Cloud Security Podcast by Google

Guest: Merritt Baer, Field CTO,  Lacework, ex-AWS, ex-USG Topics: How can organizations ensure that their security posture is maintained or improved during a cloud migration? Is cloud migration a risk reduction move? What are some of the common security challenges that organizations face during a cloud migration? Are there different gotchas between the three public clouds? What advice would you give to those security leaders who insist on lift/shift or on lift/shift first? How should security and compliance teams approach their engineering and DevOps colleagues to make sure things are starting on the right foot? In your view, what is the essence of a cloud-native approach to security? How can organizations ensure that their security posture scales as their cloud usage grows? Resources: Video (LinkedIn, YouTube) EP69 Cloud Threats and How to Observe Them EP138 Terraform for Security Teams: How to Use IaC to Secure the Cloud EP67 Cyber Defense Matrix and Does Cloud Security Have to DIE to Win? 9 Megatrends drive cloud adoption—and improve security for all Darknet Diaries podcast  

Guests: Emre Kanlikilicer, Senior Engineering Manager @ Google Sophia Gu, Engineering Manager at Google  Topics Workspace makes the claim that unlike other productivity suites available today, it’s architectured for the modern threat landscape. That’s a big claim! What gives Google the ability to make this claim? Workspace environments would have many different types of data, some very sensitive. What are some of the common challenges with controlling access to data and protecting data in hybrid work?  What are some of the common mistakes you see customers making with Workspace security? What are some of the ways context aware access and DLP (now SDP) help with this? What are the cool future plans for DLP and CAA? Resources: Google Workspace blog & Workspace Update blog EP99 Google Workspace Security: from Threats to Zero Trust CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model 2.0  

Jason Solomon, Security Engineer at Google, discusses the challenges of cloud forensics, including establishing a chain of custody and knowing when to call for help. He shares advice for security leaders on how to prepare for incidents and highlights recommended reading for cloud forensics.

Guest: Arie Zilberstein, CEO and Co-Founder at Gem Security Topics:  How does Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) differ from traditional, on-premises detection and response? What are the key challenges of cloud detection and response? Often we lift and shift our teams to Cloud, and not always for bad reasons, so  what’s your advice on how to teach the old dogs new tricks: “on-premise-trained” D&R teams and cloud D&R? What is this new CIRA thing that Gartner just cooked up?  Should CIRA exist as a separate market or technology or is this just a slice of CDR or even SIEM perhaps? What do you tell people who say that “SIEM is their CDR”? What are the key roles and responsibilities of the CDR team? How is the cloud D&R process related to DevOps and cloud-style IT processes?  Resources: Video version of this episode Cloud breaches databases EP98 How to Cloud IR or Why Attackers Become Cloud Native Faster? EP103 Security Incident Response and Public Cloud - Exploring with Mandiant EP76 Powering Secure SaaS … But Not with CASB? Cloud Detection and Response? 9 Megatrends drive cloud adoption—and improve security for all “Emerging Tech: Security — Cloud Investigation and Response Automation (CIRA) Offers Transformation Opportunities” (Gartner access required) “Does the World Need Cloud Detection and Response (CDR)?” blog

Sandra Joyce, VP at Mandiant Intelligence, discusses a complex incident targeting critical infrastructure in Ukraine, involving living off the land and attacks on operational technology. The podcast explores the challenges of investigating incidents with living off the land techniques and wipers. The chapter also discusses the challenges faced by North Korea in moving money and the shift in focus by attackers during the invasion period.

Guests: Derek Reveron, Professor and Chair of National Security at the US Naval War College John Savage, An Wang Professor Emeritus of Computer Science of Brown University Topics: You wrote a book on cyber and war, how did this come about and what did you most enjoy learning from the other during the writing process? Is generative AI going to be a game changer in international relations and war, or is it just another tool? You also touch briefly on lethal autonomous weapons systems and ethics–that feels like the genie is right in the very neck of the bottle right now, is it too late? Aside from this book, and the awesome course you offered at Brown that sparked Tim’s interest in this field, how can we democratize this space better?  How does the emergence and shift to Cloud impact security in the cyber age? What are your thoughts on the intersection of Cloud as a set of technologies and operating model and state security (like sovereignty)? Does Cloud make espionage harder or easier?  Resources: “Security in the Cyber Age” book (and their other books’) “Thinking, Fast and Slow” book “No Shortcuts: Why States Struggle to Develop a Military Cyber-Force” book “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age“ book “Active Cyber Defense: Applying Air Defense to the Cyber Domain” EP141 Cloud Security Coast to Coast: From 2015 to 2023, What's Changed and What's the Same? EP145 Cloud Security: Shared Responsibility, Shared Fate, Shared Faith?  

Guest: Mike Schiffman, Network Security “UTL” Topics: Given your impressive and interesting history, tell us a few things about yourself? What are the biggest challenges facing network security today based on your experience? You came to Google to work on Network Security challenges. What are some of the surprising ones you’ve uncovered here? What lessons from Google's approach to network security absolutely don’t apply to others? Which ones perhaps do? If you have to explain the difference between network security in the cloud and on-premise, what comes to mind first? How do we balance better encryption with better network security monitoring and detection? Speaking of challenges in cryptography, we’re all getting fired up about post-quantum and network security. Could you give us the maybe 5 minute teaser version of this because we have an upcoming episode dedicated to this? I hear you have some interesting insight on LLMs, something to do with blueboxing or something. What is that about? Resources: Video EP113 Love it or Hate it, Network Security is Coming to the Cloud EP122 Firewalls in the Cloud: How to Implement Trust Boundaries for Access Control “A History of Fake Things on the Internet” by WALTER J. SCHEIRER Why Google now protects its internal communications from quantum threats How Google is preparing for a post-quantum world NIST on PQC “Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit” (yes, really)  

Kevin Mandia, CEO at Mandiant, discusses surprising cloud breaches in 2023 and the lessons learned from them. He explains the differences between cloud breaches and on-prem breaches. Mandia also highlights the mistakes and risks that led to cloud breaches and shares insights on how organizations can limit the impact. The episode emphasizes the importance of preparing for cloud breaches and detecting threats effectively. The hosts conclude by asking for advice on handling cloud breaches and recommend reading materials for CISOs.

Guest: Michee Smith, Director, Product Management for Global Affairs Works, Google Topics: What is Google Annual Transparency Report and how did we get started doing this?  Surely the challenge of a transparency report is that there are things we can’t be transparent about, how do we balance this? What are those? Is it a safe question? What Access Transparency Logs are and if they are connected to the report –other than in Tim's mind and your career?  Beyond building the annual transparency report, you also work on our central risk data platform. Every business has a problem managing risk–what’s special here? Do we have any Google magic here?  Could you tell us about your path in Product Management here? You have been here eight years, and recently became Director. Do you have any advice for the ambitious Google PMs listening to the show?   Resources: Google Annual Transparency report Access Transparency Logs “Digital Asset Valuation and Cyber Risk Measurement: Principles of Cybernomics“ book Keyun Ruan “Trapped in a frame: Why leaders should avoid security framework traps”  blog

Guest: Monica Shokrai, Head Of Business Risk and Insurance For Google Cloud  Topics: Could you give us the 30 second run down of what cyber insurance is and isn't? Can you tie that to clouds? How does the cloud change it? Is it the case that now I don't need insurance for some of the "old school" cyber risks? What challenges are insurers facing with assessing cloud risks? On this show I struggle to find CISOs who "get" cloud, are there insurers and underwriters who get it? We recently heard about an insurer reducing coverage for incidents caused by old CVEs! What's your take on this? Effective incentive structure to push orgs towards patching operational excellence or someone finding yet another way not to pay out? Is insurance the magic tool for improving security? Doesn't cyber insurance have a difficult reputation with clients? “Will they even pay?” “Will it be enough?” “Is this a cyberwar exception?” type stuff? How do we balance our motives between selling more cloud and providing effective risk underwriting data to insurers? How soon do you think we will have actuarial data from many clients re: real risks in the cloud? What about the fact that risks change all the time unlike say many “non cyber” risks?   Resources: Video (LinkedIn, YouTube) Google Cloud Risk Protection program “Cyber Insurance Policy”  by Josephine Wolff  InsureSec