IT’S WORTH NOTING that prior to founding Cylance, McClure served as CTO of McAfee (arguably the most ubiquitous security software on the planet).

“But the problem with a solution like McAfee is that it’s reactive as opposed to predictive,” McClure explains. “A Patient Zero has to be infected before the software even realizes something’s wrong.”

An IRL human must then diagnose the issue, write it into the software and push it back out to consumers (hence those annoying update requests). Systems are exposed for days, weeks or even months at a time.

“That kind of approach may have worked 20, 30 years ago, when new viruses appeared maybe once a month,” he remembers. “But today, an attack can be created in seconds — hackers only have to change a few bytes. So, our defenses need to be just as fast.”

In reality, no human can compete against modern threats. Not even McClure, who wrote the book on cybersecurity. (Literally, he did. It’s called Hacking Exposed.) Only a machine could handle the job.

SO, WHAT IF you’re thinking: Why do I care? Cybersecurity ain’t my thing.

“People need to understand that cyber attacks are an increasingly common form of warfare,” McClure explains. “Like when [Russia] shut down Georgia’s banks prior to invasion… or China hacked Japan’s critical infrastructure. Cybersecurity needs to be part of our first line of defense.”

For more info on Cylance, check our video interview with McClure.