UnHacked - Cybersecurity Made Simple for Small Businesses

Justin Shelley (00:02.894)
I can't.

Justin Shelley (00:11.416)
Did you guys ever do headbanging and s and how does that make me old? I don't did you as a kid? No, I was like, wait, and then I'm then I'm immediately thinking, wait, I think that means I'm old because I don't think they anybody does headbanging anymore. I don't know. Okay. It's really fun to do when you're bald.

Joshua Holloway (00:15.796)
Wait, wait, do we ever or did we ever stop?

Joshua Holloway (00:25.073)
no, I still had bang. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mario Zaki (00:31.147)
I I I have a big head, so I do it for like two to three seconds and then my neck starts hurting, so

Justin Shelley (00:35.98)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (00:36.18)
It's more of a weapon at that point.

Justin Shelley (00:38.574)
Give yourself a concussion. Jesus. Welcome everybody to episode 100 of Unhacked. Guys, we made it to episode 100. That's it. Show's over. See you next week. Peace out. That's that's really honestly what I want to do. guys, I've been saying for a while now that we're gonna make episode 100 huge. We're gonna do something really cool. And I really wanted to. And I kept like trying to get AI to help and Google and every other source of inspiration.

Mario Zaki (00:38.583)
Ha ha

Mario Zaki (00:52.403)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Holloway (00:53.468)
Bye bye everybody.

Justin Shelley (01:08.404)
And the only thing that I heard that really stuck was people saying, dude, nobody cares. Nobody cares. You're the only one that gives a shit. The creator. your audience doesn't care what number it is. So here's the plan though. We're gonna go around, do our normal quick introductions. probably nobody cares about those either, but we're gonna still do them because I like And then we are just gonna kind of shoot the shit today. And really what I wanna do is, you know, Josh, you're the you're the new kid on the block, so this will be a little bit different for you, but

Mario Zaki (01:13.609)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (01:35.995)
Absolutely.

Justin Shelley (01:38.207)
Mario and and myself, like what is it that you are surprised about having done a hundred episodes of Unhacked? And Josh, in your short tenure, is is there anything that you've learned, anything that shocked you that you didn't expect? how are you better or smarter for or dumber, I guess? I don't know, for having hung out with us bald guys for for a few Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm just I'm just Jesus, just give me a second, Mario.

Mario Zaki (02:01.159)
Well well, intros first or no intros?

Joshua Holloway (02:05.172)
Just just propping it up. Propping it up.

Justin Shelley (02:06.894)
Good good God, good God. anyways, Mario's on vacation. He can't he like he can't behave himself today 'cause he's not in the office. Still in Egypt, where he was last week. are you ever coming back, Mario?

Mario Zaki (02:18.587)
I am unfortunately I am I'm on the tail end. I will be leaving here Monday, probably right before this airs. so the next episode I will be back in beautiful New Jersey. which is very never nobody. exactly.

Justin Shelley (02:28.62)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (02:34.1)
Wait, has anybody ever said that the same sentence, beautiful in New Jersey? It

Justin Shelley (02:36.076)
No, no, nobody ever does. Except for Mario. And he's just stealing it from Brian.

Joshua Holloway (02:43.23)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (02:45.358)
Who's not here? God damn it, Brian. Where are you? all right, let's do some introductions. And we're gonna go most hair to least hair in that order, which means I guess Josh me Mario, because I've got more hair than you, Mario. Least down south, down on the beard. I

Joshua Holloway (02:54.462)
Well I w I

Mario Zaki (02:58.513)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (02:58.784)
Well, on that note, I'm Joshua Holloway, I'm the CEO for 70i Technologies out of sunny or beautiful California, the Sacramento region with an office in Rito. we're an MSP that primarily focuses on businesses who are constantly being controlled by compliance and they feel like they can't do anything without having to write a policy or a procedure.

Mario Zaki (03:02.449)
I'll take it.

Joshua Holloway (03:22.942)
We're the guys that help you get back to work and we write those policies and procedures to make sure that from a technical level, you're following them.

Justin Shelley (03:31.343)
Okay. that's me. I was like, Mario, you're next. I have more hair. That's a sentence that's rarely used about me. Anyways, I am Justin Shelley, CEO of Phoenix IT Advisors. And I I help people use technology to make more money and then protect that money from the greedy attorney I'm going in the wrong order. The greedy attorneys, the government who gets the all the compliance shit that Josh just talked about, and and then those Russian hackers that are gonna come and steal it in and maybe not in that order.

Joshua Holloway (03:34.12)
Yeah, you you have more hair.

Justin Shelley (04:01.196)
That's what I do.

Joshua Holloway (04:01.352)
And no d don't forget those insurance companies that want to deny your claims.

Justin Shelley (04:04.972)
That's that's the new one. That's the new one. We actually talked about that last week when you weren't here. Were you here last week, Josh? No. Yeah. Anyway. You were in an airplane. So all right. Mario, I think that's your turn.

Joshua Holloway (04:10.927)
I was not.

Mario Zaki (04:11.196)
No Hill.

Joshua Holloway (04:13.575)
No. I was in an airplane.

Mario Zaki (04:21.253)
Yeah, so Mario Zacki, CEO of Mastec IT, located right now in sunny E Cairo, Egypt. it's actually pretty dark out right now, but it's it was sunny all day and has been sunny for the last couple of weeks I've been here. but owner of Mastec IT headquartered in beautiful New Jersey, right outside of New York City, helping small to medium sized businesses stay safe.

You know, compliant and make sure that business owners are able to sleep better at night, knowing that their businesses will be there the next day and protected from the hackers, the AI, the agent you know, the lawyers, everything these guys mentioned, you know, same thing. Just located on the other side of the US continent.

Justin Shelley (05:10.726)
Or the or the globe, as the case may be.

Joshua Holloway (05:12.104)
Yeah. Well right now the globe

Mario Zaki (05:12.275)
Yeah. But I'll tell you this here, nobody gives a shit about technology. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (05:19.471)
really?

