>> Live from Washington DC, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Public Sector Summit 2018. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services and it's ecosystem partners. >> Hey, welcome back everyone. This is theCUBE's exclusive coverage live in Washington DC at Amazon Web Services AWS Public Sector Summit. I mean, it's so jam-packed you can't even move. This is like the re:Invent for Public Sector even though it's a summit for Amazon Web Services. I'm here with Dave Vellante, my co-host. Our next guest is John Wood, Chairman and CEO of Telos, and Rick Tracy, Chief Security Officer and the co-inventor of Xacta, it's hot technology. John, great to see you, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thanks guys. >> Thanks for having us. >> I love to get the brain trust here, John you're, like, probably one of the most experienced cyber security gurus in the DC area still standing. (laughing) As we said last time on theCUBE. >> Always, always. >> Okay. (laughing) And you've got some patents here, with some core technology, so first of all, I want to, before we get into some of the cool features of the products, talk about the dynamic of public sector, because Amazon has these summits, and they're kind of like a recycled re:Invent. Small scale, still packed. Talk about what Public Sector Summit is, because this is a completely different ballgame in this world. >> Sure, it's a perfect age for the cloud, and what this summit does, is it provides a great venue for people to come, learn about what works, get best practices, find use cases and just see what the ecosystem's all about in terms of how to make it work with the cloud. >> Rick, so what's your take? >> Well, if there's any doubt about it, what, is it double the size of last year? I think there were 7,000 people here last year and Teresa said today 14,500. So, yeah, I mean, it suits us perfectly because this is our sweet spot. >> So, Dave and I are always amazed by Amazon in general, the slew of announcements, Teresa Carlson picking the reins up where Andy Jassy does that Amazon re:Invent which is just tons of content, so many new announcements. What's your guys take on the hot news for you guys, because you guys are a major sponsor and you're in the ecosystem, you've been doing a lot of business with Amazon. >> Sure. >> What's going on in the business? What's happening with Telos? Why is it so booming right now for you guys? >> Well, I think people realize that there is a way to use automation where security can help drive cloud adoption. So, Rick and I co-authored an article back in 2011 that talked about why the cloud was more secure and it went over kind of like a lead ballon. And then back in 2014 the agency made the decision, the CIA made the decision, arguably the most security conscious organization in the world, to go to the cloud. And so that was a big, big, big, deal. But what we do is we help drive the security automation and orchestration stuff so you can reduce the time it takes to get what's called your authority to operate. And so I think that's a big deal now. The use of automation is being used to enhance the mission, so that the mission owners can get to their mission using the cloud, much more quickly. >> And we heard from the most powerful sentence in the keynote this morning was, "The cloud on it's weakest day is more secure than Client Service Solutions." This is a practitioner saying that, a leader of an agency saying that, not Amazon or not Telos. >> Absolutely. >> And it's because of that automation, right? I mean, that's really a key factor. >> It's because of the automation. It's also because the cloud providers are making sure that they lock down their physical infrastructure. Guards, gates, guns. All of the physical infrastructure and the virtual infrastructure, they do a really good job of that. If you think about it, the US government, unfortunately, 80% of their spend is around maintaining old systems. Well, the cloud providers are keeping modern. Those old systems have a lot of weaknesses from a standpoint of cyber security flaws. So, with a modern technology like the cloud, there's a lot more you can do around automation to lock down much more quickly. >> And the standardization that you get with a cloud makes it's easier as well, because there's not so many variations of things that you have to figure out how to protect. So, the standardized services that everything's built on really helps. >> Yeah, and people are adopting cloud in kind of different ways, which makes it harder, too. But you get the benefits of scale and speed, certainly. But I got to just pick up on some big news that's happened just last night and today. Microsoft Azure suffered an 11 hour downtime across Europe. 11 hours Azure's down, Microsoft Azure. This is a huge concern. Downtime, security, these are issues, I mean, this is just like, so, what's going on with this? >> Well, the truth of the matter is, if you think about where Amazon is today, Amazon is light years ahead of the rest of the cloud guys. The reason for that is they made the decision early on to take the risk around cloud. As a result of that, they have so many lessons learned that are beyond all of the other cloud providers, that that wouldn't happen to Amazon today, because they'll be able to back up, replication and duplication if they have, and their environments. >> How big do you think that lead is? You know, there's a lot of debate in the industry that other guys are catching up. The other side of the coin is, no, actually the flywheel effect is a lot like Secretariat in the stretch run of the Belmont, you were talking about racing before. What's your sense of that lead, even subjectively. >> I think it's between 5 and 10 years. There was a, it was crickets in this world, in the public sector world for cloud up until, literally, the agency decided to adopt. So the CIA made that decision, that was, sort of, the shot heard around the world as it relates to cloud adoption. Not just for public sector but for commercial as well, 'cause if you look at Amazon's ramp up, right after that decision was made, their ramp up has been amazing. >> That was a watershed event, for sure. >> It was, and it was very well documented, I mean, I read the judges ruling on that when IBM tried to stop them and the judge eviscerated IBM. And of course IBM had no cloud at the time, they had to go out and spend two billion