Predicting Threat Actors and the Role of Extrapolation

Guest: 

• Kelli Vanderlee, Senior Manager, Threat Analysis, Mandiant at Google Cloud

Topics:

• Can you really forecast threats? Won’t the threat actors ultimately do whatever they want?

• How can clients use the forecast? Or as Tim would say it, what gets better once you read it?

• What is the threat forecast for cloud environments? It says “Cyber attacks targeting hybrid and multi-cloud environments will mature and become more impactful“ - what does it mean?

• Of course AI makes an appearance as well: “LLMs and other gen AI tools will likely be developed and offered as a service to assist attackers with target compromises.” Do we really expect attacker-run LLM SaaS? What models will they use? Will it be good?

• There are a number of significant elections scheduled for 2024, are there implications for cloud security?

• Based on the threat information, tell me about something that is going well, what will get better in 2024?

Resources:

• 2024 Google Cloud Security Forecast Report

• EP112 Threat Horizons - How Google Does Threat Intelligence

• EP135 AI and Security: The Good, the Bad, and the Magical

• How to Stop a Ransomware Attack

• Sophisticated StripedFly Spy Platform Masqueraded for Years as Crypto Miner