Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
A Personal Entry Point: Mom, MFA, And Plain Language
Kimber Spradlin begins with her mother. “Even my mom knows what MFA is,” she says. Her mother enabled two-factor authentication on every banking app. That small act signals progress. It also frames Spradlin’s core message. Cybersecurity awareness starts with understanding and clear communication. People act when they grasp the why, not the jargon.
SIEM – What Graylog Does, In Human Terms
Spradlin is Chief Marketing Officer at Graylog. She keeps the explanation simple. Graylog is a log management and SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) solution. Every click and call creates a log. Vendors record those logs in different formats and “grammars.” Graylog ingests them all and normalizes the data. Analysts then search, detect patterns, and set alerts. The goal is fast, confident answers. You cannot watch millions of events by hand. You can correlate them and surface the signal.
Teams drown in notifications. “They receive way too many alerts,” Spradlin says. Graylog’s job is to reduce noise. Evidence collection links users, devices, and systems. A hundred pings become one incident with context. That context includes asset sensitivity and known attack techniques. Analysts triage faster when alerts carry risk and relevance. “You can’t be wasting security people’s time,” she says.
Compliance, Retention, And The Cost Curve
Compliance is widely understood. It is also expensive. SOC 2 and regulators expect proof. Cyber insurers expect it, too. “They are fussy about log collection and retention,” Spradlin says. Logs enable audits when things go wrong. Storage bills grow with each year of required retention. The data piles up. She remembers tape archives and failed restores. Cloud operations improve reliability, but not the invoices. Accountability is necessary. The economy needs planning.
Cybersecurity Hygiene Beats Hype, Year After Year
“The top things have not changed,” Spradlin says. Identity and access controls come first. Patching and updates help secure doors. Do those two things well, and incidents vanish. She has preached this since 1997. Incentives still lag. Fraud costs often bypass consumers. That dulls urgency. Yet public awareness is rising. Her mother’s MFA example shows it. Small habits compound into real resilience.
AI, Algorithms, And Honest Claims
Spradlin draws a bright line. LLMs help with language. Detection relies on math. “It can’t be, I think this is part of the messages,” she says. Security needs definitive signals tied to attacks. Machine learning is algorithmic and testable. Marketing blurs terms to meet audiences where they are. That invites confusion. She urges precision in claims and outcomes. One clear win stands out. “AI systems appear to be really good at code review.” Catching flaws earlier shrinks downstream risk.
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Digital Literacy Is A Cybersecurity Control
People need training in daily basics. Cybersecurity awareness comes when you teach MFA, password managers, and the importance of updates. When you teach how deepfakes work and why they persuade, teach how “free” apps harvest data. Use plain language over acronyms. “You want to communicate in a way they will understand,” she says. That is how hygiene scales beyond the security team. Culture follows clarity.
The Throughline: Clarity Creates Speed
Spradlin’s throughline is tight. Normalize data. Add context. Cut noise. Communicate clearly. Then act. Graylog builds the clarity. Teams apply judgment. Insurers and auditors verify the trail. The public learns habits that stick. Cybersecurity improves when systems make sense and people do, too.
Kimber Spradlin will feature on an upcoming episode of the Cyber Insurance News Podcast.
Until Then, Check Out This Episode on AI Risk Exposure
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