February 26, 2024 • 20 mins
Steve Jones
Steve Jones is a cybersecurity executive with over 20 years’ of experience in the industry. Steve founded Signal Hill to help solve the largest cyber threat challenges facing government agencies, military organizations, and enterprises in highly regulated industries.
Prior to Signal Hill, Steve Jones was an integral part of the team at Blackbird Technologies that provided cybersecurity solutions and operational support to U.S. defense and intelligence agencies. During his time at Blackbird, Steve was contracted to serve as Chief Cyber Architect for the United States Postal Service (USPS). He helped grow the organization’s cybersecurity practice prior to the company’s acquisition by Raytheon.
Steve Jones is a cybersecurity executive with over 20 years’ of experience in the industry. Steve founded Signal Hill to help solve the largest cyber threat challenges facing government agencies, military organizations, and enterprises in highly regulated industries.
Prior to Signal Hill, Steve Jones was an integral part of the team at Blackbird Technologies that provided cybersecurity solutions and operational support to U.S. defense and intelligence agencies. During his time at Blackbird, Steve was contracted to serve as Chief Cyber Architect for the United States Postal Service (USPS). He helped grow the organization’s cybersecurity practice prior to the company’s acquisition by Raytheon.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
M and T Bank Prison CEOs.You should know Howard by Iheartgadia. Let's
meet Steve Jones. He is thefounder and CEO for Signal Hill Technologies,
a local company that helps large enterprisesfortify their cyberposture against sophisticated adversaries. Before
we find out more about Steed's companyand all that it offers, I first
asked him to talk a little bitabout himself, where he's from, and
(00:23):
his origin story. I was moreof Walking Wisconsin, but I moved to
the DC area when I was reallytoo young to remember, so I lived
here my whole life. I grewup in PG County in Maryland, went
to public school, graduated, wentto George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia,
and I've stayed in Northern Virginia eversince. I'm married with four kids
and spent my whole career here.All right, So I think we're going
(00:45):
to qualify you as a lifer ifthat's okay, even though you're from the
Midwest. That's okay, isn't it. We are here to talk about Signal
Hill Technologies a lot about that.But Steve, I know and you know,
when we do this series, we'dlike to give people context because you've
had a quarter of a century ofcybersecurity work that is just tremendous. And
I saw look at your resume.I was just blown away by how many
cool things you've done before you startedyour company almost six years ago. So
(01:07):
for our listener, just give us. You know, out of school,
what did you do? What didyou get into? But I know there
was a lot of cybersecurity where tellus a little bit about that. Well,
I think coming out of college,I had a great education and you
know, a great upbringing, alot of good role models in life,
but I still didn't really have agood sense of what I wanted to do
with my career. I knew itwas big, and I figured that it
would be kind of a vehicle todo what I wanted to do when I
(01:30):
figured that out, and then somewherealong the way, a mentor of mine
gave me a book called The Cuckoo'sEgg, which is a historical account of
a guy who basically is given anassignment at a lab at the University of
California to kind of dig into anaccounting discrepancy on these computer systems, and
(01:52):
long story short, he uncovers hishacker in the network who's been working from
East Germany, and its book coversthe kind of law arc of the story
of how he became aware of thatand how he investigated it, and there's
a lot of technology on the way, but in the end, it's just
a fantastic story and that really justkind of grabbed me, and I think
(02:12):
that that's what really drew me intointo cybersecurity as a as a vocation.
It's amazing how a book, aconversation, or an offense common can get
people interested in something and it turnsout to be the career, isn't it.
Yeah, And obviously I think it'simportant that you you know, you
have to you have to be interestedand fascinated and love what you do.
Otherwise it's really hard to get upin the morning and face it every day.
(02:32):
So I think that's that's kept memotivated, is that, you know,
a lots of things have changed inthe twenty five years or so that
I've been doing cybersecurity, but thatpart hasn't. At the end of the
day, it's it's a puzzle tofigure out figure out it's a mystery.
