Tag Archive for: discuss

Luta Security and Emsisoft discuss how to fight ransomware at Disrupt – TechCrunch

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Ransomware is an exponentially growing global threat. Here are just a few examples from 2022: Costa Rica declared a national emergency after a $20 million ransomware attack; ransomware caused one of the biggest U.S. health data breaches; and ransomware topped CSO’s list of nine hot cybersecurity trends.

To hammer the point home, 14 of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors in the U.S. experienced ransomware attacks during 2021, according to a February 2022 report from the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency.

The urgent threat ransomware presents is why we’re excited to announce that Katie Moussouris, the founder and CEO at Luta Security, and Brett Callow, a threat analyst at Emsisoft, will join us onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 18–20 in San Francisco.

In a conversation called “Winning the war on ransomware,” Moussouris and Callow will talk about why ransomware is escalating at such an alarming rate, define what “winning the war” looks like, and share what startup founders need to know — and what steps they can take — to protect their customers and their business.

A self-described computer hacker with more than 20 years of professional cybersecurity experience, Moussouris has a distinct perspective on security research, vulnerability disclosure, bug bounties and incident response. She serves in three advisory roles for the U.S. government as a member of the Cyber Safety Review Board, the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, and the Information Systems Technical Advisory Committee.

Moussouris worked with the U.S. Department of Defense where she led the launch of Hack the Pentagon, the government’s first bug bounty program. During her tenure with Microsoft, she worked on initiatives such as Microsoft’s bug bounty programs and Microsoft Vulnerability Research.

Moussouris serves as an advisor to the Center for Democracy and Technology, and she is also a cybersecurity fellow at New America and the National Security Institute.

A Vancouver Island–based threat analyst for cybersecurity company Emsisoft, Brett Callow lives life with an ear to the ground, monitoring emerging cyberthreat trends and…

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10 Questions Directors Should Discuss With C-Suites

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Many corporate boards have made significant progress about understanding the importance of cyber security to the competitive health and sustainability of the companies they oversee.

They’ve certainly gotten the message that cyber security is not just an IT issue.

And, within the portion of board meetings devoted to risk assessment, cyber security is almost always one of the top items on the agenda.

But most board directors have yet to move far enough along to become as effectively equipped as they should be to intelligently gauge the extent to which their firms’ management teams are at the top of their games in the war on corporate cyber-attacks. 

Few board members engage C-suite executives in meaningful dialogue on the specific strategies they’re undertaking to reduce vulnerabilities to hacks and why particular approaches rather than others are being employed.

I know this firsthand: both from the corporate boards on which I serve and from the boards I advise on business growth and risk-mitigation strategy, especially boards of companies where international transactions are important to their lifeblood—hardly a unique characteristic of many firms in today’s global economic ecosystem in which all of us make decisions one way or another.

The bald fact is that many board members are intimidated to ask the members of their C-suite executive teams who are most centrally responsible for cyber security—traditionally Chief Information Officers (CIOs), but increasingly Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs)—all but the most general technical questions.

Even then, the issues that board directors raise with the C-suite almost always focus on the magnitude of the problem and the degree to which the CISOs believe they have existing threats contained.

And, for the CISOs, they tend to have an incentive to give briefings to their boards about cyber security in relatively dumbed-down language.

It’s been my experience that it is a rare CISO that discusses with his or her board…

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White House to discuss software development with tech executives, calling it ‘key national security concern’

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The January discussion between tech executives and White House officials is needed because open-source software is widely used but is maintained by volunteers, making it “a key national security concern,” Sullivan said in a letter to tech firms, excerpts of which the White House shared with reporters.

Invitees include software development firms and cloud service providers, according to the White House. A National Security Council spokesperson declined to say which companies had been invited.

The letter follows the discovery this month of a vulnerability in software known as Log4j that organizations around the world use to log data in their applications.

Ransomware gangs and hackers linked with the governments of China, Iran, North Korea and Turkey have moved to exploit the flaw as tech firms and government agencies have raced to apply software patches.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has said that hundreds of millions of devices could be exposed to the vulnerability, issued an “emergency directive” on December 17 ordering federal civilian agencies to update their systems.

An agency spokesperson told CNN on Thursday that there is no indication that any agency has been hacked using the vulnerability in Log4j.

While no US agencies have confirmed a breach via the vulnerability, the Belgian Defense Ministry told local media outlets this week that it had shut down parts of its computer network in response to a hack using the flaw.

Cybersecurity executives have called the vulnerability one of the most critical software bugs in years and warned that it could take weeks or months to fully assess the impact.

While the world’s richest companies rely on it, the Log4j software is maintained by a group of volunteers at the nonprofit Apache Software Foundation, who have worked long hours to address the flaw.

The vulnerability in Log4j “will define computing as we know it, separating those that put in the effort to protect themselves and those comfortable being negligent,” said Amit Yoran, the CEO of the Maryland-based security firm Tenable.

It’s precisely that dearth of investment in critical software that the White House wants to address.

President Joe Biden in May…

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Military experts discuss the future of warfare in Thursday night forum hosted by The Gazette and KKTV | Subscriber-Only Content

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Now that America’s longest war has come to an end, what does the future of warfare look like?

That was the focus of many questions put to a panel of former and current military officers Thursday night at the Southeast Armed Services YMCA during a community conversation hosted by The Gazette and KKTV.

But as many of the roughly 50 in attendance arrived at the facility, a group of about two dozen stood on the sidewalk singing and holding signs.

Amy Zimbelman, a conference minister – something like a bishop – with Mountain States Mennonite Conference, which represents 17 churches in Colorado and New Mexico, stood next to fellow church members, peace and justice activists and Colorado College students.

The Colorado Springs resident had issue with the forum’s title: After Afghanistan: The Future of Warfare.

“The way the conversation is framed makes it sound as though warfare is just a foregone conclusion,” she said. “We need to look at other alternatives. We need to take seriously, active, non-violent resistance in our world.”



Community Conversation - After Afghanistan: The Future of Warfare

Amy Zimbelman, a conference minister with Mountain States Mennonite Conference, stands with a few dozen others outside the Southeast Armed Services YMCA before a community conversation with a panel of military experts discussing the future of warfare that was presented by The Gazette and KKTV on Thursday

. “We need to take seriously, active, nonviolent resistance in our world,” she said.




Colorado College freshman Wiley Holbrooke, 19, of Telluride, and…

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