Why Your Supply Chain is the Next Encryption Battleground

Hey everyone. Welcome here to Tech Drunk tv. I'm in.

Happy to introduce you to my next guest. His name is Lesh Agaral. Uh, Lesh is the president for, uh, P two P Solutions and Technology at Apex Analytics.

That's A-P-E-X-A-N-A-L-Y-T-I-X. Ulus, welcome to Textron tv. How are you Doing?

Good, Alan, thank you so much for the introduction. Uh, it's my pleasure to have you on here. Olis, I mentioned you were the president over at, for, uh, a Apex Analytics, P two P Solutions and Tech.

Talk to me about, well, let's start with you, before we even get into your title and your role at and the company. Give us a sense of how you came to be here today. Yeah, it's a, a long journey.

I've had three different, uh, corporate roles. Um, actually the, the first one was really a startup. Uh, that's how I started my journey, right?

So the first 10 years of my career, right out of high school, uh, I focused on court case management systems and paperless imaging. That was a thing back in the day. Um, so did that with, um, uh, with a lot of counties in the state of Texas.

Um, that was the first 10 years. Then I pivoted into software development for an accounts receivable company. Uh, it was called Receivable Management Services out of Bethlem, Pennsylvania.

So worked there for, uh, a few years and, and that's where I got expertise into accounts receivables. Um, it got acquired. Then I moved to New York, actually, and I, and I worked out of there for two years.

And then again, I got an opportunity at Apex. So in 2012, I joined Apex Analytics. Uh, I joined in the, in our software engineering department to, to see what APEX does in accounts payables.

And, um, uh, back then we were in accounts payable audit company for the world's largest company. So, so my focus area was how do we make our software better services, better through technology? So that's what, when I joined Apex, and, and that's my background.

Love it. Love it, love it. Good stuff.

Um, I noticed you call it Apex. I guess you would, if the company's name's Apex Analytics, it's easier. I'm gonna assume a lot of folks in our audience are not familiar with Apex Analytics, though.

So if you don't mind, I'm gonna ask you to kind of go back into the time machine here and, and give people sort of the, the history, the story behind Apex Analytics all the way up to today. Yeah, absolutely. So we are, uh, approximately 30 5-year-old company and growing, uh, it was created, uh, originally by, uh, four people.

Those were the founders. And, and their goal was, uh, to help out the world's largest companies into, uh, finding overpayments, duplicate payments, uh, that they might be making, right? So that's, uh, how our company was founded.

The vision, um, has essentially remained the same. Uh, the vision has always been and, and still is. Uh, it's about making the lives of our employees, our customers, and our business partners better.

In other words, um, our CEO of the company, Steve Yoko, he mentioned, um, the other day, we are in the business of selling sleep, right? And how we sell sleep is there, there are two, uh, uh, far ends of the spectrum. So one end is, uh, fear.

Why people have fear is because, uh, people fear what they do not understand, right? So that's one end. The second end of the spectrum is, um, um, you know, understanding and data, right?

So, uh, that understanding comes from data And Apex is, is in a unique position of moving people from the spectrum of fear into spectrum of understanding with data, right? And, and when they move here, they lose that fear, they lose that anxiety, they, they can sleep better, right? So in a way that that's, um, very non-technical way of, of describing our business.

Um, but just some more details. We, we do business with, um, uh, 400 plus companies who are the world's largest enterprises, right? We protect $10 trillion in annual spend across the globe.

Um, why this is very important. It is just not about pro providing a service and protecting spend, uh, when this money goes out the door to wrong hands. So, as an example, uh, somebody changed a bank account, and the bank account was fraudulent, and it went to the wrong person.

That person who's an imposter is not taking that money and doing welfare for society, right? The intention is generally evil, where, you know, they are harming the society, right? So it's just not about protecting money for the world's largest companies.

It's about protecting the society and making it better, which kind of goes back to our vision on making people's lives better, right? So everything we do ultimately goes back to that vision. Just some more data points.

Uh, we have 250 million, uh, supply records. So we protect the supply chain with this massive amount of data that we process. And, and how we make this data set better is we engage with millions of suppliers annually to do the, the accounts payable audit.

Uh, but we also have this, uh, risk platform where suppliers log in and they register, they get onboarded, but we use 1200 plus external data sources, our internal algorithms, uh, machine language ai, to make those golden records better and, and reduce the risk, uh, for our customers, protect the suppliers. Uh, and, and that's what we do. Love it.

Did we mention the website? I don't think so. We haven't.

com. Perfect. Okay.

