From Senior Military Cyber Advisor at the Pentagon to VP and Federal Chief Security Officer at Palo Alto Networks, John Davis is an experienced cyber security professional focused on educating the public on cyber threats and preventing the next national and international cyber attack. Palo Alto Networks is at the forefront of cyber security and uses the latest in tech such as artificial intelligence, analytics, automation, and orchestration to prevent cyber attacks on their integrated platform. 

John has had first-hand experience with cyber attacks from his time at the Pentagon. In 2008, John was in charge of directing operations and defense for the Department of Defense’s networks. While in the position, he was made aware of malicious code in one of their networks. As a response to the threat, John developed and implemented Operation Buckshot Yankee to find the code and identify whether any sensitive information had been hacked. As a response to his hard work and leadership, the U.S. Cyber Command was created in 2010 and John became its first director. 

“It was a near catastrophe for the military. And in my view, that was the event that was like the straw that broke the camel's back in the decision to create U.S. Cyber Command. As a result of a near catastrophe, senior leadership realized the consequence of the failed organizational structure and model that we had in 2008, and made the decision to bring together the people who operate the network, the people who defend the network, the intelligence that supports them as well as the ability to provide cyber capabilities to integrate offensively along with every other military capability, air, maritime land capabilities.”

On today’s episode, Ian and John dive into John’s first hand experience with cyber security attacks, what to know about the current security landscape, and bits of advice and tools companies can use to improve their security.

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