Robert McNutt is the CTO of Forescout, a cybersecurity company that specialises in protecting the ‘enterprise of things’.

Founded in 2000, the San Jose, California headquartered company provides ‘agentless’ security software that automatically monitors security threats across PCs, mobile, tablet and other internet of things (IoT) devices. As CTO, McNutt works closely with customers to turn customer feedback into the latest product roadmap.

In this Q&A, the 33rd in our weekly series, McNutt discusses the “onslaught” of new internet devices at risk to cyberattacks, explains why we need to accept change whether good or bad and shares his “humbling” Jiu-Jitsu experience.

Rob Scammell: Tell us a bit about yourself – how did you end up in your current role?

Robert McNutt: I’ve spent the last 15 years working in cybersecurity, with an emphasis on developing solutions to problems that aren’t solved by off the shelf products.

At Forescout, this also became my evolution through various roles, bringing new solutions or products to market to help customers stay ahead of the bad guys.

What’s the most important thing happening in your field at the moment?

The modernisation of all things digital. More and more devices are being connected and interconnected to various networks and to the internet. This is driving the need to defend the enterprise network against adversaries who try to take advantage of this onslaught of new things that could present an attack vector.

Which emerging technology do you think holds the most promise once it matures?

Machine Learning. Many use it today to help replace mundane tasks or find similarities in large amounts of data, but once it can mature beyond the need to be trained, we’ll see some true advantages.

How do you separate hype from disruptor?

A disruptor needs to actually provide value to a customer and not just demonstrate it. Hype is typically created by something that seems too good to be true, and that usually is the case.

It can also be determined by how much money is spent on marketing & sales, vs R&D. Typically, a disruptor needs to improve upon something that is already valuable – whereas hype is the belief that something entirely new will have value.

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve been given?

Go big or go home. It sounds cliché, but I translate this into the idea that whatever you try to achieve, do it with a bar set higher than what’s actually needed.