] Manage to the process.

[00:39:48] Socialize with your customers.

[00:39:49] Show the value.

[00:39:51] Change the culture.

[00:39:53] Schooling helps us, but it's still like a management process thing, for sure.

[00:39:58] It's just like when everybody was like, hey, you know, like, I don't know if you noticed this, right?

[00:40:02] But like, I don't think people realize when Microsoft said, hey, we're going to start enforcing MFA on all Azure.

[00:40:07] They're like, what does that mean?

[00:40:08] Well, if I don't use Azure directly, like Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure Virtual Server, you didn't think twice.

[00:40:15] But all of those global admin accounts for all those Office 365 tenants, overnight, they just turned it on.

[00:40:22] And like, then you got locked out if it wasn't on and you had to call to get it unlocked.

[00:40:25] And like, oops.

[00:40:27] Like, that's frustrating, especially when you're on a time crunch and you're trying to get something done, right?

[00:40:32] I love how the break glass account policy just instantly changed to Microsoft, but I dig it.

[00:40:38] Yeah, totally.

[00:40:39] Another fun day for all the systems out there.

[00:40:42] Yeah, I mean, it sucks when you run into that surprise.

[00:40:45] You're like, hold on, somebody get into my account?

[00:40:46] No, this is just Microsoft doing what they said they were and maybe you didn't realize what the announcement was.

[00:40:52] Or the date was, yeah.

[00:40:54] I digress.

[00:40:55] At the end of the day, it's like, just like when people hate implementing MFA, but like, it is the first line of defense, right?

[00:41:02] Especially for those people who are using password as their password, right?

[00:41:05] Like, come on.

[00:41:07] This is something that even though you think it's a pain and it's an extra time and it's a drag, it's like still necessary.

[00:41:14] Like, you should definitely put something in place.

[00:41:17] And if you don't, please, please, please know that your chances are exponentially, like triple digits percentage higher, in my opinion,

[00:41:26] that somebody is going to get in, not by a hack, not by a supply chain, not because your vendor got compromised, but she got fooled.

[00:41:37] She's a human.

[00:41:39] Yeah.

[00:41:40] Yeah, I think, yeah, one of the calls to action I noticed was OpenAI basically saying, we're going to hold on this voice AI thing, right?

[00:41:51] And so that's not a, you know, think about all the stuff that they were like, no, we'll just put this in the wild.

[00:41:56] And there were like, a lot of people saying, oh, that feature is dangerous for A, B, and C reasons.

[00:42:02] And then OpenAI slow rolls the voice AI feature.

[00:42:05] I'm sure there's also like a lot of like litigious scenarios with using people's voice and that they're not really interested in inviting into their legal area.

[00:42:22] But yeah, they're slow rolling it for good reasons.

[00:42:28] Let's talk about that for a second here.

[00:42:31] Listen, the whole AI thing is co-pilot, OpenAI, all these different GPTs and what have you.

[00:42:41] It's a wild, wild west right now, right?

[00:42:43] Like it is absolutely day zero.

[00:42:45] And like the stuff people are making, like nobody's even up to date on what's happening because it's happening so vastly.

[00:42:52] So like the rules of engagement are going to come behind it, right?

[00:42:56] Yeah.

[00:42:57] But I just, I am.

[00:43:00] I'm all about bleeding edge, right?

[00:43:02] I got into this business for toys and shiny objects and blinking lights like everybody else probably did.

[00:43:07] But be careful when you start putting out what should be private information into the AI sphere.

[00:43:17] Because once that's out there, it's out there, right?

[00:43:20] You may not get it back.

[00:43:21] And like what happens afterwards could be, you know, an oh crap moment once you realize what happens on the other side.

[00:43:28] So like just be like, I'm not saying don't experiment.

[00:43:32] I'm not saying don't stay up on it and see what it can do and see what the documents and how it can add value.

[00:43:38] But also be protective of the information that you're putting out there, right?

[00:43:43] Like be careful.

[00:43:46] Strongly agree.

[00:43:47] You know, like, and you know, it's funny, you know, like every other company should be doing.

[00:43:52] I, you know, we take monthly like security assessments, right?

[00:43:56] Like the, you know, hey, click on this, watch the video, take the quiz, right?

[00:43:59] Like we do that every month here.

[00:44:01] My company and the one option was, hey, a manager, and it was a spoof off of KFC, right?

[00:44:12] And they were like, he, he put, he took the secret recipe and it showed him with doing the MFA and everything to get the secret recipe.

[00:44:19] And he put it into a GPT, you know, AI in order for him to adjust the recipe for like a different variant.

[00:44:26] And then all of a sudden, somebody went to that later and said, what's a good recipe for, you know, chicken?

[00:44:33] And then the secret recipe, you know, was given to them.

