Author: Michael Morris

Endace Packet Forensics Files: Episode #40

Original Entry by : Michael Morris

Michael talks to Chris Greer, Packet Pioneer and Wireshark Guru.

By Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Threat hunting is a critical cybersecurity activity that is growing in importance and prevalence around the globe.  Are your SOC analysts developing the skills and toolsets they need to enable more efficient and effective threat hunting?  What are the inhibitors your teams face and do you have the right tools and processes in place?

In this episode of the Endace Packet Forensic files, I talk with Chris Greer of Packet Pioneer.

Chris is an experienced protocol analyst and forensics expert. He is a renowned instructor for Wireshark University as well as the host of a popular YouTube channel where he shares insights into threat hunting and demonstrates the importance of understanding how to investigate and resolve issues using packet analysis. In this episode, Chris talks about some of the problems or threats you can only see as part of your incident response investigation processes and workflows if you have access to full packet data.

Finally, Chris highlights some of the gaps that organizations have in their security stacks that make it hard for them to confirm or deny false positives and how to resolve this visibility issue. He offers recommendations for training and suggests how to improve your organization’s threat hunting capability.

Other episodes in the Secure Networks video/audio podcast series are available here. Or listen to the podcast here or on your favorite podcast platform.

Endace Packet Forensics Files: Episode #39

Original Entry by : Michael Morris

Michael talks to Justin Fier, VP of Tactical Risk and Response, Darktrace.

By Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

In the current era of extreme geopolitical instability, focus is intensifying on potential nation-state cyberthreats and how governments can defend against nation-states and cyber mercenaries. The increasing threat of nation-state led or sponsored attacks, combined with the massive potential impact of attacks on critical infrastructure are the stuff of nightmares that keep cyberdefenders up at night.

In this episode, I welcome back Justin Fier, VP Tactical Risk and Response at Darktrace (who was our very first guest in this series almost 40 episodes ago!) to talk about nation-state cyber, where he sees the threats lie, and what organizations can do to better prepare for possible attacks.

Justin talks about some of the great work being done by organizations like CISA, and the signs of increased collaboration between nation state defenders as being positive signs that things are moving in the right direction. But there are also significant challenges. Overcoming the slow pace of organizational change, addressing the dearth of skilled cybersecurity professionals, and building the agility to respond to the constantly evolving threat landscape are all major issues that we need to respond to as an industry – whether that’s in government defense or in securing the enterprise.

Lastly, Justin discusses what we need to do to better defend against nation-state and nation-state-sponsored attackers, and puts on his forecasting hat to predict what’s he sees as the most likely threats security teams should focus on over the next year or two.

Other episodes in the Secure Networks video/audio podcast series are available here. Or listen to the podcast here or on your favorite podcast platform.

Endace Packet Forensics Files: Episode #38

Original Entry by : Michael Morris

Michael talks to Hakan Holmgren, EVP of Sales, Cubro

By Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

As data growth accelerates and distributed workloads increase, enterprises are prioritising cost efficiency and space minimization in modern datacenters. They are looking to leverage new technologies and use smaller, more cost-efficient appliances to reduce cost and improve efficiency.

By architecting infrastructure to prioritize stability and robustness and focusing on reducing carbon footprint, organizations can dramatically reduce power, storage and cooling requirements while also improving efficiency. A win-win outcome.

In this podcast, Hakan Holmgren, EVP Sales at Cubro, talks about how new technologies like Intel barefoot ASICs can accelerate packet processing for cloud datacenters and edge deployments and enable consolidation of infrastructure to reduce cost and minimize environmental impact.

Other episodes in the Secure Networks video/audio podcast series are available here.

Endace Packet Forensics Files: Episode #37

Original Entry by : Michael Morris

Michael talks to Rick Jenssen, VP of Global Operations, Plixer

By Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Many organizations face challenges maintaining their security posture while dealing with the significant shift towards remote workforces, the dynamic nature of hybrid cloud environments and rapidly growing volumes of interconnected devices.

In short, managing security at scale in highly fluid environments is a daunting challenge. So what can you do to improve your security resiliency?

In this episode of the Endace Packet Forensic files, I talk with Rick Jenssen, VP of Global Operations for Plixer, who shares his experience into building robust security at scale. Rick recommends some best practices to address the common challenges in delivering resilient security in large environments and talks about ways to address the flood of alarms SOC teams face on a daily basis. He suggests a nice, six-step, iterative approach to continually improving your security position.

