Cyber Security Weekly Podcast

Dr. Khatuna Mshvidobadze is a Professorial Lecturer of Cybersecurity at the George Washington University and Adjunct Professor of Cyber Security at Champlain College. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Rondeli Foundation in Tbilisi, Georgia. Earlier, she developed and taught cyber security courses for M.S. and M.P.S. programs at Utica College. She has been Deputy Director of the Information Center on NATO in Georgia and Adviser to the Office of the Minister of Defense of Georgia. Her articles have appeared in Georgian and in English, including in Defense News, Jane's Defense Weekly, US News & World Report, Jane's Foreign Report, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and more.  She has presented topics on cyber threats at different venues inside and outside of the country: The Office of the Secretary of Defense, US Department of Defense, FBI Headquarters and field offices, Department of Justice, Defense Intelligence Agency, U.S. Healthcare Sector Coordinating Council, Mitre Corporation, Raytheon BBN Technologies, NATO and EU events. She has also been a speaker at TEDx, DefCon and RSA conferences and more. In this podcast, Dr. Khatuna Mshvidobadze traces the history of Russian information warfare doctrine, and its subset of cyber warfare, operating under an umbrella of “an integrated system of systems”. Through examples such as the Russia-Georgia conflict of 2008 and Ukraine critical infrastructure disruptions of 2015/2016 – she elaborates how the doctrine evolved, from its foundation days in the 1970s, rooted in the military writings of Nikolai Ogarkov, then Chief of the Soviet General Staff, to today. Laying out how the cyber troops units are structured under Russia’s military and intelligence organizations, the GRU (Military Intelligence Directorate), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Federal Security Service (FSB), she points out how they carried out the cyber intrusions, using such tactics as phishing and remote desktop protocols exploitations. Besides state sponsored cyber-attacks, she also notes the wave of ransomware attacks launched by Russian criminal groups such as REvil and Ryuk during the Covid-19 pandemic. Dr. Mshvidobadze highlighted how outsourcing is a key element in carrying out the attacks, where criminal groups work with Russian threat actor groups, and sometimes across national borders. One example is the information warfare campaigns prevalent during the current Russia-Ukraine conflict carried out by “GhostWriter”, which has alleged ties to Belarus, a Russian ally. Referencing the recent supply chain attacks such as the SolarWinds and Kaseya incidents by Russian groups, she advises cyber defenders to step up defensive measures on critical infrastructure, re-assess supply chains, and build threat intelligence into cybersecurity frameworks. Recorded with Jane Lo, Singapore Correspondent, Wednesday 27th April 2022 1pm (Italy)/ 7pm (Singapore)

According to ISACA’s new survey report, State of Cybersecurity 2022: Global Update on Workforce Efforts, Resources and Cyberoperations, organisations are struggling more than ever with hiring and retaining qualified cybersecurity professionals and managing skills gaps. The eight annual survey features insights from more than 2,000 cybersecurity professionals around the globe, and examines cybersecurity staffing and skills, resources, cyberthreats and cybersecurity maturity. We speak with Jonathan Brandt and Jenai Marinkovic on behalf of ISACA for a report deep-dive discussion. A copy of the report is available here https://mysecuritymarketplace.com/rep... (https://mysecuritymarketplace.com/reports/state-of-cybersecurity-2022/) Jonathan Brandt, CISM, CDPSE, CCISO, CISSP, CySA+, CPI, PMP A senior information security practice manager in ISACA’s Knowledge and Research department. In this role, he contributes thought leadership by generating ideas and deliverables relevant to ISACA’s constituents. He serves ISACA® departments as a subject matter expert on information security projects and leads author management teams whenever external resources are necessary. Brandt is a highly accomplished US Navy veteran with more than 25 years of experience spanning multidisciplinary security, cyberoperations and technical workforce development. Prior to joining ISACA, Brandt was a project manager for classified critical infrastructure projects across the globe. Jenai Marinkovic, vCTO/CISO, Tiro Security; Technology & Information Security Consultant, Beyond; member, ISACA Emerging Trends Working Group Jenai Marinkovic is a multidisciplinary technologist and strategist with 20 years of experience in architecting, building and securing systems at scale. She has designed and operated in real-time over the top streaming ecosystems that power live sports, gaming, and entertainment. She’s also worked in biomedical manufacturing and laboratory diagnostics, healthcare tech and robotics in agriculture. Jenai’s worked with artificial intelligence, its impact on diversity and inclusion as well as improving human empathy towards machines. She has expertise in designing the next generation security experiences necessary to support digital transformation She has built and run design, architecture, innovation, engineering, security and operations teams. Her security expertise spans security architecture, engineering, defense, and forensics and invented a cyber defense framework for large scale breaches based on American football. Jenai has worked for large enterprise brands including DIRECTV, Electronic Arts, Beckman Coulter and international investigations firms such as Kroll. About ISACA For more than 50 years, ISACA® (www.isaca.org) has advanced the best talent, expertise and learning in technology. ISACA equips individuals with knowledge, credentials, education and community to progress their careers and transform their organisations, and enables enterprises to train and build quality teams. ISACA is a global professional association and learning organisation that leverages the expertise of its more than 150,

