Session 1

Just say, Hey, you know, it's Andrew Morgan. You know, you, some of you might know me from, um, you know, I'll say Andrew Morgan from the cyber call. I'll be moderating a, uh, um, a webinar with the folks from Network, Ken, trip channel Director of Channels, and the awesome Jacob Horn security evangelist from Summit seven. Um, and, uh, Jacob, uh, we'll talk, I'll, I'll kind of frame it out as the CMMC.

Is it the, if I said the CMMC rulemaking has taken into effect, basically gone into effect, is that the right way to sell it? Um, Yeah, that's, uh, that's one way to put it, I guess you could say. Um, it's underway is probably Underway to Ease it, yeah. Is probably the best way to put it. So half of the half of the presentation I'm trying to do in July is just rulemaking 1 0 1, man. It's right. It's fascinating.

'cause rulemaking is, uh, it's is basically how the government works at a fundamental level everywhere, and no one knows how the, how it works. Like rulemaking is a mystery, even in the government. It's a mystery how it works, but it's basically the, the part, it's, it's the real sausage making of government. You Literally took the words outta it. Now, gonna, Nobody, nobody really knows how it works. It's different from agency to agency. It's this black hole and it affects everything.

And everybody's like, what the hell's rulemaking? So, uh, so that's like half of what the presentation even is, is, you know, they don't call it regulation making. And when people are like, it's how they write regulations, they go, oh, okay. So it's weird. It's a weird topic, but very important. Okay. So, and then Ken, what might, um, I'll, I'll, like, I'll let Jacob talk and then let you close out, Ken. So Ken, you know, I know this is really important to networks.

Why, why is this topic so important to you and your clients and people that you work with? Is that good coming? You know, you'll Yeah. Can I, I didn't know I was gonna be on the video, so can I go put on a network shirt so my marketing team is real quick. I'll be Too. Yes, I, yeah, you got it. Um, well, cool. I'm glad you're so Thursday. That's awesome. I'm glad you guys are. Yeah, it should be interesting. Um, you know, I it's worth the call. It's worth taking the, the call, right?

It's, uh, it's like I told John, man, these things never happen in ideal times, but I feel like I at least need to explore what's going on, um, because you'd be a fool not to, but it is, um, precarious timing, right? Because, you know, if this, if this call happened in a year, I'd probably, you know, I Yolo slammed would've said yes because the rule would've been out and everything.

So we're, we're right on this precipice where, you know, there's just, it, it feels like in, in your, in my mind, you're like six to 12 months early, but then you have to sort of zoom out and be like, early for what man? Like, is this a better opportunity or not? So, but it's one of those things, I mean, I've been working on this CMMC DFARS thing now for years, and so when it feels like it's sort of around the corner, you know, you're hesitant to not wanna see it through.

But then again, if something ridiculous comes around the corner, you also gotta kind of snap out of it, right? So, yeah, But I, and I also though think with those guys in their pedigree, I think, I don't, I think they would leverage that for you to Oh, For sure. Yeah, for sure. Um, so yeah, so I mean, that's why we're gonna, you know, I talked to John for like an hour and then, uh, we came back. I came back after the weekend and was like, Hey, we should talk with everybody else as well.

So we'll keep the conversation going and see how it, how it goes from there. So. Awesome. Alright. Ready, Ken? You bet. All right, let's count it down. Alright. Three, two. By the way, does this sound okay or is it echoy? Uh, it's okay. It's not the worst. Yeah, It's fine. Lemme lemme open the door. Hold on. You gotta get sound treatment on those walls, man. Is it? Yeah. No. Is this any better having the door open? It's, uh, it's, I, yeah, I don't hear a difference. It's still a little reverb.

Me Totally the same, but it wasn't bad. No. Lemme lemme uh, Flip your mattress against the wall and talk towards the mattress. Is this any be, is this any better? That's a little Better. A little better or not Still, still not great. It is noticeably better. Yeah. Oh it is? Yeah. Okay, perfect. Alright. How's that? Good? Yes. Alright, let's count us down. 3, 2, 1. Hey everybody. Andrew Morgan, some of you know me from the cyber call.

I'm joined with the very awesome Jacob Horn, chief Security evangelist from Summit seven, and Ken Trip director of channels from NetworkX. I wanted to, uh, do a quick video because on Tuesday, July 19th at 1:00 PM Eastern Time, Jacob is going to give an update on CMMC. And Jacob, I'm gonna hand it to you. Um, the rulemaking or the unknown sausage making and the government for the dib, um, is getting ready to go into the oven.

Is that, is that a pretty good way to maybe hand it to you to Yeah, to everybody Up sausages are About to go into the oven. Yes. Perfect. That we've been slowly turning the crank on the sausage maker for two or three years now and they're ready, they're ready for the other. Yeah. So, you know that we were talking beforehand that, uh, you know, the famous phrase in DOD is hurry up and wait, and everybody had to hurry up.

