CISO Series Podcast

All images and links for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/who-are-the-perfect-targets-for-ransomware/) If you've got lots of critical data, a massive insurance policy, and poor security infrastructure, you might be a perfect candidate to be hit with ransomware. This week and this week only, it's an extortion-free episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest this week is Sean Walls (@sean_walls2000), vp, cybersecurity, Eurofins. Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor Core Security Assigning and managing entitlements rapidly to get employees the access they need is critical, but it can come at the cost of accuracy and security. Core Security’s identity governance and administration (IGA) solutions provide the intelligent, visual context needed to efficiently manage identity related security risks across any enterprise. On this week's episode How CISOs are digesting the latest security news An article in the NYTimes points to a new trend in ransomware that is specifically attacking small governments with weak computer protections and strong insurance policies. Payments from $400-$600K. Lake City, Florida, population 12K paid $460K to extortionists. They got some of their information back but they have been set back years of what will require rescanning of paper documents. Mike, I know your standard philosophy is to not pay the ransom, but after a ransomware attack against the city of Atlanta, the mayor refused to pay $51,000 in extortion demands, and so far it's cost the city $7.2 million. Probably more. These payments by the small cities must be incentivizing more attacks. Does this information change the way you're willing to approach ransomware. What can a small city with zero cybersecurity staff do to create a program to reduce their risk to such a ransomware attack? Ask a CISO Bindu Sundaresan, AT&T Consulting Solutions, asks a very simple question, "How is each security initiative supporting the right business outcome?" Do you find yourself selling security into the business this way? If not, would you be more successful selling security to the business if you did do this? What's Worse?! We've got a split decision on what information we prefer after a breach. Listen up, it’s security awareness training time Jon Sanders, Elevate Security, said, "Security awareness involves A LOT of selling… there’s no cookie cutter approach in security awareness or sales!" Is the reason security training is so tough because so many security people are not born salespeople? I've interviewed many and there's a lot of "just listen to me attitude," which really doesn't work in sales. Cloud Security Tip, sponsored by OpenVPN We talk a lot about penetration testing here, given that it remains a staple of proactive IT security. But not everyone feels it’s all it’s cracked up to be. Or should that be, all it’s hacked up to be?” More than one cybersecurity organization points out there are a few flaws in the pen testing concept that make it worth a second look. Pen testing often consists of a small collection of attacks performed within a set time period against a small sample of situations. Some experts doubt the efficacy of testing against a limited field of known vulnerabilities, without knowing what other weaknesses exist in plain sight, or merely invisible to jaded eyes. More on CISO Series... What do you think of this pitch? We have a pitch from Technium in which our CISOs question what exactly are they selling?

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/passwords-so-good-you-cant-help-but-reuse-them/) We've just fallen in love with our passwords we just want to use them again and again and again. Unfortunately, some companies more interested in security aren't letting us do that. We discuss on the latest episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest this week is William Gregorian (@WillGregorian), CISO, Addepar. Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor Cyberint The high ROI is what makes spear phishing campaigns so attractive to threat actors. Read our breakdown of TA505's latest series of attacks. CyberInt has been tracking various activities surrounding this and other similar attacks where legit means were used to hack international companies in the retail & financial industries. How CISOs are digesting the latest security news Chris Castaldo of 2U and a former guest on the show posted this great story of TripAdvisor invalidating user credentials if a member's email and password were found in publicly leaked data breach databases. Is this a great or bad move by TripAdvisor? Ask a CISO On LinkedIn, Chad Loder, CEO, Habitu8 posted an issue about the easy deployment and ubiquity of cloud applications. He argues it's no longer Shadow IT. It's just IT. And securing these cloud tools you don't manage nor know about requires a lot of education. Is Shadow IT inevitable. Should we lose the name? And is education the primary means of securing these services? It's time to play, "What's Worse?!" One of the toughest rounds of "What's Worse?!" we've ever had. Close your eyes. Breathe in. It's time for a little security philosophy. Mike posed a "What's Worse?!" scenario to the LinkedIn community and got a flurry of response. The question was "Would you rather have amazing, quality cybersecurity incident response in 24 hours or spotty, unreliable response in one hour?" I wanted to know what was Mike's initial response and did anyone say anything in the comments to make him change his mind? For quite a while, IT security experts have been touting the value of two factor authentication (2FA) as a better way to keep data safe than simply using passwords alone. We have even spoken about it here. In its most popular form, 2FA sends a confirmation code to your phone, which you must then enter into the appropriate log-in confirmation window within a short amount of time. This is like having a second key to the safe, like many bank vaults used to have. (more on the site) It’s time to measure the risk Chelsea Musante of Akamai asks, "What would you say to someone who thinks their risk for credential abuse / account takeover has decreased because they've implemented MFA (multi-factor authentication)?"

All links and images for this episode can be found at CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/please-dont-investigate-our-impeccable-risk-predictions/) It's easy to calculate risk if no one ever checks the accuracy of those predictions after the fact. It's all coming up on CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. 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 this week is Bob Huber (@bonesrh), CSO, Tenable. Effective vulnerability prioritization helps you answer three questions: Where should we prioritize based on risk? Which vulnerabilities are likeliest to be exploited? What should we fix first? Tenable gives you the accurate and actionable data you need to answer these questions and better secure your business. Learn more: tenable.com/predictive-prioritization. On this week's episode What's the ROI? Do we analyze how good we are at predicting risk? Phil Huggins, GoCardless said, "We conduct detailed rigorous risk assessments to support security transformation business cases and identify a series of mitigation actions and then declare success if those actions are completed on time and on budget... We never revisit our risk assessments a year later and see how good we were at predicting risk occurrence. I worry that the avoidance of feedback contributes to the underperformance of security." Are we looking back and seeing how good we are at analyzing risk? Close your eyes. Breathe in. It's time for a little security philosophy. We have evolved from an unchecked "Cloud first" model to a more thoughtful "cloud smart" strategy. Are these just PR slogans apparently implemented by the last two administrations, or is there something to them? Looking ten years ago vs. today, have we really become smarter about implementing cloud technologies? In what way have we made the greatest strides? How are we falling short and where would you like us to be smarter? What's Worse?! What would you sacrifice to get all the training you could get? Please, Enough. No, More. Our topic is DevSecOps. It's a big one. Mike, what have you heard enough of on the topic of DevSecOps, what would you like to hear a lot more? What do you think of this pitch? Shazeb Jiwani of Dialpad forwarded me this pitch from Spanning Cloud Apps. He asks, "how they feel about vendors using an availability issue from a partner (not even a competitor) as a sales pitch." Parkinson’s Law states that “work expands to fill the time available,” and any IT specialist knows this applies equally to data and can be stated as “Data expands to fill the storage available.”  As cloud service providers – and the cloud itself both continue to expand, the opportunity to transport and store all of your data seems to be a great convenience. But data management requires oversight, control and governance. The more data – and daily data flow –one has, the greater the potential for misuse, redundancy, errors, and costly maintenance.  More at https://openvpn.net/latest/security-tips/

Links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/defense-in-depth-ciso-series-one-year-review/)  The CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast is now more than a year old. On this episode, the hosts of both podcasts, reflect on the series and we respond to listeners critiques, raves, and opinions. Check out this post and this post for the basis of our conversation on this week’s episode co-hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), the creator of CISO Series and Allan Alford (@AllanAlfordinTX). Our guest for this episode is the co-host of the CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast, Mike Johnson. Thanks to this week’s podcast sponsor, Trend Micro On this episode of Defense in Depth, you'll learn: We provide the definitive story of how the CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast started and how David, Allan, and Mike all connected. We've been challenging many of the sales techniques that have essentially irked CISOs. The podcast has become a validation tool for sales people to show to their management and say, "We need to change direction." One of the critiques we've heard is the desire to understand more of the sales process. We are actually very much in the dark as to the different levels of incentives are for sales staff. A security sale is often a long and involved process and we know the incentives are more involved than just a sales commission. We've actually done webinars that take a look behind the scenes of sales and we plan to do more. Those who feel isolated with their company enjoy hearing the different viewpoints. There is actually a real return on investment to listening to our show. Sales people say that they've changed their strategy based on advice on the show and it has proved to be fruitful.

Images and links for this episode can be found at CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/worst-question-award-goes-to-how-secure-are-we/) We've got better ways to determine the overall quality of your security posture than asking this unanswerable question. It's all coming up on CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest this week is Helen Patton (@osucisohelen), CISO, Ohio State University. Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor Trend Micro. On this week's episode Why is everyone talking about this now? Jamil Fashchi, CISO, Equifax, "In speaking with a CEO the other day, I was asked, 'As someone who isn’t technical, what questions should I ask to determine if my security team is effective?'" This caused a flurry of discussion. What's your advice, and do you agree it's a lot better question than "How secure are we?" Hey, you're a CISO, what's your take on this? One issue that comes up a lot in cybersecurity is the lack of diversity. We have discussed the value of diversity, in that it avoids "one think" and brings in the critical need of different viewpoints. The problem is we're often attracted to people like us, and we ask for referrals which if you hired people like you is probably going to deliver more people like you. We focus this discussion on actionable tips that CISOs can take to bring in a diverse workforce. What's Worse?! What's it like to work with the business and their acceptance or lack of acceptance of risk? First 90 days of a CISO Steve Luczynski, just became CISO of T-Rex Corporation. In the past the CIO has handled both IT and security at the company. "Now with a CISO onboard, the struggle is figuring out who does what with the expected reluctance by the CIO to let go of certain things and trust me, the new CISO to maintain the same standards. For example, I wanted to change our password policy when I first showed up to match the new NIST guidance of not changing based on a set time period. There was disagreement and it did not change even when I showed the NIST verbiage," said Luczynski. How should Steve deal with such disagreements? Ask a CISO For a while, FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) worked on the average person, to get them to install basic security measures, like an anti-virus. But it appears that's all changed. The cause could be apathy. When there's so many breaches happening the average person feels powerless. Are we marketing cyber-awareness wrong to non-security people? What would get them to be true advocates? The Pre-nup. It’s a difficult thing for most people to talk about in their personal lives, but it’s something that should always be considered when setting up a relationship with a cloud service provider. Not all business relationships last, and if your organization needs to move its data to another provider, it’s not like packing up your furniture and saying goodbye to your half of the dog. 

The images and links for this episode can be found at CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/youre-not-going-anywhere-until-you-clean-up-that-cyber-mess/) Our CISOs and Miss Manners have some rules you should follow when leaving your security program to someone else. It's all coming up on CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest this week is newly free agent CISO, Gary Hayslip (@ghayslip). Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor Trend Micro On this week's episode Why is everyone talking about this now? Mike, you asked a question to the LinkedIn community about what department owns data privacy. You asserted it was a function of the security team, minus the legal aspects. The community exploded with opinions. What responses most opened your eyes to the data privacy management and responsibility issue you didn't really consider? Hey, you're a CISO, what's your take on this?' Someone who is writing a scene for a novel, asks this question on Quora, "How does a hacker know he or she has been caught?" Lots of good suggestions. What's your favorite scenario? And, do you want to let a hacker know he or she has been caught, or do you want to hide it? What circumstances would be appropriate for either? What's Worse?! Mike decides What's Worse?! and also what's good for business. First 90 days of a CISO Paul Hugenberg of InfoGPS Networks asks, "What fundamentals should the CISO leave for the next, as transitions are fast and frequent and many CISOs approach their role differently. Conversely, what fundamentals should the new CISO (or offered CISO) request evidence of existence before saying YES?" Mike, this is a perfect question for you. You exited and you will eventually re-enter I assume as a CISO. What did you leave and what do you expect? Ask a CISO Fernando Montenegro of 451 Research asks, "How do you better align security outcomes with incentives?" Should you incentivize security? Have you done it before? What works, what doesn't? Imagine how hard it would be to live in a house that is constantly under attack from burglars, vandals, fire ants, drones, wall-piercing radar and virulent bacteria. Most of us are used to putting a lock on the door, cleaning the various surfaces and keeping a can of Raid on hand for anything that moves in the corner. But could you imagine keeping a staff of specialists around 24/7 to do nothing but attack your house in order to find and exploit every weakness?

All pictures and links for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/we-take-privacy-not-our-ciso-seriously/) We're looking for the one company brave enough to say they don't care about privacy on the latest episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. This episode was recorded live on June 6th at The B.O.B. in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the 2019 West Michigan IT Summit, hosted by C3 Technology Advisors. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and Allan Alford (@allanalfordinTX), principal consultant at Side Channel Security. Our guest for this special live recording is the former CISO/CSO/CTO of the state of Michigan, Dan Lohrmann (@govcso). David Spark and Allan Alford, co-hosts of Defense in Depth on the CISO Series network, and Dan Lohrmann, former CISO/CSO/CTO for the State of Michigan. Thanks to this week's podcast sponsors C3 Technology Advisors, Fuze, and Assured Data Protection. C3 Technology Advisors is a technology consulting firm that helps midsize to enterprise organizations make better technology buying decisions. With technology quickly changing, let C3 help you shift through all the disruption, noise, and sales pitches to allow you to make better technology buying decisions for your organization. Fuze is the #1 cloud communications and collaboration platform for the enterprise, combining calling, meeting, chatting, and sharing into a single, easy-to-use application. Designed for the way people work, Fuze allows the modern, mobile workforce to seamlessly communicate anytime, anywhere, across any device. Assured Data Protection provides backup and disaster recovery solutions utilizing Rubrik ‘as a Service’. They offer 24/7 global support, with expertise that truly sets them apart from other back up and DR service providers. On this week's episode Should you ignore this security advice? Yaron Levi, CISO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City posed an interesting question, "Many people in security follow best practice without questioning them but in fact there are many BAD security best practices." Levi asks the LinkedIn community and I also ask our guests, "What do you consider a 'Bad Best Practice?'" How to become a CISO Aaron Weinberg, Kirlin Group, asks, "What would a CIO need to do to switch career tracks to being a CISO?" I'll add why would you want to do that? What's Worse?! We've got two rounds of questions and conflict on at least one of them. I tell ya, CISOs get no respect Brian Krebs of Krebs Security asked, "Why aren't CISOs often not listed on the executive page of a company website?" Krebs looked at the top 100 global companies and only found 5 that had a CISO listed. Of the NASDAQ 50, there were only three listed with a security title. But plenty had chief of human resources or chief marketing officers listed. One argument for the lack of front page visibility for CISOs is that companies value revenue centers over cost centers. Another argument is the reporting structure. That CISOs often report to CIOs. Is that why it's happening, or is it something else? Close your eyes. Breathe in. It’s time for a little security philosophy. A question on Quora asks you to participate in this little thought exercise, "If you knew all computers would be erased tomorrow by a worldwide virus, what steps would you take to protect yourself?" It's a little more involved than just unpluging your computer from the Internet. Why is this a bad pitch? I read a cringeworthy bad pitch and our CISOs respond. Listen to the end as I reveal something surprising about this very bad pitch. And now this… I burn through a stack of questions from the audience as we go into a cybersecurity speed round.

Full episode with images and links available at CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/do-these-jeans-make-my-vulnerabilities-look-too-big/) We're starting to get a little self-conscious that our vulnerabilities are starting to show. People we don't even know are telling us we have them on the latest episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest this week is Fredrick Lee (AKA "Flee") (@fredrickl), CSO of Gusto. Effective vulnerability prioritization helps you answer three questions: Where should we prioritize based on risk? Which vulnerabilities are likeliest to be exploited? What should we fix first? Tenable gives you the accurate and actionable data you need to answer these questions and better secure your business. Learn more: tenable.com/predictive-prioritization. What's a CISO to do? Chris Romeo, CEO of Security Journey, wrote a post where he asked, "What if I had to develop an application security program with a budget of zero dollars?" What he presented was a means to lean on the OWASP open source community and tools to build an application security program. You're a CISO, what's your take on this? I was chatting with a pentester, Benjamin McEwan, from Scotland, who reaches out to CISOs trying to responsibly disclose, not expose, a credible security vulnerability. It's his effort to get recognized. He's frustrated though in his ability to find permanent work because those hiring only see him as an independent researcher. Is his exercise the right approach? What can a talented security person in his position do to make himself more attractive to CISOs? What's Worse?! We've got a couple of scenarios that shocked our guest at the sheer InfoSec horror. Breathe In, It's Time for a Little Security Philosophy On Quora, a question right out of the Matthew Broderick movie WarGames asks, "If a student hacked into university computers and changed his grade in cyber security to an A, does he actually deserve the A?" Except for one person, everyone said, "No," but for different reasons. Mike, are you saying no, and if so, what reason? What do you think of this pitch? We've got two pitches from vendors this week. One came directly to me. Cloud Security Tip, by Steve Prentice - Sponsored by OpenVPN. The idea behind an Advanced Persistent Threat is both intriguing and a little distracting. It sounds like the title of a Tom Clancy novel – maybe a sequel to Clear and Present Danger. Designed to penetrate a network, operate while hidden for a long time, all the while receiving commands from an outside agent, an APT is more sophisticated than everyday malware and tends to be deployed against large targets.

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/great-demo-lets-schedule-a-time-to-ignore-your-follow-up/) We're playing hard to get on the latest episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest this week is Al Ghous, head of cloud security at GE Digital. Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor Carbon Black Carbon Black (NASDAQ: CBLK) is a leader in endpoint security dedicated to keeping the world safe from cyberattacks. The company’s big data and analytics platform, the CB Predictive Security Cloud (PSC), consolidates endpoint security and IT operations into an extensible cloud platform that prevents advanced threats, provides actionable insight and enables businesses of all sizes to simplify operations. On this week's episode Why is everybody talking about this now? On LinkedIn, Marcus Capone, Partner at Onyx, a physical and cybersecurity firm said, "I laugh when clients balk at prices. They expect champagne but want to pay for Coors Light…" This caused a flurry of discussion of price/value in security. There was an attitude across the board that we're the absolute best and we should be paid that. But as Allan Alford said on Defense in Depth, there's a market for a slightly worse, but way cheaper version of Splunk. Do CISOs want beer-level security solutions? It’s time to measure the risk How can startups and large companies get along better? Enterprises are jealous of startup's agility, and startups are eager to get at an enterprises' assets. But startups can be a security nightmare and it's a non-starter if they can't pass the third-party risk management process. With all this frustration, is there any middle ground? What's Worse?! We have a common real-world scenario in this week's game. You're a CISO, what's your take on this? We have talked in the past about how the term "AI" can mean a lot of things. It can be a simple script or it can be an algorithm that actually learns by itself. Both will do something for you automatically, but the expectations are vastly different. When security vendors tout AI, what would CISOs like to hear so your expectations can be set appropriately? Understanding security sales The frustration of the vendor follow up process after a demo. An anonymous listener asks, "We are usually told some sort of next step or asked to follow up in a few weeks." The challenge is they're often left chasing the potential client getting no response. This can go on for months. "Is there a way to make this more productive for all involved?" Should the prospect be blamed? What can be done to improve the process? Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) are wonderful for customizing and enhancing the cloud experience, but as a common front door, they pose a significant security risk. Regardless how secure a cloud service provider is, their primary role as an interface means APIs will always pose a weakness that can be exploited by hackers.  

Find all images and links for this episode on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/we-unleash-our-military-grade-infosec-bs-detector/) We're trying to clean up vendor pitches of unnecessary and outrageous claims so they can sail through to a CISO's inbox. It's our service to cybersecurity community on this week's episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. This show was recorded live in front of an audience of CISOs and security vendors at the San Francisco CISO Executive Summit, hosted by Evanta. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest this week is Aaron Peck, CISO, Shutterfly. Thanks to our podcast sponsors ExtraHop and Tenable Unlike security solutions that focus on signature- and rule-based detection, ExtraHop Reveal(x) helps you rise above the noise of alerts with complete east-west visibility and machine learning for real-time detection of known and unknown threats, plus guided investigations for rapid response. Find and address real threats faster with ExtraHop. Effective vulnerability prioritization helps you answer three questions: Where should we prioritize based on risk? Which vulnerabilities are likeliest to be exploited? What should we fix first? Tenable gives you the accurate and actionable data you need to answer these questions and better secure your business. Learn more: tenable.com/predictive-prioritization. On this week's episode Why is everybody talking about this now? Last week I was about to install a popular and approved app in the Google Play store that asked if the app could read, copy, download, and DELETE my contacts. Also last week during Google I/O, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive touted their focus on privacy. This is not the first time we've heard this from Google or Facebook who is going to be facing the largest privacy violation in FTC history. Getting access to our behaviors is how Facebook and Google make their money. What would we like to see, not hear, from either Google or Facebook that convinces us that yes, they are doing something significant and proactive about privacy. Maybe they've already done it. Why is this a bad pitch? A Twitter thread asked, "What do vendors say that immediately undermines their credibility?" There were a lot listed, but the ones I saw repeated multiple times were military grade, next-gen, bank-level encryption, full visibility, 100% effective, and single pane of glass. We have brought up many of these on our show. And while we understand companies are trying to find a short pithy way to describe their technology, using terms like these can turn a great pitch into an effort to dig out of a hole. What's Worse?! We squeeze in two rounds of this game and our guest tries to dodge the question, but I don't let him. You're a CISO, what's your take on this? Brian Fricke, CISO at BBVA Compass is eager to hear how to successfully reconcile the cloud-driven CapEx to OpEx budget shift. CFOs don't get any depreciation benefit from OpEx, and Brian believes they'd prefer to see CapEx even if it's double the cost. He's struggling. Our CISOs offer up some advice. How to become a CISO Jason Clark, CISO of Netskope, wrote an article on Forbes about security mentorship. Mentors are needed to create more security leaders, CISOs, increase interest in security, and teach the ability to talk to the business. All of it centered around one theme of motivating others. What are ways to teach motivation across all these areas?