Rodrigo: 00:00

AI is not going to take your job, but someone using AI will take your job. history tends to repeat itself. The first challenge is people always resist. Oh, we will not use it. It's always the first gut reaction. Resistance is futile. You're going to use it. Everybody's going to use it. So we have to embrace it and we have to use it correctly.

Intro: 00:32

Are you ready to know what you don't know about Privacy Pros? Then you're in the right place. Welcome to the Privacy Pros Academy podcast by Kazient Privacy Experts. The podcast to launch, progress and excel your career as a Privacy Pro. Hear about the latest news and developments. Discover fascinating insights from leading global privacy professionals. And hear real stories and top tips from the people who've been where you want to get to. We've trained people in over 137 countries and countries. So whether you're thinking about starting a career in data privacy. Or you're an experienced professional. This is the podcast for you.

Jamal: 01:26

Welcome to another episode of the Privacy Pros podcast. Today we've got an amazing guest for you who is a trailblazing CEO and founder of C3 Cyber Connective Corporation. With a sharp focus on AI driven cyber security, he's revolutionizing how organizations tackle cyber threats. Recognized by Microsoft startup founder’s hub, C3 delivers cutting edge insights to the world's top firms, empowering them with real time data to combat sophisticated attacks.

Rodrigo's three decade career as CIO, CTO and CISO for global giants and as a fortune 500 consultant speaks volumes about his expertise. Beyond tech, Rodrigo is the best selling author of Game On, Leaders Who Last, And a dynamic keynote speaker and I’m excited to have him on the podcast today because he's going to reveal as much as he can in the time that we have about the AI powered threats that keep him up at night and the outdated practices Privacy pros need to ditch right now But here's the exciting part.

Jamal: 02:36

We're not just talking about risks. We're diving into how you can use AI to supercharge your career. And we're going to cover three must have skills that will make you an even more valuable asset if you've got your sight set on a leadership role. Rodrigo's sharing his inside scoop on what it takes to land those top roles.

Jamal: 02:56

I'm your host, Jamal Ahmed, award winning global privacy expert and founder of the Privacy Pros Academy, where we're building a community of high performance professionals who empower businesses to adopt honest privacy practices. This episode is brought to you by the Privacy Pros Academy, we're the world's leading provider of practical data privacy education programs for world class professionals. We've helped over 500 people around the world to secure their first privacy role, get promoted and to become industry thought leaders. So if you want a thriving privacy career, get in touch today and to claim your free chapter of my international bestselling book, the easy peasy guide to the GDPR head over to www. bestgdprbook. com forward slash free. Rodrigo. Welcome to the privacy pros podcast.

Rodrigo: 03:45

Thank you Jamal. It's certainly a big pleasure to be here and talk to you and your audience.

Jamal: 03:50

It's an absolute privilege to have you, but before we get started into all the AI, cyber security fun stuff, I want to ask you, what's your favorite holiday destination?

Rodrigo: 04:01

It's a very good question. I have multiple go to holiday destinations. At this moment Tuscany is right there at the top. And I actually hope to be there next month. I'm an avid cyclist and I'm looking forward to riding my bicycle on the hills of Tuscany around Siena next month.

Jamal: 04:22

All right. Well, when you get to the top of the hill, can you send me a picture of the view?

Rodrigo: 04:27

I will do that.

Jamal: 04:28

All right.

Rodrigo: 04:28

That's why we climbed those hills on the bikes is so that we can get to the top and take pictures.

Jamal: 04:34

Nice. I'm looking forward to that. Now, first things first is so many privacy professionals, some professionals in fact. We're so used to doing things and maintaining the status quo that we don't always recognize when rules need to be thrown out and changed. So what old cyber security rules need to be thrown out with the rise of AI?

Rodrigo: 04:54

The rule that I always talk about needing to be thrown out is the complex, long, hard to memorize passwords. I think that is a security and privacy practice that really has to end and has to be changed. I think we've all experienced having to come up with a good password that has 12 characters and symbols and numbers and special characters. And then we come up with one and then in 90 days we have to come up with a new one. And it is really impossible for humans to do that. Obviously there are solutions such as password managers that kind of mitigate that. But one of the cyber security trends that I'm really looking forward and I'm a great believer in is the new password less world. I think that passwords definitely belong into the past.

