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- [00:00]
Indiana University Narrator
Old playbooks won't solve tomorrow's problems. Indiana University is proving how higher education can create solutions with industry. Our partnerships address future talent and workforce needs, support entrepreneurs and local businesses, and create solutions that turn discoveries into dollars. Together, we're building a model for industry partnerships that fuel economic growth. Explore IU's impact at iu.edu impact.
- [00:29]
Host 1
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio news There's so.
- [00:35]
Host 2
Much to talk about right now on this Friday, whether it's in the markets or just broader company news right now. But one thing I did want to talk about is cybersecurity, Scarlet. I mean, cybersecurity is becoming increasingly more important, especially as we see a lot of online threats ramping up and honestly getting more and more creative.
- [00:53]
Host 1
Yeah, not a day goes by that you don't hear about a country or a company getting hacked by someone or some band of people. And you know, at a consumer level, obviously it's very concerning when you've got everything in your email or in your phone.
- [01:07]
Host 2
Absolutely. With us to talk about this and more is Vincent Palat. He's CEO of Gen Digital, which trades on the NASDAQ under ticker ge, and you may be familiar with one of its brands, Norton, but we are joined by Vincent from Belgium. Actually, Vincent, tell us a little bit about the current landscape right now as we think about protection from cybersecurity threats.
- [01:29]
Vincent Palat
Yeah, as you've mentioned, the threat landscape is very dynamic at a high level now, all enabled by AI, which really increase the complexity of the threat, the sophistication of the threats and becoming very difficult to detect. And you mentioned that the enterprise are being attacked, but the enterprise are protecting themselves more and more. So who is left vulnerable in the middle is the consumer. And whether it's a deep fake, a scam, phishing, leveraging your data that have been breached somewhere else and then capturing that to create some damages. The overall damages for the consumers in the US alone is over $15 billion and growing double digit these days.
- [02:10]
Host 1
Pretty incredible growth rate there. What are the most common ways that people find their data, their personal data compromised, and what are some of the more unusual ways in which it happens?
- [02:23]
Vincent Palat
I would say that today 80% of the threat facing consumers are scam or social engineering. And, and it's about collecting a vast amount of personal data you have in the digital world, whether you know it, you put them on your own social media websites, or whether those data have been breached as part of you shopping online or shopping into a different environment, and then your data is being captured solely in the dark web and now with AI tools, very sophisticated personalized emails or texts are fooling consumers. We've detected Last quarter over 140,000 websites that mimic real brand website driven by AI, but actually are just meant to capture and create financial damages for consumers.
- [03:10]
Host 2
How is Gen Digital leveraging AI just to push productivity forward at the company as we think about it in relation to cybersecurity as the topic of the day, of course.
- [03:20]
Vincent Palat
Right. So not only ISE is a threat from being used by hackers a threat for consumers, but we also adjourned digital using AI to protect our consumers. So we're the first one to come with the full model for anti scam and being able to detect real time scams as they hit either your text, your voice or your emails. And are we embedding that more into cheap manufacturers to create deep fake solutions and really making sure we can detect what's the problem of the day? What's the reality? Is this message real or not? Is this video real or not? Is this voice real or not? And we heavily investing into moving our overall threat protection into an AI powered threat detection.
- [04:07]
Host 1
So in terms of companies and consumer spending on protection from the cybersecurity threats, what have you observed so far in 2025? You know, we know that earnings season has gone pretty well for most companies. You have just reported results as well. Your second quarter adjusted EPS beat analysts estimates by a penny. And your second quarter revenue slightly higher than what was anticipated. Are companies growing their spending on cybersecurity at a stable rate or has that picked up? Do you see them pulling back a little bit if the economy starts going south a bit?
- [04:42]
Vincent Palat
No, definitely. People are investing more into making sure that the defense is becoming more and more sophisticated to address the overall threat landscape. You've seen our report, you mentioned that we had another outstanding quarter beat and raise here in Q2 that followed another bid and raise in Q1. As we developing not only the protection of security, but enable the consumer to be secure, to be private, to also manage their identity and their reputations, we are expanding the pie if you want. And that has enabled us to post it another quarter at about 25% growth with the help of our most recent acquisition, which is leading into the financial wellness. As you protect your data, you want to protect your financial position, you also want to help consumer manage and grow that position.
- [05:29]
Host 2
So we're headed into the holiday season. Do you all tend to see any sort of uptick in terms of cybersecurity threats or maybe identity theft, even and if so how can consumers protect themselves?
- [05:41]
Vincent Palat
It's definitely a higher risk season. Obviously everybody wants to go out and shop more, dine more and that's at every point in time you're exposing your personal data out. So we, we constantly educate our customers to make sure that these days they really controlling where do they put their credit cards, which website they go and shop from and making sure they use our anti scam detection tools and models to make sure we can detect where the risk is. But definitely we advise everyone to be to be cautious these days. Hackers are out there and trying to collect your personal digital footprint.
- [06:16]
Host 1
Do does people's infatuation with with cryptocurrency bitcoin digital wallets, does that increase the likelihood that they might be a target of cybersecur cyber attacks?
- [06:30]
Vincent Palat
I would say that the overall penetration of your digital footprint you live becoming more and more digital life. And the method of payments that you mentioned is just another sign of moving more online which then creates of course also more risk to be, to be, to be, to be attacked. So the overall trend is to move more online in many different dimensions including the the method of payments.
- [06:56]
Host 2
What's your strategy for rebuilding or maintaining trust at a time where cybersecurity failures continue to make headlines?
- [07:05]
Vincent Palat
And it's not only cybersecurity failure, it's only also a time where with AI it's difficult to detect what's reality and what's a fake. So there's still a reality we're discussing and so definitely trying to making sure we equip our consumers in our tools with deep fake detection and ability to really see what is produced by a machine versus what is an actual piece of content is is an important needs that we're trying to address.
- [07:34]
Host 1
All right, good stuff. Really appreciate your joining us today with your recap of your results and to give us kind of the overview of what it looks like here in the cybersecurity space. Vincent Paulette is Chairman and CEO of Gen Digital.
- [07:46]
Indiana University Narrator
Old Playbooks won't solve tomorrow's problems. Indiana University is redefining the relationship between higher education and industry. We're addressing future talent and workforce needs through more than 10,000 industry partnerships, supporting and investing in young entrepreneurs and businesses that create jobs and grow the economy and facilitating the research and development that lead to breakthrough solutions. This isn't business as usual. Indiana University Plus Industry is a partnership that fuels economic growth. Explore IU's impact at IU. Edu Impact There are two kinds of.
- [08:23]
Akshat Ratty
People in the world. People who think about climate change and people who are doing doing something about it. On the Zero podcast, we talk to both kinds of people. People you've heard of, like Bill Gates.
- [08:33]
Vincent Palat
I'm looking at what the world has to do to get to zero, not using climate as a moral crusade and.
- [08:40]
Akshat Ratty
The creative minds you haven't heard of yet. It is serious stuff, but never doom and gloom. I am Akshat Ratty. Listen to Zero every Thursday from Bloomberg Podcasts on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you get your podcasts.