Security Conversations

Netskope security chief Lamont Orange joins the show to chat about the changing role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), managing security as a business enabler, the cybersecurity skills shortage, and his own unique approach to security leadership.

Thinkst founder and CEO Haroon Meer joins Ryan Naraine on the show to talk about building a successful cybersecurity company without venture capital investment, fast-moving attack surfaces and the never-ending battle to mitigate memory corruption issues.

Chief executive officer at Egress Tony Pepper joins the show to talk about entrepreneurship in the fast-paced age of modern computing, the state of e-mail security, and his company's bet on securing the future of messaging in the enterprise.

Justin Campbell leads Microsoft’s Offensive Research and Security Engineering (MORSE) team. He joins the show to talk about his team's discovery of a SolarWinds in-the-wild zero-day, the never-ending stream of memory safety vulnerabilities, the evolving 'shift-left' mindset and Redmond's ongoing work to reduce attack surfaces.

Global director of Kaspersky's GReAT research team Costin Raiu returns to the show for an indepth discussion on the mobile surveillance business, the technically impressive FORCEDENTRY iOS exploit, the ethical questions facing exploit developers and the role of venture capitalists in the mobile malware ecosystem.

Corellium co-founder and chief executive Amanda Gorton joins the show to talk about raising $25 million in Series A funding, the market fit for device modeling and software virtualization products, the trials and tribulations of startup life, and the nuances of operating in the world of offensive security research.

Venky Venkateswaran works on client security and roadmap planning at Intel Corp. On this episode of the podcast, Venky joins Ryan to talk about a reported surge in firmware attacks, Intel's ongoing investments in cybersecurity, the importance of transparency and open documentation, and the company's push to fight ransomware with its flagship TDT (Threat Detection Technology).

Episode sponsored by SecurityWeek.com JupiterOne CISO Sounil Yu joins the show to sift through the noise and explain the value of SBOMs (software bill of materials), the U.S. government's response to software supply chain security gaps, and what every buyer and seller should be doing to prepare for major changes in the ecosystem.

Episode sponsored by MongoDB.com. Algirde Pipikaite, the project lead of the Governance and Policy team at the Center for Cybersecurity at the World Economic Forum, joins the podcast to discuss her work to bridge the gap between cybersecurity experts and decision makers. We chat about communicating risk to different audiences, cybersecurity as a business enabler, and the need for more global private-public collaboration.

Josh Schwartz, aka FuzzyNop, oversees offensive security, product engineering, and security engagement functions at Verizon Media (soon to be Yahoo). He shares insights on red-teaming, overcoming the adversarial relationship between red/blue teams. chasing the "feeling" of being secure, and why there's a need for more empathy in cybersecurity. (Episode sponsored by Eclypsium (https://eclypsium.com))

Netflix threat detection and response practitioner Michael Laventure joins the show to talk about a simple goal to "do security better." We discuss a transition from .gov security work to the fast pace of Silicon Valley, the culture clashes that can make life difficult, the value of threat-intelligence to a modern security program, and why we should all be optimistic about the future of cybersecurity.

Founding-member of the Google security team Heather Adkins joins the conversation to stress the importance of defenders playing the "long-game," the need for meaningful culture-change among security leaders, the expansion of zero-trust beyond identities and devices, and some thoughts on the future of electronic voting. Sponsored by Eclypsium: Eclypsium ships an enterprise device platform that provides visibility and mitigation for malicious activity all the way down to the firmware and hardware level. Think of it as one platform to discover, inventory, assess risk, patch, and detect compromises and supply chain breaches across your entire fleet of devices. Request a demo at Eclypsium.com (https://eclypsium.com).

Facebook product security leader Collin Greene joins the show to discuss philosophies around securing code at scale, the pros and cons of relying on bug-bounty programs, the humbling lessons from being on the wrong side of a malicious hack, and why "shift-left" should be the priority for every defender.

Former head of offensive security research at NVIDIA Alex Matrosov joins the show to talk about the state of security at the firmware layer, the need for specialized reverse engineering skills, the limits of bug-bounty programs for hardware research, and the future of advanced malware analysis.

Charles Nwatu is an engineering manager in Netflix's Security, Technology Assurance & Risk organization. He joins Ryan on the show to talk about a career pivot from U.S. gov service into cybersecurity in Silicon Valley, the exciting parts of compliance and risk management, and why newcomers should consider jobs in SOCs to kickstart security careers.

Director of Internet Analyis at Kentik, Doug Madory, joins the podcast to shed light on the mysterious appearance of unused IPv4 space belonging to the US Department of Defense: the strange connection to a Florida company now managing the world's largest honeypot; the odd Inauguration Day timing of this discovery;, and why enterprise network defenders should pay very close attention.

Sponsored by Eclypsium (https://eclypsium.com) Chris Castaldo has a fascinating career in cybersecurity. A U.S. army veteran who dabbled in tech during the early 2000s dot-com boom before settling on security, Castaldo is now CISO at Crossbeam and a decision-maker with a bird's eye view into how the should be protected. Castaldo joins Ryan on the show to talk about his new book on securing the startup, why he's the rare CISO that loves security vendor briefings and demos, and his vision of the CISO's top priorities.

Shubham Shah is a brilliant hacker who quit his pen-testing job to hack for cash in bug-bounty programs. He quickly mastered the game of automating automating pre-breach reconnaissance and zero in on common webapp programming and configuration errors. Shubs, now co-founder at Assetnote, joined Ryan on the show to talk about the stressful life of a fulltime bug-bounty hunter, advancements in web app security defense, and how automation is completely rewriting the bug-discovery business.

Newly appointed Executive Editor at VentureBeat Fahmida Rashid joins the show to talk about her introduction to computer networking in school, her winding path into cybersecurity journalism, the security stories worth telling, the venture capital ecosystem, and the surge in unicorn cybersecurity startups.

Microsoft's David Weston joins Ryan on the show to discuss a new report that shows 83% of organizations have been hit by a firmware attack in the last two years. As businesses continue to under-invest in resources to prevent firmware attacks, Weston warns about the inevitability of advanced attacks at the 'invisible' layer, the absence of skills and tools to find malicious activity in firmware, the nightmare of navigating the patching treadmill, and exciting tech innovation in the space.