Cole Cornford
Founder & CEO, Galah Cyber at Galah Cyber
Hosts Secured by Galah Cyber
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In their own words
From Cole Cornford Discusses Bootstrapping and Balancing Business with Family Life · UnfundedUnless you intentionally block out parts of your life to live your life, you will fill it with work.
About
Cole Cornford is founder and CEO of Galah Cyber, an Australian application security consultancy he started in 2021 after roles at the Australian Taxation Office and Westpac, where he worked in AppSec. He holds a Bachelor of Information Technology from the University of Newcastle. Cole is a regular OWASP contributor, having worked on its XSS Cheat Sheet rewrite, and hosts the Secured by Galah Cyber podcast, interviewing Australian security practitioners. He is a frequent speaker at BSides and AISA conferences on application security and developer-focused security communication.
Career
- Now Founder & CEO · Galah Cyber
- From 2017 Application security · Westpac
- Until 2017 Graduate · Australian Taxation Office
Sources: newcastle.edu.au
Key moments
Jump straight to the part of Cole Cornford on Protecting Startup Attack Surfaces | Galah Cyber you want.
- 1:40 Cole’s childhood dream: video games, Team Fortress, and eSports sponsorship
- 5:22 Why Galah Cyber’s mascot is a pink galah (and not a scary hawk or snake)
- 7:36 The three buyer journeys in cybersecurity: proactive, reactive, and compliance-driven
- 9:29 What “attack surface” actually means, minus the jargon
- 10:08 Who counts as a “threat actor”? From clumsy insiders to international hackers
- 12:07 The overlooked risks: protecting marketing funnels and payment channels
- 14:20 Why adding friction to payments can stop scams
- 16:09 The opportunity cost of over-investing in security too early
- 17:28 What ISO and SOC 2 certifications mean (and when founders should care)
- 19:25 When enterprise customers will demand compliance
Connections
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