Halycon AI

In this episode of Security Gets Serious, guest host Robert Rodriquez sits down with our regular host, Halcyon Chief Security and Trust officer Ben Carr, and two special guests: Jeff Farnich, SVP Technology & CISO New American Funding, and Daniel Hooper, consultant and former CIO Finfare, to deep-dive on the roles and challenges of the modern CISO.

Guest Host, Robert Rodriguez, Chairman and Founder of SINET and a Venture Partner at SYN Ventures
SINET was founded in June 2007 by Robert, a former U.S. Secret Service Special Agent, as an organization dedicated to advancing innovation and fostering global collaboration between the public and private sectors to combat cybersecurity threats. SINET serves as a bridge connecting entrepreneurs, industry and government risk executives, chief information security officers, venture capitalists, and private equity firms. Through workshops, conferences, and public-private partnership dinners, SINET facilitates high-level engagements among cybersecurity professionals. In addition to his role at SINET, Mr. Rodriguez is a Venture Partner at SYN Ventures, focusing on investments in early-stage cybersecurity companies. He also serves on several cybersecurity advisory boards and has been called upon to advise both private industry and federal governments in developing public-private partnership models and engaging with the entrepreneurial and venture capital communities. Before establishing SINET, Mr. Rodriguez served for 22 years as a Special Agent with the United States Secret Service. During his tenure, he held various executive leadership positions, including roles within the Presidential Protection Detail, Protective Intelligence, Inspection, Criminal Investigation Division, and the Counter Assault Team. His executive protection experience spanned a decade at the White House, where he served Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, as well as numerous heads of state.

Panelists:

Daniel Hooper, Consultant and former CIO at Finfare: With over 20 years in cybersecurity, Daniel has built a career at the intersection of technical expertise and executive leadership leading high-performing teams and tackled complex challenges at organizations like IBM, Deloitte, PIMCO, Varo Bank, and Robinhood. Highlights include redesigning a global insurance company’s IT Risk Management program across 14 international entities, building PIMCO’s global security program, meeting OCC regulatory requirements at Varo Bank, and serving as CISO for Robinhood’s Brokerage division. His work with regulators, board members, and executive teams has shaped a strategic approach that delivers impactful results while mentoring teams to excel. You can also catch Daniel on a webinar February 19th discussing Managing Access Control in 2025 & Beyond – register here.

Jeff Farnich, SVP Technology & CISO New American Funding: Jeff Farinich is a visionary technology executive with over 25 years’ experience driving enterprise capabilities leading IT and Security strategy, people, processes, and governance. Since 2019 Jeff has been the SVP Technology Services and Chief Information Security Officer at New American Funding, a privately owned national direct mortgage lender. Jeff serves as the Control officer for NMLS Mortgage licensing for all 50 states and is a member of executive committees. Previously Jeff worked in various leadership roles at SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union, Cisco Systems, NDS Group (subsidiary of News Corp), and other organizations. Jeff has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, a Bachelor of Business Administration from California State Polytechnic University and completed a CIO Executive Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management. Jeff holds Project Management Professional, Certified Information Systems Security Professional, Certified Informa

In this engaging podcast conversation with Robert Rodriguez, we explore the evolution of SINET, its mission to bridge public and private sector collaboration, and its role in accelerating cybersecurity innovation. Robert shares insights into SINET’s unique model for connecting investors, buyers, and sellers, emphasizing how authentic relationships and strategic networking fuel growth in the cybersecurity ecosystem.

We dive into current trends in the investor space, where Robert highlights a heightened focus on technologies tackling ransomware, cloud security, and AI-driven threat detection. He discusses the challenges security companies face in connecting with busy CISOs, stressing the importance of delivering real value and peer-driven credibility.

Ransomware remains a hot topic, with Robert offering perspectives on its impact, CISO concerns, and the potential for regulatory measures to stem the tide. He contrasts SINET events with traditional conferences, explaining how their community-driven approach fosters meaningful connections in an overcrowded event landscape.

Robert also touches on the broader challenges of keeping CISOs up at night, the value of public-private partnerships in enhancing security, and how leaders can build a culture of trust within organizations. It’s a conversation packed with real-world insights for anyone navigating the cybersecurity landscape.

About Our Guest:

Robert Rodriguez is the Chairman and Founder of the Security Innovation Network (SINET), an organization dedicated to advancing innovation and fostering global collaboration between the public and private sectors to combat cybersecurity threats. SINET serves as a bridge connecting entrepreneurs, industry and government risk executives, chief information security officers, venture capitalists, and private equity firms. Through workshops, conferences, and public-private partnership dinners, SINET facilitates high-level engagements among cybersecurity professionals. In addition to his role at SINET, Mr. Rodriguez is a Venture Partner at SYN Ventures, focusing on investments in early-stage cybersecurity companies. He also serves on several cybersecurity advisory boards and has been called upon to advise both private industry and federal governments in developing public-private partnership models and engaging with the entrepreneurial and venture capital communities. Before establishing SINET, Mr. Rodriguez served for 22 years as a Special Agent with the United States Secret Service. During his tenure, he held various executive leadership positions, including roles within the Presidential Protection Detail, Protective Intelligence, Inspection, Criminal Investigation Division, and the Counter Assault Team. His executive protection experience spanned a decade at the White House, where he served Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, as well as numerous heads of state.

Your Hosts:

Anthony M. Freed, Halcyon Director of Research and Communications: Freed is a strategic communications leader, award-winning writer, publisher and podcast producer who was previously a freelance security journalist leading headline-making investigations that included the Symantec NAV source code leak, the mass compromise of US government agency account credentials, the denial-of-service attack that took down WikiLeaks, and more. Freed is also the principal researcher who produces the quarterly Halcyon report Power Rankings: Ransomware Malicious Quartile - Inside Data Extortion Attacks.

Ben Carr, Halcyon Advisory CISO: Carr is a Security & Risk Executive and recognized thought leader with more than 25 years of results driven experience in developing and executing security strategies. Carr has served in global leadership roles at advanced technology, high risk, and rapid growth companies such as Ericsson (Cradlepoint), Qualys, Aristocrat, Tenable, Visa and Nokia. Ben has served a

In this episode of Security Gets Serious, host Ben Carr sits down with Mark Weatherford, former Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for both California and Colorado, as well as Deputy Undersecretary for Cybersecurity at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Mark and Ben dive into the complex roles and responsibilities of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), drawing on Mark's extensive experience in leading security teams at the highest levels of both state and federal government.

Mark currently serves as the Vice President of Policy and Standards at Gretel, is the Founding Partner of Aspen Chartered Consulting, and holds positions on the Board of Directors and Advisory Boards of numerous leading and emerging cybersecurity and technology companies.

With a career spanning both public and private sectors, Mark has held several high-profile executive roles in cybersecurity. His previous positions include Global Information Security Strategist at Booking Holdings, Chief Cybersecurity Strategist at vArmour, Principal at The Chertoff Group, Chief Security Officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and Chief Information Security Officer for the state of Colorado.

In 2008, Mark was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as California's first Chief Information Security Officer. Three years later, the Obama Administration selected him to serve as Deputy Undersecretary for Cybersecurity at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

A former naval officer with a deep background in cryptology, Mark was instrumental in advancing the U.S. Navy's cybersecurity capabilities. He served as the Director of Navy Computer Network Defense Operations, Director of the Navy Computer Incident Response Team (NAVCIRT), and was responsible for establishing the Navy's first operational red team, underscoring his commitment to strengthening cyber defense strategies.

Your Host, Ben Carr, Halcyon Chief Security and Trust Officer: Carr is a Security & Risk Executive and recognized thought leader with more than 25 years of results driven experience in developing and executing security strategies. Carr has served in global leadership roles at advanced technology, high risk, and rapid growth companies such as Ericsson (Cradlepoint), Qualys, Aristocrat, Tenable, Visa and Nokia. Ben has served as a member of the Board of Directors for organizations such as IT-ISAC and NTXPKUA. He is an advisor for Noname Security and Syn Ventures and has previously served on Advisory boards for Living Security, TruStar, Mimecast, Qualys, and Accuvant.

In this edition of the Halcyon video/podcast series Last Month in Security, host Anthony M. Freed and panelists Ben Carr and Ryan Golden are joined by Mark Weatherford, VP of Policy and Standards at Gretel, Founding Partner of Aspen Chartered Consulting, who was formerly Deputy Undersecretary for Cybersecurity at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

We jump into the discussion with some recent news that fallout from the 2023 MOVEit exploit campaign fallout included the leak of 1000’s of companies’ exfiltrated records – including Amazon (2.8 million records), MetLife (585,000 records), and HSBC (280,000 records).
It was previously reported that ransomware operator Cl0p had compromised an undetermined number of victims with the exploit, although it is unclear how well they were able to monetize the attacks.
This comes on top of insurer Coalition releasing their 2024 Cyber Claims Report: Mid-Year Update which found that while the frequency of ransomware attacks slightly decreased in early 2024, their severity intensified as claims rose significantly. The report noted a 140% increase among businesses with over $100 million in revenue, with ransomware attacks now driving 18% of all cybersecurity claims.

Mark provides some keen insights into what this means as far as the relative maturity curve of the ransomware economy, how much more growth can we expect given the success of the RaaS model in enabling less skillful attackers, and whether the US government’s response being largely limited to the issuing of guidelines and frameworks is adequate.

We then take a look at mass data exfiltration events that are now a part of nearly every ransomware attack, such as the National Public Data attack that exposed 2.7 billion records and the Change Healthcare (UHG) attack that exposed the private data of 100 million people, and how potential legal and regulatory impact following an attack in essence is re-victimizing victim organizations.

For example, Lehigh Valley Health Network recently agreed to a $65 million settlement following a class-action lawsuit over a 2023 data breach, Enzo Biochem was ordered to pay $4.5 million to New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut following a 2023 ransomware attack, and the City of Columbus is facing a class-action suit following a ransomware attack that compromised the 6.5 TB of data including personal information of city employees.

We know that ransomware operators are clearly after sensitive data, and we know determined attackers will get in sooner or later. So, is every organization that handles private or regulated data basically on notice that when they are targeted by attackers, they will also be targeted by regulators, then they also will be targeted by shareholders and/or customers?
Is this a constructive approach to the ransomware problem? Can we do better?

About Our Guest:
Mark Weatherford occupies so many important positions, it's hard to know where to start. He is VP of Policy and Standards at Gretel and Founding Partner of Aspen Chartered Consulting, as well as sitting on the Board of Directors and Advisory Boards for dozens of leading and emerging cybersecurity and technology companies.

Mark also has an extensive background in executive-level cybersecurity roles, showcasing a distinguished career in both public and private sectors. He has served as Global Information Security Strategist at Booking Holdings, Chief Cybersecurity Strategist at vArmour, a Principal at The Chertoff Group, Chief Security Officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and Chief Information Security Officer for the state of Colorado.

In 2008, he was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s inaugural Chief Information Security Officer. Later, in 2011, the Obama Administration selected him to serve as the Deputy Undersecretary for Cybersecurity at the U.S. Department of Homeland Securit

In this episode of Security Gets Serious, host Ben Carr sits down with Chaunda Dallas, MSIT, a Healthcare Cybersecurity Specialist dedicated to safeguarding patient data and driving innovation in healthcare and sports technology.

Ben leans into Chaunda’s more than twenty years of hands-on experience in healthcare, which began with her work as an emergency room nurse where she has seen firsthand the critical role of technology in patient care and the risks to patients presented by system downtime, which motivated her transition into the cybersecurity field.

As an educator and current Ph.D. student, Chaunda's expertise bridges the gap between healthcare and technology, and she actively mentors aspiring cybersecurity professionals through Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) as a Technical Mentor and is an active member and volunteer with BlackGirlsHack (BGH) and The Diana Initiative (TDI).

Chaunda contributed to several research projects on healthcare information technology and data protection during her master's degree studies, including Detection of Heart Disease Using Mobile Health Technology, The Use of Healthcare Information Technology in Ambulatory Surgical Centers, and The Adoption, Issues, and Challenges of Wearable Healthcare Technology for the Elderly.

Your Host, Ben Carr, Halcyon Chief security and Trust Officer: Carr is a Security & Risk Executive and recognized thought leader with more than 25 years of results driven experience in developing and executing security strategies. Carr has served in global leadership roles at advanced technology, high risk, and rapid growth companies such as Ericsson (Cradlepoint), Qualys, Aristocrat, Tenable, Visa and Nokia. Ben has served as a member of the Board of Directors for organizations such as IT-ISAC and NTXPKUA. He is an advisor for Noname Security and Syn Ventures and has previously served on Advisory boards for Living Security, TruStar, Mimecast, Qualys, and Accuvant.

In this edition of the Halcyon video/podcast series Last Month in Security, host Anthony M. Freed and panelists Ben Carr and Ryan Golden are joined by Chaunda Dallas, MSIT, who went from emergency room nurse to healthcare cybersecurity specialist on her journey to safeguard patients and their most sensitive data.

First off, we take a look at a Microsoft advisory regarding an affiliate attacker dubbed Vanilla Tempest Leveraging who was observed utilizing the JScript Gootloader malware to drop INC ransomware.

GootLoader is typically spread via SEO poisoning waterhole attacks by a threat actor tracked as Storm-0494, and Vanilla Tempest is assessed to be associated with Vice Society, which has not been very active recently. They have been observed dropping BlackCat, Quantum Locker, Zeppelin, and Rhysida payloads previously.

Then we dive into some post-event regulatory and legal actions which significantly benefit from hindsight, of course. It’s a much different perspective looking back at chain of events than when making decisions in real time pre-event or during an attack.
So, does that make these critical assessments just Monday morning armchair quarterbacking after the fact? Well, the SEC recently dismissed much of SolarWinds case for this very reason.

The SEC had claimed that SolarWinds' website over-stated their compliance with government standards in implementing strong password protections and following a secure software development protocol, insisting that internal conversations uncovered in the investigation suggested otherwise. 

The judge in the case disagreed, stating the regulations in question were for financial controls, not security controls. Subsequently, most of the case against SolarWinds and their CISO were dismissed.

Three other cases (very different) from last month also call into question whether it is fair to deeply scrutinize security decisions well after the fact with all information post-event in hand.

Case one involved Enzo Biochem, a biotech company was ordered to pay $4.5 million to the attorneys general of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut following a 2023 ransomware attack that compromised the data of over 2.4 million people.

Key failings included poor password management, lack of multi-factor authentication (MFA), and the failure to encrypt sensitive data on all systems. The attackers gained access using shared credentials, one of which hadn't been updated in a decade. Clearly there were egregious lapses in security here – not a best effort.

Case 2 involved attackers accessing Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) and deploying ransomware after exfiltrating healthcare data. The brunt of the enforcement actions involved the attackers leaking sensitive images of breast cancer patients.

A class-action lawsuit, filed in March 2023, accused LVHN of failing to safeguard patient data, although there was no indication of poor security practices as we saw with Enzo Biochem, so for the sake of discussion we assumed that none had occurred.

As security pros, we know a determined attacker with enough resources will eventually succeed – so is any and every organization that handles sensitive data basically facing default judgements when they get popped?
Case 3 involved over 2.7 billion records being exfiltrated in an attack on a company called National Public Data, where the information eventually found its way to a hacking forum. The breach resulted in a class action lawsuit against National Public Data for failing to protect this sensitive information.

What is interesting about this case is the fact that the information that was compromised had been scraped from public sources by National Public Data, which aggregates and sells the data for background checks and other purposes.

In this edition of the Halcyon video/podcast series Last Month in Security, host Anthony M. Freed and panelists Ben Carr and Ryan Golden are joined by Halcyon CEO John Miller to continue our examination of the recent Change Healthcare attack that crippled healthcare payment processes across the country.

We also delve into recent takedowns of two of the most prolific ransomware gangs – LockBit and BlackCat/ALPHV - and whether law enforcement actions will have any lasting effect on the onslaught of attacks.

And we touch on the dual nature of some of today’s ransomware attacks that serve a geopolitical strategy and offer plausible deniability for adversarial nations in addition to a revenue stream for criminal actors.

Parent company UnitedHealth Group estimates the cost of remediating the February ransomware attack Q1-2024 is $872 million, and said it expects the attack on Change Healthcare will cost $1.6 billion.

Those numbers are insane. But oh good, here comes the government to the rescue?
Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) has proposed legislation dubbed the Health Care Cybersecurity Improvement Act, that would require some healthcare providers and technology vendors to implement minimum cybersecurity standards.

Meanwhile, DHS published healthcare-specific Cybersecurity Performance Goals, and HHS is planning two regulatory changes that will implement cybersecurity standards for Medicare and Medicaid participation by way of updated HIPAA data security rules after more than 152M people were impacted in the attack.

And to make things more complicated, RansomHub – who may be a rebrand of BlackCat/ALPHV – is claiming to be in possession of data stolen from Change Healthcare and is further extorting the company.

But we did have some major takedowns by law enforcement against LockBit and BlackCat/ALPHV that may have contributed to a notable decline in attacks in the first quarter of 2024.

Yet, even after these actions, LockBit attacked Trans-Northern Pipelines, Prudential Financial, and LoanDepot (to name a few), and BlackCat/ALPHV hit Change Healthcare months after law enforcement takedown attempt, calling into question whether law enforcement alone is the right path for dealing with ransomware attacks.

There is mounting evidence that some of these ransomware operators may be acting as proxies for adversarial nations like Russia and China. The dual nature of a subset of ransomware attacks conveniently provides these nations with plausible deniability.

There is evidence of overlap between cybercrime and APT operations including shared attack infrastructure and tooling between cybercriminals and nation-state operators, and Chainalysis found that 74% of all revenue from ransomware attacks in 2021 went to attackers in Russia.
So why are Western nations afraid to call out the blatant connection between cybercriminal and nation-state operations? Do we need to invoke something like Executive Order 13224 where we designate some ransomware attacks as nation-state sponsored terrorism?

‍About Our Guest:

Jon Miller is the CEO and Co-founder of Halcyon and has spent 25+ years working in the cybersecurity industry. Prior to Halcyon, Miller was the CEO & Co-founder of Boldend, a next-generation defense contractor focused on building offensive tools for the US Government.
Before his work at Boldend, Miller held the title of Chief Research Officer of Cylance (now Blackberry) where he focused on malware and product efficacy. Prior to Cylance, Miller was employee number 70 at Accuvant (now Optiv) where he helped build and lead the largest technical consultancy at the time Accuvant LABS, working with over 95% of the Fortune 500 as an offensive security expert.  
Your Hosts:

Anthony M. Freed, Halcyon Director of Research and Communications

Ben Carr, Halcyon Advisory CISO

Ryan Golden, Halcyon Chief Marketing O

The security market has exploded in recent years as we have seen words like hacker” and “cyber” go from being obscure terms to part of the everyday vernacular of end-users everywhere.

So, what does it take to build a successful security startup? What hurdles do founders face and how do they overcome them to disrupt the market and advance the tradecraft of the security sector?

In this episode of Security Gets Serious, host Ben Carr sits down with Halcyon co-founder and CEO Jon Miller who first led critical teams at several well-known security vendors, then rose to the ranks of CEO to found and shepherd several more to success in a very competitive market.

Miller discusses everything from how his understanding of the evolving ransomware threat landscape shaped his experience as a cybersecurity entrepreneur, to the most alarming trends in ransomware attacks and their impact on businesses and individuals.

Miller also discusses his unique perspective in building defensive security solutions based on his extensive experience in building offensive tools for the U.S. government, and how understanding good offense is critical to mounting a good defense.

Miller has spent 25+ years working in the cybersecurity industry. Prior to co-founding Halcyon, Miller was the CEO & Co-founder of Boldend, a next-generation defense contractor focused on building offensive tools for the US Government. 

Before his work at Boldend, Miller held the title of Chief Research Officer of Cylance (now Blackberry) where he focused on malware and product efficacy. 

And prior to Cylance, he was employee number 70 at Accuvant (now Optiv) where he helped build and lead the largest technical consultancy at the time Accuvant LABS, working with over 95% of the Fortune 500 as an offensive security expert.  

Your Host, Ben Carr, Halcyon Advisory CISO: Carr is a Security & Risk Executive and recognized thought leader with more than 25 years of results driven experience in developing and executing security strategies. Carr has served in global leadership roles at advanced technology, high risk, and rapid growth companies such as Ericsson (Cradlepoint), Qualys, Aristocrat, Tenable, Visa and Nokia. Ben has served as a member of the Board of Directors for organizations such as IT-ISAC and NTXPKUA. He is an advisor for Noname Security and Syn Ventures and has previously served on Advisory boards for Living Security, TruStar, Mimecast, Qualys, and Accuvant. ‍

In this edition of the Halcyon video/podcast series Last Month in Security, host Anthony M. Freed and panelists Ben Carr and Ryan Golden fly solo and dig into the impact that vulnerability exploits are having on the threat landscape.
 
The latest Verizon DBIR is out, and the Halcyon team was excited to make our debut as contributors to the report, which was more focused on pathways to breaches - the ways attackers got into networks than prior reports.
 
Verizon Threat Research Advisory Center (VTRAC) looked at 30,458 incidents of which 10,626 were confirmed data breaches - the highest ever. And vulnerability exploitation was back big time with a 180% increase from the previous year.
 
The surge was mostly driven by MOVEit exploit leveraged by Cl0p to compromise thousands of organizations in just a matter of weeks - likely through automation – with the end result most often being extortion via ransomware.
 
