Value of Securing Containers in the Technology Supply Chain with Security Practitioner Julie Tsai
Release Date: 03/01/2022
Insider Threats and Social Engineering Tactics by Counterintelligence Institute’s Peter Warmka
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In Episode 90 of TheCyber5, we are joined by , founder of the Counterintelligence Institute. Warmka is a retired senior intelligence officer with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) where he specialized in clandestine HUMINT (human intelligence) collection. With 20+ years of breaching security overseas for a living, Warmka now teaches individuals and businesses about the strategy and tactics of “human hacking”. Warmka highlights how insiders are targeted, the methods used by nationstates for committing crimes, and what organizations need to help focus their security training...
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The Top Nisos Investigations Of the Last Seven Years with Nisos Research Principal Vincas Ciziunas
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In Episode 89 of TheCyber5, we are joined by Nisos Research Principal, It was 7 years ago, at a restaurant in Ashburn, Virginia, when Nisos’ co-founders Justin Zeefe and Landon Winkelvoss met Vincas. At the time, Vincas was working as a contractor for the US government but was considering a pivot into the private sector. It was Vincas’ impressive intellect, strategic thinking, and technical capabilities that made him the ideal intelligence operator on whom to depend for the launch of Nisos. Over the course of several years, Vincas’ experience, as a developer, open threat...
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The Vital Role of Customer Success in Intel Programs with Senior Director of Nisos Brandon Kappus
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In Episode 88 of TheCyber5, we are joined by Nisos Senior Director for Customer Success, . Here are five topics we discuss in this episode: Intelligence Playbooks Start with Education to the Customer Playbooks should include three major steps. The first step is education on how intelligence is going to be consumed and not be nonstop noise. Discussions between customers and vendors should start around requirements that customers are trying to address with business stakeholders. Understanding Commercially and Publicly Available Data to Avoid Noise The next...
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Identifying When Attribution of Threat Actors Matters and How to Track the Outcomes with Senior Information Security Leader Charles Garzoni
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In Episode 87 of TheCyber5, we are joined by senior information security leader . Here are five topics we discuss in this episode: Defining When Attribution is Relevant and Necessary Many corporations are not overly concerned with attribution against cyber adversaries, they just want to get back to business operations. However, if someone robbed your house, you would want to know if it was a random drive-by, or if it was your neighbor because that will inform your defenses much more appropriately. Defending Against Nation States Versus Crime Groups The ability to attribute...
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Properly Defining a Threat Management Department within Enterprise with Senior Manager of Nvidia Chris Cottrell
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In Episode 86 of TheCyber5, we are joined by Senior Manager of Threat Management for Nvidia . Here are six topics we discuss in this episode: What is a threat management department within enterprise security? Threat management departments are usually formed when security teams become mature and have table stakes functions within threat intelligence, red team, penetration testing, and threat hunting. These functions are usually formed after compliance, risk, governance, vulnerability management, and security operations center (SOC) are operational. Unfortunately, threat...
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Operational Resiliency Framework Pertaining to Supply Chains by Foundation for Defense of Democracies George Shea
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In Episode 85 of TheCyber5, we are joined by Chief Technologist of Transformative Cyber Innovation Lab for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) Here are four topics we discuss in this episode: What is the Operational Resiliency Framework (ORF)? The Operational Resiliency Framework (ORF) is a framework that is intended to be used by executives to ensure business continuity processes when their suppliers are knocked offline during natural disasters and cyber attacks. Defining Minimum Viable Services Step one, and the most important step, is defining a minimum level of...
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Integrating Attack Simulation with Intelligence to Provide Actionable Outcomes with CrossCountry Consulting
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In Episode 84 of TheCyber5, we are joined by members of the CrossCountry Consulting team: , Offensive R&D Lead, , Associate Director, and , Director, Cyber and Privacy. Here are five topics we discuss in this episode: Adversary Emulation vs. Simulation and Use of Threat Intelligence Replaying attacks from adversaries is considered . The pros of emulation are you can react and defend against threat intelligence and the actual techniques during a penetration test. The cons are that many times these are yesterday’s threats. Simulation is the art of coming up with new attack...
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Data Governance and Threat Intelligence Converge with Egnyte’s Chief Governance Officer Jeff Sizemore
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Topic: Title: Data Governance and Threat Intelligence Converge In Episode 83 of TheCyber5, we are joined by our guest, Egnyte’s Chief Governance Officer, Jeff Sizemore. We discuss the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) and the impact on Department of Defense (DOD) contractors to mature their cybersecurity hygiene in order to compete for US government contracts. CMMC was based on NIST Standards 800-71. Here are 4 topics we discuss in this episode: Why Does CMMC Matter? In the near future, contracts are going to be rated L1-3 and if contractors are not certified up to a...
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Driving Diversity in Cyber Security and Intelligence with BGH Security CEO Tennisha Martin
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In episode 82 of The Cyber5, we are joined by guest moderator and senior intelligence analyst for Nisos, Valerie G., and CEO of BGH Security, Tennisha Martin. In this episode, we discuss the challenges and opportunities of promoting and enabling diversity and inclusion in cyber security. Key Takeaways: Showing Impact for Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) within Security Beyond filling cyber security skills gaps, some metrics that show success in D&I include: Jobs Feeling more confident in interviews Recommending minorities for employment opportunities...
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Leveraging Open Source Intelligence in Insider Threat Programs with Vaillance Group CEO, Shawnee Delaney
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In episode 81 of The Cyber5, we are joined by the Head of Insider Threat at Uber and CEO of Vaillance Group, Shawnee Delaney. In this episode, we provide an overview of different functions within an insider threat program. We also discuss the support open source intelligence provides to such programs and how to change company culture to care about insider threats. We also discuss the ROI metrics that are important to different stakeholders when implementing an insider threat program. Three Takeaways: Departments and Functions within Insider Threat Insider threat programs...
info_outlineTopic: Value of Securing Containers in the Technology Supply Chain
In episode 67 of The Cyber5, we are joined by senior security practitioner Julie Tsai.
We discuss security and intelligence in modern-day technology platforms, concentrating on how to secure the impact that container and cloud environments have on the technology supply chain. Compliance and intelligence play a critical role in the application and development of supply chain risk. Specifically, when developers perform code commits and updates, we discuss the criticality of intelligence and compliance to ensure code is truthful, accurate, and complete.
Three Key Takeaways:
1) Containers and Virtualization Images Offer Repeatability But Also Potential for Compromise at Scale
Containers give software developers the potential to establish an assembly line of repeatable, secure patterns because they are operating system agnostic. However, the upstream effort to harden the container and set the right images or configurations needs to be correct from the beginning. Simultaneously, mistakes can lead to a compromised container or host OS level that might impact the container.
Container configurations have a shared kernel with modular application containers and services on top. Therefore, security practitioners must be mindful of anything that can break out of that container. Furthermore, if there is a host OS-level hardening, they must ensure kernel-level memory doesn't compromise and impact all the dependent layers.
2) Supply Chain Risk with Containers
Supply chain risk in technology is challenging because developers generally borrow code from other developers, and they don’t check libraries and dependencies for security issues. In addition, contractual agreements aren’t capturing all the supply chain pipeline nuances. It’s hard enough to know what’s happening inside an enterprise network, let alone understand the provenance and the chain of custody.
Security issues can get injected into the end product when not following a strict process concerning container changes. “Defense in Depth” is a classic security principle that matters in securing containers such as application and configuration management. In addition, other aspects like source control, commit trail, and fingerprinting different kinds of artifacts are all checksums to ensure the correct update of code.
3) Threat Intelligence Fundamentals with Container Security
A threat intelligence program needs to start by aligning with the business with the most prevalent threats. A banking site will have different threats than e-commerce, gaming, or crypt-currency exchange. Therefore, a threat intelligence program needs to be modular enough to scale to many types of threats as the business grows.
More tactically related to containers, developers can’t be tearing down containers as little work would get done if a malicious actor scans a container environment. However, if a threat intelligence team notices a regularity or repeatability with the scan attempts followed by authentication attempts to the environment, those types of intelligence alerts are fruitful.
Intelligence programs show clear value on highly attacked industries (manufacturing, health care, retail, finance). The challenge is if you put blinders on and think there isn’t a way to be attacked other than regular threat intelligence blogs.