Secure IT with David Kakish

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over the left blood, this is George G. And the time is right welcome today’s guest strong, powerful David quiche. David, are you ready to do this?

Let’s do it, George. Good morning. Let’s go. Good morning. David is the founder and president of RIA workspace. He is an author and entrepreneur and a secure it advocate. excited to have you on David, tell us a little about your personal lives more about your work and why you do what you do. Well, good morning, George, I want to welcome you and I want to welcome the listener. My name is David quiche. I am the founder of a company called RIA workspace. We provide specialized it clouds and cybersecurity services for financial advisors and small and midsize businesses. You know, as a listener, you either are part of a business or you run a business. So a lot of the things that I talk about will apply whether or not you’re a business owner. You know, from a personal perspective, I live I live in Chicago.

David Kakish 1:15
I love traveling. Something that not a lot of people know about myself is I grew up in an orphanage overseas, but I was not an orphan. I had two loving parents.

My parents directed an orphanage. So I was that kid that grew up on the other side of the tracks, not because I came from a broken home, but because my parents were involved in nonprofits. So I’ve got a pretty interesting person, a very different perspective of the world, I guess.

So on a personal note, yeah, there’s no doubt about that. There’s probably a whole podcast about that. That’s like, I started one of those jokes of I grew up in an orphanage overseas. But But I have two loving parents kind of a thing. People are like, what, how does that even work?

george grombacher 1:58
So how did you get into entrepreneurship?

David Kakish 2:01
Yeah, you know what? So it my, my whole, I worked in corporate America for a while, and you know, like many people, I’m grateful, it was great. And, you know, I mean, I distinctly remember, the day I walked into the bathroom, I go, and I wash my face. And I look at myself, and I’m saying, what the heck am I still doing here? Right, I was doing well, making money. But it was, you know, I wanted more in my entrepreneurial life. So you get that entrepreneurial itch, you want to go out, you want to start your business. And I mean, I distinctly remember the day of like, What in the world it might doing here, you know, I need to, I need to move on. And I think we all have those moments. But to kind of tie this back up with my background, I’m really, really, really passionate about what I call the small guy. And what I mean by that is that small to midsize business or that business entrepreneur, not a really big fan of working in corporate America or big companies. But I really, really, really love working with businesses that are 510 1525 employees, again, when we work with businesses significantly bigger and businesses smaller. But that’s really where my real passion is, and the financial advisors, the registered investment advisors. Many of them are, you know, 515 25 employees. And so, for me, that small business owner, that small business entrepreneur, is the small giant, and I love working with small giants. And that’s sort of my philosophy in life was and I found real freedom with sort of the three pillars, entrepreneurship, technology and innovation. So I took those things, I embarked upon that and I have a team, but those are kind of like three pillars, that it doesn’t matter how old you are, the color of your skin, your religion, male, female, skinny, not skinny, you know, and so those are kind of pillars for me in life. And it’s wonderful to be able to apply that. And I found total freedom in that. And in the businesses we work with, and I love working with those kind of businesses. So I’m not even talking specifically about my business. I’m kind of getting philosophical, but these are things that I love to share with the listener. Because that’s to me, that’s what real freedom is really all about. Yeah, amen. I appreciate all that. So the the jump from working in corporate America scratching that entrepreneurial itch, which is I think, a jump that a lot of people make and they want to do things right. They want to make sure that they’re that they’re checking all the important boxes. How how do you think about well maybe just talk about checklists, standard operating procedures, because I’m I think that that is such a key thing that is overlooked a lot of the time.

That is a great question. And the funny part is I’m not really great at that. And and however, however, I am a big believer in the power of a team, and what happens is from day one, I did not start my entrepreneurial venture on my own I always believed in having the power of a team. So from

The first day we had a team that was in place. And so philosophically, you know, the formula that I talk about is most people think one plus one plus one equals three. And I go, No, if there’s three of us, and we can accomplish a lot more, it’s it’s three to the power of three. So it’s three times three times three, which equals 27. So if you’re able to leverage the team the right way, you can accomplish a lot more. So the answer to your question is, of course, I’m a big fan of the checklists. And I’ve got somebody on my team, that that is his specialty. So a equivalent of what I would call a ce o write a chief operating officer. And without him, you know, the trains don’t run on time and many things. So a lot of times the visionary is not the best person for these checklists. But I’ve got somebody on my team that does that. And it’s fantastic. And that’s that, that’s, that’s really, one of the issues that so many entrepreneurs run into is that they are the visionary, they are pushing the thing forward. And that’s what they want to do. And so I’m sure that you’re perfectly comfortable with the reality that the work that you’re doing is oftentimes not the stuff that the entrepreneur wants to focus on, not the stuff that the person had in the RIA is interested in talking about, or putting any effort towards at all?