And then we've been waiting and, uh, the part that everybody doesn't talk about is what do you do once the waiting's over? And that part is the phase we're about to go into. So the DOD has been very consistent in, uh, chirping more and more loudly over the last few weeks and months since the beginning of the year about updates what's coming. And they are telegraphing their policy positions what to expect.

And so the common theme that we see out there is people hesitating and waiting until the contract shows up right in front of their face. And like, we want to let everybody know that is a critical mistake. We can already see what's coming a year before it gets here. There is, uh, uh, a lot to take in, but we're gonna try and provide an update to make sense of all of these pieces of information that DOD has sort of left the breadcrumb trail for us to follow.

So very exciting to try to tie everything together. Yeah, I think what you're saying, Jacob, is if your company handles CUI, if you're gonna, you know, need to be at least A-C-M-M-C level too, and on a contract or as a subcontractor and you don't have your house in order, it's time to really wake up Yeah. And get smelling salts out. Is that, is that a decent way to put it? Absolutely. Yeah.

The, we'll, what we'll do during our update is sort of pull the camera back and show everyone the timeline over the last few years. And when you pull the camera back far enough, you can see the inevitability of what's coming early next year. And the cruel reality of CMMC is that if you wait until it's on your doorstep, you are too late. Uh, and there's really not a lot that anybody can do to prevent that. It's just the nature of the way the regulations have evolved over time.

Um, and that's annoying and not fair. But that's the way the cookie is crumbling. So for people watching the webinar and their clients, it is very important to pay attention to what's happening with the timeline. Awesome. Ken, um, wrapping us up. Why is this webinar so important to networks, to your customers, to companies that are interested in CUI data discovery, data classification? Right.

And you know, what we get, uh, calls every day, uh, from current clients, potential clients, partners that are trying to become RPOs, uh, and play in the space. And it, it boils down to, like you said, CUI and it's really three things. What do I have that's sensitive in this case it's controlled, unclassified information. Where does that reside and who has access? And once they can see that picture and have that visually, it helps them institute the controls of CMMC. Got it.

So in closing, uh, we really look forward to everybody showing up and, and hearing Jacob's update. Again, it'll be Tuesday, July 19th at 1:00 PM uh, Eastern Standard time, and we'll have links in the description of this video below. Take care everybody. Great. Thanks. Awesome. What do you think, guys? That was good. I hope One take wonder Always one, take Nothing like rattling everybody's cage with a smile on your face, right? That's right. We're freaking you out.

But this is a fun problem to have. Yeah, exactly. You're like, the boogeyman is real. So, but it's just, the whole story man is just so insane. It's just so crazy. You know, they, um, they've really done everything possible to try to make it as, as unapproachable as they possibly could, but that was, that's really, and that's what we'll talk about in the webinar, man.

I mean, that's really the trap is that they took 2021 to review what was going on, but instead of telling everybody that they just stopped talking and that caused everybody to go, oh, it's changing, it's going away. It's this, it's that, it's this, it's that. And then they showed up at the beginning of this year and they're like, Hey, it's coming in 2023 and here's all the details. And people had quit paying attention, so now they're banging the drum and no one's paying attention.

So it's just, it's just the perfect storm of, of nonsense. So, uh, so yeah, we'll see. I mean, I, I think it's, it's one of those things where it's not as, uh, shocking to people as it was in 20 19, 20 20, but it feels like more people are collectively aware. They're just not sure of the details. So 2023 is gonna be something, man, I'm not exactly sure what's gonna happen, but it's gonna be something's gonna happen. Yeah. Yeah. And they were delivered the reasons to procrastinate too, right?

Yeah. So they're like, well, That, that conference we're doing in July, I'm really excited for the talk that I'm gonna give. 'cause you know, this whole rulemaking process, they, they solicit public comments and then the DOD by law, you know, every government agency with the DOD by law has to address and respond to every comment that they receive. And that's really how you get the understanding of their policy rationale. Well, those comments are public record.

And so if you wanted to, you could go read all 850 comments. The funny thing is, is that since this is so similar to the rulemaking that was done in 2016 and 2013, that gave us 1 71 and 70 12, we can read all of the current comments, compare it with previous comments and responses, and then anticipate what their responses will be in the springtime a year ahead of time.

Combine that with everything they've been saying on webinars and interviews and this and that, and you know, what the rule's gonna say. So then people say, we see this all the time. They go, we're gonna wait. Like, we're gonna wait until we see what the rule says. And you're like, Hey man, we know what the rule is gonna say. You're, you're wasting time. And you know, they either believe you or they don't. It's, it's a really crazy, it's a crazy position to be in, honestly. So. Very cool.

