Where do you turn when you have a security breach? To a malware archaeologist, of course. Michael Gough, founder of Malware Archaeology, LLC, is a malware archeologist who researches hacker attacks by reviewing log cases, or as he puts it: looks for a needle in a haystack.

Gough sat down with John Furrier, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, at Splunk .conf 2015 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to discuss cybersecurity.

Protect and defend

According to Gough, “You have to know what you are protecting. You can’t have security unless you know what to protect.” He went on to say companies should treat the cloud no differently than any other server.

He also feels industry standards do not go far enough. He said, “We need to look at logging and configuring the end point better than we are doing now.” But his message to all is enable and configure.

The next generation of defenders

Gough believes that there is a lack of cybersecurity experts. He tells the industry that there is a need for education in the field and that the community needs to reach children. “I recommend that kids should talk to teachers and invite ‘white hat’ hackers to speak at schools. We need to reach out to kids and get them excited,” he said.

He encourages people to visit securitybsides.org for more information about this exciting field.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Splunk .conf 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE