mnemonic security podcast

Forensic Readiness | OT miniseries

We’re continuing our Operational Technology (OT) miniseries where we look into the security challenges in the OT space. 

This time around, Robby’s invited a fellow security podcaster and former head of forensics at Volvo, Rikard Bodforss.

Rikard has been working with security in the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and OT space for a long time, both from the private sector and as IT and Security Manager in the City of Gothenburg’s water and waste department. In his conversation with Robby he shares from his experience in the field, and explains what exactly forensic readiness is, and why it’s important. He also shares what he believes are some generic truths and recommendations for organizations that operate in ICS and OT environments.

Stay tuned for more episodes in our OT miniseries coming soon.

Technical level: 2/5

Host: Robby Peralta

Producer: Paul Jæger

https://mnemonic.no/podcast 

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How do we go from data to information, and from information to intelligence in the cyber world?

Who better to try to explain this than the former Director of the national communications and security agency in the Netherlands, Job Kuijpers, and his colleague and trusted advisor for Threat Intelligence, Piet Kerkhofs. After more than 15 years in the Dutch government's cyber program the two of them founded the cyber security company EYE, and in their conversation with Robby they share from their vast and hands-on experience working with threat intelligence.

In this episode, you’ll hear about the most common misconceptions about threat intelligence that they’ve come across, and how much and what should be automated in threat intelligence – and what shouldn’t.

They also discuss what’s required by an organisation buying/receiving threat intelligence, and how to evaluate if your organisation actually needs threat intelligence tools for its security work.

Technical level: 2/5

Host: Robby Peralta

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This time, Robby has invited his most recent online friendship and the uncrowned king of open source, Simon Simonsen, to the podcast. Simon also happens to have a lot of experience developing and utilising security architecture defense strategies, or as he calls it; utilising your home court advantage.

Simon has over a decade of experience in security and is working as a Senior Information Security Officer at the Danish energy trading house Danske Commodities (DC).

In his discussion with Robby, he explains his mostly open source approach to protecting his home court by using OODA Loops (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) and by knowing that as long as you know your network better than any adversary, you should come out winning. He also shares his approach to making sure you do know your network better, as well as his journey with OODA Loops.

Hunting ELK: https://github.com/Cyb3rWard0g/HELK 

The Open Source Security Events Metadata (OSSEM): https://github.com/OTRF/OSSEM

Security Onion: https://securityonion.net/

Sentinel ATT&CK: https://github.com/BlueTeamLabs/sentinel-attack

Technical level: 4/5

Host: Robby Peralta

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How can we prove cybersecurity effectiveness?

With USD 124 billion being spent worldwide on IT security last year alone, it's no wonder this is a question many would like the answer to. However, finding a quantitative metric to evaluate security investments, outside of positive effects like diminishing risks and reducing the amount of bad things happening, is not straight forward.
 
To help us navigate this question, Robby is joined by someone with a lot of experience making security investments effective. Brian Contos has a long list of merits after his more than two decades of experience working in the cybersecurity field. He has also written several security books and is an award-winning podcaster. Brian is now CISO & VP Technology Innovation in Mandiant Security Validation, also known as Verodin, a business platform for measuring and managing cybersecurity effectiveness.

Technical level: 1/5

Host: Robby Peralta
Producer: Paul Jæger

https://mnemonic.no/podcast

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For this Norwegian episode of the mnemonic security podcast, Robby and co-host for the day Manager of Governance, Risk & Compliance at mnemonic, Gjermund Vidhammer, are joined by two major actors in the Norwegian cyber landscape: Robin Bakke, Specialist Director for Cyber Security at the Ministry of Justice & Public Security, and Bente Hoff, Director National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) at the Norwegian National Security Authority (NSM). 

They discuss the importance, and the many different arenas, of private-public cooperation both in Norway and internationally, and share the Ministry and NSM’s thoughts on what’s important for digital security these days – and where they see most risk.

Related reading:
Nasjonal strategi for digital sikkerhet: https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/nasjonal-strategi-for-digital-sikkerhet/id2627177/
Nasjonal Sikkerhetsmåned: https://norsis.no/nsm/

Technical level: 1/5

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How can we best apply data science techniques to gain security visibility? 

What data you collect obviously affects your detection capabilities, but as many have painfully experienced; there can be too much of a good thing!

In this episode, Robby is joined by Jeff Barto. He is the Chief Security Officer at a large hedge fund in the US, has worked in security for over 20 years and has a lot of experience asking himself the question “how much data is enough?”. Jeff takes us through what types of data is he collecting and why, and how to collect data smartly to get the detection capabilities you need. 

Robby and Jeff also discuss their take on the future of data science and security visibility, and whether now is the time to ditch people and leave security for the machines? 

Technical level: 3/5

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How effective is the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in security? Are they even relevant, and if so, do KPIs work differently for security teams than others?

In this episode, Robby chats with someone that’s had a lot to do with KPIs, both in his position as the former Head of the government CERT in Denmark (GovCERT), as well as a SOC Analyst for more than 10 years. Marc Andersen shares his experiences chasing KPIs, and discusses whether self-governance is a better alternative for security teams. 

Technical level: 1/5

Host: Robby Peralta

Producer: Paul Jæger

https://mnemonic.no/podcast 

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Who better to continue our Operational Technology (OT) miniseries with than KraftCERT, the Norwegian Energy and Control System CERT!

KraftCERT helps industrial control system (ICS) related industries establish incident response teams, build digital security processes, and get a better understanding of the threat landscape. With us for this episode, we've invited someone that has been with KraftCERT from the start; Senior Security Analyst Lars Erik Smevold.

Lars Erik shares with us what affects the threat landscape for KraftCERT's member organisations, the most common threats he's seeing targeting them, and how he hopes the industry will continue to move towards making cyber incidents targeting ICS and OT systems public.

Stay tuned for more OT specific episodes, where we look into the security challenges in the OT space, in the coming weeks.

Technical level: 1/5

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For this episode, Robby has invited two experts that see privileged access management (PAM) from two different viewpoints. From the customer side he has Thor Milde, SVP and Head of IT Security Services in Norway's largest bank DNB, share his PAM journey - and from the consultant side Michele Paci, IAM Executive Architect in IBM, explains what he's learned after working with identity and access for a large portion of his professional life.

In the episode, they share insights from both sides of the fence on how most companies are handling PAM today, the effects of cloud on the PAM world and how they would like to see PAM evolve in the future.

Technical level: 3/5

Host: Robby Peralta

Producer: Paul Jæger

https://mnemonic.no/podcast 

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In this episode, we continue our Operational Technology (OT) miniseries where we look into the security challenges in the OT space. 

This time, Robby chats with PhD Andrea Carcano on the importance of visibility in OT environments. Andrea is passionate about the security of industrial control systems (ICS), and the Co-Founder of Nozomi Networks, a US based industrial cyber security company helping many of the largest industrial sites around the world.

They discuss the role of threat intelligence in the OT sphere, how to understand what you actually have inside your critical infrastructure, and what challenges he talks to his customers about nowadays.

Stay tuned for more OT specific episodes in the coming weeks.

Technical level: 2/5

Host: Robby Peralta
Producer: Paul Jæger

https://mnemonic.no/podcast

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