Jamal: 05:49

Okay. I mean, one of the challenges I have is I'm always resetting passwords because like you said, I haven't committed those to memory. And of course we're not supposed to write them down somewhere and we're not supposed to share them and we shouldn't use the same one in more than one place. And so if I'm using something that I haven't put in my password manager, it doesn't remember, I'm switching between accounts. Then, I always find that I have to spend 5, 10, 15 minutes and sometimes I just can't be bothered to reset the account. So I just forget about it and I won't make use of whatever it is I need to do. So I like what you're saying there, but what's the alternative? How do we have password less world?

Rodrigo: 06:24

You know it's all about the multi factor authentications and the out of bound channel authentications. I think that's exactly where the technology is leading us, where the devices that we have through biometrics will enable you to be authenticated into the different systems. The technology is here already. I use already passwordless technology in the number of sites, Apple has been quite frankly at the forefront of introducing this passwordless paradigm where you essentially go to a website, you need to authenticate with the device that you want. And then that device typically has a biometric way of identifying you. So I believe that those technologies are already here, but unfortunately, as it happens, mostly with technologies, different providers adopt new technology at different speeds, and then they adopt different technologies. So if you are in the Apple ecosystem you do it one way.

Rodrigo: 07:25

If you're in the Android ecosystem, you do it a different way, and then your bank uses neither. They have a different way of doing it. So it's still very challenging. And one of the difficulties is standardizing technology and allowing us to really adopt the standard. But the technology is ready here. It's really a question of us, putting pressure onto our providers, our financial institutions and e commerce to really adopt the standard. And the standards are being developed. And I'm quite confident because the worst possible thing that we can do in terms of security is to make it difficult to adopt, because then people find ways of identifying easy shortcuts. I'm guilty of using password 123 and then the next one is going to be password one, two, four for, and then I add an exclamation point at the end. We've all done it. Let's be honest.

Jamal: 08:22

Yep, you're right. We have all been there. We have all done things that we're probably too embarrassed to admit. So kudos to you for admitting that. One of the biggest problems that we see are from actually hacked passwords. And it's because people can't remember these long complicated passwords. So they write them down somewhere or they use the same one in more than one place. They get hold of it and it causes all sorts of problems. and in my own personal life, I actually prefer when they ask me to use my biometrics or when they say we're going to send you a text message and you just put that text message in and having that multi factor authentication, I prefer that to password. So I'm a big fan of what you're promoting there. Let's hope everyone else catches up and joins on. Now, what are some of the most pressing AI driven threats that keep you up at night? And how can privacy and security professionals prepare for them?

Rodrigo: 09:13

I mean, A.I. has introduced a whole new set of problems and I'm obviously a technology person at heart. My studies is actually mathematics and operation research, but I'm a very passionate reader of history. And history tends to repeat itself. So I always like to think about the challenges that A. I. Is introducing as similar challenges that the internet introduced, you know, 20, 30 years ago, the challenges are very similar. The first challenge is people always resist. Oh, we will not use it. It's always the first gut reaction. Oh, we're not going to use the internet. Who needs the internet? I'm not going to use the cloud. Who needs the cloud? And it's futile. I'm a start track. I'm a tracky. So the board would always say resistance is futile. And that's exactly how I feel about AI resistance is futile. It's out of the box. You're going to use it. Everybody's going to use it. So we have to embrace it and we have to use it correctly. Just like the cloud. So if you think what. Has been done successfully on the cloud and on the internet. You need to think about it, how to apply it to AI. So first and foremost, everybody's going to use it.

Rodrigo: 10:32

It's futile for organizations to say nobody in our organization is going to use AI because it's a time saver, increases productivity. Everybody's going to use it. So embrace it and regulate it. And practical tip, people are going to use it. So make sure that the members of your organization have paid accounts to use AI rather than using free accounts, because the paid accounts typically have security and privacy protections, right?

If you use chat GPT, the free accounts. They will train their large language models with the information that people provide into it. And inevitably people are going to ask questions and make prompts giving in private information. And if you have a paid account, then you can have an account that is not going to use by the providers to train their own language model.