dollars on software. John has lots of opinions on that, but okay, so that leaves-- >> I'm on the right side of history on that call. >> I think you are, it was a pretty good call. What about, what should be practitioners be thinking about? You talked about the standardization. Where should they be focused? Is it on response, is it on analytics, is it on training? What should it be? >> Well, from our perspective it is, a lot of the focus is on analytics, right? So, a lot of data that we've helped our customers collect over time for this ATO process that John previously mentioned, our goal with IO, Xacta IO, is to help organizations leverage that data to do more through analytics, so there's this dashboard with ad hoc reporting and analytic capability that's going to allow them to blend asset data with risk-to-threat data, with other sorts of data that they're collecting for ATO, specifically for the ATO process, that they can use now for more robust cyber risk management. So, for me, analytics is huge moving forward. >> And that's a prioritization tool so they can focus on the things that matter, or maybe double-click on that? >> It could be, it could be a prioritization tool, but it could also be a tool that you use to anticipate what might happen, right? So, some analytics will help you determine this asset is vulnerable for these variety of reasons, therefore it has to go to the top of the sack for remediation. But also, using that data over time might help you understand that this plus this plus this is an indication that this bad thing is going to happen. And so, analytics, I think, falls into both categories. Probably it's more the forecasting and predictive is something that's going to come later but as you unmask more data and understand how to apply rules to that data, it will naturally come. So, Rick and I have worked together for many, many years and, over a quarter of a century, so the way I would say it is like this. Xacta 360 helps you to accelerate your authority to operate, but that's a point in time. The holy grail for us as security practitioners is all around continuous monitoring of your underlying risk. So, the data analytics that he's talking about, is where we come about and looking at Xacta IO. So, Xacta IO helps fulfill that mission of continuous compliance, which means that the ATO is no longer just relevant at that moment in time because we can do continuous monitoring now at scale, in hybrid environments, in the cloud, on prem. 'Cause our clients are huge, so they're going to be a combination of environments that they're sitting in, and they need to understand their underlying risk posture. They need to have, they're going to have all kinds of scanners, so we don't really care, we can ingest any kind of scanner that you have with Exact IO. As a result of that, the security professional can spend their time on the analysis and not the pedestrian stuff that's just kind of wasting time, like documentation and all that stuff. >> Yeah, for us, data's a means to an end, right? It's either to get an ATO or to help you understand where you need to be focusing your resources to remediate issues. So, for us, leveraging the data that's produced by many companies that are at this show. Their data is a means to help us get our job done. >> Were you able to have, one follow up, if I may, were you able to have an impact, to me, even, again, subjectively, on that number, whatever that number is, that we get infiltrated, the customer gets infiltrated, it's 300 days before they even realize it. Are you seeing an impact on that as a result of analytics, or is it too early days? >> I would say it's still early. But it's reasonable to expect that there will be benefits in terms of faster detection. And maybe it's not even detection at some point, hopefully, it's anticipating so that you're not detecting something bad already happened, it's avoiding it before it happens. >> Yeah, and let me say it this way, too. You know, if you listen to John Edwards, the CIO from the CIA, he talks about how the reason he loves the cloud is because it used to take the agency about a year to provision a server, now it's a few minutes, right? Well that's great, but if you can't get your authority to operate, 'cause that can take another 18 months, you're not going to get the benefit of the cloud, right? So what we do, is we help accelerate how fast you can get to that ATO so that guys like the agency and anybody else that wants to use the cloud can use it much more quickly, right? >> Yeah, and the continuous integration and all that monitoring is great for security but I've got to ask you a question. Analytics are super important, we all know data analysis now is in the center of the value proposition across the board, horizontally. Not just data warehousing, analytics that are used as instrumentation and variables into critical things like security. So, with that being said, if you believe that, the question is, how does that shape the architecture, if I'm in an agency or I'm a customer, I want to build a cloud architecture that's going to scale and do all those things, be up, not go down, and have security. How does the architecture change with the cloud formula for the decision maker? Because right now they're like, "Oh, should I do multi-cloud, should I just Amazon" So, the data is a critical architectural decision point. How do you guys see that shaping, what's your advice to practitioners around designing the cloud architecture for data in mind. Just use Amazon? (laughs) >> Well, yes. (laughs) Just use Amazon. I mean, all the tools that you need exist here, right, and so-- >> If all the tools you need in the cloud exist here. >> Alright, so rephrase another way. >> But John, the issue is you're not going to have all your stuff in the cloud if you're the air force or if you're the army, because you have 75 years of data that you got to push in. So over the next 10 years there's going to be this "hybrid" environment where you'll have some stuff in the cloud, some stuff in a hybrid world, some stuff on prem, right? >> How I secured that, so that's a great point. So, data's everywhere, so that means you're going to need to collect it and then measure certain things. What's the best way to secure it and then is that where Xacta fits in? I'm trying to put that together if I'm going to design my architecture and then go to procurement, whether it's on premise or multi-cloud. >> Well, there