On this episode of CISO STRESSED, SCYTHE Chief of Staff Elizabeth Wharton interviews Pablo Breuer, CISO of Security BSides Las Vegas. Wharton and Breuer discuss the necessity of tool maximization for combating malware and ransomware attacks, tabletop exercises/tools for building out a team playbook, and hard learned lessons along the way. Breuer is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center and the CISO of Security BSides Las Vegas. He previously served twenty two years in the US Navy, and is a DoD Cyber Cup and Defcon Black Badge winner. Breuer was a previous faculty member at the Naval Postgraduate School, the National University, California State University Monterey Bay, and a Visiting Scientist at Carnegie Mellon CERT/SEI.
The military is more likely to plan out a few years in advance, and commercial companies normally only plan as far as one fiscal year ahead of time.
There is something to be learned from both the private and the public sector.
Get back to basics. Solarwinds could have been prevented from ever reaching a supply chain attack if people didn't’ gloss over the basics: Interns shouldn’t be allowed to do things that are public facing without a mentors supervision.
Attacks are going to happen: It’s the nature of the beast, and there’s too much incentive.
Companies need to evaluate what risk they are currently accepting, if that risk is acceptable, and if not how do they get down to residual risk that is.
Depending on who’s map you follow, at the end of 2020 we had between fifteen or twenty times the number of devices on the internet than we had people on the planet.
A CISO is essentially a risk advisor, advising company risk. They don’t get to decide what’s acceptable, the company decides what risk is acceptable.
Pablo Breuer is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's GeoTech Center and the CISO of Security BSides Las Vegas. He is a twenty-two year veteran of the US Navy with tours that include military director of US Special Operations Command Donovan Group and senior military advisor and innovation officer to SOFWERX, the National Security Agency, and US Cyber Command as well as being the Director of C4 at US Naval Forces Central Command. He is a DoD Cyber Cup and Defcon Black Badge winner and has been faculty at the Naval Postgraduate School, National University, California State University Monterey Bay, as well as a Visiting Scientist at Carnegie Mellon CERT/SEI. He has
taught classes for various US government agencies and industry on topics ranging from malware reverse engineering and exploit development to cyber policy and authorities. Pablo is also a cofounder of the Cognitive Security Collaborative and coauthor of the Adversarial Misinformation and Influence Tactics and Techniques (AMITT) framework.
SCYTHE provides an advanced attack emulation platform for the enterprise and cybersecurity consulting market. The SCYTHE platform enables Red, Blue, and Purple teams to build and emulate real-world adversarial campaigns in a matter of minutes. Customers are in turn enabled to validate the risk posture and exposure of their business and employees and the performance of enterprise security teams and existing security solutions. Based in Arlington, VA, the company is privately held and is funded by Gula Tech Adventures, Paladin Capital, Evolution Equity, and private industry investors.