We Promoted the Competition and Still Won

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/we-promoted-the-competition-and-still-won/)

If you're having a problem getting people to discover your space, then maybe you have to do a better job promoting the space even when it involves the competition.

This week’s episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast features me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series, and co-host Mike Johnson. Our guest is Zohar Rozenberg, former head of cyber department in the Israel Defense Force, and current CSO of Elron Electronic Industries.

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Reciprocity.

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On this week's episode

Why is everybody talking about this now?

On this podcast we have sponsored guest episodes in which we dedicate a segment of the show for the sponsor to talk about their category. I was just given the heads up by a listener that a competitor of one of our sponsored guests, actually promoted that episode via an email marketing campaign. I asked the community why they thought that happened. Did the company know they were promoting a direct competitor's solution, or were they of the philosophy of let's promote the space. The more people who know about this problem that benefits the entire industry and in turn that helps our competitor and us. Most people on LinkedIn agreed with the latter and actually thought it was a savvy marketing move possibly demonstrating that the competitor was confident with their product.

It’s time for “Ask a CISO”

Tip of the hat to Sounil Yu, CISO in residence at YL Ventures for bringing up Mike's comment in a Slack channel of your frustration with cybersecurity startups who end up having an "us too" attitude towards creating the next cybersecurity solution. It seemed their only credentials was a successful exit, but not presenting a unique solution to an actual problem. You claimed a criteria that you would only meet with a founder who had a committed idea to a product. But how do you differentiate between an "also ran" and a unique solution?

What's Worse?!

One of our most challenging debates ever

Close your eyes. Breathe in. It’s time for a little security philosophy

On our CISO Series Video Chat, Bob Henderson of Intelligence Services Group asked, "Has measuring risk itself become a risk? Since risk is primarily arbitrary depending on who defines the risk wouldn’t the solutions be arbitrary and thus add complexity and uncertainty. Which are contributors to risk."

Let's dig a little deeper

What are the intrinsic training elements of Israel's elite 8200 that results in so many of the graduates going on to become cybersecurity entrepreneurs? What if anything can other organizations, military units or schools learn from this?