EP468: Nick Mullen - Cybersecurity Mistakes That Could Cost You Everything

Michael Palmer: Now, if that doesn't work, that's typically when they go scorched earth and they go straight to extortion and they say, listen, I'm in your environment, I've stolen your data, or I have access to this data that you wouldn't want to see leaked out into the public and pay me or else. And so that is— that's the most dangerous scenario. That's when things get the most high risk. And I would say if you were going to say what's the biggest threat facing, you know, bookkeeping businesses today, it's ransomware. You're listening to The Successful Bookkeeper with your host, Michael Palmer. Listen each week as inspiring guests share their secrets of success to help you increase your confidence, work smarter, and build a business you love. This episode of The Successful Bookkeeper is brought to you by purebookkeeping.com. The proven system to grow your bookkeeping business. Welcome back to the Successful Bookkeeper Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be a very important one. Our guest is a cybersecurity expert, founder and CEO of N2Security. Nick Mullen, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Michael. Glad to be here. It's great to have you. Now, cybersecurity, I'm sure the ears of our listener has perked up and they're afraid because cybersecurity is just such a big word. And I'm sure many of our listeners would know what that's all about, but I would imagine many don't. And I'd love to hear your backstory. How did you end up doing what you're doing today? And to help our listener get to know you a little bit before we get into what we should be thinking about cybersecurity these days.

Guest: Yeah, I appreciate that. So I've been in the technology space for almost 2 decades now, mostly in the financial services sector. So my background is in security and project management. So I've been doing that at Fortune 50 companies, Fortune nothings, and pretty much everything in between. About 3.5 years ago, I started a consulting firm. And it was just me focused on helping small and mid-sized businesses with security problems. And then last year, late last year, I organized a new entity, N2 Security, with a couple partners where we are focused on this space specifically. So accounting, tax, bookkeeping, and credit union cybersecurity. Interesting. Very, very interesting. I guess this is, you know, your business is growing. This must be a going concern. This is something people should be concerned about. What are the