Noname Security’s surge in adoption can be attributed to its proactive approach to API security throughout the full software development lifecycle. Unlike most solutions in the market today that rely solely on traffic analysis to pinpoint active attacks, Noname Security analyzes configuration, traffic and code to identify the broadest set of API vulnerabilities — including misconfigurations and design flaws. We speak with NoName's CISO, Karl Mattson, a cybersecurity leader and innovator with over 25 years’ experience leading innovative and diverse teams of technology and security professionals in financial services, retail and federal government. Previously, Karl served as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for PennyMac Financial Services and City National Bank. He has a track record of providing CEOs, CTO and investors in cybersecurity on strategies for product, market and customer success. Recorded 13 April 2022 #APIsecurity (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/apisecurity) #noname (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/noname) #cybersecurity (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/cybersecurity) #AppSec (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/appsec)

We attended the opening of the Dragos office in Melbourne, Australia and met with CEO and Founder, Robert Lee.Robert Lee is a recognized pioneer in the industrial security incident response and threat intelligence community. He gained his start in security as a U.S. Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer tasked to the National Security Agency where he built a first-of-its-kind mission identifying and analyzing national threats to industrial infrastructure. He went on to build the industrial community’s first dedicated monitoring and incident response class at the SANS Institute (ICS515) and the industry recognized cyber threat intelligence course (FOR578).Forbes named Robert to its 30 under 30 (2016) list as one of the “brightest entrepreneurs, breakout talents, and change agents” in Enterprise Technology. He is a business leader but also technical practitioner. Robert helped lead the investigation into the 2015 cyber attack on Ukraine’s power grid, he and his team at Dragos helped identify and analyze the CRASHOVERRIDE malware that attacked Ukraine’s grid in 2016 and the TRISIS malware deployed against an industrial safety system in the Middle East in 2017.Robert is routinely sought after for his advice and input into industrial threat detection and response. He has presented at major security conferences such as SANS, BlackHat, DefCon, and RSA and has testified to the Senate’s Energy and National Resources Committee. As a non-resident national security fellow at New America, Robert works to inform policy related to critical infrastructure cyber security and is regularly asked by various governments to brief to national level leaders.Recorded April 7, 2022Video version available at https://youtu.be/i2H3YndP8gsFor more information visit www.dragos.com#otcybersecurity #cybersecurity #dragos #ukraine #cyberattack #crashoverride

Organisations in A/NZ, and around the world, are grappling with the complexity of delivering highly distributed modern digital services, while managing the increased sophistication and volume of cyberattacks. F5’s new Distributed Cloud platform provides a set of easily deployed and managed application security and delivery services that allow organisations to apply consistent protection and policy across every application, regardless of architecture and location. Some research estimates 39 per cent of Australian enterprises have adopted multi-cloud technologies, while across the APAC region its estimated a whopping 93 per cent of companies are embracing a multi-cloud strategy – so the trajectory of multi-cloud adoption is, quite clearly, on the up. We speak with Jason Baden, Regional Vice President, Australia and New Zealand of F5. Based in Sydney, Jason has held this position for over four years, where he is responsible for driving F5’s local market and business growth, and positioning F5 as a strategic partner for both customers and channel partners. For more information on the F5 Distributed Cloud Platform visit https://www.f5.com/cloud/products/platform-overview (https://www.f5.com/cloud/products/platform-overview)#F5 #cloudcomputing #multicloud #hybridcloud #cybersecurity #botnets #paymentsystems #fraudprevention

Dr. Sarah Pearce is Director of the SKA-Low Telescope, soon to be built in Western Australia as part of the $2bn international SKA Observatory. Sarah worked at Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, for 10 years in the fields of space and astronomy, and spent six months in early 2021 as CSIRO’s Acting Chief Scientist. Her previous roles included senior science advisor in the UK Parliament and project manager of GridPP, the UK’s program delivering computing for particle physics. In 2020, Dr. Pearce was named Telstra NSW Business Woman of the Year and Executive of the Year at the Australian Space Awards. She is a strong advocate for diversity in science and technology. Sarah holds a PhD in X-ray astronomy from the University of Leicester and an undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Oxford (Worcester College). In this podcast, Dr Pearce shares the latest development of the SKA (Square Kilometre Array) Observatory - an international ‘mega science’ radio-astronomy project. The SKAO Is an intergovernmental organisation – the second-ever in astronomy – that was officially launched in July 2021. She highlights that SKA will be the world’s largest radio telescope facility of its kind, underpinned by the latest technologies that can help address the exciting cutting-edge challenges in astronomy, including our understanding of the cosmic dawn – the time when the first stars and galaxies in the Universe were formed. She elaborates on the international partnerships and collaborative efforts in the project. It involves 16 countries as well as engineering consortiums across the world, who are coming together to build the two SKA telescopes, being built in remote regions of South Africa and Australia. She explains how the existing precursor radio telescopes in Australia – the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) with 36 antennas, and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Western Australia with more than 4,000 antennas – have contributed to planning for the SKA-Low telescope, the “low” frequency antenna array operating in the 50-350 Mhz band.  Comprising up to 130,000 antennas spreading across 65km of desert, Dr Pearce explains the telescope will be more sensitive, and able to capture images at higher resolution and faster than ever before. Dr Pearce discusses the significance of the selection of the sites in Australia and South Africa – that the Southern hemisphere offers the best views of the Milky Way Galaxy and the remote locations of the telescopes locations ensure minimal radio interference (or “radio quiet”) at these sites. In fact, due to the amount of radio signals generated by human activities, sites visitations are very restricted. With the data captured by the hundreds of thousands of SKA antennas expected to reach 8 terabytes per second, equivalent to more than 100,000 the average speed of home broadband, Dr Pearce points out how the “big data” aspect is also a challenge, in addition to the challenges involve in building the telescopes. Dr Pearce rounds off the podcast by paying respects to the Wajarri Yamaji people, the traditional owners of the land on which the SKA-Low telescope will be built.       Recorded 16th March 2022 1.30pm Australia Western Time Zone/ Singapore Time Recorded 16th March 2022 1.30pm Australia Western Time Zone/ Singapore Time

Jane Lo, Singapore Correspondent speaks with Dr. Jiasun Li, Assistant Professor of Finance, George Mason University.Jiasun received his Ph.D. in finance from UCLA Anderson School of Management and B.S. in mathematics from Fudan University (Shanghai, China) prior to joining George Mason. His research interest covers FinTech (including blockchain and crowdfunding), as well as the theory of the firm, governance, and market microstructure. Dr. Li is a winner of the Yihong Xia Best paper award and the Chicago Quantitative Alliance academic paper competition, along with many other paper prizes. He has also been voted by students as "Faculty of the Year" (one recipient per year from the entire faculty). In this podcast, Dr. Li shares with the audience, how blockchains such as bitcoin interact with the field of game theory. Dr. Li describes the challenges to achieving the basic premise of bitcoin and blockchain as distributed systems – that is, the ability to arrive at a general agreement (consensus) without a central authority when some participants may be rogue. By referring to the Byzantine General’s Problem – a metaphor of this challenge – he highlights how communication between participants distributed across sites is a key feature. He unpacks how this challenge is resolved in the bitcoin blockchain within the mining process. He also points out that the incentives to motivate participation in the process naturally involve game theory, which models situations where users strategize to optimize their own payoffs. He also shares his research on mining pools, where like in lottery pools, miners pool their resources to optimize their risk-return tradeoffs. He explains how the strategic interactions between mining pools prevent over-concentration.  On how permissioned and permissionless blockchains compare regarding the applicability of game theory models, he relates to the concept of “repeated games”, and illustrates how repeated interactions may yield a different outcome to a single-shot game. Drawing on the distinction between “honest” (blindly following protocols) and “rational” (optimizing one's self-interest), he shares on-going work (https://business.gmu.edu/news/2626-mapping-blockchain-s-frontiers/ (https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbusiness.gmu.edu%2Fnews%2F2626-mapping-blockchain-s-frontiers%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cjli29%40gmu.edu%7Cf2ac5b9bd1b6461e8fb808da0952967d%7C9e857255df574c47a0c00546460380cb%7C0%7C0%7C637832549067172903%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=3kL3IKnVSSswEtkhIFeKHvacGZSFX0zJcVlyyHw6KpE%3D&reserved=0)) on aligning incentives to obtain outcomes as prescribed by desired protocols. Another emerging piece of work studies the incentives involved in “slashing” dishonest participants' crypto assets.

Jane Lo, Singapore Correspondent speaks with Al Geist, Corporate Research Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (“ ORNL” ). He is the chief technical officer of the Exascale Computing Project, as well as the CTO of the Leadership Computing Facility and chief scientist for the Computer Science and Mathematics Division at ORNL. He is helping lead the acquisition of the Frontier Exascale computer at ORNL. His recent research is on Exascale computing and resilience needs of the hardware and software.At ORNL, Geist has published two books and over 200 papers in areas ranging from heterogeneous distributed computing, numerical linear algebra, parallel computing, collaboration technologies, solar energy, materials science, biology, and solid state physics.Geist is one of the original developers of PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine), which became a worldwide de facto standard for heterogeneous distributed computing. He was also actively involved in the design of the Message Passing Interface (MPI-1 and MPI-2) standard. He was involved in the development of FT-MPI, a research prototype to explore how to make MPI applications fault tolerant.In this podcast, Al goes behind the scenes to give the audience a glimpse into Frontier, the first Exascale supercomputer in the USA.By referencing the highlights he presented at the Supercomputing Asia (28th Feb 2022 – 3rd March 2022, Singapore), he shares with the audience the challenges the team overcame to build Frontier. With the capabilities to perform billions of billions of floating point operations per second (“Exsacale”), Frontier joins Fugaku - the Japanese supercomputer currently ranked as the world’s fastest – in the list of high performance computers that have reached the Exascale milestone.Besides speed, Al also explains how reliability – ability to mitigate computation failures and errors - is crucial to supercomputers in delivering results that decision makers can rely on with confidence.Al also discusses the innovations in the cooling infrastructure to address the challenge of rising energy consumption that comes with increasing computation power. He also points to the impressive work in refitting the buildings that house Frontier – including rein-enforcing the 20,000 square feet of floor areas to withstand the weight of 8,000 pounds of supercomputer cabinets.With applications running on Frontier that are of high sensitivity including national security implications, he also touches on security considerations – such as controls over remote access as well as physical access, and data segregation.Looking ahead, Al shares how, by programming and coding smarter, supercomputers will continue to deliver the gains in computational speeds for a couple more generations to come, despite the slowdown in semiconductor advancements.Recorded 7th March 2022 6pm (US Eastern Time) / 8th March 2022 7am (Singapore).

The fourteenth issue of Australian Foreign Affairs examines the rising tensions over the future of Taiwan, as China’s pursuit of “unification” pits it against the United States and US allies such as Australia. The Taiwan Choice looks at the growing risk of a catastrophic war and the outlook for Australia as it faces a strategic choice that could reshape its future in Asia. Published on 21 February, Issue 14 examines the rising tensions over the future of Taiwan and Hugh White discusses why war over Taiwan is the gravest danger Australia has faced. Hugh White AO is Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University. His work focuses primarily on Australian strategic and defence policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, and global strategic affairs especially as they influence Australia and the Asia-Pacific. Hugh has served as an intelligence analyst with the Office of National Assessments, as a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, as a senior adviser on the staffs of Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and as a senior official in the Department of Defence, where from 1995 to 2000 he was Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence, and as the first Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). In the 1970s he studied philosophy at Melbourne and Oxford Universities. He was the principal author of Australia’s 2000 Defence White Paper. His major publications include Power Shift: Australia’s future between Washington and Beijing, [2010], The China Choice: Why America should share power, [2012], Without America: Australia’s future in the New Asia [2017], and How to defend Australia [2019] For a copy visit https://www.australianforeignaffairs.com/essay/2022/02/the-taiwan-choice (https://www.australianforeignaffairs.com/essay/2022/02/the-taiwan-choice)Discount Code for your copy of the Australian Foreign Affairs - 14th Ed - AFA3OFF #taiwan (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/taiwan) #china (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/china) #uschina (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/uschina) #indopacific (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/indopacific) #asia (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/asia) #quad (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/quad) #anu (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/anu)

Western governments have issued warnings for organisations to protect their systems against possible Russian cyber attacks.