The EPAM Continuum Podcast Network

Layering biometrics on top of zero trust, says Bobby Varma, CEO and Co-Founder of Princeton Identity, is the way of the future. In the latest #CyberSecurityByDesign conversation, Varma and Boris Khazin, our Global Head of DRM Services, zoom in on this intriguing topic, one that’s extremely relevant in our current work-from-home world. Our *Silo Busting* conversationalists talk about how biometrics can create confidence for firms that the correct person—and only the correct person—is accessing sensitive data. But Varma also notes that biometrics is good for the user: “Authentication steps should not be cumbersome and should not impact user experience or diminish [user] productivity.” If you want to hear some informed thoughts on security in our increasingly hybrid work environments, all you have to do is hit the “play” button. Host: Alison Kotin Engineer: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

It’s tough to build trust in the digital age. Customers seek the kind of high-quality experiences one gets with, say, Amazon—and this means that many non-Amazonian industries need to rethink their operations. Brad Scrivner, President and CEO of Vast Bank and our guest on *The Resonance Test,* gets at this when he says, “Changing is a challenge” and admits that financial services “may be slower to adapt... than some other industries have been.” In this episode, Scrivner and Jim Kearney, Managing Principal in the Financial Services Consulting Practice at EPAM, deposit some worthwhile thoughts about how the pandemic changed Vast Bank’s approach to customer experience, conversational commerce, and how family banking has evolved. Scrivner talks about the influence *Unlocking the Customer Value Chain* had on him and explains how he get customers comfortable with the notion of digital assets. “Vast Bank owns the digital wallet, which would be the equivalent of the safety deposit box,” he says. When customers purchase cryptocurrency, it will “sit inside that digital wallet and the banking infrastructure and all of our partners are going to protect that asset for you.” Listen to Scrivner and you’ll learn a vast amount about what it means to lead a financial services organization today. Bank on it! Host: Kenji Ross Engineer: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

“Having come out of months and months *starved* of human connection… our need and desire and *demand* for shared, in-person experience with others is going to really rise.” This is one of the many true remarks Noreena Hertz makes, in speaking with producer Ken Gordon, on the latest episode of *The Resonance Test.* Hertz, a British economist and bestselling author of *The Lonely Century: How to Restore Human Connection in a World That's Pulling Apart,* effortlessly spins out stories and data and insights about the job loneliness is doing on us. In her book Hertz writes: “A lonely body is not a healthy one” and in conversation she adds: “When we’re lonely our blood pressure goes up. Our heart rate goes up. Our levels of cortisol, our stress levels in our body, go up. All of these essentially signaling to our body: ‘Stop being lonely. Go and find people to hunt and gather with. Go and find your tribe.’” But loneliness isn’t merely bad for our health; it’s bad for business. “Lonely workers are less productive, less motivated, less efficient, more likely to quit a company than workers who are not,” says Hertz. Hertz draws our attention to what she calls the loneliness economy and says it can be a win-win for us all: “If you can sell people authentic communities that speak to their needs to connect with others, you’re gonna have a significant customer base.” Ultimately, Hertz hopes we will use our experience as lonely people to create a more relational form of capitalism. Let's hope she gets many readers. Humanity can use the help. Host: Kenji Ross Engineer: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

“We all know as consumers that we want more, better, faster—for less money,” says Rick Champagne, AVP and Talent Advisor at Liberty Mutual Insurance. The question is: “How do we as an organization deliver those capabilities to our internal partners and then our external partners?” Well, this is one of *several* big questions Champagne takes up, with Sandra Loughlin, the Managing Principal of EPAM’s Learning Practice, in our latest edition of *The Resonance Test.* Together our dynamic duo hashes out the challenges in aligning skills with digital and tech strategy, creating a growth mindset in a big organization, and designing proper educational incentives. It’s an honest conversation about what it really takes to get people to learn. Says Loughlin: “We like to think, as adults, that we’re very different from little kids, but in some ways all of us like those gold stars.” We won’t promise a gold star if you listen… only that you’ll get smarter about educating your workforce. Host: Kenji Ross Editor: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

The world of mobile applications is insecure by default. That’s what you learn when you talk with Roel Caers, CEO of Guardsquare. In the latest edition of our #CybersecurityByDesign series, he tells Sam Rehman, our Chief Information Security Officer and SVP, why he’s always taken a zero-trust approach to mobile. Caers says that developers must become “aware of everything that is possible and can be done to mobile applications.” He adds that 2-3% of sensitive apps “run on malicious devices, jailbroken or something else done to the device, and that’s a lot.” As Rehman reminds us: One jailbroken device is all you need to cause major mayhem, “because it can tap into the app store.” “The fact that these applications are not protected—it creates a huge attraction to hackers,” notes Caers. “It’s not only about data—it’s also about piracy or cloning or IP theft.” Our conversationalists also talk about reverse engineering, lookalike code, the integrity of apps, and static and dynamic protection, among other salient topics. Much to learn here for anyone who uses apps (which is to say: pretty much everyone). Listen up! Host: Alison Kotin Engineer: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