Correct, correct. So the way, the way I think of this, the way we look at that internally, is we call that a tripod, right? So there’s three of us. So a visionary, a CE, O, and then a CTO, right. And that’s kind of, you know, the three, three things that you need for the stool and any of those that are missing, and all that stool is going to fall off. And obviously, in other businesses that might look a little bit different and things like that, but in our business, that’s what we do. And and, you know, I don’t want to get too far off message. But one of the big things that, that I talk a lot about, and again, this applies to you as an individual, or as a business, is the cybersecurity risks that are out there, right. So if you’re a high net worth individual, there are things that are simple things that you can do to maximize your security. If you’re a small business, there’s some simple things that you can do to really maximize your security. And the big thing that we’re seeing a lot with financial advisors is because they have a lot of money assets under management. They’re an easy target sometimes, because, you know, again, they might be three 510 people, somebody halfway across the world really, really, really wants that information really wants to be able to get into that. And the big challenges, again, you’re a small or midsize business, but what you need is big business type of security and big business type of it. How do you get that without breaking the bank? Right. And so that’s kind of the big challenge. And again, that’s the cybersecurity challenge for the Ria, the cybersecurity challenge for the small business, the cybersecurity challenge for the individual, you know, how do you maximize security? And those are, you know, those are the things that we’re kind of evangelizing about within a very specific niche market, which is the RAS or the financial advisors. But that’s really applicable across, you know, any any smaller midsize businesses out there. Yeah. So,

george grombacher 8:16
are there certain things you talked about simple things you can do to improve security? What, what are the things you see most often overlooked?

David Kakish 8:24
Yeah, I mean, you’d be surprised that some of the simple things that are that really, really, really maximize security that are overlooked, like what you just said, right? Now, two things that are top of mind for me is that you know, the concept of multi factor authentication, right? A lot of us know about that. But we may not have that enabled, I would say, you know, before the end of the business day to day, go into your email and make sure you’ve got all the multi factor authentication enabled. If you’re a business, make sure that your business accounts are multi factor authentication enabled, I mean, that’s the least expensive way to maximize security of your email maximize security of accessing a web based software. And let me give you a specific example, George, that I want to share with the listener, you you’re probably have access to a web based software, right. And it’s got some confidential information in there and you’re using a you’ve got a username and you’ve got a password, right, your email and a password, sir. And you’re probably using the same password across many different places. Right? That’s pretty common. If if, and I’m not talking specifically to you, George, I’m not sure listener so. So so the big challenge is, if somebody halfway across the world, got that or even you know, down the street, they don’t have to be halfway across the world. It could be down the street from you or across town. Right? All of a sudden, now they’re able to go in and access that information. And, you know, how would you feel about that if they had access to that the again, the least expensive way to do that? Exactly. claim is just to enable the multi factor authentication, right? That’s a big one that I see. And it’s like just just, you know, before you go to bed today, go and enable it. And that’s the least expensive way to maximize your security. So that’s one big one that I see. The second one that is really, really big. And again, it’s kind of like exercise, we know how important that is. And we should be doing it, but we’re not doing it is security awareness training for your employees? Right? So if you’re a business owner, or if you work in a business, and you’re doing some kind of security awareness training, fantastic, that’s exactly what you want to do. If you don’t, you want to have that in place. Because many times, that’s the weakest link, right? That’s one of the weakest links that are out there, you know, because everybody thinks it’s a firewall, and this and that, and really, it’s your employees, it’s your people that a lot of times are your weakest links. So you want to have them trained properly to do that. Now, if you’re a business, and especially if you’re a financial advisor, we created a cybersecurity checklist, we’ve got a 29 points cybersecurity checklist, you can go to www dot Ria workspace.com, forward slash podcast. And we have those 29 checklist items listened right there, it’s free, you can download the PDF, you don’t have to put your email or anything like that. Take that. Give it to your Chief Compliance Officer, give it to your IT person, Hey, say hey, do we have that covered? It’s fantastic. So that’s one tool that I encourage people to do and use. The other tool is, if you’re using the Microsoft platform, Microsoft has a fantastic tool for you, you just go to security.microsoft.com without the www, so you go to security.microsoft.com. And if you’ve got administrative access to the Microsoft portal, it’s going to give you a score right then and there. And again, you can give that to your IT person and say our score is x, why don’t you help us to go ahead and improve that. So these are kind of free tools that we that are out there. That again, if you run a business, if you’re a financial advisor, or if you’re an employee, you can go ahead and you can leverage that and you can give it to the whoever is responsible for it at your company.

george grombacher 12:15
And if it’s just a solo shop, or a handful of people, how do they know? Okay, it’s time for me to stop DIY in this.

