Mar 3Goodbye to All ThatIt was the cyberwar we were promised; it was the cyberwar nobody expected… The conflict in Ukraine has validated a number of assumptions cyberspace strategy and intelligence thinkers have been promulgating for over 20 years. The use of cyber attacks in conjunction with the traditional components of armed conflict, for…Cyber Conflict3 min read
Feb 14The Importance of ContextLast night during the Super Bowl, cryptocurrency company Coinbase ran an ad that featured a QR code bouncing around the screen. That’s it. No actors, no voice over, just some retro 8-bit Pong-like motion. Scan the code and you were given a link to the Coinbase site…which apparently crashed under…3 min read
Jun 20, 2021Ransomware: The Present We Deserve?The scourge of ransomware is the inevitable result of decades of schizophrenia about our relationship with information technology and security. Treating this problem like all the ones that came before it, in the same fashion we always have, will only prolong our suffering. …7 min read
Mar 29, 2021This is How They Tell Me Cyber Peace is AchievedIt was revealed this week that Google had detected an online counterterrorism operation being carried out by a U.S.-allied government, and made the unilateral decision to shut it down. This is certainly not the first time Google, AWS, or another platform has detected such activity, but it is arguably the…3 min read
Mar 8, 2021From Solar Sunrise to Solar Winds: The Questionable Value of Two Decades of Cybersecurity AdviceWhile the Ware Report of 1970 codified the foundations of the computer security discipline, it was the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection report of 1997 that expanded those requirements into recommendations for both discrete entities as well as the nascent communities that were growing in and around the Internet…10 min read
Feb 15, 2021Cybersecurity 2030Discussions about cybersecurity overwhelmingly focus on the recent, which are our responses to the design and engineering decisions of the past. We are right to deal with what is in front of us, but that myopia ensures that we exercise little effort towards crafting our future. We want things to…Cybersecurity13 min read
Dec 12, 2020Everything is Harder NowThis is not a post about FireEye or the breach they suffered. This is a post about the aftermath of said breach, how it impacts what we do, and those we are trying to help. Our work as practitioners, executives, advisors, policy-makers, developers, engineers, salespeople…everything just got harder. To the…3 min read
Sep 12, 2019The Issue is Not a Talent ShortageIs there a talent shortage in security? A lot of people say “yes” simply because they have a metric ton of open job reqs in one hand, and a precious few viable candidates that can meet their wild-*** requirements in the other. …Cybersecurity2 min read
Aug 19, 2019Cyber Threats to Parks and RecYour city being held for ransom isn’t the worst-case scenario; what happens after may be the worst case scenario. — So much attention has been paid to “election hacking” and the like in recent years, analysts and commentators have effectively forgotten an equally if not more pressing threat to American government at all levels: ransomware. …Security7 min read
Jul 5, 2019Old, Old SchoolToday’s edition of “how in the world is that possible?” I bring you the curious case of the antique shop. Well, the business is not about buying and selling antiques, its a widget (actual line of business obfuscated to protect the innocent) factory. It employs just over a dozen people…3 min read