Joshua Holloway (05:23.572)
So you haven't had really deep, meaningful conversations about artificial intelligence?

Mario Zaki (05:27.963)
N not I I've talked to a couple of a couple Uber drivers and they're like, Yeah, I haven't touched the computer in about like you know, eighteen months or I'm sorry, eighteen years, you know, 'cause they're all like retired just drivers now. They're like, Yeah, w we w we don't really do that stuff around here.

Joshua Holloway (05:45.63)
Wait, is that something we can look forward to? Is like we retire and then we don't have to touch a computer ever again? Whoa. Whoa.

Mario Zaki (05:52.273)
Yeah, yeah. I mean if you want if you like driving you can sit there and drive Uber.

Joshua Holloway (05:57.929)
Yeah. Might I have to do that.

Mario Zaki (06:00.915)
I'm gonna when I retire I'm coming here and just hanging out on a beach and just shooting the shit.

Justin Shelley (06:07.49)
I'm gonna mute mute both your L's mics. What the hell are we doing? This is a technology show. We're not gonna sit here and talk about how we hate technology. Good God.

Mario Zaki (06:13.235)
Ha ha ha ha.

Joshua Holloway (06:13.692)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (06:16.605)
Well come on, when we s first started technology we had hair and then we just started pulling it all out. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (06:20.522)
Ha ha.

Joshua Holloway (06:22.514)
Yeah, luck lucky mine keeps growing back for now.

Mario Zaki (06:24.659)
Well, for s you know, you've only been on the on the show for a few episodes, so by the you know, by our two hundredth you'll probably be fitting right in.

Justin Shelley (06:32.748)
Yeah. It'll be gone. It'll be gone.

Joshua Holloway (06:34.632)
Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's a high possibility of that. Because I mean, shoot guys, you guys hit a a hundred episodes. I think that's great. I'm I've been here thirteen, fourteen episodes. Yeah, I I think it's been awesome being a part of this. I feel like I've learned a lot and I don't know, before the the start of the show I kind of did a couple of quick little researches and you know your guys' podcast about I know we typically go up to about an hour, we talk about a lot about a things, but average is thirty eight to forty three minutes.

Justin Shelley (06:45.613)
Yeah, about that.

Joshua Holloway (07:04.604)
and then you you guys realize that not many people make it past like seven to ten episodes.

Justin Shelley (07:10.518)
I I was not aware of that, honestly.

Mario Zaki (07:13.969)
Really?

Joshua Holloway (07:14.128)
I yeah, I th I think it's amazing. I be so I have a a micro podcast that runs three to seven minutes and and it really is just about teaching, right? And I I work with my marketing team and we do it and I mean it's it's a bear just getting it out every week. And it it is an absolute bear. So like I I commend Justin on this one, I commend all the guys. I know Brian's not here, wish he was here today, but like it's awesome for you guys to make it to a hundred in a

Justin Shelley (07:20.214)
Okay. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (07:29.74)
Yeah. It it's a grind, yeah.

Joshua Holloway (07:40.762)
I I and I on that note I wanted to tell you guys that about thirteen percent of all podcasts reach a hundred episodes. So you guys are in that top thirteenth percentile.

Justin Shelley (07:53.24)
Well, I don't wanna brag, Josh, but I think that's the thirteen percents for fifty episodes.

Joshua Holloway (07:57.363)
you know what? Yeah, I think you're right. You're right. Yeah. So you y it's even lower. Six percent, right? Yeah.

Justin Shelley (07:59.065)
Yeah. It's like six yeah, I think it's like six that get to a hundred. So you know, I don't I don't wanna brag, but yeah

Joshua Holloway (08:05.81)
I mean d go go go ahead and dust off. I'm like I'm at thirteen or fourteen, so I have a ways to go to get to fifty, you know, and then I'll be in that thirteenth percentile.

Mario Zaki (08:12.753)
Well well the question is the question is how many of actually get to one one? Because you know, we still we still haven't hit that much.

Justin Shelley (08:12.886)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (08:19.266)
We're done. It's it. We're it's this is over, guys. This is that's the big announcement. Podcast over. I'm I'm retracted. You know what? I actually I I used to have moments where I'm just like, I this is a grind. It's I've got a job, you know. I don't know if money knows this. I have a full-time job running a business and putting together a podcast, coming up with something to talk about every every week on a subject that let's be honest, this isn't the funnest.

Joshua Holloway (08:23.348)
You better retract that statement real quick.

Justin Shelley (08:48.032)
most exciting subject in the world. super important, but it it can be a grind. So there have been moments where I'm just like, do I really want to do this? what I will say, having gotten this far, is it does become significantly easier. This is I can largely just show up and throw up and maybe it's obvious, maybe our content's not great. I don't know, but it it takes way less planning than it used to once upon a time. So

Mario Zaki (09:13.989)
See I see Justin, I I I to me I actually feel the opposite. I'm gonna disagree with you. I I think for me that that time slot that we block out and you know, I know sometimes we have to move it around or or whatever, but I have ti you know, I look forward to our recordings. I I feel like it's one of those rare times where I can sit there, close my office. it

you know, close my emails, close my teams because half of the time, you know, Riverside isn't working correctly. So I have to close all those stuff. And I I kind of enjoy it. I enjoy just the kind of just shooting the shit. and, you know, kind of just it really I really kind of just block out everything. And it's ha for me it's very rare where I get to really do that. So I actually enjoy it. I I I I look for it's like one of my favorite times during the week that

You know, I can really kind of just block out everything and just shoot my shoot the shit with a couple of my friends.

Justin Shelley (10:12.738)
And you've said that before, and I actually really like that that's how you feel because otherwise I'd feel super guilty. Cause I tried this one time. I did an episode by myself. Guys, no bueno. I I I need to be able to talk and interact. I, you know, I I don't bring solo energy. Yeah. And a lot of because I'm trying to read the outline, you know, that I wrote for myself while I'm like I've got nobody to stall for me. yeah, it was not good. So

Joshua Holloway (10:28.136)
Did you have a lot of cricket sounds in the background? Like

Mario Zaki (10:30.651)
Mm.