[00:44:35] And I was like, oh my God, that is, it's a funny spoof.

[00:44:39] But like that could really happen.

[00:44:41] Yeah, 100%.

[00:44:42] It's going to, there's going to be some flops like that and they're going to be very painful.

[00:44:48] And that's, yeah, it's also, it's interesting because I think Apple's getting some pushback in the enterprise on their artificial intelligence moves.

[00:45:04] And they're the company who's championed privacy better than most large tech companies on the planet, right?

[00:45:13] And they're getting a lot of pushback for it.

[00:45:16] But there's nothing to stop somebody in a web browser at a company, you know, saying, oh, I wonder if I'll take this intellectual property and put it into chat GPT, if they can give me an answer to this problem relating to that that I'm trying to solve.

[00:45:29] Right?

[00:45:31] Nothing's stopping people.

[00:45:32] Hold on.

[00:45:33] Let me just stretch that just a little bit further.

[00:45:37] Ready?

[00:45:38] So you're starting, I mean, I've seen it.

[00:45:41] Have you, like, even in the lower right-hand corner of my regular computer, there's like a, like co-pilot symbol and like, you know, there's computers, you know, with co-pilot, right?

[00:45:52] Like co-pilot.

[00:45:53] And I was like, what does that mean?

[00:45:54] Like, so like, imagine all of this stuff in your downloads folder.

[00:45:58] And then all of a sudden, this feature gets turned on by default, right?

[00:46:02] And like, it's searching through everything in your computer in order to be able to give you this new AI, you know, response, right?

[00:46:12] Like, did you, like, you probably forgot that you downloaded something and it just sat in this folder that's now indexed, searched, and like, all of a sudden it's like, uh-oh.

[00:46:26] Like, yeah, I mean, that's, there was a Bitcoin wallet that got stolen and they had, uh, maybe it was a Google sheet, um, that was like bookmarked in their browser.

[00:46:38] And the browser got taken over and they just opened the bookmark and copied the Bitcoin wallet key and stole the money.

[00:46:46] It was like millions of dollars.

[00:46:47] I mean, it's like totally insane.

[00:46:50] That's exactly the problem, right?

[00:46:52] Yeah.

[00:46:53] So, so I think part of the, and again, we talked about when things are busy, you tend to be less attentive on things, right?

[00:47:01] We talked about the help desk scenario, but man, what's, you know, like the, the, the digital footprint you're hearing about, well, well, you have all these accounts and social and this and that, and they can create a profile on you, blah, blah, blah.

[00:47:13] I was like, we didn't even get that far.

[00:47:15] Let's just talk about the stuff on your phone and the stuff on your computer.

[00:47:20] Stop.

[00:47:22] Yeah.

[00:47:23] Like there's a lot there that you're like, oh, that's never, that's never going to get out there, but see how easy it can.

[00:47:31] Once somebody, you know, once the system automatically goes through your stuff and starts, you know, basically creating a database on you now, all of a sudden it's a different story.

[00:47:39] Yeah.

[00:47:41] Yeah.

[00:47:41] Yeah.

[00:47:43] Interesting times.

[00:47:44] Absolutely.

[00:47:46] Yeah.

[00:47:46] We'll see, we'll see where it leads us.

[00:47:47] Well, so if anything, again, what you take away from this podcast is the little things ultimately will come back and get you.

[00:47:58] I don't care if it's a front front end or a backend.

[00:48:01] Right.

[00:48:01] And like, I'll tell you right now that if I were to go through everybody's downloads folder, either in their browser or in their computer, I bet you there's stuff there that you didn't even realize is spark there.

[00:48:15] And you probably would be like, well, I don't want that saved.

[00:48:19] Oops.

[00:48:22] Oops.

[00:48:23] Now, like that's the first place to look if I'm the bad guy.

[00:48:26] Right.

[00:48:27] Yeah.

[00:48:27] A hundred percent.

[00:48:28] A hundred percent.

[00:48:29] Bank statement.

[00:48:30] Same with playing around.

[00:48:31] Yeah.

[00:48:32] The bank statements, the, the, you know, the MFA down, you know, like download this as your backup copy.

[00:48:39] If them, if you have to reset the codes or, um, you know, like, or you downloaded like something like a financial statement and an Excel sheet or, um, sometimes right.

[00:48:52] When you, especially with the, like the Yubi keys and stuff like that.

[00:48:56] Right.

[00:48:56] Like they give you like a backup file in case you lose your key.

[00:49:01] Right.

[00:49:01] It's like the backup to your MFA.

[00:49:03] Like that stuff.

[00:49:04] Like you forget all of the stuff that you just, it just parks.

[00:49:09] Yeah.

[00:49:10] A hundred percent.

[00:49:11] A hundred percent.

[00:49:11] A hundred percent.

[00:49:12] So, I mean, you know, if anything, if I was, if I was the, you know, somebody who is on the back end of, you know, I, you know, I don't know if you want to call them the centralization person.

[00:49:23] The person that's managing all the different tools and widgets.

[00:49:26] Yeah.

[00:49:26] Like a net admin.

[00:49:28] Yeah.

[00:49:28] I would be concentrating on those areas that everybody forget.

[00:49:34] And then especially, let me go a step further.

[00:49:36] We talked about AI.

[00:49:37] You're like, oh, George, you know, we're just not going to turn that on.

[00:49:39] It'll come later.

[00:49:40] All right.

[00:49:40] Hold on.

[00:49:41] What happens if your Dropbox, your OneDrive, your box, all these file syncing chair tools are just syncing that up?

[00:49:50] Yeah.

[00:49:51] You hit that when you install it.

[00:49:52] A lot of them say, hey, do you want to back up all your regular folders?

[00:49:54] Yeah, sure.

[00:49:55] And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, wait, I didn't mean that.

[00:49:58] And then your stuff's out there.

[00:50:00] Too late.

[00:50:01] So like.

[00:50:03] This is like just little things like I would be concentrating on those areas now because that's where you're going to get hurt.

[00:50:09] It's when the stuff that you realize is being saved.

[00:50:12] Yeah.

[00:50:12] A hundred percent.

[00:50:13] A hundred percent.

[00:50:15] So anyway, like we could probably go around and around for a while, Gene.

[00:50:18] But like, it's just amazing how for all the sophistication, right?

[00:50:23] We heard about solar winds attacks in the past.

[00:50:26] And, you know, like all these little supply chain got through this, this, this, this, this.

[00:50:30] And it took them a year and they were in the network.

[00:50:32] And it was like, I would say more than 50% of these stories didn't come from that sophisticated angle.

[00:50:40] Yeah.

[00:50:41] An open door, a crumb that led to another crumb.

[00:50:46] You know, it's just like, it's really basic, simple stuff that the bad guys have learned to just look for over and over and over and over and over and over again.

[00:50:54] And like, they keep on, you know, if there wasn't there, they would move on to something else.

[00:50:59] The problem is they keep on running into it's there.

[00:51:02] Yep.

[00:51:03] So like, don't make it easy on them.

[00:51:06] You know, what's that cliche, Gene?

[00:51:09] I mean, I don't have to outrun the bear.

[00:51:11] I just have to outrun you.

[00:51:13] Yeah.

[00:51:14] Right.

[00:51:14] I mean, I know that's not great because I don't want my, you know, friend to get eaten by the bear either.

[00:51:19] But like, don't make it easy for them to get to you.

[00:51:23] If somebody else leave their door open, they're going to, you're going to go down that one.

[00:51:28] Yeah.

[00:51:28] A hundred percent.

[00:51:28] I think the national park Twitter had a pretty fun post about, you know, making sure you go with like friends that are slower than you.

[00:51:36] Yeah.

[00:51:40] They do pretty well when it comes to social media.

[00:51:43] Yeah.

[00:51:44] Well, so, you know, I guess what's the, was it the Wendy's handle?

[00:51:49] Twitter handle was pretty, you know, it was like, you know, I put down some pretty good stuff over the years.

[00:51:54] Right.

[00:51:54] Especially with the spicy chicken sandwich wars.

[00:51:56] Right.

[00:51:57] Between, you know, Chick-fil-A and Popeyes and all those guys.

[00:52:00] Right.

[00:52:01] I think.

[00:52:01] Yep.

[00:52:03] Hey, there's a lesson for you on the marketing side.

[00:52:06] It doesn't always have to be dry guys.

[00:52:09] You can have.

[00:52:11] You can have a little bit of fun with it.

[00:52:13] Right.

[00:52:14] Like just make it.

[00:52:18] Just interesting in a way that doesn't get you in trouble.

[00:52:21] I'll put that out there.

[00:52:22] So I don't get in trouble.

[00:52:24] Exactly.

[00:52:25] Gene, where do people find more information about like traceless and the program?

[00:52:30] And like, if I'm an MSP and I want to learn more, what do I get?

[00:52:33] Yeah.

[00:52:34] Just go to traceless.com.

[00:52:36] We've got a free plan where you can verify your users and your customers for free.

[00:52:41] So there's no reason for anybody who's listening to say, I can't afford a tool or whatever.

[00:52:47] We made it very easy for the community to protect themselves.

[00:52:50] So just go to traceless.com.

[00:52:52] You can get a free verification app integrated to ConnectWise, Autotask, things like that.

[00:52:59] Find me on LinkedIn.

[00:53:00] And if you have any questions about, you know, traceless or MSP land, just don't be shy.

[00:53:05] Or Apple stuff.

[00:53:07] Or Apple stuff.

[00:53:08] Correct.

[00:53:08] Correct.

[00:53:09] Always offer.

[00:53:10] Very few take advantage.

[00:53:11] Very few.

[00:53:12] But I still got to put it out there.

[00:53:14] I'll tell you what, you know, for people who aren't, you know, using Apple on a regular,

[00:53:20] right?

[00:53:20] Like iPhone's a different experience than like MacBook and all that other stuff.

[00:53:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:53:25] But for people who are like, I've run into some people who are diehard, you know, Apple people

[00:53:31] who like just couldn't figure it out.

[00:53:33] And like if you spend enough time and you Google enough, maybe you can get there.

[00:53:36] But man, it sometimes takes a lot of digging to find like a bubble button somewhere in

[00:53:41] a menu that you didn't know existed.

[00:53:43] So I might take you up on that, Gene.

[00:53:46] I might be like, hey man, have you heard of this?

[00:53:48] Reach out.

[00:53:49] I'll do an in-person session with you at Datocon or IT Nation this year.

[00:53:53] 100%.

[00:53:53] Well, and I was going to ask, where are we going to see you?

[00:53:56] Well, you already said Datocon, Miami, and then IT Nation.

[00:54:00] So we're talking about like October, November.

[00:54:03] November, yeah.

[00:54:05] The two big ones for sure.

[00:54:06] Well, I mean, if you're headed to Miami, Orlando, so Florida, if you didn't catch that

[00:54:10] earlier, like I felt like every other event in the sandbox is in Florida for whatever reason.

[00:54:15] I don't know how many times you can do Disney and Universal, but apparently people love it.

[00:54:19] And we'll be there.

[00:54:21] Yeah, perfect.

[00:54:23] 100%.

[00:54:24] Thank you for jumping on again.

[00:54:26] Good to see you.

[00:54:27] Your summer, especially with your three kids.

[00:54:29] I got two in the same age bracket, so I'm right there with you.

[00:54:34] And I'm going to be dragged to Disney, I'm sure, soon.

[00:54:37] And like, that's not my first place to get.

[00:54:40] Whatever.

[00:54:40] Save your money.

[00:54:41] Yeah.

[00:54:42] Hey, I have to work like extra on the side, right?

[00:54:46] I'm going to, you know, go routes or something in order to, you know, make sure I can pay for

[00:54:50] the Disney bill.

[00:54:51] But yeah, so like definitely love keeping in touch with people in the sandbox.

[00:54:55] There's a lot of good community help out there, guys.

[00:54:58] Take advantage of it.

[00:54:59] And I think Gene is one of those people, right?

[00:55:01] I mean, he's, you know, he put it out there now.

[00:55:03] You know, it's like, hey, if you need help, hit me up.

[00:55:05] You know, no credit card needed, right?

[00:55:07] So like, I wish everybody had that.

[00:55:09] Protect your MSP.

[00:55:10] I wish everybody had that mentality.

[00:55:12] I really do.

[00:55:12] So thank you for being part of the, you know, the community effect here in the sandbox.

[00:55:18] It's only welcome and appreciated.

[00:55:21] For everyone else, this session was recorded.

[00:55:24] You know, you'll see it on MSP initiative.com under sessions, YouTube podcatcher, all that

[00:55:28] good stuff.

[00:55:29] Check out traceless.com.

[00:55:31] It was, did it used to be IO?

[00:55:33] I don't know if we've seen it.

[00:55:34] Yeah.

[00:55:34] Yeah.

[00:55:34] We moved to .com.

[00:55:35] Got it.

[00:55:36] There it is.

[00:55:37] Even easier.

[00:55:38] Traceless, the word traceless.

[00:55:39] You just spell it out.

[00:55:40] .com.

[00:55:40] Boom.

[00:55:42] And take a free offer.

[00:55:43] I said earlier, right?

[00:55:44] I don't, you know, like if you don't have something in place, Gene thinks it's more than

[00:55:48] 90%.

[00:55:49] It's a big number.

[00:55:49] Remember, please take an hour out of your day and put a step in place to validate your

[00:55:57] end customers.

[00:55:59] Yeah.

[00:55:59] So important.

[00:56:01] Get it done.

[00:56:02] Trust both of us.

[00:56:04] You will be way, way happier when the next guy gets it and you did it.

[00:56:09] Yeah.

[00:56:10] 100%.

[00:56:11] All right, guys.

[00:56:12] Thanks for tuning into this episode.

[00:56:14] Gene, catch you in Miami and Orlando.

[00:56:17] And yeah, thanks for having me, George.

[00:56:19] Stay tuned for the next one.

[00:56:21] Appreciate it, guys.

[00:56:23] Bye.