Rodrigo: 11:25

So embrace it, use it because resistance is futile specific to the cybersecurity. Your adversaries and your competitors are already using it. So if you don't use it, then you're going to be behind the curve, not only in facing the cyber threats, but also your competitors. One of the sayings that I really liked about AI is that AI is not going to take your job, but someone using AI will take your job. And people should think about it and organization should think about this and saying, I need to fight the cyber attackers that are using AI and I need to fight my competitors that are already using AI. So use it, embrace it. But , don't do it with free accounts like everybody was doing back in the day where everybody was putting private information and using Gmail accounts for business purposes.

Jamal: 12:22

That makes a lot of sense. And I mean, even in privacy, we talk about, you know, when they're using like SurveyMonkey or something, they just open these free accounts and they just start putting personal information in there, collecting personal information, even the business has no idea. When we do our data mapping and stuff, it never comes up because it's not part of the vendor list. And the reason is because someone's gone and created a free account and they're like, Oh, I don't need to tell anyone. So I love what you're saying is learning from what's come before us. What are the kinds of challenges that we had with the adoption of the internet. What are the kinds of challenges that we had with the adoption of the cloud? And when you look at the themes that you see coming across, those are the same kind of challenges we're going to have, or we are having with AI.

Jamal: 12:58

And the first thing we need to do is just to get away from saying, we're going to stay away from it, we're scared of it because there is no getting away from it. It's going to happen whether we like it or not. And so actually saying, Okay. if it's going to happen, whether we like it or not, how can we get proactive, how can we embrace this and how can we have governance in place to make sure that we are using this responsibly safely in a way that's not harming the reputation of our business, that's not harming the data subjects that we work with, that's not harming our patients, our customers, our employees, et cetera. And that's maybe let's train our people, let's introduce a policy, let's have some kind of organizational measures. So they know exactly how to use these things and even if they want to sign up for a free tool, they should know who they need to go through to get that kind of authorization because we don't know what's going to happen with the data that's going to be fed in. And maybe we need a policy that talks about what kinds of questions and information you can plug into these AI tools and what is actually strictly confidential and you actually can't.

Rodrigo: 13:56

Exactly. I mean, imagine that training people, what a novel concept.

Jamal: 14:02

Okay, great stuff. I like it. Now, how can we leverage AI to become more effective and to advance our careers? What are the skills that we should be prioritizing right now?

Rodrigo: 14:15

I'll tell a small story that I've read in terms of software developers, because obviously, one of the things that are being very heavily used AI is to help and increase productivity on software developers. And one of the lesser known aspects of AI and, ChatGPT and those types of chat based interfaces for AI is that you need to know what question to put to the AI. The AI is only as good as the information that you give it. And the question that you ask, So one meme going out there was in terms of the software developers is, the AI developer will do exactly what they tell them as long as the client knows what they want. We're safe. They're not going to take our jobs.

Rodrigo: 15:07

So that was a very interesting meme because all of us that are professionals in the IT space, we always know that one of the big difficulties is getting what the client or the consumer want and everything that they want so that we can deliver what they want, and it's the same thing with AI and the chat based bots is that you need to provide the necessary information and ask the question in the right way.

So that's the biggest skill is always being able to pose the question in such a way that the AI has enough information. To give you a correct answer. So one of the nascent skills is what's being dubbed as the prompt engineer, which is exactly the people that specialize in asking the questions and knowing how to derive the most value out of the AI.

Rodrigo 16:0

So to put it in a very short way, we need to brush up on our English and grammar skills because that's going to be an important skill on how to do AI and AI also is very general. It's like asking an expert that knows everything on the Internet, a very specific question. So the AI is very broad, but for us to go deep, we need to ask the right sort of questions. So those are the skills in terms of understanding and being able to express into words exactly what we want. And it's a more difficult skill than it seems at the surface.

