CISO Series Podcast

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The Department of "No, Thank You" Mar 24, 2020

Show notes

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/the-department-of-no-thank-you/)

Just go to the front desk, sign in, and then the receptionist will say "no" in the most polite way possible.

This week's episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest is Nina Wyatt, CISO, Sunflower Bank.

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, CyberArk.

At CyberArk, we believe that sharing insights and guidance across the CISO community will help strengthen security strategies and lead to better-protected organizations. CyberArk is committed to the continued exploration of topics that matter most to CISOs related to improving and integrating privileged access controls.

On this week's episode

There's got to be a better way to handle this

The hot new cybersecurity threat is the Coronavirus. Not the virus itself or the possible fake phishing emails connected to it, but our overall fear and its impact on work. According to data from Boardish, there is a 42% increase over baseline in fear of immobility, or staff not being able to operate effectively remotely. To put that number in perspective, phishing and ransomware have each seen an 8% threat increase. I read immobility's huge number to mean companies are simply not prepared for how their staff may need to operate.

What we've got here is failure to communicate

What's the best way to say 'no' to a vendor? This was a question that was asked of me by Eric Gauthier, CISO at Scout Exchange. He wants to say no because his cloud business has no need for certain services, and he doesn't want to be rude, but just saying no doesn't seem to work. What are the most successful techniques of saying no to a security vendor? And what different kinds of "no" are there?

"What's Worse?!"

A tough decision on a company built on acquisitions.

Walk a mile in this CISO's shoes

For many CISOs, there is a "What's Next?" as they don't necessarily expect "CISO" to be their final resting place professionally. Gary Hayslip, a CISO for Softbank Investment Advisers and frequent guest, wrote on both LinkedIn and Peerlyst about next steps for CISOs who want to move out of the role. The recommendations were other C-level positions, going independent, and starting a new company.

On January 2 of this year, parking meters in New York City stopped accepting credit and parking cards. At fault? Security software that had expired on the first day of 2020. Reminiscent of Y2K, this draws attention to the next two time-related bugs predicted for 2036 and 2038. The 2038 problem affects 32-bit systems that rely on timecodes that max out on January 19 of that year. A similar rollover is expected in 2036 for Network Time Protocol systems.

In all likelihood, affected systems either have been or will be replaced over the next 18 years, but the dangers still exist, in situations where vulnerable devices remain buried in a legacy system or in cases where advanced calculation of expiry dates are needed, or like New York City, where the upgrade was apparently overlooked. It serves as a reminder that data security must look to its past while it plans for the future.

More from our sponsor ExtraHop.

Hey, you're a CISO. What's your take on this?

What's the impact of Europe's Right to Be Forgotten (RTFB)? It's been five years and Google has received ~3.2 million requests to delist URLs, from ~502,000 requesters. Forty five percent of those URLs met the criteria for delisting, according to Elie Bursztein, leader of Google's anti-abuse research team. Search engines and media sites hold the greatest responsibility, but what responsibility are companies forced to deal with and do they have the capacity to meet these requests?

We Pick the Best Security Awareness Programs for Your Staff to Ignore Mar 17, 2020

Show notes

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/we-pick-the-best-security-awareness-programs-for-your-staff-to-ignore/)

It doesn't matter which security awareness training program you purchase. Your staff is going to do whatever they can to either tune out or get out of this annual compulsory exercise.

This week's episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast was recording in front of a live audience at athenahealth in Watertown, Massachusetts. The recording features me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series, my guest co-host, Taylor Lehmann (@BostonCyberGuy), CISO, athenahealth, and guest Marnie Wilking, global head of security & technology risk management, Wayfair.

David Spark, producer of CISO Series, Taylor Lehmann, CISO, athenahealth, Marnie Wilking, global head of security & technology risk management, Wayfair

Check out all the photos from our recording.

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsors, Check Point and Skybox Security.

It's no secret that today's cyber attacks are targeted and sophisticated. Leaving even one point of entry vulnerable to a cyber attack endangers your entire organization. Check Point created the Secure Your Everything Resource Center to help you develop a comprehensive approach to prevent cyber attacks.

At Skybox, we remove complexities from cybersecurity management. By integrating data, delivering new insights and unifying processes, we help you control security without restricting business agility. Our comprehensive solution unites security perspectives into the big picture, minimizes risk and empowers security programs to move to the next level.

On this week's episode

Pay attention, it's security awareness training time

Jinan Budge of Forester finished a report on security awareness training programs. She found a trend that supported both the need for compliance and the need to actually train employees to be more security aware. We discuss what actually works to get people to be more aware of cybersecurity.