Mario Zaki (10:38.419)
Mm.

Justin Shelley (10:41.078)
All right, let's do this. Let's get started. I want to know what it is that has I don't know, what have what have you gained having done this podcast? And Josh, I'm gonna start with you having been here the least amount of time, but feel free to bring in your other work because I know you've done some other podcast webinars. You do a lot, actually. You haven't been on this show the whole time, but you've got a lot of content out there. So tell me what is the thing that you've learned or the thing that has surprised you the most having

Joshua Holloway (10:55.774)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Shelley (11:10.22)
Together all this content.

Joshua Holloway (11:12.02)
You know, a couple of the first things that I learned is that it's definitely better to do it with multiple people than by your by yourself. I do I do webinars. I do those by myself. Every once in a while I invite you know, somebody from our channel, right? Some somebody who we buy software from or use their software or they're want to talk about their software. So I'll bring them in. And that's fun. And the cool thing is is like recording with you guys, there's never been where

the conversation feels off, or maybe you don't quite know the other person on the other line, or so you're trying really hard to like figure out something you deal with anytime you guys have a had a guest. I started out as your guest and kind of like like recently segue. but hopefully there was never like, man, like we don't know what to talk about or how to get this guy to interact. Now I've had a webinar where I thought I was just gonna cancel it midway because it was pulling teeth, trying to get the guy to talk about his product and and talk about like how it could help.

It and we did we typically like to do one to two meetings before and kind of I want to see if I can jive with that person and figure out their personality. and one was so bad that I was I was like spoon feeding him data of his own software. And he's like, I've done this all I do this all the time. I've I've I've been on, you know, multiple webinars, pulp podcasts. It was it was horrible. Now with that being said.

Never experienced that here. And I'm kind of looking forward to us adding you know somebody to interview because I'm kind of curious how all of us you interact with that versus just me and that person. the other thing I learned is it's great to commingle information with guys in our industry. We we talk about a lot of different things. We run in, we also have very different perspectives. You know, one of the biggest things recently that I learned was.

Brian's perspective on how he was vibe coding and writing his software and can containerizing it, not just at a Docker level, but like building individual modules where I sat back and I thought about that and I thought about the security aspect of it. And then I started building an app for our team and I went that whole direction where everything is mo module based, heavily containerized. I've spent more time

Justin Shelley (13:21.98)
really?

Joshua Holloway (13:29.716)
planning and executing and testing that thought process in the last two weeks. to where we even ha we haven't even wrote the base of of that portal. It's just been making sure that the security's in place, double checking it, running it through just like smoke smoke simulations. And the goal is to make a a super secure or as secure as possible, you know, solution. So when I hand it over to my staff,

I don't have to worry about that as much. But also I want to hand it over to where maybe somebody gets super smart and they they have this idea and they want to build their own. So, you know, like that's one aspect. and that one comes to mind, you know, r right off the bat. And that that was one of the ones I wanted to hit on on what I learned. Now we haven't gotten into any other like a lot of other topics other than artificial intelligence. Obviously, that's a huge topic with us right now. AI. We we've talked about in in depth about sandboxing or

Justin Shelley (14:01.09)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (14:29.458)
the the AI that broke out out of the sandbox, which I think has been a good conversation between all of us just because of the different like the different aspects or how each one of us viewed it breaking out and then where one of us may have like hung on to the fact that it just sat there just banged away on the firewall 17,000 times. You know, like a lot of different aspects of that. So it's so it's cool to hear the different perspectives rather than like our own technical echo chamber, if you will.

I really I really appreciate you guys for that because I I walk away from these podcasts and I'm sure you do too, where I felt like I've learned something. I felt like I've hopefully shared some knowledge where somebody remembers something that any one of us has said where they look at their business a little bit different or a security thing, or if they did listen to it, they stopped and they hit up their IT guy and said, Hey, are we doing this? And can you show me proof?

You know, like it's it's that possibility to educate. And that's what I I love the most is I I feel like through education we could build, you know, you know, better people, better better businesses, stronger, more secure. so that's kind of my perspective.

Justin Shelley (15:38.754)
Yeah, I I like that. Mari, I'm just gonna punt it right to you.

Mario Zaki (15:43.858)
Yeah, I mean I I don't think I've been with with you f for the whole like from episode one, I think I came in somewhere, maybe around the teens. Okay. Yeah. and we we've gone through, you know, a lot of stages together. You know, we've went from just coming up with topics and we've you know, we've transitioned to guests, which we've had some great guests on the on the on the show.

Justin Shelley (15:52.396)
I think it was like seven. I mean it's it's been most of it.

Mario Zaki (16:14.061)
we've had some that weren't as great and I you know, some of actually didn't even I remember a handful didn't even make it to to to the actual air. you know, after a a couple episodes, I think Justin would always ask me, like, so what did you think? And I'm like, yeah, it was good. I think we viped together, you know, it was really good. And then there was like a f like one or two were like he didn't even ask me, he's like, Yeah, this shit is not gonna air. I

Justin Shelley (16:39.884)
What? I don't even remember that. What

Mario Zaki (16:42.563)
I I I re I remember I remember like one or two you're like, Yeah, I'm not even posting this, forget it. You know, don't worry about it. It was it yeah, it

Justin Shelley (16:47.31)
I don't I don't remember that. That's funny.

Joshua Holloway (16:51.548)
That's actually that's a good thing to hit on for for people. They you know, they understand in the background, like some of this gets cut onto the floor, like the cutting room floor exists for a reason.

Justin Shelley (16:54.424)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (16:59.847)
Yeah. Yeah. But it was is it was exactly like what you said, Josh. and and again it didn't happen too much. I think it happened once, maybe twice. it just it was it was like pulling teeth to try to get information from from the person and I think maybe the other person it was like the exact opposite. He wouldn't shut the fuck up. You know, he you know, he was just rambl he rambling and rambling and rambling and then me and me and

Justin Shelley (17:01.804)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (17:20.792)
yeah.

