Podcast Archives - DataStream

Constant Vigilance Is the Price of Cybersecurity

Change takes time, but it seems that businesses in general, not just large enterprises, are realizing that cybersecurity isn’t a fad but a key part of most modern businesses. Wayne Hunter, Founder and CEO at AvTek Solutions, Inc., has been preaching that message for years and we recently had the chance to interview him.

Something unique about AvTek that shows how seriously they take cybersecurity is their $1M guarantee against ransomware. If ransomware gets past the defenses they erect for your company, they will pay $1,000 per endpoint, up to $1M.

End-User Education Is the Last Mile of Cyber Security

While we do believe that technology is part of solving the cybercrime puzzle, we know that it can’t help companies that don’t have leaders and end users who understand the technology, and more importantly, the cybercrime realities that make that technology a necessity in today’s business environment.

Bruce Nelson, President at Vertilocity, emphasizes the importance of end-user education. He recently sat down with us to discuss this and give real-life examples of how lack of end-user education plays out in bad outcomes for organizations.

Stop Thinking Ransomware Attacks Won’t Happen to Your Business

One of the ways we help business owners wake up to the current realities of cybercrime is by sharing real-life stories. We recently had the chance to sit down with GroupSense CEO & Co-Founder Kurtis Minder to hear some of those stories. Kurtis and his team have hundreds of cases they’ve dealt with, many with Kurtis leading the negotiating team.

Scams, Bad Plans, and Ransom Demands with Roger Grimes

If we find online safety measures like multi-factor authentication (MFA) irritating, we probably need to adjust our levels of expectation and trust for the internet of today. The longer we put off proper level-setting, the more likely we will fall for the scams and frauds that are rampant on today’s internet.

That’s one of the messages Roger Grimes shared with us recently. In this article, we’ll go deeper into his reasoning and share some of the best practices he advocates.

Giving Employees the Proper Cybersecurity Training

We recently had the chance to sit down with Michael O’Hara, a Certified Information Systems Security Professional at KB Communications. Michael was recently introduced as the guy “with more letters after his name than letters in his name.” We thought it might be useful to review some of those letters to give context to his great advice.

The Cybercriminal Hierarchy

We recently had the chance to sit down with Vincent D’Agostino, Head of Cyber Forensics and Incident Response at BlueVoyant. BlueVoyant provides security services like third-party risk and digital rights protection, among many others.

Before Vincent brought his talents to BlueVoyant, he spent a number of years with the FBI, seven of these on the team dedicated to dealing with traditional organized crime. While the connection isn’t obvious between that world and the world of cybercrime, someone with Vincent’s experience has context most of us lack—and this was just one of the things we spoke about during our conversation.

Understanding Ransomware Response

We recently had the opportunity to interview Devon Ackerman, Practice Lead & Head of #DFIR Services for North America at Kroll. Before he was at Kroll, Devon worked with the FBI as a supervisory special agent, coordinating both domestic and international digital forensic investigations.

Preparing an Organization for Cyber Attacks

As more and more people realize that cyberattacks don’t just happen to ‘others’ but are likely to happen to their organizations, it should be clear that simple awareness of these events is not sufficient: you have to prepare for when, not if, these events happen. We recently had the chance to sit down with Stu Panensky, Partner at FisherBroyles, LLP. Stu and his team have dealt with over 100 ransomware attacks in a counseling role and have a lot of wisdom to share about the current state of cyberattacks and what organizations can and should do to prepare for them.

Understanding the Business of Cybercrime

Small business owners may think of cyber criminals as freelance or small group threat actors, but plenty of those criminals work within sophisticated organizations that function like legitimate businesses. Someone who has observed these criminals at work is Mark Lance, Senior Director of Cyber Defense at GuidePoint Security. We recently had the chance to speak with Mark and wanted to share a few of his insights to help small business owners realize before it’s too late that everyone is at risk.

Tracing the Digital Fingerprints of a Threat Actor

If you’ve got a robust security system in place and have a team member that has over 15 years of cybersecurity experience, you might feel like you’ve done enough to be safe. Unfortunately, for at least one business, that wasn’t enough.

We recently had a chance to chat with Luke Emrich, Director of Incident Response at Tetra Defense. He investigated the above case and shared what he learned as well as some tips for how organizations can better prepare for attacks.