All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/networks-wobble-but-they-dont-fall-down/)

Eager cyberprofessional looking to really impress a CISO? Create a home network lab and show how you can handle incidents on that network without shutting it down.

This week’s episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest is Steve Zalewski, deputy CISO, Levi Strauss.

Thanks to our sponsor, BitSight.

BitSight is the most widely used Security Ratings service with a mission to change the way the world addresses cyber risk. Learn how BitSight for Third-Party Risk Management helps you efficiently mitigate the growing risk across your vendor ecosystem by taking an automated, data-driven approach.

On this week’s episode

Why is everybody talking about this now

Following the horrible terrorist attack in Vienna, the EU has proposed a ban on encryption, requiring companies like WhatsApp and Signal to provide backdoor keys to decipher their end-to-end encryption. It's questionable whether this attack could have been thwarted had the data they couldn't see been read, but regardless, it appears this ban is going to be approved. As you might imagine, the cybersecurity community blew up... on reddit.

This is obviously a complicated and thorny issue. What's at play here are authorities being blocked from doing their job because of technology. The loss of human life. And the loss of democratized privacy. Are there any checks and balances that can provide some benefit to any side of this equation?

What would you advise?

On a previous episode Mike mentioned that if you're an aspiring cybersecurity professional, one way to really impress a CISO is to setup a network and show how you can deal with incidents without taking down the network.

I get Mike to talk specifics of that. What if he was in the shoes of that aspiring cyberprofessional. If he were to set one up, what would it have on it and how would he do it?

"What's Worse?!"

Do you need experience or communications?

Close your eyes and visualize the perfect engagement

On CSO Online, Jaikumar Vijayan wrote a best practices guide to negotiating SaaS contracts for risk and security. It's a good primer. He mentioned know your risks, state what's non-negotiable, insist on early breach notifications, and be clear on terms for termination. What is the most important concern when negotiating a SaaS contract, and what has been the most difficult to manage?

"What Is It and Why Do I Care?"

The panoply of security products is very confusing. There are so many product categories and then there are so many companies delivering solutions for all these categories. As a security vendor, how do you know if your pitch is landing with CISOs? That's why we play "What Is It and Why Do I Care?" I ask vendor listeners to submit to our game which you can find under the Participate menu option and then "Challenge Us".

Today's category is penetration testing. We have four challengers. First, I will read four 25-word descriptions from four unnamed security vendors. That's our "What Is It?". Then I will read four 25-word differentiators from the same unnamed vendors. That's the "Why Do I Care?" It's up to our CISOs to pick their favorite. At the end I will announce the winners, and only the winners. Losers are not announced. YES, it's the only risk-free opportunity in cybersecurity. Ready to play?

Submit your pitches to "What Is It and Why Do I Care?" I'm looking for vendors in the following categories to submit: Data loss prevention, human-layer security, MSSPs, third party vendor assessment, and managed detection and response.