Mario Zaki (17:26.087)
Justin, we we we almost looked at each other through the camera like, is this gotta is this guy yeah, is this guy gonna stop talking? You know? And it it really was just his show and we we did our intros and our outros and that was it. And Justin's like, Yeah, we we can't we can't air this. You remember that?

Justin Shelley (17:30.563)
The fuck.

Justin Shelley (17:43.203)
I remember that one. I I actually thought that was a different different podcast, a different show. Cause I've got a couple that I run simultaneously. And yeah, I forgot that you were on there with me, Mario. But that was my god, that was the worst experience I've ever had with a guest. It was terrible. And it was it's not just that he wouldn't shut up. If you remember, this is a show about technology and cybersecurity. And he has owned businesses and consulted with people and and whatever, allegedly.

Joshua Holloway (17:50.612)
It probably felt like that.

Mario Zaki (17:55.664)
Yeah, no

Justin Shelley (18:12.528)
I don't know if any of it's true, honestly. But when I would try to talk to him about technology or cybersecurity at all, he'd get kind of quiet. He'd look in the camera and he'd go like, I don't know. That's not my business. That's not what I do. Like, bitch, you came on my podcast knowing full well what the hell we're here to talk about. And and all he wanted to do was ramble about how amazing he was. Like, that was that was terrible.

Mario Zaki (18:28.818)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (18:33.755)
so that's all he talked about. It's just like his accomplishments, not necessarily

Mario Zaki (18:36.275)
I I I I don't know. I stopped I stopped listening because and yeah and he he tried like after after we stopped he tried to like get us to sign up for like his like whatever or like I'm like Yeah. I blocked him. Like I think he texted me and I blocked him. I'm like, Yeah, forget it. This guy

Justin Shelley (18:39.703)
His coaching business.

Joshua Holloway (18:41.716)
Well.

Justin Shelley (18:42.754)
Yeah, yeah.

Justin Shelley (18:49.516)
Yes. The whole thing was a sales pitch to us. It was terrible.

That yeah.

That was the moment I started really screening guests because initially this was one of our first guests and I was just like, anybody that wants to come on, I'm you know, almost like that desperate kid. what you want to be on my show? Yes, please. that that's that changed real fast. Ugh. Now I've all PTSD.

Mario Zaki (19:16.061)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (19:16.222)
Well let me let me ask you this question, guys. Have you ever finished filming and wondered if that person just like got off the the line and they're like, This was a waste of my time. Why did I do that?

Justin Shelley (19:25.602)
Why did I do that? No

Mario Zaki (19:30.053)
No, I I I think we we're pretty damn good.

Joshua Holloway (19:31.592)
That's that's awesome.

Justin Shelley (19:32.927)
I was gonna say, like I don't want to brag, but no, I th I think for the most part people have appreciated being on here. And and usually they're here the it's a free platform for them. They're they're promoting something in some way, you know. So I think people everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame. and we get literally tens of downloads, you know, like we're we're famous. Just kidding. We we are in the thousands, I'll I'll say that much, but

Mario Zaki (19:34.951)
Mm.

Joshua Holloway (19:54.524)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (19:58.005)
Yeah, you know be funnier if it if it was tens of downloads, we would all have to be like, My my mom's downloading it, I'm downloading it.

Justin Shelley (20:05.164)
Yeah, exactly.

Mario Zaki (20:08.123)
I have I have my my Android, my iPhone, I have my tablet

Joshua Holloway (20:11.826)
Yep. I I will I will tell you one thing though. today I have a potential a new client meeting and they wanted to meet right at filming time. And I was like, I was like, I want to meet with you. Love to talk to potential new logos. I said, but I'm filming a podcast. And this is not the first time that this has happened. And I wanted to hit on this one. And and another reason why I like being on this is contributing knowledge and then

Justin Shelley (20:14.262)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (20:30.755)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (20:40.198)
Also, it kind of helps build up our brand. Like we're able to get on here and talk for for an hour. And when I said, Hey, I have to film for a podcast, it usually runs for an hour, hour 15 minutes. If we really get talking, like, let's go a max hour and a half. She just went, you're on a podcast? And I was like, Yes, yes, I so so it's like this cool little thing where you're like, Well, yeah, you know, do a podcast. And it has come up a couple of times. And they're Well, where can I find you? So, you know.

Mario Zaki (20:59.154)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Holloway (21:06.214)
One of the things I did is I don't know if you guys have the the electrical the electrical business cards. Just like we have physical business cards, you have like a dot card. So I recently went out and, you know, like I have one of those, so I run around with it and on there I made sure to put, you know, the the the podcast. So when people look up all the information that they have all these different opportunities to find out about my business, what I do, where they can find more information. And this is a platform that we get to share that that possibility with people.

Justin Shelley (21:15.245)
Mm-hmm.

Mario Zaki (21:37.234)
Yeah, I actually to I'm sorry to add on to that, I actually have a funny story. I I was interviewing a senior technician and you know we you know I I gave him an offer and you know it w it went well. He can't you know, he was telling me he was com you know, between us like us and another MSP, like not too far from us. And he was, you know, really good guy and you know, we talked even like like

Justin Shelley (21:37.326)
I'm gonna

Mario Zaki (22:05.893)
Upped my offer a little bit because I was really interested in bringing him in. And during one of our interviews, you know, he he was telling me he was discussing it with the significant other. And she she asked him for like my name, and then she asked him for the other person's name. And one of the bigger this like from what he told me, he's like one of the bigger decisions that made him want to come to me, to my company, is he's like.

you Google Mario Zaki and you find out you you know, you see a lot of things about him. You see podcasts, you see, you know, different, you know, videos and stuff like that. You Google the other person, nobody knows anything about him. She's like, this company, you know, this owner wants to get his name out there. He's involved, you know, he's knowledgeable, whatever. And the other guy, you know, he's he's not there. And and

one of the things that he said he's he watched a couple of our podcasts and he loved how, you know, we were were kind of working with the community, doing more, you know, s you know, give backs and and extractions and stuff like that as well. And he really enjoyed that, you know, and he he's been, you know, he he's very involved with my company now and, you know, i it he has helped you know, with AI and stuff like that. But he really this podcast has helped not only just

you know, with customers and stuff like that that that have seen that, but even employees or potential employees that helped ha has helped us as well because of this.