David Kakish 12:24
Yeah, that is a that’s a great question, um, for let me talk about the financial advisor, niche specifically, a lot of times their brokers already have things in place to maximize the security. So you know, if you’re part of whoever, and I’m not gonna, just doing a lot of that type of stuff. In other businesses, the parent company or the franchisor, is usually handling a lot of that the real challenge is for the truly independent 1234 person type of company, go use that checklist, give it to the IT person say, Hey, are we protected here, I, because I don’t want to get in too much into the mechanics of it. Because my goal isn’t to overwhelm the listener. But man, go get that checklist, give it to the IT person, give it to, you know, whoever is responsible, and say, Hey, do we have these things covered? That’s probably the easiest way for that person to accomplish that.

george grombacher 13:25
And so if the answer’s no, we, we doubt, that might be the indication that it’s time to start arts out to start partnering with a firm like yours. Like a

David Kakish 13:41
forklift, with businesses, typically, you know, five or more employees, that’s where our, our model begins to make a lot of sense. But even if you’re less than that, I think, I think the key George is the business, you know, the small business, you don’t want to be a sitting duck, I mean, there’s a psychology or there’s a mindset that, hey, we’re too small, you know, they’re really not interested in us, you would be really, really, really surprised they’re interested in you, because you might be the weakest link. Right? So you’ve got these attackers that are basically doing some quick scans out there and saying, Hey, what’s open and what’s not. And if you at least have like a baseline level of security, they’re gonna overlook you. You just don’t want to be that easy target. You don’t want to be that sitting duck. And so there’s some baseline level things that you can do. But yeah, I mean, it’s, I could, I could get into a lot of detail, but I don’t want to overwhelm the listener, because the idea isn’t to get a little bit too technical. But you know, the other. The other piece that maybe I would talk about is a lot of people are working in coffee shops, a lot of people are working in hotels and traveling and from home and things like that. So something you really want to think about that’s different now than it was even just two years ago, sort of that traditional network where people went into an office they worked on a computer behind a network fire All right. And basically, you were protected because you had a network firewall and you had anti virus. And that’s great. But, you know, with the pandemic, and with the way the world is today, that’s, that’s not the norm anymore, right? Everybody’s working remote. So you want to think about this concept called endpoint security, which is, hey, if it’s your iPhone, if it’s your iPad, if it’s your laptop, right, you want to have a security wrap around that computer. And think of it as kind of like that next generation, anti virus, next generation firewall that is wrapped around that laptop of yours. And, you know, maybe an analogy is kind of like the bubble boy, take your laptop and imagine that there’s a bubble wrapped around that. So there’s this concept called endpoint security, I would talk to your IT provider about that just to maximize the security of that computer when you’re on the road or when you’re at home.

george grombacher 15:52
Is a VPN, something somebody should have?

David Kakish 15:55
Yes, I strongly encourage that, again, what we do with our clients, we have that what we call the next generation VPN, so that that’s already built in. So that computer before it can connect and work and do the things that you need to do. We have to make sure it meets it meets compliance, like hey, is there is there an anti virus installed on that? Is there an anti spyware is encryption enabled? You know, all these things? And if it is fantastic, you can go ahead and connect. If you don’t have that, or you don’t know what that is, by all means. Yeah, you want to have some kind of a VPN? Because you’re working in a Starbucks. And you know, you want to be really careful with what you’re doing. If you don’t have that VPN, got it? Yeah. Well,

george grombacher 16:38
David, the people are ready for your difference making tip, even though you got what do you have for them?

David Kakish 16:44
Listen, if I want to leave the listener with one concept, and there’s one thing that you can do, I just want to repeat, like, go back, look at your email account, look at your Microsoft account, your Google account, whatever it is, and go and make sure you’ve got multi factor authentication enabled. It’s it’s the least expensive way, and probably the easiest way to maximize the security of your email in your systems. Again, many of us know that that’s already out there. But are we doing it? Are we not? That would be my that would be my one tip that I would leave the listener? Well, I think that

george grombacher 17:17
is great stuff that definitely gets come up. Got to make sure that we are mastering the fundamentals of the basics, David, so I bet how many folks out there like half don’t have that on three quarters? 90%?

David Kakish 17:33
I don’t know what that number is. But too many I? Yeah, too many? Exactly. I’d have to go back and see what it is. But it’s actually amazing. And I don’t want to get too philosophical on people on this. But if you go and you actually look this up on Microsoft, right now, they’re basically saying, hey, multi factor authentication is a lot more important than a complex password, or even changing your password. And, and so, you know, you can go and you can Google this and look this up. But the the, the, there’s way too many people and I agree with you, hey, you’re a listener, just go and do this. It doesn’t, it doesn’t cost you anything. This is already included. So this is a this is a free tip for the listener, you know, go in and do that it’s does not cost you anything. This is something that’s already provided by, you know, buy the tech companies that are out there. We’re just not taking advantage of that. Got it.

george grombacher 18:25
David, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with RIA workspace?

David Kakish 18:30
Absolutely. So the checklist is available at www dot Ria workspace.com forward slash podcast. So everything I talked about is mentioned there. You can get those checklists and again, you don’t need to put in an email. If you want to get in touch with me just go to our IA workspace. com click the Contact Us button and then my team will get you will put you in touch with me. Love it.

george grombacher 18:55
Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show David your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas pick up a copy of that checklist at our AI a workspace comm forward slash podcast and check out the great resources and make sure that you got your multi factor authentication activated for goodness sakes. Thanks again, David. Thanks, George. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai