Protect It All

Protect It All Securing the Future: Bridging OT and IT with Expert Insights on Cyber Resilience

09/11/2026

Your host is on stage at CYBR.SEC.CON next week.

**Aaron Crow** presents *OT Is Not Hard. It's Different. A Practical Guide for IT Practitioners.*
Wednesday, September 16, 1:30 PM to 2:15 PM
Room 310B, Track 1: OT.SEC.CON General Session

**CYBR.SEC.CON 2026**
September 15 and 16, George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston
Thirteen tracks, over a hundred sessions, $150
https://www.cybrseccon.com/

This week's episode is the story of how that conference got built, told by the two people who built it: Michael Farnum, CEO and co-founder of CYBR.SEC.Community, and Sam Van Ryder, co-founder of CYBR.SEC.CON. From 120 people and a Jason's Deli lunch in 2010 to more than 3,000 attendees today, without losing the thing that made it work.

Listen before you go, then go find Aaron in Room 310B.

https://protectitallpod.com/ep122



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09/10/2026

Your firewall might just be a router

Justin Searle on the PrOTect IT All Podcast. From the episode: What Happens When You Pen Test a Live Plant
Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/KYu0kbcv52s

09/10/2026

Last year they brought 75 high schoolers into the conference. Their own track, escape rooms, lightning talks, and a walk through the exhibit hall.

Sam Van Ryder: "We had a lot of those kids walk out going, wow, I think I want to pursue cyber as my career."

This year it is 150, and they had to turn schools away for lack of capacity.

That is the same instinct that runs through the whole episode. College volunteers come back the next year as speakers. New speakers get accepted because the goal is new voices, not famous ones. As Michael Farnum puts it: if you're new, you're probably getting in.

New episode of PrOTect IT All with host Aaron Crow, Michael Farnum (CYBR.SEC.Community), and Sam Van Ryder (CYBR.SEC.CON).

Listen: https://protectitallpod.com/ep122

09/09/2026

Would you patch a plane at 30,000 feet?

From the episode: Fundamentals Beat AI in Every Plant I've Seen
Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/StAOANu72lg

09/09/2026

"There's no true entry level jobs anymore. And sorry, there is, but they're going away."

Michael Farnum, CEO of CYBR.SEC.Community, on this week's episode.

His argument: for the last ten years the primary way into cybersecurity was being an analyst, and that was where people earned their stripes. Now, he says, the people entering the industry see a packet cross the screen but do not necessarily know how it got from one point to the next.

Host Aaron Crow's follow-up is the one nobody has answered yet: how do you get to the senior level if you were never a junior?

Michael runs CYBR.SEC.Careers, a 501(c)(3) built specifically around this problem, focused on students and veterans.

Full episode with Michael Farnum and Sam Van Ryder: https://protectitallpod.com/ep122

09/08/2026

What if Stuxnet is already in your plant?

Paul Marco on the PrOTect IT All Podcast. From the episode: You Cannot Buy Your Way Out of OT Risk
Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/zpcpggI6LbI

09/08/2026

"It was peak marketing, like just chef's kiss beautiful. Like it was a horrible, horrible piece of work, but I did it myself."

Michael Farnum on the marketing flyer for the first HOU.SEC.CON in 2010. He made it in Word.

A hundred and twenty people showed up. The speaker lineup included Jeremiah Grossman and RSnake. It was held in the Microsoft offices and lunch was Jason's Deli.

Sixteen years later it is CYBR.SEC.CON, it fills the George R. Brown Convention Center, and it draws more than 3,000 people from across the country.

The flyer was terrible. The community was not.

New episode with host Aaron Crow, Michael Farnum, and Sam Van Ryder.

Listen: https://protectitallpod.com/ep122

09/07/2026

Is a VLAN really segmentation?

From the episode: An Airport and a Power Grid Failed the Same Way
Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/WcAqMQswQZo

New episode of PrOTect IT All is live.Host Aaron Crow sits down with **Michael Farnum**, CEO and co-founder of CYBR.SEC....
09/07/2026

New episode of PrOTect IT All is live.

Host Aaron Crow sits down with **Michael Farnum**, CEO and co-founder of CYBR.SEC.Community, and **Sam Van Ryder**, co-founder of CYBR.SEC.CON.

Michael has been in IT and cybersecurity since 1994, across healthcare, consulting, and the reseller world, and before any of that he was surveying in the plants at Texas City in a hard hat and steel toe boots. In 2010 he started HOU.SEC.CON in Houston with 120 attendees. Sam Van Ryder is a Swiss trained engineer who fell into an SE role at a CAD software company, then into cybersecurity, then into OT, and has been in the space for roughly 18 years. He runs the CFP and the speaker program, and his day job is at Dragos.

Together they have grown that 120 person conference into CYBR.SEC.CON: more than 3,000 attendees, thirteen tracks, over a hundred sessions across two days, plus OT.SEC.CON, CYBR.HAK.CON, a 501(c)(3) called CYBR.SEC.Careers, and a high school program that hosted 75 students last year and 150 this year.

In this episode: how you scale a conference without losing the community feel, why the entry level analyst job is disappearing and what that does to the pipeline, what happens when hiring managers hand the process to HR, and why both guests think the answer starts with more people getting on stage.

**CYBR.SEC.CON is September 15 and 16, 2026, at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.** https://www.cybrseccon.com/

Listen: https://protectitallpod.com/ep122

09/06/2026

OT is a 50 year relationship with 30 vendors

Steve Kiss on the PrOTect IT All Podcast. From the episode: OT Security When You're Not a Security Person
Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/sQqwpcQVqPE

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