Justin Shelley (23:40.959)
You you're lucky to have a unique name that you can get good SEO on. unfortunately, I've got some people that are way more famous than me with my exact name and exact spelling. And it there's like a goddamn massage therapist, Justin Shelley. I'm like the fuck? The fuck

Mario Zaki (23:46.717)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Holloway (23:52.562)
Same

Mario Zaki (23:53.853)
Ha ha

Mario Zaki (23:57.94)
Yeah, you should do that too.

Joshua Holloway (23:59.989)
Well your goal sh your goal should be to be more popular than a massage therapist, bro.

Justin Shelley (24:03.278)
I I I you what right? And that shouldn't be that hard. God. All right. I am gonna say here's here is my I love the I overuse the term key takeaway. but here's my key takeaway after a hundred episodes. I will, you know, in in full disclosure, when I started doing podcasts, it was for exactly one purpose. And it was it was what one of you talked about, maybe both of you, which was to build trust. It was I wanted to build

Mario Zaki (24:06.909)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (24:31.36)
Marketing content that I could reuse across multiple channels. And it was just an easy way to do it. It it felt natural. It was COVID. So everything was locked down. You couldn't go out and do real events, anyways. which actually where I started was live events. And then I switched to podcasts during COVID. but once I started doing it, what the the biggest surprise for me was I no longer trust myself to run my business if I'm not doing this podcast. Because we get out there, and I say this a lot, like,

We all claim to be cybersecurity experts. There is no credentialing for that. There is no third party validation, verification that any of us know what the hell we're doing. And to be quite frank, most of us don't. And as as smart as I thought I was when I started the podcast, a hundred episodes in, I know shit I didn't even know I didn't know. I like I I've been shocked so many times in in with guests or with you guys or, you know, when I very first started, it was with one of my technicians.

I would not trust myself to run my business without doing this, without spending like forcing myself every week to dig into security so that I know that I'm protecting my clients. That and the other thing that I kind of surprisingly learned when I started, I kept saying, you know, 97% of breaches could have been prevented with basic cybersecurity measures. Just got to do the basics, guys. I said that all the time. I stopped saying it intentionally because it's not basic, it's not simple. This shit's hard, it's complicated.

And that kind of crystallized when we did our our 12 series or 12 episodes mini-series on the cybersecurity basics. And I really dug in and wrote them down and then built a platform around it, the unhackmybusiness.com platform. I was like, holy shit, I'm never calling this basic or simple or or anything again because it is anything but. That's what shocked me about doing it.

Joshua Holloway (26:21.704)
Yeah.

Yeah, I wanna add go ahead, Maureen.

Mario Zaki (26:24.667)
Yeah, and and no I I was saying w what what I love about it too is when we were doing certain episodes, it it you know, we we try as much as possible to stay up with current events, especially when it has to do with technology, but we kind of force each other to do that as well, you know, and you know, sometimes, you know, we get busy and you know, we're not checking like the, you know, cybersecurity new you know, times and stuff like that. But you know, with this

podcasts it you're you're kind of forced to stay up to current events plus we have our own like chats and stuff like that offline and you know all the time we're posting like hey did you guys hear about this did you see this all this would be great to to talk about and stuff like that. So we it helps us stay current, you know, even just for you know content, it it does help us really stay on top of a lot of things.

Joshua Holloway (27:02.484)
Mm-hmm.

Mario Zaki (27:22.375)
Sorry to cut you off, Josh.

Joshua Holloway (27:22.526)
Chat no, it it's great info. And I I totally agree with you, man, because it is forcing us to learn. But not I don't think anybody got into technology to say, hey, I know everything, and they stopped right then and there. I the mindset of a technology or IT person, a good one, or or somebody who aspires to be a good one, is somebody who's always learning. like

I try and go through several certifications a year. Hey, if I get a certification that lasts for two, I'm super stoked because I you know, I d I feel it was a but the key is is you have to constantly le learning, you have to be sharing that information. and the podcast helps us because like you said, we we have our private chats where we'll see a a news article kind of like the AI busting out the enable, sorry, the RMM thing that, you know, just recently popped out and

Mario Zaki (27:51.815)
Ha ha.

Justin Shelley (28:11.437)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (28:12.776)
You know, I share that stuff with you guys also with my team. I I've always done this because I have so many notifications, sys and notifications things. I'm I'm constantly looking up you know new news alerts. I post them to my team. And I and I I don't I've never done an analytics to see how many of my guys and and and people are reading them, but I I I see something and I'm like, hey, here's something new about server platform twenty twenty-five and a a new security alert, or like, hey, did you know that this could be bypassed now? And then I start asking the questions.

Do we still deploy that? You know, or are we still are we still using that? so and it's for it's forever changing. You know, if you think about it, it's it's just a forever changing, a forever altering organism and is technology, right? Look at how fast AR AI has thrusted that out to the to the limelight. Like we talked about cybersecurity and nobody really ever saw how much it was changing because in the background, we were in the background securing, locking down, protecting.

Justin Shelley (28:44.152)
Yeah, right. Right.

Joshua Holloway (29:11.216)
AI has brought that to the front of the the table because now everybody interacts with it. And they go from I used to be able to prompt it and was really slow or it gave me bad information. And then it proved, and then everybody else is starting to prove and change improve and change. And then we had a security event. Then we had multiple security events. Well, now it seems like every other week we're starting to have some kind of an AI security event, but it's at the top of everybody's mind because everybody's touching it and using it. And they and it's

That's where they're starting to see, like, hey, maybe technology isn't that simple. I pulled that laptop out of a box and I turned it on and I got on the internet, not realizing that you probably just got hacked because you didn't activate that free version of A V that came with it. That doesn't work.

Justin Shelley (29:55.311)
I mean, honestly, that right, but that that kind of is where I think a lot of us used to see cybersecurity. It really was having an antivirus and a good data backup plan. That was pretty much it. and and there would be discussions, you know, in in our community that we're all part of. There you'd see it on Reddit and stuff where people are like, what's your security stack look like? What are you using? What tools? What vendors? But we weren't really talking about.

The issues, the problems, how they start, how to stop them. It was just what vendor are you using? What do you where are you getting the best bang for your buck on antivirus, data backup? I mean, what am I missing? Really? It if we're going back a few years, if we just go back to when this pod, I I this is actually version two. I started it with a different security podcast. So I'm going back to like 2020, 2021. But that would that was basically it, you know, and and now it's

Mario Zaki (30:32.179)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (30:32.265)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Holloway (30:48.884)
That would be malware. Like looking for malware. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (30:54.234)
you know, BEC came right up, business email compromise, impersonation, and then you know, it it just continues to evolve. What we have to be aware of, what we have to protect, how we protect it, and now turning it into well, compliance, right? We have to be able to document it and for a lot of reasons, not just because of the government. We should all be doing that. If you ever find yourself in a courtroom, you better have this stuff documented. And then visibility.

Mario Zaki (31:19.699)
Yeah, I mean back then back back then you you were just concentrating making sure the computer was running as fast as possible, making sure it was optimized and running like Yeah. exactly, exactly. That was the biggest that was our my biggest cause, you know, it was just like, Okay, let me install, you know, malware bytes, you know, like the free version, you know. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (31:26.54)
Yeah, right. Yeah. My computer's slow. That was every phone call. My computer's slow. Hold on. Let me get in there and clean it up.

Justin Shelley (31:38.528)
Mm-hmm. That in printers. Yep. Yep. It'll find whatever the other one missed and clean it up and you're good to go.

Joshua Holloway (31:44.818)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (31:47.821)
y you know, between malware bytes and C C cleaner you're you're you're good. That's it. You know, that's all you needed. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (31:51.426)
Yep. Yep.

Joshua Holloway (31:53.023)
Well, it's all the ration hook hackers got their hands on C C Cleaner, you know. Do you you don't remember when the Russian hackers got their hands on C C Cleaner and they injected

Justin Shelley (31:56.909)
What? What? I I did not hear this.

Justin Shelley (32:03.04)
Well, I'm gonna pause you both right now and just say, it is not, even though everybody calls it C C cleaner, it is not C C cleaner. It's C cleaner. Okay, go on. What tell me about the Russians? You got my attention.

Mario Zaki (32:09.115)
It's sea cleaner.

Joshua Holloway (32:09.968)
It's cleaner, yeah. Yeah. Well they so they they had injected code so when people downloaded and updated the the the latest version, it gave them access to the computers through software that was supposed to this is what we're probably hitting on about ten years ago, Mario, maybe eight, eight, ten years ago.

Mario Zaki (32:12.103)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (32:24.494)
Holy shit. What was this?

Justin Shelley (32:30.464)
Okay, okay. I thought this was recent.

Mario Zaki (32:31.675)
No no and I no no, I think it was even even more recent. I think it was like maybe around three years. Because all of a sudden one time I tried to install it and all of a sudden my antivirus is like, Fuck you, we're not installing this. Yeah. was it that long? shit, time flies.

Joshua Holloway (32:38.334)
Okay.

Justin Shelley (32:42.52)
Twenty seventeen, nine years. I just looked it up.

Joshua Holloway (32:45.64)
Oof.

Justin Shelley (32:48.342)
I miss that guys. I miss and up to my point, right? I started doing the podcast after that. I had technicians. I had people for that. I wasn't I was a marketing guy. I was not a technology guy at that point. I that's what I say. I don't trust myself to run this business the way I normally would run it. I've got to be in here like learning this shit. So

Mario Zaki (33:07.877)
Actually Josh, I I have a funny story for you th you mentioned enable like you know from like a week or two ago. it's no, I don't think. I mean it's it's it's public w knowledge. I mean we we read articles.

Joshua Holloway (33:15.72)
I I didn't mean to. I don't know if we'll get in trouble.

Justin Shelley (33:18.73)
Exable.

Justin Shelley (33:25.162)
Unable, I think is what they're calling it now. Anyways, go on.

Joshua Holloway (33:27.13)
no.

Mario Zaki (33:27.699)
I was sitting on the beach and my technician sends me this article and all of a sudden I'm like reading it and I'm like, holy shit. I'm like, i i what what are we gonna do? Is there are we able to run these updates? Can we shut all this stuff down and do it right away? I'm like I'm like already like in panic mode and you know whatever. I'm about to like get up and go to the room and start taking out my laptop. He's like, Mario, what are you talking about? We don't use them. I'm like

shit, you're right. We don't. What the fuck am I thinking? You know, like he's like, I just saw this article. I figured you'd be interested maybe for your podcast or something. I'm like I'm like, yeah, you're right. We we evaluated them and it was between, you know, them and the the company we ended up going with and we you know it was very close and we didn't go with it, thank god at this point. but I I for for some I was on vacation, not really thinking and I just panicked and I'm like he's like, What are you talking about? We don't use them. I'm like

yeah, yeah. Thank God. Dodge the bullet there.

Joshua Holloway (34:31.686)
You know, and that that actually brings up a good point too. You're on vacation, and every IT guy here on this podcast right now will say that they vacation the same way. At the moment something was about to happen or is happening, you are going to get up and you are going to walk into your room and and your laptop was ready to go, because that's how I vacation. I don't care what anybody says, like that laptop goes wherever I go. I've only traveled once in my lifetime without my laptop because my my my significant other asked me not to do it and I

Better judgment. I said, okay, that's fine. We got trapped in the snow and all hell broke loose. And I on my on my on my iPad, I'm sitting here trying to code real quick to fix something. It was I was looking at her going, I'm going to Best Buy in five minutes. If this doesn't work, I'm gonna go buy a new laptop. I'll never travel without it again. Yeah, yeah. But I'm sure you guys all travel the exact same way. Like you gotta have internet. Yep.

Mario Zaki (35:07.227)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (35:11.95)
Ha ha.

Justin Shelley (35:15.746)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (35:19.86)
Never following your advice again either. yeah.

Mario Zaki (35:21.586)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (35:26.195)
It's it's the first thing I pack. Yep. Yeah, I there was a period yeah, there was a period where I was picking resorts based on how good their internet was.

Justin Shelley (35:28.386)
Yep. All three devices.

Joshua Holloway (35:29.843)
I've

Joshua Holloway (35:36.296)
Well well so my new thing is I've gone to a couple of places that supposedly had good air internet and it was atrocious. I'm contemplating traveling with my own portable Starlink.

Justin Shelley (35:45.838)
I know, yeah. You about need to.

Joshua Holloway (35:48.181)
Yeah, just just yeah, you'll you you're so close. Especially like if when you you you know, you leave the country, but not always. it's important. But yeah, that's we all vac guys, we all vacation with our laptops. We're ready to, you know, at a moment's notice to jump in and help our guys and you know, obviously we'd like to get to the point that we would not have to do that, but that's so difficult.

Mario Zaki (36:00.743)
Mm-hmm.

Mario Zaki (36:10.417)
No, you you feel naked without it. It's like the you know, like the typical guy check where you're checking for your wallet, your phone, your keys. It it's gotta be your laptop when you're getting ready for your you know, verification. Like, all right, I'm ready. You know, you could forget your underwear, but you got your laptop, you're good.

Justin Shelley (36:25.656)
I this is this is the dumbest thing, but as a former pilot, I I do checklists for everything. I've got a checklist for travel so that I don't forget laptop, charger, cell phone, charger. yeah, I don't know. Guys, I think we're I think we're off track here. let's let's the audience is gone, so it doesn't matter. We could we could keep talking, but let's go ahead and wind this thing down. Okay.

Mario Zaki (36:40.238)
What's that?

Joshua Holloway (36:48.564)
Well, actually before you wind it down, you know, we're a cybersecurity podcast. So a quick question for you guys talking about cybersecurity and the event, what do you guys typically like to do first? Like what it when if when somebody calls you and says there's been an event, what is the first thing that you do? Or what is the first thing that you suggest them to do? We always talk about how everybody does things a little bit different or or how we address certain things or come at it. So

Like for a business email compromise, right? Your client calls up

Justin Shelley (37:19.788)
I think the very first thing you've got to do is is assess. You you have to find out if this is really an event, as as we'll call it, right? we're not supposed to use the word breach. But we have to find out what's really going on. And if you confirm that there really is a security event, then your first call needs to be to your insurance carrier.

Joshua Holloway (37:27.764)
Mm-hmm.

Mario Zaki (37:28.051)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Holloway (37:42.482)
Okay. Okay.

Justin Shelley (37:45.536)
What what do you say?

Joshua Holloway (37:47.08)
Well, I wanna hear what Mario says first. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (37:48.492)
Okay.

Mario Zaki (37:49.458)
Well, i i if it's a I mean, I do agree with Justin, the first thing you need to do is assess. I I think it depending on the incident, you know, if it's an email, you know, we usually will, you know, reset you know, I'm sorry, reach out to the security team, have them do their anal analysis. and then the depending on what it is, I mean we may you know, if it's something that we think just needs like they clicked on something and we just need to reset passwords.

We will. in the event that we think it is a real breed like a real incident, a real big thing, I you know, contacting insurance company is definitely, you know, up there on the list.

Joshua Holloway (38:34.196)
Yeah, and I I I'm I'm right along with you. You obviously you gotta look at it, figure it out, trace it out, see what's going on. also, you know, it kinda depends on what governs them. Insurance is a huge thing, right? Your insurance policy, they'll have in their stipulations. You have twenty four hours to notify seventy two hours to

Justin Shelley (38:50.766)
I was gonna say I wanna interject one thing before like and maybe this is where you're going, Josh, but really the first thing you should do is pull out your incident response plan.

Joshua Holloway (38:59.644)
Yep. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (39:00.332)
That's what you should really do. And and people are like, My what? Yeah, exactly. Go get one.

Mario Zaki (39:04.733)
Mm.

Joshua Holloway (39:06.04)
And pretty much what everybody they it's twenty twenty six, everybody has to have an incident response playbook or a plan or whatever you want to call it, a run book, if you will. Like that that's super important. if it's a i if it involves money, what about if it involves money? Somebody let's say somebody accidentally transferred money to somebody they shouldn't have.

Justin Shelley (39:11.042)
Yeah. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (39:26.082)
I you can try calling your bank, but good luck.

Mario Zaki (39:26.969)
Okay. yeah. I mean with with that a lot of times you you have to cross out a lot of the th things. I mean, you know, some some insurance policies will not pol you know, because it's a a human, you know, led issue. It's not an exact breach. you know, with us, I'm like, you know, there's nothing we can do if you, you know, if you wired it to the wrong person, you know, because a lot of times it can be

Joshua Holloway (39:29.148)
Okay.

Mario Zaki (39:57.234)
We did every you know, like there's obviously in an incident response plan or, you know, with the the the proper playbook, you're supposed to verify, you know, ACH information. You're supposed to not verify it over email, you're supposed to verify it in person or over the phone. if you if and we've given obviously this advice to everybody, if you haven't done it, then there's there's no going back from with us. There's nothing that we can do, backups or whatever. There's nothing we can do.

regarding that if you just didn't listen to the policies, you know, then yeah, you have to contact your insurance, you have to try to figure out what, you know, other means of getting that money back. And then at that point they would have to file a report. But but yeah, it w you know, sending the money to the wrong place is is one of those tough ones that there's there's a very limited amount of things that we can really do.

Justin Shelley (40:54.626)
I actually called a bank one time just to ask questions about what would happen in in the event of and I got the runaround and and finally just the flat cold we can't help you. We won't help you. There's I'm like, well what what should I do to prevent it? Not our problem. Like it was it was wild.

Joshua Holloway (41:11.784)
Yeah. Well I'll t I'll tell you a crazy one we had. we had one where a Turkish company wired money or was supposed to wire money to my client, the American company. They had a man in the middle of tech, changed the ACH information, but it's still wired to an American bank. It is the only time I have ever recouped money because

Justin Shelley (41:34.147)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (41:37.601)
Okay.

Joshua Holloway (41:38.301)
So when we reached out to the FBI and I started and I actually somehow, some way got the FBI to to work on it, right? And we had a case and everything, they were so ecstatic to work on. I I think it's because it was a slam dunk because they were able to go to the American bank and and take the money back. now the way the FBI explained to me is like, if it was the other way around, we're too busy. We we we know that we're not gonna get the money from the bank, but because it landed on US soil into a US

Justin Shelley (41:54.83)
Nice.

Joshua Holloway (42:07.592)
bank account, they were able to recoup it.

Justin Shelley (42:09.644)
Well, and it was it was a a screw up on the bad guys part because they will typically transfer to US bank to avoid the red flags, but then they immediately offshore it. And so something something got missed on their checklist and they didn't offshore that money fast enough.

Joshua Holloway (42:20.276)
Yeah, and they didn't do that.

Mario Zaki (42:25.735)
Yeah, because I forgot what bank it was. There was a period of time where banks there there was this bank that was letting you open up an account online without certain verification processes. Like you had like I think thirty days to to do this stuff. So they were just literally creating these banks and then with as soon as it hits they're pulling it back out. so yeah, I agree. I think they just kind of, you know, should have pulled it and they didn't and they they got screwed.

Justin Shelley (42:35.886)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Shelley (42:42.691)
Yeah.

Joshua Holloway (42:58.452)
That's a that was a bad idea. That was just preppin' for fraud right there.

That's crazy.

Justin Shelley (43:05.248)
All right, guys, any other last final thoughts for episode one hundred?

Mario Zaki (43:10.737)
No, it's it's been a hell of a ride. I you know, I can't wait for the for the other hundred. you know, we we've gone through so many different you know, you know, flavors and variations. I'm ecstatic to to see what you know what we're gonna come up with next.

Joshua Holloway (43:28.628)
Yeah, congratulations, guys.

Justin Shelley (43:28.888)
For the record, Mario, it was episode eight, is the episode in which you first showed your beautiful bald dome. And you only had a mustache back then. I'm looking at the picture. now you've expanded to the goatee. One day you will reach the elite status of a full beard. you you can hope to be as gorgeous as me. all right, guys.

Mario Zaki (43:35.728)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (43:49.253)
It doesn't it doesn't it doesn't fill in. It doesn't fill in, but I'll I'll I promise you I'll keep working on it.

Joshua Holloway (43:52.841)
No.

Justin Shelley (43:55.065)
Get get extensions or whatever. Glues. I don't know. Listen, I'm I'm not a beautician or whatever the hell they're called. Although, interestingly enough, they need more licensing than we do to do their job. it's crazy. It is a crazy world. All right, guys. Apparently, I didn't know about the other one, but yeah, I guess so. All right, man. I I am out of here, guys. I'll give each of you

Mario Zaki (43:57.618)
I'm not

Mario Zaki (44:07.985)
Yeah, you only do IT and massages, right?

Joshua Holloway (44:10.484)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (44:21.112)
45 seconds to say final thoughts and your goodbyes, and then we're gonna get the hell out and we'll come back for another 100 episodes stronger than ever. Josh, why don't you go first?

Joshua Holloway (44:30.292)
All right, well again, congratulations for the one hundredth episodes, guys. I think that's awesome. I look forward to being on this with you, you know, hopefully to hit that the two hundred mark and and above. but I'm Joshua Holloway, the CEO for Seventh EI Technologies, and looking forward to doing business with everybody. Well, except for your guys' geographical locations, of course.

Justin Shelley (44:47.874)
Yeah, watch it. Watch it. Boy I don't wanna have to cancel you. Mario, what do you got?

Joshua Holloway (44:51.465)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (44:53.955)
no, I I Justin, same thing to you. Congratulations on on one hundred. it's been a lot of fun coming along on the journey with you. I've been having a lot of fun and I I'm gonna continue having fun. I'm pretty sure by the time we hit two hundred we'll probably have some AI agents on with us as well. you know, and you know, they're gonna be congratulating each other, but

Joshua Holloway (45:14.622)
That would be weird.

Mario Zaki (45:21.575)
But it it will be fun to watch and you know, I'm I can't wait.

Justin Shelley (45:25.794)
I actually contemplated that for for episode 100. I'm like, what if we just do the whole thing with AI replication? Like it's not us. You know, we just script some AI versions of us. I don't I know. because AI's sense of humor really sucks still. and we are brilliantly funny. So that's how I know. All right, guys. let's we're we're wrapping up with another ever, like always, I'm gonna keep inviting you. Go to unhackmybusiness.com.

Mario Zaki (45:27.581)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (45:34.717)
Mm, si, si.

Joshua Holloway (45:35.016)
Who's to say we didn't

Justin Shelley (45:55.416)
Put a lot of time and and effort into that. This is how you know that you at least have those foundational security measures in place. You can get visibility into if you've if you're hiring somebody to do it, go in there and and use that to check their math. if you're self-implement, self-implementing, I do not recommend that, but the tools are there. anyways, go go to unhackmybusiness.com. That's it for this week, guys. I'm out. We're all out. We will see you next.

week for episode one zero one.

Joshua Holloway (46:26.376)
Bye everybody.

Mario Zaki (46:27.667)
Bye everybody.

Justin Shelley (46:33.485)
The head banging, yeah.