Finally, Rick reinforces how important the mantra of “practice, practice, practice” is when it comes to preparing your security teams – and the wider organization. Practicing how to investigate, remediate, and respond to potential security breaches makes sure you know what needs to happen in the event of a real crisis and uncovers areas you need to work on to be better prepared.

Other episodes in the Secure Networks video/audio podcast series are available here.

Endace Packet Forensics Files: Episode #36

Original Entry by : Michael Morris

Michael talks to Neil Wilkins, Technical Director EMEA, Garland Technology

By Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

What does it mean to have security at scale?  For large infrastructures with rapid data growth have you maintained or improved your security posture as you have scaled?

In this episode of the Endace Packet Forensic files I talk with Neil Wilkins, Technical Director for EMEA at Garland Technology, who outlines some of the challenges he sees organizations facing when it comes to maintaining security at scale.  He shares some recommendations and best practices to get on the right path to improve security in large environments.

Finally, Neil shares his thoughts on Security Orchestration and Automation Response (SOAR) platforms and how they can help in environments with lots of tools and events and multiple teams trying to manage the cyber security infrastructure. He provides suggestions for rolling out SOAR solutions and highlights some things to avoid to ensure the platform delivers the returns and efficiencies hoped for.

Having a large, dynamic infrastructure doesn’t mean you can’t keep your arms around your security posture, but you need to have processes and tools in place that can scale as you grow and accelerate incident response to keep ahead of growing threat volumes.

Other episodes in the Secure Networks video/audio podcast series are available here.

Endace Packet Forensics Files: Episode #35

Original Entry by : Michael Morris

Michael talks to Timothy Wilson-Johnston, Value Chain Security Leader, Cisco

By Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, EndaceWhat did we learn from the recent Log4J 2 vulnerability? How are security holes like this changing the way organizations think about deploying enterprise software solutions?

In this episode of the Endace Packet Forensic files Michael Morris talks with Timothy Wilson-Johnston about the Log4J 2 threat and how it is being exploited in the wild.

Timothy shares his thoughts about what Log4J 2 has taught us, and why organizations need to look at the bigger picture:

  • How can you better defend against vulnerabilities of this type
  • Why it’s so important to closely scrutinize solutions that are deployed – and make sure you have visibility into components that might be included with those solutions

Finally, Timothy discusses the importance of evaluating security vs function and why it is critical to have software inspection and validation processes to manage third-party risk to your business. Knowing what your vendors’ standards are and implementing a structured and repeatable process for evaluating vendors and solutions, is key to improving security maturity.

 

Other episodes in the Secure Networks video/audio podcast series are available here.

Endace Packet Forensics Files: Episode #33

Original Entry by : Michael Morris

Michael talks to NIST Fellow, Ron Ross

By Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

The dynamic nature and complexity of many organizations’ cyber infrastructure makes it hard enough to keep it running and performing, let alone to maintain the highest levels of security to protect your IP and data.  But do you know what the highest level of security standards are?

In this episode of the Endace Packet Forensic files I talk with NIST Fellow, Ron Ross, who shares how cyber security standards are evolving to keep pace with new threats and challenges. Ron highlights where he sees most organizations falling short and the highest priorities they should be addressing. He shares some insights into new standards and recommendations for protecting operational technologies which are becoming an attractive target for threat actors.

Finally, Ron talks about the need to move from a mindset of “prevention” to building “resiliency” into your security architecture to stay ahead of cyberthreats.

Other episodes in the Secure Networks video/audio podcast series are available here.

Endace Packet Forensics Files: Episode #32

Original Entry by : Michael Morris

Michael talks to Merritt Baer, Principal in the Office of the CISO at AWS

By Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Is your organization trying to implement enterprise level security at scale and you’re not sure where to focus?

In this episode of the Endace Packet Forensic files I talk with Merritt Baer, Principal in the Office of the CISO at AWS, who shares her experience in how to design and build robust, dynamic security at scale. Merritt discusses what security at scale looks like, some of the things that are often missed, and how to protect rapidly evolving hybrid cloud infrastructures.  She highlights some common pitfalls that organizations run into as they shift workloads to cloud providers and how to pivot your SOC teams and tools to ensure you have robust security forensics in place.

Finally, Merritt examines how adopting SOAR platforms can help, and things you can do to prevent gaps and breakdowns in your security posture.

Other episodes in the Secure Networks video/audio podcast series are available here.