What do you think of this vendor marketing tactic?

At RSA, I talked to a vendor who told me about their new solution. It was so unique that Gartner was creating a new category for their product with yet another acronym. UGGH, another category for which you have to educate the market? And now you have to convince buyers to create a new line item for this category? And now what is that going to do to your marketing budget? It didn't take much convincing for me to point out that their product was just third-party risk management.

Admittedly, cybersecurity professionals love the new and shiny, but where do we draw the line about learning something new in cybersecurity and adding confusion to the marketplace?

It's time to play, "What's Worse?!"

Two rounds, lots of debate.

Where does a CISO begin?

When we hear about digital transformation, it is being done for purposes of speed, accuracy, and business competitiveness. Scott McCool, former CIO at Polycom was on our show Defense in Depth, disputed the common notion that security serves the business. Instead, he believes that security IS the business. And if you deem that to be true, then security can no longer can take a consultative role. It must take the role of brand and value building.

This is more than just a discussion of "shifting left." What are actions that security must take to make it clear that they are part of making the business fast, innovative, and competitive?

Um... maybe you shouldn't have done that

We tell talks of the worst proof of concept (POC) efforts.

Audience question speed round

We close out the show with a series of quick answers to audience questions.

Buy Our Product. We Have No Idea What We're Selling. Mar 10, 2020

Show notes

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/buy-our-product-we-have-no-idea-what-were-selling/)

What do you think of our confusing non-descriptive ad copy? We think it's brilliant.

We're patting ourselves on the back on the latest episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience in NYC at the coworking space, Rise NYC. It's hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and JJ Agha, vp, head of information security at WeWork. Our guest is Mike Wilkes (@eclectiqus), CISO, ASCAP.

David Spark, producer, CISO Series, JJ Agha, vp, head of information security, WeWork, and Mike Wilkes, CISO, ASCAP

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Check Point

On this week's episode

There's got to be a better way to handle this

How well are you configuring your controls today and tomorrow? At RSA, I chatted with Adam Glick, CISO, Rocket Software. He said what he'd like is a tool to test the maturity of his deployed controls. How are his controls optimized over time? What does it looks like today vs. a year from now? How are we currently trying to solve that problem and what could be done to improve it?

Hey, you're a CISO, what's your take on this?

"Which cybersecurity certification should I get?" It's a question I see repeated often, especially on Quora and Peerlyst. Your best bet would probably be the one that most employers are looking for. And according to job board searches, conducted by Business News Daily, CISSP is the overwhelming favorite. Do our CISOs prefer certain certifications over others? Is it a requirement for hiring? And what does a security professional with certifications vs. experience tell us about that person?

What's Worse?!

Split decisions on both and the audience plays along as well.

Is this the best use of my money?

"One of the common complaints I repeatedly hear is that cybersecurity vendors are not solving real problems. They're just looking to make money. I think that's a rather unfair blanket statement, but regardless, I hear it a lot.

I think why I hear that so often is that we're all in the cybersecurity fight together and we need to help each other. Helping each other is often done by participating in the open source community.

Why is it critical to contribute to the open source community?

Um... What do they do?

I read copy that appeared on various booths at RSA 2020. Most are confusing and non-descriptive and don't appear to assume a pre-existing understanding of cybersecurity.

The expo hall at RSA is filled with security professionals who are already security minded. I honestly don't know exactly the reaction they're looking to get or what type of information these vendors are trying to convey.

Audience question speed round

We close out the show with a series of quick answers to audience questions.

We're Market Leaders in Customer Confusion Mar 03, 2020

Show notes

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/were-market-leaders-in-customer-confusion/)

We could offer a simpler explanation of our technology, but if we confuse you we can charge a lot more.

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at BsidesSF 2020 in San Francisco. It's hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest is Olivia Rose, former CISO, Mailchimp.

Look at that screen! We were in a movie theater. Those small people in the lower right are David Spark, producer, CISO Series, Mike Johnson, co-host, CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast, and Olivia Rose, former CISO, Mailchimp. Photo credit to @ash1warya.

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsors, Vulcan Cyber and CyberArk.

Vulcan is a vulnerability management platform built for remediation. By orchestrating the entire remediation process, Vulcan ensures that vulnerabilities aren't just found, they're fixed. Pioneering a remediation orchestration approach, the platform enables security, operational and business teams to effectively remediate cyber risks at scale.

At CyberArk, we believe that sharing insights and guidance across the CISO community will help strengthen security strategies and lead to better-protected organizations. CyberArk is committed to the continued exploration of topics that matter most to CISOs related to improving and integrating privileged access controls.

On this week's episode

How to become a CISO

What is some actionable "let's start today" advice. What could an individual do right now to develop the skills to be a cyber leader and make it clear to management, that's what they're gunning for?

What we've got here is failure to communicate

If all vendors stopped sending cold emails, which is what we constantly hear CISOs say they should do, how should they spend their time and money instead to greatly improve their success? If a CISO played the role of a vendor, which happens often, what should you do, to get to you?

What's Worse?!

We play TWO rounds.

What do you think of this vendor marketing tactic?

According to a recent study by Valimail, CISOs are very suspect of security vendors' claims. In general, the numbers are horrible for vendor credibility. Close to half of security professionals claim the following:

Vendors' tech and explanation are confusing
Practitioners have a hard time seeing and measuring value
Practitioners don't know how a vendor's product will stay valid on their security roadmap.

What could cybersecurity vendors do to make their claims more believable?

Close your eyes and visualize the perfect engagement

Rafal Los, Armor Cloud Security asked, "If you could implement one thing in your organization that would receive universal adoption without push-back, what would it be?" The question, which seems reasonable, but in the security world often feels impossible, generated a ton of responses on both LinkedIn and Twitter. Many wanted company-wide adoption of one solution, such as MFA or vulnerability management. Others wanted widespread and ongoing security education. Our CISOs debate the one pushback-free solution that would yield the greatest results.

Last Chance to Vote for "Most Stressed-Out CISO" Feb 25, 2020

Show notes

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/last-chance-to-vote-for-most-stressed-out-ciso/)

Think you or your CISO has what it take to shoulder all the tension, risk, and security issues of your organization? You may be a perfect candidate for "Most Stressed Out CISO".

This episode was recorded in person at Zenefits' offices in San Francisco. It's hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest is Keith McCartney (@kmflgator), CISO, Zenefits.

Keith McCartney, CISO, Zenefits and Mike Johnson, co-host, CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, CyberArk

On this week's episode

There's got to be a better way to handle this

CISO Stress. We've talked about it before on the show, and now Nominet just released a new study that claims stress levels are increasing.

8% of CISOs said work stress has had a detrimental impact on their mental health, almost twice as high as last year (27%).
31% of CISOs said that stress had affected their ability to do their job.
Almost all surveyed CISOs (90%) said they'd take a pay cut if it improved their work-life balance.

How could a CISO negotiate better work/life balance upfront and have either of our CISOs done it?

Hey, you're a CISO. What's your take on this?

Gary Hayslip shared this Peerlyst article by Ian Barwise of Morgan Computer Services about the incredible array of OSINT tools. What OSINT tools do our CISOs find most valuable and for what purposes.

What's Worse?!

A little too much agreement on this week's "What's Worse?!"

Here's some surprising research

Why are cloud security positions so much harder to fill? Robert Herjavec of the Herjavec Group posted a number of disturbing hiring statistics. Most notably was one from Cyber Seek that stated jobs requesting public cloud security skills remain open 79 days on average — longer than almost any other IT skills. Why isn't supply meeting demand? Why is it such a difficult security skill to find? And how easy and quickly can you train for it?

EKANS is the backward spelling of SNAKE. It is also the name of new ransomware code that targets the industrial control systems in oil refineries and power grids. Not only does it extort a ransom, it also has the ability to destroy software components that do things like monitor the status of a pipeline, or similar critical functions in a power grid or utility. A recently documented attack on Bahrain's national oil company reveals the architecture and deployment of EKANS not to be the work of a hostile nation-state, but of cybercriminals.

The chilling message behind that, of course, is that penetrating and sabotaging critical components of a country's infrastructure is no longer exclusive to sophisticated national intelligence agencies. Lower level criminal agencies may have motives that are far less predictable and trackable, and when combined with the complexities of an industrial control system, these may have cascading effects beyond the wildest dreams of the instigators themselves.

More from our sponsor ExtraHop.

What do you think of this pitch?

We get a pitch with some suggestions on how best to improve the pitch. We want more pitches!

Let's Blow Our Entire Marketing Budget at RSA Feb 18, 2020

Show notes

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/lets-blow-our-entire-marketing-budget-at-rsa/)

Security professionals only think about security one week out of the year, right? So let's drop every single dollar we have budgeted for marketing on the last week of February. Whaddya say?

This episode was recorded in person at Intel's offices in Santa Clara, California. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our sponsored guest is Tom Garrison (@tommgarrison), vp and gm of client security strategy at Intel (@IntelNews).

David Spark, CISO Series, Tom Garrison, Intel, and Mike Johnson, CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast.

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Intel.

The globalization of technology has created an environment of complicated supply chains with limited transparency. Intel's Compute Lifecycle Assurance (CLA) initiative solves this through a range and tools and solutions that deliver assurances of integrity throughout the entire lifetime of a platform --from build to retire.

On this week's episode

There's got to be a better way to handle this

Next week is RSA and by podcast law we're required to talk about it. We offer up tips on maximizing the following: education, engagement, and follow up.

What's the return on investment?

On Peerlyst, John Mueller, a security architect with the US Navy, suggested ways to use incident response metrics to help determine whether your cybersecurity program is improving. But as Mueller points out, it's not easy as you could fool yourself into believing you're doing well if you don't valuable discovery tools. We discuss methods to measure improvements in security programs.

What's Worse?!

A really tough one that delivers a split decision.

Please, enough. No, more.

Our topic is trust and hardware manufactures. We discuss what we've heard enough about with trusting hardware manufacturers of tech products, and then we discuss what we'd like to hear a lot more.

The fable of Walt Disney having been cryogenically frozen to be revived in an age where the science to do so existed is just that – a fable. But there is still something to be taken from that when it comes to documents archived on the cloud or consigned to data landfills. Just because encrypted data cannot be easily decrypted by hackers using today's tools, that doesn't mean tomorrow's tools can't do the job and revive the information stored inside.

When threat actors take it upon themselves to steal data, through hacking, ransomware, or AI, they might, of course be searching for material that is immediately exploitable, such personal data, or data that has immediate value in being returned or unlocked as in the case of ransomware.

But other players are in it for the long game, counting on the fact that the inexorable momentum of progress will lead to a decryption solution in time for stolen archived data to still be of use for future crimes, frauds and deep fakery.

More from our sponsor ExtraHop.

Close your eyes. Breathe in. It's time for a little security philosophy.

I got back from Tel Aviv where cybersecurity professionals find themselves innovating out of necessity. They're often short on resources. We discuss the kinds of exercises we've tried to help ourselves and our team to think creatively about cybersecurity.

One suggestion is the interrogation technique of "Five Whys" to get at the root reason of why we make our choices.

Empowered! Working Together to Pile on the Cyber Guilt Feb 11, 2020

Show notes

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/empowered-working-together-to-pile-on-the-cyber-guilt/)

We can all be more secure if we work together as a team to shame those who don't agree with how we approach security.

This week's episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest is Chris Hatter, CISO, Nielsen.

On this week's episode

Mike's confused. Let's help him out.

Mike inspired this brand new segment with his question to the LinkedIn community, asking what's the big deal with 5G security? The story I heard about 5G is just sheer volume over unsecured networks. But Mike said, we've been dealing with unsecured networks since 2G and 3G and we dealt with them using Transport Layer Security or TLS, and implementing other services such as multi-factor authentication or MFA. Mike called out to the community to clue him in as to why we should be more concerned with 5G.

Does shaming improve security?

Thanks to Mark Eggleston, CISO, Health Partners Plans for alerting me to Chris Castaldo, CISO of Dataminr, and his post about Rob Chahin's "Single Sign-On or SSO Wall of Shame". Chahin, who is the head of security at Eero, purports that SSO should be a standard feature in applications and websites that allow for secure sign on through third party identity services, such as Google and Okta. Single sign-on is a significant boon for security and management simplicity and Chahin argues that many companies force users to pay dearly to enable SSO.

What's Worse?!

A grand financial decision in this scenario.

Is this the best solution?

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, there is an ever slight trend of CISOs moving away from reporting to the CIO, opting instead to report directly to the CEO. Why is this trend happening? What are the benefits and disadvantages?

With hacks and breaches becoming all too commonplace and even encrypted data still vulnerable to hackers who can read and copy it, focus is now being placed on Quantum Communication as a potential next option. This is a technique that encodes data into photons of light, each of which can carry multiple copies of ones and zeroes simultaneously, but which collapses into a single one-and-zero if tampered with. Basically, the scrambling of data to an unusable format.

Although Quantum communication has been development for a few years, researchers in China have apparently already outfitted a fleet of drones that will soon be able to communicate upwards to its already launched Quantum satellites and downwards to ground stations while remaining stable in flight.

This paves the way for the field of quantum teleportation, a glamorous term whose uses and actual development are no longer just the realm of science fiction. For data at least.

More from our sponsor ExtraHop.

Close your eyes. Breathe in. It's time for a little security philosophy.

Simon Goldsmith, adidas, said, "I've been having some success in replacing risk with uncertainty. By which I mean not having a threat, vulnerability or impact made tangible creates uncertainty which is next to impossible to factor into any modern decision making process. If I make it tangible, it becomes a risk and I can help you make a better decision. Puts value on turning uncertainty to risk and fights FUD."

You're Mistaken. I'm Not Annoying. It's Chutzpah. Feb 04, 2020

Show notes

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/youre-mistaken-im-not-annoying-its-chutzpah/)

We're pushing just to the edge of irritation on the latest episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast.

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience in Tel Aviv on the eve of the 2020 Cybertech conference. Special thanks to Glilot Capital for hosting this event.

This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and my special guest co-host, Bobby Ford, global CISO for Unilever. Our guest is John Meakin, veteran financial CISO, and currently CISO for Equiniti.

David Spark, producer, CISO Series, Bobby Ford, CISO, Unilver, and John Meakin, CISO, Equiniti.

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsors, Polyrize and Intsights.

As newly adopted SaaS and IaaS services add an additional layer of risk for security teams, Polyrize provides a cloud-centric approach to simplifying the task of protecting user identities and their access across the public cloud by right-sizing their privileges and continuously protecting them through a unified authorization model.

IntSights is revolutionizing cybersecurity operations with the industry's only all-in-one external threat protection platform designed to neutralize cyberattacks outside the wire. Our unique cyber reconnaissance capabilities enable continuous monitoring of an enterprise's external digital profile across the clear, deep, and dark web to identify emerging threats and orchestrate proactive response. To learn more, visit intsights.com.

On this week's episode

How do you go about discovering new security solutions?

In an article on LinkedIn entitled, "Why do CISOs take a vendor meeting?" Dutch Schwartz, of AWS said that they take meetings per a recommendation of their staff, their peers, or they have an explicit problem that they've already researched, or they have known unknowns. Are those the reasons to take a meeting with a security vendor? We discuss what meetings CISOs take, and which ones are the most attractive.

It's time for "Ask a CISO"

Israel is known for a thriving startup community. But what I always see is cross pollination between Israel and Silicon Valley when it comes to startups. We discuss what Israeli startups can learn from Silicon Valley and vice versa.

What's Worse?!

We've got two rounds. One agreement and one split vote.

It's time to measure the risk

Five years ago I wrote an article for CIO.com about the greatest myths of cloud security, The first myth was the cloud is inherently insecure. And the other 19 are ones I'm still hearing today. My conclusion for the whole article was if you can overcome these myths about cloud security, you can reduce risk. In this segment we dispel cloud security myths and explain how the cloud helps reduce risk possibly in ways many of us are not aware.

Close your eyes. Breathe in. It's time for a little security philosophy.

On this podcast we talk a lot about CISOs needing to understand the business. In a thought-provoking post on Peerlyst, Eh-den Biber, a student of information security at Royal Holloway, University of London, noted that the job of cybsecurity is more than that. It's about understanding the flow of business and being present in the individuals' lives and their stories. We discuss the importance of being present in your users' lives.

It's time for the audience question speed round

The audience has questions and our CISOs have answers. We get through a lot really quickly.

Revisiting a Whole Career of Cyber Screw Ups Jan 28, 2020

Show notes

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/revisiting-a-whole-career-of-cyber-screw-ups/)

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at Malwarebytes' offices in Santa Clara, California for the Silicon Valley ISSA chapter meeting. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest is Peter Liebert, former CISO, state of California. Peter is now an independent consultant and commander of cyber operations for California State Guard.

(left to right) David Spark, producer, CISO Series, Mike Johnson, co-host, CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast, and Peter Liebert, commander, cyber operations, California State Guard

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Malwarebytes.

Malwarebytes secures endpoints, making workplaces resilient. Our adaptive cyber protection predicts and detects attacks with multi-layer detection across the kill chain. We enable active threat response with machine learning that is actionable and automated, allowing for full recovery when a compromise occurs. We empower enterprise endpoint orchestration across siloed IT and Security organizations, simplifying security management and making responses effective. Malwarebytes makes endpoints resilient so workplaces can protect and remediate, and employees can regain control of their digital lives.

On this week's episode

Why is everybody talking about this now?

Chris Roberts of Attivo Networks posted about his video game addiction as he admitted one certain game ate up 475 hours of his life. He really struck a chord with the community as he got hundreds of comments of people admitting to the same but also recognizing that video games are great stress relievers and that the problem solving in games actually helps keep your mind sharp. There is the obvious need for a break, but is there a correlation between how gaming in any form can help someone with their job in cybersecurity?

Hey, you're a CISO, what's your take on this?'

Are we doing a good job defining the available jobs in cybersecurity? The brand that we see out there is the image of the hacker and the hoodie. In a post on Peerlyst, Nathan Chung lists off eleven other cybersecurity jobs that don't fall under that well known cybersecurity trope. Jobs such as data privacy lawyers, data scientists developing AI and machine learning algorithms, law enforcement, auditors who work on compliance, and even project managers.

We discuss some of the concrete ways to explain the other lesser known opportunities in cybersecurity.

What's Worse?!

We play two rounds with the CISOs.

Um… maybe you shouldn't have done that

In an article on Peerlyst, cybersecurity writer Kim Crawley, asked her followers on Twitter, "What mistakes have you made over the course of your career that you would recommend newbies avoid?" There was some great advice in here. We discuss our favorite pieces of advice from the list and our CISO admit what is the mistake they've made in their cybersecurity career that they specifically recommend newbies avoid.

We've got listeners, and they've got questions

Chris Hill of Check Point Software, asked, "How can non-technical people working their way up in the security industry improve their knowledge and abilities from a CISO perspective." Chris is a newbie and he wants advice on being a "trusted advisor" and he's trying to figure out the best/most efficient way to get there.

It's time for the audience question speed round

We go through a ton of questions the audience has for our CISOs

Debunking the Misused "Chased By Bear" Cybersecurity Metaphor Jan 21, 2020

Show notes

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/debunking-the-misused-chased-by-bear-cybersecurity-metaphor/)

We don't want anyone to be caught by the bear on the latest episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast.

This episode was recorded in person in San Francisco. It is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our sponsored guest this week is Elliot Lewis (@ElliotDLewis), CEO, Encryptics.

Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Encryptics.

Now you can share data without ever losing control of it. Our advanced architecture makes data self-protecting, intelligent and self-aware – wherever it goes, no matter who has it. Our .SAFE patented multi-key technology enables data to evaluate its own safety conditions, including geo-sensing, recipient authentication, and policy changes from its owner. Contact Encryptics today and see for yourself.

On this week's episode

Is this the best solution?

On LinkedIn, Rich Malewicz of Wizer opened up a discussion of security is really just about making the lives difficult for attackers, or more difficult than another target. Rui Santos summed Rich's theory succinctly, "you don't have to be Fort Knox, just make it not worth the effort of hacking your organization."

Let's dive into the specifics of this. Provide some examples of how you architect a security program that makes it too difficult or too costly for an attacker. Obviously, this would change given the asset you're trying to protect.

The great CISO challenge

Brad Green, Palo Alto Networks, asks, "What are the most important functions of the SOC (security operations center), and what are the most important activities that support them?

What's Worse?!

As always, both options stink, but one is worse.

Please, Enough. No, More.

Today's topic is data security. What have you heard enough about with data security, and what would you like to hear a lot more? Mike?

Communicating cyberthreats to the general public has always been a challenge for cybersecurity specialists, especially when it comes to eliciting cooperation in areas like cyberhygiene. Sometimes it helps to give people an awareness that the need for proactive security doesn't exist only on screens, but everywhere.

One fascinating example of this can be seen in the research of Dina Katabi of MIT, who has shown how WiFi signals can be monitored – not for their content, but as a form of radar that can see through walls, and which can accurately observe people physically moving around, or even detecting heartbeats and sleep patterns. Remote espionage opens up all kinds of opportunities for bad actors to build ergonomic profiles of anyone and then deploy AI and ML enabled analysis to influence and impersonate them.

Showing people just how many different dimensions can be used in cybercrime may one day shift public perception of cybersecurity into the center spotlight where it belongs.

More from our sponsor ExtraHop.

There's got to be a better way to handle this

For years security professionals have talked about trying to secure the exponentially expanding surface area. One way to simplify, that we've all heard before, is driving security to the data level. Could we let networks run wild, within reason, and just have a data-security first approach? How is that different from zero trust, if at all? To what extent does this work/not work?

We've all been having conversations about encryption for decades. It's not a new story. But it's still not universally used. There are billions of user accounts available in open text. After decades, why has the encryption story still not been getting through? What's holding back universal usage?

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