If you don't mind a cola, now that we've got all that kind of foundational work done, I wanna talk to you about a recent research report over at Apex Analytics on the Quantum Paradox, uh, separating hype from reality for supply chain leaders. You know, I, we, we announced the Quantum Security 25 list last week, or maybe it was Monday. No, it was last week.

And, um, been been interviewing a lot of people in Quantum as a result of that. And, and, and the consistent thing we, I hear is, look, we grew up in this business. Hearing Quantum was five to 10 years out.

It was always five to 10 years out, five years later, it was still five to 10 years out. Five years after that, it was still five to 10 years out. But now we're not saying that anymore.

We're saying, no, it's, it's imminent. It's a lot closer than it's been. It's real.

And you know, when you look at what's going on with post quantum cryptography, you know, uh, quantum proof algorithms, people are realizing if we don't prepare for this now, get out ahead of it now. Right? It, it's not gonna be like a holiday with Hallmark cards on the calendar that says Q Day is, you know, March 17th, it's gonna come and it's gonna wash over us if we're not ready.

So I'm wondering if this is showing up in your reporter or people still in, uh, it's five to 10 years out. Uh, it, it, it's not, uh, there, there are two ways to look at it, right? So why people think it's still far out is because, um, uh, it, it's a, it's a hidden thing in the, in the background, right?

Why call it a hidden thing is, uh, there is a concept called harvest now, decrypt later, right? So before we even get into quantum computing, let's talk about how the businesses, how people work today. So if I log into my bank ground right now, the bank is offering that service because the transaction between me and my bank is secure.

No one between us can decrypt my data or look at that transaction. So it's, it's secure. Uh, before the internet and online banking, we used to walk into the bank and do a personal transaction, we still can, but most of the transactions now are online.

The only reason this online business exists is because it is secure and data cannot be decrypted in between, right? And over the years, these standards change because as, as, um, uh, the, the hackers and, and security vulnerabilities, uh, get discovered, um, they will try and decrypt it, and then we have better algorithms. So it's a, uh, uh, uh, a cat and mouse game that we play every single day, right?

Uh, so not only online banking, think about every transaction, right? So whether you're buying something from a shopping cart, um, it has to be secure, right? When I'm giving someone my credit card information, it has to be secure.

So the, the entire industry exists because of the security. What is happening now is there is a concept called harvest now and decrypt data. And what this really means is, yes, I know that I cannot decrypt the data today.

It's secure, but nothing is preventing me or adversaries or, uh, governments across the world to store my data as it goes through the internet, through their, through the pipeline and just harvest it. So that's why we call harvest, right? They're just storing it.

And, and they're making that encrypted data grow over time. Sometime in future, uh, using quantum computing. When it becomes reality and that's not far away, uh, these adversaries will be able to decrypt all, all of the data that they have stored, right?

So, if I trans made a transaction, if a supplier made a transaction, if someone opened a bank account, someone sent a wire transfer, all of those transactions could be potentially decrypted later. And not only we, we stop here, think about the world governments. If there's a diplomatic cable that goes from, let's say, us to another company, uh, country like China, those, uh, uh, messages are encrypted.

No one can read them right now. Think about decrypting those governmental messages. Uh, and, and, and now there's a, there's a big, uh, uh, tragedy, which, which can happen, right?

Even in, in the world, world war area, uh, we, we know this person called Alan Tiering, right? And he, he helped with, uh, changing the trajectory of the World War by decrypting the messages the Germans were sending, right? So it's the same concept all over again, right?

Uh, it's just like, okay, we have very, very strong encryption standards today. So, which, uh, machine can, can humans create? Who's the next talent hearing who will be able to decrypt all of our encryption today?

And that's what we are looking at. You know, it, it may not be human, but, uh, the, it, it will be, I mean, here, here's the thing though. And again, this is a topic I, I've discussed.

The, there is a, no, I don't know another way of saying it, a ton. A a crap ton of data, encrypted data that has been harvested over the years. And I, I think, you know, and, and it used to be people would say, oh, don't worry, it's hashed.

Right? It's salted can't get to it. No, they can't.

But, you know, that day, as you say, is coming rapidly. And my, my suspicion is it probably won't be some mom and pop hacker group that does ransomware that comes up with a quantum computer to, to unh to unencrypt this stuff. It'll probably be nation states, right?

A nation state who actually can afford and has a quantum computer that it could work on these things, but that won't stop all these bad actors from giving that data over to the nation state in exchange for money information or what have you. The the flip side of it is, I always view that harvested data as radioactive in that it has a half-life every, depending on what its half-life is, every life, you know, it becomes half as useful because the information is out of date. Now, PII, who you are, your social security number, your date of birth, right?