You know, there's there's someone doingsome something that they shouldn't be, and
you want to help them and preventthem from doing it again. And you
(02:55):
know that's at the core what Ithink a lot of us do a cybersecurity
professionalists. Well, I'm glad youbrought that up, because a common thread
with a lot of our founders andCEOs is the passion for what they do
and then their people. And Iknow we'll talk about that in a little
bit. So in just a moment, I'm going to ask you about your
mission statement and your capabilities and programs, and we're going to get any deep
into Signal Hill Technologies. And Ialso want to hear about the name of
(03:15):
the company because that also got myattention too, and I want to hear
the origin story about that. Butas I talked to people in this series,
Steve, I always want to findout that epiphany about starting their own
company. Obviously, you had alot of experience going into this, and
six years ago when you came upwith the idea for a Signal Hill,
you must have noticed that there wassome kind of branch and opening in the
(03:35):
industry. Were saying, you knowwhat, I think I can come up
with my idea, I can implementthis and I think I might have a
business idea. Tell us a littlebit more about that. I never really
saw myself as someone who would starta company. Was never really a big
dream or goal of mine. Butkind of along the way, I had
been working for a lot of mycareer for a fantastic small company that had
(03:57):
a great culture, and I wasproud to be pardon it was acquired by
a much larger company, a defensecontractor, and you know that happens,
that's that's that's the way the waterflows in this town. But once that
culture started to change and the bigcompany culture took over from the small company
culture, it just became a differentplace to work. And at the time
(04:18):
I was doing work that I loveto do for a customer I love working
for with a team I loved workingwith. The large company took over for
the over small company. Over ashort period of time, that fantastic culture
and what made the small company greatvanished, and I was sad to see
it go. And a lot ofme starting Signal Hill was just trying to
(04:41):
kind of recapture the moment, themagic, to recapture the magic of a
company that's composed of smart, motivatedpeople working on a common mission and motivating
each other to do their best.I find that that's the culture that was
difficult for the large company to maintain, and I had kind of planets aligned
that allowed me to take a chanceon starting the company. I was fortunate
(05:06):
enough to have some of my mostvaluable co workers come with me. But
yeah, essentially that it was aculture thing. It was, you know,
I found it. I found ita challenge to do the high quality
work that we had been doing forthe small company in this larger setting where
the talent was getting lost. Soa big part of why I formed Signal
(05:30):
Hill was really to safeguard that talent, to cater the talent, to foster
the talent right a big company orsmall company. My whole career has been
working on small teams, managing smallteams of technical professionals who are doing complicated,
important things, and I figured thatif we are good at doing that
(05:51):
and we're good at problem solving,we can make a successful company out of
it. There was really no morethought put into it than that is we.
I wanted to continue doing work Iwanted to do for the customers I
wanted to do, and I wantedto work for the work with the people
that I'd enjoyed working with, butI wanted to have some more control over
our destinies. Yeah, and Steve, that's a common theme that we talked
(06:15):
about. People who find their owncompanies and put them together with the people
that are they're in dear two thatthey know are going to knock it out
of the park. But also thatyou can control your own destiny. And
you also had to take a bigleap of faith. I mean that's also
a common theme when we talk toour CEOs and founders. I mean,
you really have to have a hugeleap of faith when you start your own
company because you're running a small businessin America. Whatever you do is just
(06:36):
not an easy thing to do.So I appreciate you sharing that with us.
I do want to talk about themission statement in just one moment,
and then we'll get into program's capabilitiesand we'll get deeper into Signal Hill technologies.
But I know that there is aneat story about the name of your
company. It obviously got my attention. What's the origin story about the name
of the company. Well, it'sfunny. I joke that out of all
(06:58):
the things you have to do tostart a company. Thinking of the name
is probably the hardest, right,right, But you know, Signal Hill.
It's named for a place very closeto my house in Massas, Virginia,
and it's a place from which avery small number of soldiers got on
top of this hill where they couldsee kind of advantage point of a conflict
(07:23):
developing across Manassas. But from thisvantage point, the small number of people
were able to see the troop movementsof adversaries in relation to their friends and
were able to communicate very quickly andsuccinctly and precisely enough information down to the
ground to change the course of theentire the entire battle. And the idea
(07:48):
that you know, just a smallnumber of people with that not just the
vantage point to be able to seethings developing, but also having the experience
to know what these troop movements meant, what are the implications of this,
where are the threats, what's thebest thing to do? I saw that
as analogous to the kind of workthat we do for our clients from a
(08:09):
cybersecurity standpoint. We're trying to broadlyassess their enterprise and broadly assess what they
have and what's at risk and wherethe biggest threats are coming from, and
then how do we help them positionthemselves to do the best they can in
order to defend themselves in a bigpicture of you. That's kind of what
(08:31):
I see as our mission. Well, cool, Well, listen, let's
talk about the company. If youwere to give a thirty thousand foot view
for everybody about what you do,they didn't know much about the company,
what would you tell them that youdo do well? A lot of what
we do. If I talk topeople who don't work in cybersecurity, don't
really understand the space that well,the easiest way to describe it is to
(08:52):
say that we come in on behalfof our customer. They hire us to
come in and basically pretend that we'rehackers trying to break in, and we
do a series of tests and activitiesand figure out kind of where the weak
spots are, and then we workwith them and advise them on the best
way to address those steps. That'skind of the simplest way of understanding a
(09:15):
lot of the work that we've done. However, it's not just sort of
at that technical level of oh,you've got a problem with this web server
for example. A lot of thesolutions require I'm sorry, a lot of
the problems requires solutions that are kindof top down. There are organizational things
that prevent this company from being ableto defend themselves appropriately, for example.
(09:37):
And maybe there's not enough funding,maybe the management doesn't understand how to measure
risk. Maybe all these factors inaddition to technology are at play here.
So I think our strong suit isour ability to kind of work at all
those different levels of the organization andto coordinate across those different parts of the
(09:58):
organization in a cohesive solution. Youknow, Steve. One of the things
as a layman, when I thinkabout your industry, because it's in the
news so often, and not onlyinternationally now with the countries that we have
to worry about, but also domesticallynow, it's really changed the landscape.
And I'm sure you can expound onthat for hours, But to me,
(10:18):
also as a layman, I imagineit's so fluid because technology is moving so
quickly, and now that AI isinvolved, it's probably at a new level
that we never thought it would be, even though we knew we'd get there
somedays. So I imagine that whenit comes to research and keeping up with
everything, your technologies and everybody else, that it never ends because it is
always fluid all the time. WouldI be correct? Absolutely, And I
(10:39):
think that everyone going into it hasto, of course have that expectation.
I'd like to say, you know, if you want to do your job
the same way every day, everyweek, then you know, don't choose
cybersecurity. Obviously, things change allthe time. Technology is constantly changing,
Threats are constantly changing, and it'ssort of a you know a right,
(11:01):
there are certainly things that are constant, and there are certain principles that are
constant. So I think that ascybersecurity professionals, you have to have people
who are willing to put in theeffort to stay on top of the technology
trends, to be open to beingwrong because you know, the best technology
today fails in months. That's justthe way it works. But you know,
(11:26):
you can't have a defeatist attitude.You have to adapt your practices to
account for the fact that technology willhave will have weaknesses. Technology is fallible,
right, It makes a lot ofsense. So that leads me to
my next question, what kind ofchallenges are you specifically in the industry and
your team dealing with right now,Well, I think the challenge of our
(11:48):
industry, there are several. Oneis just the complexity of the technology that
supports an organization, especially the largeorganizations like the ones that Signal Hill typically
works with. It's it's getting verycomplex at a rate that that's difficult for
decision makers to understand. So,in other words, you have a company,
(12:09):
let's say it's a bank, oror a part of critical infrastructure,
you know, any of these largeorganizations where with with kind of it tentacles
all over the place, there's databeing shared, there's services that are being
outsourced. It's very difficult for decisionmakers to understand the vast expanse of threats
(12:31):
that may the vast expanse of thingsthat may threaten their information assets. Right.
So I'd say the other big challengeis simply work for shortages. Right
you read about this a lot.There are there are you know, there's
a shortage of available talent for thecybersecurity jobs that are open now and expected
to come open over the coming years. And you know, we're of course
(12:54):
on the front lines of that.There's demand for cybersecurity everywhere, and there
isn't an supply of of of qualifiedexperienced talents. So so that's that's a
challenge for for our customers. That'sa challenge for us, you know,
for us to do what we dowell, we have to have the best
and brightest people come to work forus. And those people have options as
(13:16):
to where they where they can work. So we need to be attractive as
as an employer and as a asa as a haven for for technical professionals
who are similarly minded in terms ofthe mission and UH and the intellectual curiosity
and kind of the tenacity it takesto to UH to do well at this
(13:39):
game. Speaking to customers, areyou specifically and mostly in the gov con
space or are you working also withprivate people? Who do you work with
and is it just a d mV across the United States or are you
also working internationally. We serve governmentclients including DHS and d O D and
we serve a handful of commercial clientsin the financial search as a sector.
(14:00):
Okay, well, let's talk alittle bit more about the future, because
I know that you and your teamare always looking about what's going to be
next over the next five or tenyears and we've heard a lot about AI.
We don't have to get any deepin that. But when you're looking
at the future, at your industryand with your team, what's up next?
What do maybe you're worried about,what are you working on? What's
up next for your industry? Itprobably sounds silly to say I don't know,
(14:24):
but honestly I don't know. I'dsay that, you know, technology
trends are are cyclical, and sometimesthere's a technology trend that may gain enormous
amounts of attention in the press andthen have less of an impact in how
cyber is actually done. I wouldsay that it's probably difficult to overestimate the
(14:48):
impact that artificial intelligence is likely tohave on the work that we do and
anyone associate with information technology at all. But you know, in terms of
what's in the future for Signal Hill, you know, we're trying to navigate
our own growth. We're doing whatwe do based on our values, based
(15:11):
on our experience. That's all serviceswork right now. Cybersecurity is essentially a
trust sale, right There's technology thatworks sometimes and doesn't work other times,
depending on you man male factors.But at the end of the day,
organizations have to trust the people whoare making decisions on their behalf with cybersecurity.
(15:33):
And you know, trust is somethingthat is built over time through transparency
and visibility and through results. Right, So, our future as a company
is to continue to build that trustwith our clients and with additional clients and
to lose our unique experience and talentin order to develop technologies solutions to fight
(16:02):
the next generation of cyber threats.Well, Steve, I think that's all
well said. And you know,I've seen some very brilliant people at very
high levels, including companies that sayI don't know what is next when it
comes to AI or some of thedifferent technologies. A lot of us just
don't know yet because it is movingso quickly. But I appreciate you sharing
all that and being very candid.I did want to wrap up our conversation
(16:22):
by giving the Florida you one moretime, Steve about the company when it
comes to Signal Hill Technologies and somebodylisting about the last twenty minutes about what
you do and what you offer.What takeaway do you want to have our
listener with today when it comes toyour company? I think cybersecurity is complicated
for non practitioners to understand. Right, But if we draw parallels to what's
(16:44):
happening in cyberspace to what would happenin the physical world, you can imagine
if a foreign adversary invaded our spaceand did millions of dollars of damage to
a US factory, we would betalking about that all the time. It
would be a a major international incident. You know, people would be talking
about that at water coolers and soccergames. If if blue cybersecurity. In
(17:08):
terms of what the US's adversaries areare doing to us, there's a point
of pride there these there are essentiallyforeign criminals and spies who are who are
doing us harm and coming in andtaking our lunch money essentially. So there's
a pride that comes with the workthat we do. We're looking to the
(17:32):
right wrongs and to and to uh, you know, defend what's right,
defend what's good. The pride thatwe feel in the work that we're doing.
We're doing the most important work wecan in support of our customers.
I think that for myself, assomeone who never served in the military,
(17:52):
this is something I feel patriotic about. What fuels this company is the drive
of the people who want to dodifficult, challenging and important work and enjoy
doing the work with the people thatare working with and the reasons for the
endeavors, right, So that's thefuel that keeps us going. I think
(18:15):
that that's the you know, that'sthe wind in the saales, that's that's
propelling us through all kinds of differenttypes of weather and challenges and changes as
technology changes and threats change. Butthat's kind of the constant that that keeps
me going. And and of coursethe support of the fantastic team I have
of professionals who do this do thisjob, well, you're only as good
(18:40):
as your people, Steve, andit's always fortuitous for me to talk to
people like you, because if itweren't for this series, I wouldn't know
about all the incredible things you dobehind the scenes to keep us safe.
And a lot of people kind oftake that for granted. So there's a
lot of companies out there like whatyou do along with your team that keep
us and other people that need betaken care of it and keep safe.
(19:02):
So we really appreciate all that you'redoing. Let's do this. I know
you're looking for the best of thebest when it comes to careers. But
also after people have heard our greatconversation about all that you do, they
might want to partner up with you. They might want to get educated a
little bit more. What's the websitethat they can do all that? Steve?
Sure, so we're at Signal Hilldot Tech That signal like turn Signal
Hill dot tech Tech can find uson LinkedIn and as well. Perfect.
(19:26):
Hey, Steve, I can't tellyou how much I appreciate your time.
I know you're very busy. Thankyou for all that you and your team
doing. We really appreciate you joiningus on CEOs. You should know,
Dennis, thanks very much for endup for having me. Our community partner,
M and T Bank supports CEOs youshould know. Is part of their
ongoing commitment to building strong communities,and that starts by backing the businesses within
them. As a Bank for communities, M and T believes in dedicating time,
(19:48):
talent, and resources to help localbusinesses thrive because when businesses succeed,
our community succeed.
M and T Bank Prison CEOs.You should know Howard by Iheartgadia. Let's
meet Steve Jones. He is thefounder and CEO for Signal Hill Technologies,
a local company that helps large enterprisesfortify their cyberposture against sophisticated adversaries. Before
we find out more about Steed's companyand all that it offers, I first
asked him to talk a little bitabout himself, where he's from, and
(00:23):
his origin story. I was moreof Walking Wisconsin, but I moved to
the DC area when I was reallytoo young to remember, so I lived
here my whole life. I grewup in PG County in Maryland, went
to public school, graduated, wentto George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia,
and I've stayed in Northern Virginia eversince. I'm married with four kids
and spent my whole career here.All right, So I think we're going
(00:45):
to qualify you as a lifer ifthat's okay, even though you're from the
Midwest. That's okay, isn't it. We are here to talk about Signal
Hill Technologies a lot about that.But Steve, I know and you know,
when we do this series, we'dlike to give people context because you've
had a quarter of a century ofcybersecurity work that is just tremendous. And
I saw look at your resume.I was just blown away by how many
cool things you've done before you startedyour company almost six years ago. So
(01:07):
for our listener, just give us. You know, out of school,
what did you do? What didyou get into? But I know there
was a lot of cybersecurity where tellus a little bit about that. Well,
I think coming out of college,I had a great education and you
know, a great upbringing, alot of good role models in life,
but I still didn't really have agood sense of what I wanted to do
with my career. I knew itwas big, and I figured that it
would be kind of a vehicle todo what I wanted to do when I
(01:30):
figured that out, and then somewherealong the way, a mentor of mine
gave me a book called The Cuckoo'sEgg, which is a historical account of
a guy who basically is given anassignment at a lab at the University of
California to kind of dig into anaccounting discrepancy on these computer systems, and
(01:52):
long story short, he uncovers hishacker in the network who's been working from
East Germany, and its book coversthe kind of law arc of the story
of how he became aware of thatand how he investigated it, and there's
a lot of technology on the way, but in the end, it's just
a fantastic story and that really justkind of grabbed me, and I think
(02:12):
that that's what really drew me intointo cybersecurity as a as a vocation.
It's amazing how a book, aconversation, or an offense common can get
people interested in something and it turnsout to be the career, isn't it.
Yeah, And obviously I think it'simportant that you you know, you
have to you have to be interestedand fascinated and love what you do.
Otherwise it's really hard to get upin the morning and face it every day.
(02:32):
So I think that's that's kept memotivated, is that, you know,
a lots of things have changed inthe twenty five years or so that
I've been doing cybersecurity, but thatpart hasn't. At the end of the
day, it's it's a puzzle tofigure out figure out it's a mystery.
You know, there's there's someone doingsome something that they shouldn't be, and
you want to help them and preventthem from doing it again. And you
(02:55):
know that's at the core what Ithink a lot of us do a cybersecurity
professionalists. Well, I'm glad youbrought that up, because a common thread
with a lot of our founders andCEOs is the passion for what they do
and then their people. And Iknow we'll talk about that in a little
bit. So in just a moment, I'm going to ask you about your
mission statement and your capabilities and programs, and we're going to get any deep
into Signal Hill Technologies. And Ialso want to hear about the name of
(03:15):
the company because that also got myattention too, and I want to hear
the origin story about that. Butas I talked to people in this series,
Steve, I always want to findout that epiphany about starting their own
company. Obviously, you had alot of experience going into this, and
six years ago when you came upwith the idea for a Signal Hill,
you must have noticed that there wassome kind of branch and opening in the
(03:35):
industry. Were saying, you knowwhat, I think I can come up
with my idea, I can implementthis and I think I might have a
business idea. Tell us a littlebit more about that. I never really
saw myself as someone who would starta company. Was never really a big
dream or goal of mine. Butkind of along the way, I had
been working for a lot of mycareer for a fantastic small company that had
(03:57):
a great culture, and I wasproud to be pardon it was acquired by
a much larger company, a defensecontractor, and you know that happens,
that's that's that's the way the waterflows in this town. But once that
culture started to change and the bigcompany culture took over from the small company
culture, it just became a differentplace to work. And at the time
(04:18):
I was doing work that I loveto do for a customer I love working
for with a team I loved workingwith. The large company took over for
the over small company. Over ashort period of time, that fantastic culture
and what made the small company greatvanished, and I was sad to see
it go. And a lot ofme starting Signal Hill was just trying to
(04:41):
kind of recapture the moment, themagic, to recapture the magic of a
company that's composed of smart, motivatedpeople working on a common mission and motivating
each other to do their best.I find that that's the culture that was
difficult for the large company to maintain, and I had kind of planets aligned
that allowed me to take a chanceon starting the company. I was fortunate
(05:06):
enough to have some of my mostvaluable co workers come with me. But
yeah, essentially that it was aculture thing. It was, you know,
I found it. I found ita challenge to do the high quality
work that we had been doing forthe small company in this larger setting where
the talent was getting lost. Soa big part of why I formed Signal
(05:30):
Hill was really to safeguard that talent, to cater the talent, to foster
the talent right a big company orsmall company. My whole career has been
working on small teams, managing smallteams of technical professionals who are doing complicated,
important things, and I figured thatif we are good at doing that
(05:51):
and we're good at problem solving,we can make a successful company out of
it. There was really no morethought put into it than that is we.
I wanted to continue doing work Iwanted to do for the customers I
wanted to do, and I wantedto work for the work with the people
that I'd enjoyed working with, butI wanted to have some more control over
our destinies. Yeah, and Steve, that's a common theme that we talked
(06:15):
about. People who find their owncompanies and put them together with the people
that are they're in dear two thatthey know are going to knock it out
of the park. But also thatyou can control your own destiny. And
you also had to take a bigleap of faith. I mean that's also
a common theme when we talk toour CEOs and founders. I mean,
you really have to have a hugeleap of faith when you start your own
company because you're running a small businessin America. Whatever you do is just
(06:36):
not an easy thing to do.So I appreciate you sharing that with us.
I do want to talk about themission statement in just one moment,
and then we'll get into program's capabilitiesand we'll get deeper into Signal Hill technologies.
But I know that there is aneat story about the name of your
company. It obviously got my attention. What's the origin story about the name
of the company. Well, it'sfunny. I joke that out of all
(06:58):
the things you have to do tostart a company. Thinking of the name
is probably the hardest, right,right, But you know, Signal Hill.
It's named for a place very closeto my house in Massas, Virginia,
and it's a place from which avery small number of soldiers got on
top of this hill where they couldsee kind of advantage point of a conflict
(07:23):
developing across Manassas. But from thisvantage point, the small number of people
were able to see the troop movementsof adversaries in relation to their friends and
were able to communicate very quickly andsuccinctly and precisely enough information down to the
ground to change the course of theentire the entire battle. And the idea
(07:48):
that you know, just a smallnumber of people with that not just the
vantage point to be able to seethings developing, but also having the experience
to know what these troop movements meant, what are the implications of this,
where are the threats, what's thebest thing to do? I saw that
as analogous to the kind of workthat we do for our clients from a
(08:09):
cybersecurity standpoint. We're trying to broadlyassess their enterprise and broadly assess what they
have and what's at risk and wherethe biggest threats are coming from, and
then how do we help them positionthemselves to do the best they can in
order to defend themselves in a bigpicture of you. That's kind of what
(08:31):
I see as our mission. Well, cool, Well, listen, let's
talk about the company. If youwere to give a thirty thousand foot view
for everybody about what you do,they didn't know much about the company,
what would you tell them that youdo do well? A lot of what
we do. If I talk topeople who don't work in cybersecurity, don't
really understand the space that well,the easiest way to describe it is to
(08:52):
say that we come in on behalfof our customer. They hire us to
come in and basically pretend that we'rehackers trying to break in, and we
do a series of tests and activitiesand figure out kind of where the weak
spots are, and then we workwith them and advise them on the best
way to address those steps. That'skind of the simplest way of understanding a
(09:15):
lot of the work that we've done. However, it's not just sort of
at that technical level of oh,you've got a problem with this web server
for example. A lot of thesolutions require I'm sorry, a lot of
the problems requires solutions that are kindof top down. There are organizational things
that prevent this company from being ableto defend themselves appropriately, for example.