We made mention that Memorial weekend is the anniversary of the MOVEit campaign, where it is estimated that as many as 8,000 organizations were targeted over the last year.
 
The report also revealed that about one-third of all breaches involved ransomware or data extortion. More specifically, 9% of breaches involved straight data extortion while 23% included the detonation of ransomware payloads.  
 
Data exfiltration, ransomware payloads and subsequent extortion attempts were the number one attacker actions observed, while stolen credentials, phishing, privilege abuse etc. were much lower in frequency. Verizon also notes this “ramstortion” trend remains a top threat across 92% of industries.
 
Then we dug into the latest Power Rankings: Ransomware Malicious Quartile report which aligned with many of the DBIR findings – namely how automation of vulnerability exploits in Q1-2024 led to campaigns by ransomware groups leveraging misconfigured MSSQL servers, TeamViewer flaws, Fortra GoAnywhere (again), Citrix NetScaler (still), and even vulnerable Python libraries.
 
We also discussed how the data exfiltration issue may be bigger problem than ransomware payload, leading to further extortion opportunities for the attackers as well as a drastic increase on potential regulatory and liability for victim organizations, putting the C-level and BoDs at risk like never before.
 
Of note in the Ransomware MQ Q1-2024 report was the demise of BlackCat/ALPHV, which dropped out of the Frontrunners quadrant, while a new RaaS emerged dubbed RanomHub who is on the rise and very well may be a rebrand of BlackCat/ALPHV.
 
Other notable movements include LockBit slipping out of the top spot after reigning for quite some time following the identification of a 31-year-old Russian national named Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev as the developer and admin for the LockBit RaaS platform and a takedown of the LockBit leaks site and attack infrastructure.
 
Yet, despite all the LEO actions against these two formerly top-ranking groups, we noted that the attacks leveraging the LockBit payloads continue to be reported in addition to the possible rebrand of BlackCat/ALPHV, calling into question whether the criminal justice system is enough to combat these prolific groups.  

Hosts: 

Anthony M. Freed, Halcyon Director of Research and Communications

Ben Carr, Halcyon Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

Ryan Golden, Halcyon Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

In this episode of Security Gets Serious, host Ben Carr sits down with Richard Greenberg (CISSP), President of ISSA-LA, a well-known cybersecurity leader and evangelist, former CISO, advisor and speaker.

Ben and Richard dive into the buzz around how AI is being used to both enhance cybersecurity defenses and as a tool for cyber attackers, then they examine the potential for bias in AI models as it becomes more integrated into security systems.

They also look at what ethical concerns arise regarding bias in AI algorithms, and how organizations ensure their AI-driven security measures are fair, effective and unbiased.

Ben then asks Richard about his thoughts on to what extent is it ethical for organizations to monitor their employees' activities to ensure security, and what guardrails should be in place to protect employee privacy.

The of course we have to dig into some of the latest ransomware trends, and what steps can organizations take to protect themselves – like engaging with ethical hackers for penetration testing, and how organizations ensure that these practices are conducted responsibly and ethically.

Ben and Richard also delve into whether Zero Trust is really working or if it is just another security strategy that puts too much focus on a concept and not the execution, and cloud security challenges and how organizations can mitigate risks.

Lastly, they discuss the culture of security and learning from failure – namely how security failures can lead to significant improvements in an organization's security practices and why we need to do to a better job in fostering an environment where failures are seen as learning opportunities.
Richard brings over 30 years of management experience and has been a strategic and thought leader in IT and Information Security as a CISO, Director of Surveillance and Information Systems, Chief of Security Operations, Director of IT, and Project Manager for various companies and agencies in the private and public sectors.

Be sure to check out Richard’s spot on Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy Podcast – it's a riot.

Your Host, Ben Carr, Halcyon Chief security and Trust Officer: Carr is a Security & Risk Executive and recognized thought leader with more than 25 years of results driven experience in developing and executing security strategies. Carr has served in global leadership roles at advanced technology, high risk, and rapid growth companies such as Ericsson (Cradlepoint), Qualys, Aristocrat, Tenable, Visa and Nokia. Ben has served as a member of the Board of Directors for organizations such as IT-ISAC and NTXPKUA. He is an advisor for Noname Security and Syn Ventures and has previously served on Advisory boards for Living Security, TruStar, Mimecast, Qualys, and Accuvant.