are lots of security products that people use to secure, whether you're on prem or whether you're in the cloud and our platform leverages that information to determine whether things are secure enough. So there's a distinction between cyber risk management and actually securing a database, right? So, there's so many granular point products that exist for different points along the security chain, lifecycle chain, if you will, that our objective is to ingest as much of that information and purpose it in a way that allows someone to understand whether they're actually secure or not. And so it's understanding your security posture, transforming that security information to risk so that you can prioritize, as you were talking about before. >> You're taking a platform mentality as opposed to a point product. >> We're taking an enterprise view of risk. So, the enterprise is, remember, it's on prem, and hybrid and cloud. If all your stuff is in the cloud, Amazon has the answer for you. None of our customers are in that situation. If you're a start up, Amazon's the way to go, period. But all of our customers have legacy. As a result of that it's an enterprise view of risk. That's why companies like Telos partner so well with Amazon because they're all about being close to the customer, they're all about using automation. We are as well. >> Alright, talk about the news you guys have, Xacta IO, you're the co-inventor of it, Jack. Talk about this product. What's the keys, what does it do, where's it applied to, you mentioned a little bit of getting past the authority time point there. What's the product about? The product is about ingesting massive amounts of information to facilitate the ATO process, one, but managing cyber risk more generically because not everybody has an ATO requirement. So, you asked a few seconds ago about, so you're taking a platform approach. Yes, we're blending three separate products that we currently have, taking that functionality and putting it on a very, very, robust platform that can exist on prem, it can exist in the cloud. To enable organizations to manage their cyber risk and if they choose, or they have a requirement, to deal with things like FedRAMP and risk management framework and cyber security framework and iso certification and things of that nature. The point is, not everyone has an ATO requirement but everyone has a need to manage their risk posture. So we're using our ability to ingest lots and lots of data from lots and lots of different sources. We're organizing that data in ways that allow an organization to understand compliance and/or risk and/or security, and visualize all that through some dashboard with ad hoc reporting that let's them blend that data across each other to get better insights about risk posture. >> And to visualize it in a way that makes sense to the user. >> Yes, so, if you're the CEO, you're going to want to see it a certain way. If you're the IT manager, you're going to want to see it a certain way. If you're a risk assessor, you're going to want to see it a different way. So that's kind of what we're talking about. >> I got to ask you one question, I know we got to go, but, a hardcore security practitioner once said to me that hardcore security practitioners, like you guys, when they were kids they used to dream about saving the world. So, I want to know, who's your favorite superhero? >> Superman. >> Superman? >> Spiderman. >> Alright, awesome. (laughing) >> That was a basic question for you guys. >> Thank you very much >> Yeah, that's the hardest question, see they're fast, they know. Star Trek or Star Wars? (laughing) >> Depends on the generation. >> We won't go there. theCUBE have 15 more minutes today. Okay, final question, what's this going to do for your business now you have new, opened up new windows with the new product integration. How's that going to change Telos, what does it do for you guys from a capabilities standpoint? >> Well, the big thing I'd suggest your listeners and your watchers to consider is, there's a new case study that just came out, it's published jointly by the CIA, Amazon and Telos, talking about why working together is really, really, really groundbreaking in terms of this movement to the cloud. 'Cause your public sector listeners and viewers are going to want to know about that because this ATO thing is really a problem. So this addresses a massive issue inside of the public sector. >> And final question, while you're here, just to get your thoughts, obviously there's a big change of the guard, if you will, from old guard to new guard, that's an Amazon term Andy Jassy uses. Also, we all saw the DOD deal, JEDI's right there on the table, a lot of people jockeying, kind of old school policy, lobbying, sales is changing. How is the landscape, from a vendor-supplies to the agencies changed and/or changing with this notion of how things were done in the past and the new school? So, three points, legislatively there's top cover, they understand the need to modernize, which is great. The executive branch understands the need to modernize through the IT modernization act as well as the cyber security executive order. And then lastly, there are use cases now that can show the way forward. Here's the problem. The IT infrastructure out there, the IT guys out there that do business in the government, many of them are not paid to be efficient, they're paid cost plus, they're paid time and material, that's no way to modernize. So, fundamentally, I think our customers understand that and they're going to revolutionize the move forward. >> And the rules are changing big time. Sole source, multi-source, I mean, Amazon's on record, I've got Teresa on record saying, "Look, if we don't want a sole source requirement, let everyone bid fairly." Let's see who wins. Who can bring a secret cloud to the table? No one else has that. >> In terms of past performance and customer use cases they're pretty much in the head, for sure. >> Great, Amazon kicking butt here, Telos, congratulations for a great event, thanks for coming on. >> Thanks a lot guys. >> I appreciate it. >> Alright, CUBE coverage here in DC, this is theCUBE, I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. Stay with us, we have more great interviews stacked up all day and all day tomorrow. Actually you have half day tomorrow until two 'o clock Eastern. Stay with us for more, we'll be right back. (upbeat music)