(09:37):
And maybe there's not enough funding,maybe the management doesn't understand how to measure
risk. Maybe all these factors inaddition to technology are at play here.
So I think our strong suit isour ability to kind of work at all
those different levels of the organization andto coordinate across those different parts of the
(09:58):
organization in a cohesive solution. Youknow, Steve. One of the things
as a layman, when I thinkabout your industry, because it's in the
news so often, and not onlyinternationally now with the countries that we have
to worry about, but also domesticallynow, it's really changed the landscape.
And I'm sure you can expound onthat for hours, But to me,
(10:18):
also as a layman, I imagineit's so fluid because technology is moving so
quickly, and now that AI isinvolved, it's probably at a new level
that we never thought it would be, even though we knew we'd get there
somedays. So I imagine that whenit comes to research and keeping up with
everything, your technologies and everybody else, that it never ends because it is
always fluid all the time. WouldI be correct? Absolutely, And I
(10:39):
think that everyone going into it hasto, of course have that expectation.
I'd like to say, you know, if you want to do your job
the same way every day, everyweek, then you know, don't choose
cybersecurity. Obviously, things change allthe time. Technology is constantly changing,
Threats are constantly changing, and it'ssort of a you know a right,
(11:01):
there are certainly things that are constant, and there are certain principles that are
constant. So I think that ascybersecurity professionals, you have to have people
who are willing to put in theeffort to stay on top of the technology
trends, to be open to beingwrong because you know, the best technology
today fails in months. That's justthe way it works. But you know,
(11:26):
you can't have a defeatist attitude.You have to adapt your practices to
account for the fact that technology willhave will have weaknesses. Technology is fallible,
right, It makes a lot ofsense. So that leads me to
my next question, what kind ofchallenges are you specifically in the industry and
your team dealing with right now,Well, I think the challenge of our
(11:48):
industry, there are several. Oneis just the complexity of the technology that
supports an organization, especially the largeorganizations like the ones that Signal Hill typically
works with. It's it's getting verycomplex at a rate that that's difficult for
decision makers to understand. So,in other words, you have a company,
(12:09):
let's say it's a bank, oror a part of critical infrastructure,
you know, any of these largeorganizations where with with kind of it tentacles
all over the place, there's databeing shared, there's services that are being
outsourced. It's very difficult for decisionmakers to understand the vast expanse of threats
(12:31):
that may the vast expanse of thingsthat may threaten their information assets. Right.
So I'd say the other big challengeis simply work for shortages. Right
you read about this a lot.There are there are you know, there's
a shortage of available talent for thecybersecurity jobs that are open now and expected
to come open over the coming years. And you know, we're of course
(12:54):
on the front lines of that.There's demand for cybersecurity everywhere, and there
isn't an supply of of of qualifiedexperienced talents. So so that's that's a
challenge for for our customers. That'sa challenge for us, you know,
for us to do what we dowell, we have to have the best
and brightest people come to work forus. And those people have options as
(13:16):
to where they where they can work. So we need to be attractive as
as an employer and as a asa as a haven for for technical professionals
who are similarly minded in terms ofthe mission and UH and the intellectual curiosity
and kind of the tenacity it takesto to UH to do well at this
(13:39):
game. Speaking to customers, areyou specifically and mostly in the gov con
space or are you working also withprivate people? Who do you work with
and is it just a d mV across the United States or are you
also working internationally. We serve governmentclients including DHS and d O D and
we serve a handful of commercial clientsin the financial search as a sector.
(14:00):
Okay, well, let's talk alittle bit more about the future, because
I know that you and your teamare always looking about what's going to be
next over the next five or tenyears and we've heard a lot about AI.
We don't have to get any deepin that. But when you're looking
at the future, at your industryand with your team, what's up next?