That may not change, but your home address, your email address, your cell phone, right? These things change. And, and so the longer we could push that quantum event horizon out, the, the less value, right?

The more radioactive decay, if you will, that that harvested data gets. But as we said in the beginning, it's not five to 10 years anymore. Yeah.

And, uh, just want to add to that, uh, statement, it would be radioactive in the half-life, uh, applicable if I had static data today as an example, right? But I don't have static data today. That data changes every hour, every second, and it gets renewed in any company, right?

Mm-hmm. So I'm not stopping my transactions today. I'll have new transactions tomorrow, right?

So as we get closer and closer to this, um, uh, post quantum encryption war where, uh, uh, or post condom cryptography were, where nation states that would happen to begin with, are able to decrypt that data and, and, and, and use it to their advantage, um, uh, that will become a reality, right? So what we don't want to be in a, uh, uh, what we don't wanna do is be in a situation that it caught us off guard. It, it, it was in our blind spot.

We never realized it. And one fine day when I opened the news, I saw that my data can be decrypted, right? That would be the worst, right?

So what we wanna do is prepare for it today, and it's going to be a journey, like you said, it's, it's not happening tomorrow, but every data that I transact, which is encrypted, is potentially captured by adversaries, by nation states. And I wanna prepare for it so that in the future, they're not able to decrypt it, not able to misuse it, right? And the preparation must begin today.

Uh, a different example I'll give is the world changed because people got to know what Chad GPD is as an example. And before Chad GPD, there was LLMs, there was ai, but an average human being never cared about it, right? The, the, the use of AI was in silos in large corporates, um, um, not in a household or, right?

And Chad degree changed that to an household item, right? So in future, as we advance towards quantum, uh, and it becomes reality, it becomes a day-to-day affair, what is going to happen is not only quantum is gonna be isolated by itself, it's going to be able to decrypt all the information, but it's also going to empower AI even better. So think about you setting in a household and you say, decrypt this data for me, and, and that AI now connects to a nation state supercomputer through a subscription, and even household individuals could potentially decrypt it, right?

So it's, that's just a matter of a cloud based service, which is providing quantum decryption. So I don't even have to buy that expensive equipment and host it myself, right? I can, no, I can go to, let's say North Korea as an example.

Uh, and, and they might have, uh, this quantum computers and they might be offering it as a service. I don't ha I think we, this, this crime as a service hack, as a service, I think is already available today. Not quantum, perhaps, but, you know, crime criminals.

Because I think that's how the, the, the underbelly of the, of this whole criminal and these enterprises work. There's actually a very stratified, right? I de I design ransomware, I sell it to you.

You get the ransomware, you get the, the data from the ransomware, you sell it to someone else who's just harvest, who's just storing, not even harvesting, right? There, there is, there's a, there's a whole supply chain here. And so of course, there'll be a supply chain for the quantum computer, and they'll take their pound of flesh for, for doing the encryption as well as keeping the information.

It's crazy worlds we're living in, Les. I mean, absolutely. These are, you know, there's so much.

I mean, the amount of, of vulnerabilities being found by ai, we're on the edge of quantum. Uh, the, the amount of code we're generating and who knows how secure, we're finding it as more insecurities. It's crazy times.

It's crazy. It's enough to make your head spent. Um, absolutely.

But I want to thank you for coming out here on Text Drug tv. This was great. Uh, continued success with Apex Analytics and come back and keep us posted on your, on your research.

Yeah. And, uh, thank you, Alan. And just parting words, right?

Um, for everyone who's watching this, think about it like this. It's not A-A-C-I-O problem. It's not a CSO problem.

It's not a procurement problem. It's actually a CEO problem, right? Because it's impacting the entire organizations, uh, that you all run.

So just be mindful and, and, and prepare. And, um, as you do business with, with your business partners, suppliers, third parties, make sure they are also working towards quantum readiness, not just you alone, because it, it's not a, a journey in isolation. You could be prepared, but if your business partners are not prepared, if your suppliers are not prepared, uh, they're going to hurt you the most, right?

So, uh, the weakest link, uh, in, in the team is how much the strength of the team is, right? So, so make sure your suppliers are also, uh, ready with it, and, and you assess them regularly through, through, through doing risk management. Thanks, Alan.

I love it. ESAL President, P two P Solutions and Technology at Apex Analytics here on techstrong tv. We're gonna take a break.

We'll be back in a moment.