Jamal: 16:43

That's great. I love the answer so much because one of the things that I teach on the Privacy Pro's Accelerator Program is The quality of your life, the quality of your work is going to be determined by the quality of the question that you're asking yourself. And what you're saying is the quality of the work, the quality of what the AI produces is going to come down to the quality of the prompt that you give it or the prompt that you're asking it. And so the most important skill we should be prioritizing now is actually making sure that our prompt communication skills are actually going to be of such a high level that we can actually make the most out of the AI system or the AI solution that's there. Because if you put a rubbish question in, you're going to get rubbish answer out. If you put a rubbish input in, you're going to get rubbish output out. And so the only way to get Excellent quality output is to give high quality input. And for that to happen, we need to brush up on our communication skills, brush up on our grammar, brush up on our spelling, because unlike a human. Although the AI is supposed to be able to rationalize, it's going to literally take your question or your prompt as you give it to it and try and give you an output based on the patterns that it learns from that. And so if you're asking very generic things, if your prompts are very generic, you're going to get very generic outputs.

Jamal: 17:56

But if you give more specific inputs, then you're going to get more detailed, more specific outputs. And essentially it all comes down to the quality of the prompts that you put into the AI solution. I love that. Thank you. Now you've written an international bestselling book. It's on leadership. So for anyone listening, you can head over to Amazon and you can grab a copy of game on leaders who last. My question for you Rodrigo is there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast and they are at all different stages of their career. So for someone who's listening to you now, or who's listening to us now, Who is aspiring for a leadership role in data protection. What unique skill sets and mindsets do you look for when you're hiring and that you've been sharing in your book?

Rodrigo: 18:45

The book is about adaptability and adaptability for me is the most important skill. And the concept here is essentially what got you here is not the same of what will get you there.

Jamal: 19:01

Right.

Rodrigo: 19:02

I'm trying to say about this is that everything that you've done successfully to get to a certain point of your career are not the same skills that will get you to the next level in your career. And in terms of management, it's always sad when you see, sometimes we look at the great let's say software developer and the skills to be a great software developer are not the same for you to be a software architect.

Rodrigo: 19:34

And for you to be a very successful software architect, the skills to get you to be a great software manager. Again, different skillset. And to go from manager to be a vice president or a C level executive, again, a different skillset. So what I will just talk about is adaptability, being able to not fear the unknown and embrace the unknown, embrace that your career will give you different things and you have to quote unquote reinvent yourself at every step of your career and be comfortable with the situation where I have no idea what's going to happen next. I don't know how to do the next one year of my career. But I know how to learn and I know how to adapt to new situations.

Rodrigo: 20:31

So you need to be comfortable with the unknown to progress throughout your career. So the theme of the book is adaptability and learning how to adapt. Use everything that you learn, acquire new skills, being comfortable with the unknown because career and life itself is all about dealing with the unknown, new situations, new challenges and new skills that you will be needing to use to conquer a new challenge. Otherwise, you will be doing everything the same all throughout your life. And from a philosophical perspective, that's a question that everybody needs to ask themselves.

If you want to do the same thing for the rest of your life and be comfortable, that's perfectly fine. That's perfectly fine. And you need to decide for yourself, do I want to grow? Do I want to progress if the answer is yes, start to be comfortable with the unknown and figuring out the answer for yourself.

Jamal: 21:32

Very profound, very powerful. I love that. So what I'm taking away from that is what you're saying is we have to recognize the path that got us here, the skills that got us to where we are, the things that got us to where we are now are not the same things that are going to get us to the next stage. And if we don't recognize that, then we're going to find that we stay stuck and we stay stagnant and we stay frustrated. And so for anyone who is aspiring to grow and to move What we need to do is adapt. And what we need to adapt to is who do I need to become? What are the skills I need to acquire and develop to move on to whichever the next stage of your career is. And to do that, you have to get out of your comfort zone and step into your growth zone. And a lot of people don't do that because they're scared of the unknown. And what you're saying is we need to embrace the unknown. We need to adapt. We need to identify the skills that we need to develop or to gain. So then we can go into that next stage and you're going to have to do that constantly throughout your career. You're going to have to reinvent and adapt to the new person you need to become, to get to the stage that you're looking to get to. But if you want to be mediocre and if you want to stay where you are, and that's okay for some people.

Jamal: 22:44

Then you don't need to worry about it. But for those of us who really do want to progress and who want to have an impact and who want to leave a legacy and who really want to make a contribution during the time that we're going to be at work, then we need to start saying, Okay. what do I need to adapt? What are the new skills I need to develop? Whatever's got me to where I am right now, doing more of that is only going to keep me where I am for longer, rather than help me to move past this and move on to the next stage. So thank you for sharing that. I really love that. Now we always let the guest ask me a question. So same courtesy goes for you, Rodrigo. What would you like to ask me?

Rodrigo: 23:19

I would like to know from a privacy perspective, you know, I've always felt as a technology executive and as a cybersecurity executive, that privacy is always the stepchild of cybersecurity. Everybody gives a lot of emphasis on cybersecurity and sometimes you forget about privacy. Is that how you feel? Do you feel like a crusader talking about privacy when people are more focused on security?

Jamal: 23:48

It's a really good question. And I think it depends on the level of maturity a business has and which part of the world you find yourself having that conversation in. So for example, around North America, around Europe, around the UK, those conversations tend to be a little bit more mature. Everyone kind of gets it now. We've had privacy laws. We've had lots of privacy challenges.

Jamal: 24:09

We've had really big cases where everyone understand why that matters. When you're going to other parts of the world where they are starting to introduce privacy laws They're still very much fixated on security and they're like, well, we're not a bank Why do we need to have this kind of protection? And I think it becomes very clear to someone when they say hey talk to me about what happens when you go home? Well, you know, I go to my house. I unlock the door Okay. Unlocking the door. What's that? That security stop people from coming in? Yeah, because I don't want people to come and take my stuff. So that's what we have over here. I'm like, but yeah, but then why do you have blinds, on your windows? And why don't you have glass walls? why don't you have one big space? And then even inside those things, why do you have things that other people can't see? Why do you keep them away from people? Why don't you do all of your stuff in public?

Jamal: 24:55

Because I don't want people to see those things. Well, what would happen if somebody saw those things? Well, they could see everything I'm doing. I don't like being observed. They might interfere with my choices. They might disturb me. But I just value my privacy. Well, there you go. There you go. Just like you don't want people to come into your house and you have locks, you still have the blinds, you still have a shower curtain, you still have doors. Even from your own family or the people that you live with, you still want that privacy. So that's what it is. There's harm comes from people coming in and taking stuff away and interfering with it, but also harm comes from people being able to see and observe and interfere and disturb you at the same time.

Jamal: 25:29

So that's what we're trying to achieve here. And then the conversation becomes a little bit more cooperative, shall we say, and it becomes easier to start getting them to see the value in the work that we're proposing and what we're trying to do.

Rodrigo: 25:42

I love that. I love, I love that. And I'm going to steal it and use it.

Jamal: 25:47

You do that

Rodrigo: 25:48

Love it because it is what I think what you're saying is that privacy is you don't want to live in a glass house, even if it's bulletproof glass.

Jamal: 26:02

Yeah, that's exactly it. And the moment you

Rodrigo: 26:04

Very good.

Jamal: 26:05

For people, they're like, okay, I get it now.

Rodrigo: 26:07

You see, we're always learning and I learned a new thing and a new idea, a new concept today.

Jamal: 26:13

I'm so happy you took something away from listening to me because I’ve got so many valuable tips that I’m taking away from you And all of our listeners in over 147 countries around the world now will be getting some value from this So I want to thank you so much for giving up your time to come and share some really valuable tips and tricks, insights and your wisdom with us. We looked at why we need to kind of rethink how we're doing passwords. We looked at the most pressing AI driven threats and how to really understand how we can solve them by looking at the past and looking for similar recurring patterns. About having to lean into privacy and the skills that we should prioritize now is about learning how to write better prompts.

Jamal: 26:53

I think I've actually seen some job titles about prompting to use and prompt training. So it makes sense where that's coming from. And you've also shared the biggest tip. All of us when it comes to our mindset is being open to change and being adaptable, actually being ready to step into the unknown if we want to progress in our career. So there's so many valuable gems and tips that you've packed in there. Thank you once again, folks. If you've been listening, reach out to Rodrigo. We will plug in a link to his book and also his LinkedIn profile for you in the show notes. Until next time, peace be with you.

Rodrigo: 27:28

Thank you.

Outro: 27:29

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