What do maybe you're worried about,what are you working on? What's
up next for your industry? Itprobably sounds silly to say I don't know,
(14:24):
but honestly I don't know. I'dsay that, you know, technology
trends are are cyclical, and sometimesthere's a technology trend that may gain enormous
amounts of attention in the press andthen have less of an impact in how
cyber is actually done. I wouldsay that it's probably difficult to overestimate the
(14:48):
impact that artificial intelligence is likely tohave on the work that we do and
anyone associate with information technology at all. But you know, in terms of
what's in the future for Signal Hill, you know, we're trying to navigate
our own growth. We're doing whatwe do based on our values, based
(15:11):
on our experience. That's all serviceswork right now. Cybersecurity is essentially a
trust sale, right There's technology thatworks sometimes and doesn't work other times,
depending on you man male factors.But at the end of the day,
organizations have to trust the people whoare making decisions on their behalf with cybersecurity.
(15:33):
And you know, trust is somethingthat is built over time through transparency
and visibility and through results. Right, So, our future as a company
is to continue to build that trustwith our clients and with additional clients and
to lose our unique experience and talentin order to develop technologies solutions to fight
(16:02):
the next generation of cyber threats.Well, Steve, I think that's all
well said. And you know,I've seen some very brilliant people at very
high levels, including companies that sayI don't know what is next when it
comes to AI or some of thedifferent technologies. A lot of us just
don't know yet because it is movingso quickly. But I appreciate you sharing
all that and being very candid.I did want to wrap up our conversation
(16:22):
by giving the Florida you one moretime, Steve about the company when it
comes to Signal Hill Technologies and somebodylisting about the last twenty minutes about what
you do and what you offer.What takeaway do you want to have our
listener with today when it comes toyour company? I think cybersecurity is complicated
for non practitioners to understand. Right, But if we draw parallels to what's
(16:44):
happening in cyberspace to what would happenin the physical world, you can imagine
if a foreign adversary invaded our spaceand did millions of dollars of damage to
a US factory, we would betalking about that all the time. It
would be a a major international incident. You know, people would be talking
about that at water coolers and soccergames. If if blue cybersecurity. In
(17:08):
terms of what the US's adversaries areare doing to us, there's a point
of pride there these there are essentiallyforeign criminals and spies who are who are
doing us harm and coming in andtaking our lunch money essentially. So there's
a pride that comes with the workthat we do. We're looking to the
(17:32):
right wrongs and to and to uh, you know, defend what's right,
defend what's good. The pride thatwe feel in the work that we're doing.
We're doing the most important work wecan in support of our customers.
I think that for myself, assomeone who never served in the military,
(17:52):
this is something I feel patriotic about. What fuels this company is the drive
of the people who want to dodifficult, challenging and important work and enjoy
doing the work with the people thatare working with and the reasons for the
endeavors, right, So that's thefuel that keeps us going. I think
(18:15):
that that's the you know, that'sthe wind in the saales, that's that's
propelling us through all kinds of differenttypes of weather and challenges and changes as
technology changes and threats change. Butthat's kind of the constant that that keeps
me going. And and of coursethe support of the fantastic team I have
of professionals who do this do thisjob, well, you're only as good
(18:40):
as your people, Steve, andit's always fortuitous for me to talk to
people like you, because if itweren't for this series, I wouldn't know
about all the incredible things you dobehind the scenes to keep us safe.
And a lot of people kind oftake that for granted. So there's a
lot of companies out there like whatyou do along with your team that keep
us and other people that need betaken care of it and keep safe.
(19:02):
So we really appreciate all that you'redoing. Let's do this. I know
you're looking for the best of thebest when it comes to careers. But
also after people have heard our greatconversation about all that you do, they
might want to partner up with you. They might want to get educated a
little bit more. What's the websitethat they can do all that? Steve?
Sure, so we're at Signal Hilldot Tech That signal like turn Signal
Hill dot tech Tech can find uson LinkedIn and as well. Perfect.
(19:26):
Hey, Steve, I can't tellyou how much I appreciate your time.
I know you're very busy. Thankyou for all that you and your team
doing. We really appreciate you joiningus on CEOs. You should know,
Dennis, thanks very much for endup for having me. Our community partner,
M and T Bank supports CEOs youshould know. Is part of their
ongoing commitment to building strong communities,and that starts by backing the businesses within
them. As a Bank for communities, M and T believes in dedicating time,
(19:48):
talent, and resources to help localbusinesses thrive because when businesses succeed,
our community succeed.
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