Well, um, Ken, I will, and Jacob, um, I will get this video uploaded to Dropbox so that both of you have access. Um, but Ken, more importantly, you know, for your, uh, marketing team, 'cause you're gonna, you know, hopefully we, we beat the 1800 last time registered. Exactly. Correct. Yeah. So again, this will, this will, this should, this should uh, rev up your LinkedIn a lot to you, Jacob. Hey, that'd be great. Yeah. I appreciate the opportunity guys.

Um, you know, I, any, anytime that there's a chance to hop on such an awesome platform, it's like I said, it's very humbling, so Yeah. Well, we're excited to, we're excited to have you. Um, Ken, anything before we wrap things up? No, but you know what, um, in between now and then Jacob, if we could grab, you know, 20 minutes of your time Sure. To run you through what metrics looks like. We'll do, we are good News. We are bringing on a, uh, VP of channels.

So we actually will have a person to talk to at Summit seven to manage that. It's been a, a notoriously, something we were notoriously bad at is managing partnerships, uh, and reaching out with everybody. I mean, obviously a lot of my day is dedicated to research. I'd love to get more time, uh, especially once our, uh, new person comes on board, uh, right at the beginning of August, so we can meet between now and then as well. Cool.

But we'll actually have somebody to delegate that to, so That's Awesome. Perfect. Yeah. And just for when the webinar comes, it will never be a product showcase. This isn't a demo, it's really all about you. But what we'll do is just say, here's what it looks like to find CUI with Sure, yeah. Tags that we have and you're like, okay, now that's what they should be paying attention to. And it's all, all the taxon or the taxonomy that Mr. Connor put together for us. So Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah.

And you guys, I mean, yeah. And if, and if Ryan has come through and had passed the smell test, then I don't think there's definitely, there's never gonna be any issues. Right? I mean, that guy is freaking CMC Rainman, so Yeah. Yeah. He created it for us, so, yeah. Yeah, he's great. It, uh, you know, just remind me, it Andrew's right a boom, we took Jason out to dinner, but that was right before he joined Summit seven with you.

So It's been a, like I said, and I apologize, I mean, this happened beforehand as well where, you know, we just didn't have a person to be able to handle that additional tasking and so it kind of fell apart. We, and this is something I talked to Scott about, I'm like, we're missing opportunities here because we don't have somebody to work with Ken and Andrew and all these people who wanna work with us.

Uh, but we have somebody really awesome coming on board, uh, right at, uh, end of July, beginning of August. And, uh, then we can go off to the races for sure. 'cause I wanna make sure you guys get the support and communication that you need as well. Otherwise, you know, sometimes I'll get down the rabbit hole trying to figure out what the heck's going on with regulations, and I don't check my email for a day or two.

So, and you know, Andrew, You can just, you can literally, you literally can just, you're that far down and you don't even Oh, yeah, Some, yeah. Sometimes man, like I'll, I mean, it's, it's one of those things where I've really, cra I'm very privileged in the fact that I don't, I don't work for anybody at Summit seven except Scott. And he basically has just given me a license to go find stuff out, like talk to people, figure out what the whispers are, just know things.

Um, because the way that we phrase it is we're able to answer questions that our clients and potential clients don't know that they should be asking. And so as a result, our advantage becomes when they turn around and go ask their providers those questions, and they don't get good answers, they inevitably come back to us. So it's a very diffused way of doing marketing and sales. Uh, but since I never pitch anything, you know, there's a lot of authority and trust that gets built up. Sure.

A lot of affinity that gets built up. Yeah. That's basically my job is just put your ear to the ground, make friends with people who like to talk too much in DOD and, uh, anticipate what's coming around the corner. So it's, it's really a lot of intelligence work, uh, more than, than anything else, which is, is cool. But, you know, in, in the future, right, once the rule making's done and this ecosystem has started to crystallize, that role will shift into probably something more traditional.

But for the time being, uh, you know, I feel like I'm back at NSA trying to like figure out what the heck's going on out here. So you got people, I'll get dms and stuff from people that are like in DOD or they're in wherever, and they'll be like, Hey man, like you should, you know, check this out in a week and stuff like that. So it's just a, it's a, it's just a cool, it's a cool spot to be for now, so That's awesome. Yeah. Cool.

And I mean, and who the heck has time to figure all this stuff out, right? So it was, Scott was very forward thinking in that, where he's like, just go, just go read all that stuff and, uh, let me know what it says because that's, that's really the problem. It, that's what Ryan does too, right? We just, we always used to say when I was at Def cer, we just, we just out read everybody. And so as a result, it's an advantage. Awesome. Too funny. Alright, you guys have a fantastic afternoon. Yep.

Thanks guys. Thanks everyone. Take care.