Prepare yourself for an episode of *Silo Busting* with a tremendous amount of, as they say, yield. Alex Gounares, CEO of Polyverse Corporation, has returned pick up the zero-trust thread. This time around, he and Sam Rehman, our Chief Information Security Officer and SVP, are following their way down the security supply chain. Asks Gounares: “If you don’t know where your binaries are coming from and you don’t know where the source code is and you don’t know who built it, what do you do then?” The guys chat about choosing between open source and proprietary code, building your own Linux as opposed to getting polymorphic, adding noise to the system, the *patience* of some attackers, and sophisticated back doors. It’s the insightful sound of #CybersecurityByDesign, friends, and it’s good. Trust us. Host: Alison Kotin Engineer: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

Healthcare in the pandemic era requires thoughtful innovation. One physician who’s up to the challenge is cardiologist Dr. Asif Ali, Chief Medical Officer of Preventric and Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. In this sprightly conversation with Lisa Butcher, Senior Director of Digital Engagement at EPAM, Ali tells many stories. One of which involves a patient he calls “Arthur,” a man who weighed 700 pounds and went into sudden cardiac arrest during his first visit to Ali’s office. “With his obesity, no doctor would touch him, no bariatric surgeon would touch him, because he had this sudden cardiac arrest,” Ali says. But thanks to chronic care- and remote patient management—plus a donated wearable and a diabetes-prevention program-provided nutritionist—Arthur lost over 450 pounds! But this is just one of the dramatic stories on this episode of *The Resonance Test.* Ali and Butcher dig deep into the collection of data and the treatment of vascular disease, medical consumerism, artificial intelligence and machine learning, the importance of partnerships, and what Ali calls “point-of-care decision making.” You’ll want to hit play on this conversation with a doctor who has a heart and understands exactly what makes it tick. Host: Kenj Ross Editor: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

Data sharing in the age of COVID can be, according Anshu Sharma, Co-Founder and CEO of Skyflow, a matter of life and death. Sharma, the latest guest on our #CybersecurityByDesign series on *Silo Busting,* explains that Skyflow’s data privacy vaults are being used, *right now,* for COVID testing and vaccine information. This urgent topic reunites Sharma and Sam Rehman, our Chief Information Security Officer and SVP, (both of whom worked at Oracle years ago) to unlock for us the mysteries of zero-trust privacy vaults. The pair talk about data privacy, look at contemporary encryption techniques, and consider how airlines, banks, Facebook, and the VA all deal with data. But the bass note of their conversation is COVID data: “all of this information needs to flow, but we have to be able to do this without compromising anybody’s privacy. This is not an unsolvable problem. The sad part is a lot of people think this is unsolvable but I think it’s totally solvable with today’s technology. If we solve this problem, we can save a lot of lives.” And that’s nor a mere assertion; it’s a fact. Host: Alison Kotin Engineer: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

Apps don’t just bring us our favorite music and allow us to engage in mobile banking; they present great opportunities for cybercrime. More than 80% of cyberattacks enter through the application layer. That’s why this #CybersecurityByDesign episode of Silo Busting is focused on application security, or AppSec, as the experts call it. One of them, Eugene Dzihanau, EPAM’s Head of Defensive Security Services, joins Sam Rehman, our Chief Information Security Officer and SVP, and Producer Ken Gordon to think out loud about what AppSec means right now. Dzihanau says that, in our cloud-driven present, “Applications became much more than applications” and that in this world “everything starts to become an application.” Rehman agrees and says that it’s a dangerous time because cybercriminals are looking vigorously for vulnerabilities. “Whenever there is change, there is chance for an exploit,” says Rehman. How to make applications more secure? Start at the start. Dzihanau says: “Thinking about security from an architecture perspective from the beginning will save you a lot of headaches.” Of course, it’s not simple to make this happen, and Dzihanau counsels us to approach this carefully and intentionally: “Don’t set the bar too high. Address the change in behavior of your developers and architects and make sure that the security steps are done throughout your SDLC, from the beginning to the end, from design to deployment.” Host: Alison Kotin Engineer: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

A bad experiment, says HBS professor Stefan Thomke, is one “where you learn nothing.” Thomke, the author of the recent volume *Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments* and our guest on *The Resonance Test,* should know. A thoughtful advocate of the methodical and effective testing of ideas, Thomke’s conversion with our Chris Michaud educated us on the many challenges of building an experimental culture and what leadership requires here. Experimentation is not easy. “Human nature gets in the way,” Thomke says. “We tend to happily accept good results, which are confirming our biases.” But when confronted by a “bad” result, he notes, “we challenge and *thoroughly* investigate it.” In *Experimentation Works,* we learn about the newly arrived Booking.com CEO who arrived and presented a logo to his staff. They responded: “That’s great; we’ll check it with an experiment.” Thomke also reminds us that building such a strong experimental culture can’t be done on the cheap. “CEOs get really excited about innovation and they tell everybody to be innovative but there are no budgets available,” says Thomke, adding: “You gotta put some serious resources into these kinds of things.” Invest in the next episode of the podcast and get smarter about your experiments. Host: Kenj Ross Editor: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon