Three Buddy Problem Live at LABScon: Visi Stark shares memories of creating the APT1 report
11 snips
Sep 24, 2025 Visi Stark, co-founder of the Vertex Project and intelligence expert behind the groundbreaking APT1 report, shares insights from his impactful career in cyber threat intelligence. He discusses the intricate process of selecting data for the report and the philosophy behind its naming. Stark reflects on how APT1 transformed the threat landscape and the challenges of revealing identities. He also critiques the current state of public threat intelligence, exposing the market's influence on reporting standards.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Unified Analysis Beats Indicator Management
- The Vertex Project built Synapse as an interdisciplinary intelligence workbench rather than a traditional indicator management system.
- Synapse unifies CTI, financial, HR and other data to reveal insights missed by siloed tooling.
Occam's Razor Framing Of APT1
- The APT1 report used graph-based data and alternate competing hypotheses to ensure claims were defensible.
- The original executive summary framed the conclusion as an Occam's Razor argument before it was cut.
Apply Alternate Competing Hypotheses
- Use Alternate Competing Hypotheses to test every major conclusion against plausible alternatives.
- Discard explanations only when evidence consistently rules them out, not by assumption.