By Sean Martin & Marco Ciappelli
During our ISSA International Summit in Dallas, Texas, we we got to spend some time with our strategic partner, ISSA International. We were there to tell and listen to many stories throughout the event—and we did just that.
Here’s a sampling of the conversations we captured:
Dr. Ron Ross | Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Candy Alexander | President, ISSA International — Sandra Lambert | Co-Founder, ISSA International
Winn Schwartau | Author and CyberSecurity Luminary
Sandra Joyce | Senior Vice President, Global Intelligence, FireEye
Beverly Allen | Associate General Counsel, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer, Inovalon
Event Recap with Marc Thompson, David Vaughn, Richard Greenberg, Nia Luckey
A conversation with Sandy Lambert and Candy Alexander
It’s not every day that you get to spend time with the current president of an association alongside one of the original founders of that same association—especially when it was founded over 35 years ago and is still going strong!
Well, this exact thing happened to us during the ISSA International Summit in Dallas, Texas. We were honored to be part of it; getting to spend some time with Candy Alexander and Sandy Lambert to record this podcast.
We got to talk about the beginnings of the association, its initial vision and mission, how the world of IT security, information security, and cybersecurity were born, have evolved, and continue to change over the years. More importantly, we discuss the value of learning from the past, keeping up with the industry and cultural changes of the present, and embracing each other to help us prepare for the future.
We all agreed that the magic surrounding this organization is in the people and the passion that drives them all—both at a local chapter level and at an international level. Rooted in their DNA is the desire to educate the community and the future generations. This, in particular, can be seen through the dedication that Sandra, Candy, and the rest of the ISSA International board have for the ISSA Education Fund.
35 years on, ISSA International is open to change and, because of this mentality, it continues to grow, is attracting new members, and is remaining true to its educational roots. It’s now time for the next generation of members to get involved, bring new energy, and to help expand the conversation so that it can involve our society as a whole.
If you are a current member, we encourage you to bring in additional representatives from all walks of life, from all over the world. The more involved and welcoming the community is, the better the association will be in reaching a larger audience and helping us all to succeed in our careers.
Do not take our word for it. Listen to this podcast and hear the story directly from these two amazing leaders.
Go!
Wait! There’s more!
Interested in the full story behind Sandra’s founding of ISSA back in 1984? Great! Have a listen to that podcast with ITSPmagazine.
A conversation with Sandra Joyce, FireEye
In a world where many organizations—large and small—continue to fixate on breach prevention, our guest today, Sandra Joyce, SVP, Global Intelligence at FireEye, reminds us that companies should understand all of the risks they face, especially those that stem from the initial breach event:
What does the internal lateral movement look like; where can the bad actor go, and to what assets can they gain access?
What impact can it have on the supply chain, both upstream and downstream?
When and where does the damage cease to be a problem; are there dormant malicious elements and hidden backdoors that can be enabled and exploited later?
To answer these questions, Sandra effectively recommends that organizations leverage a variety of threat and other security intelligence to understand the threat landscape and their environment better, including context—all of which could make or break your incident response plan.
From state actors to organized crime, we are all vulnerable, despite our human tendency to believe that we might not be a target of interest. The truth is, we are all part of a system that connects one business, organization, and person to another.
“That’s where intelligence comes into play. Getting situational awareness of the threat environment is step one, and then seeing yourself within that context, what is my threat profile? .... Looking beyond your own environment to those other externalities requires people to think about where they are in the supply chain where they are even in the political dimension.”
In this podcast, we discuss threat intelligence and how it plays a crucial role in helping us to protect our extended cyber environment.
We believe you will find this conversation quite interesting.
Enjoy.
A conversation with Winn Schwartau
Maybe today we shall talk about the singularity, but which version of the singularity? Technological or mathematical?
Well, we did start with this topic, but it turned out it was only the appetizer question for today's chat. It was a deep and entertaining conversation, and to some extent, our heads are still spinning and thinking about it.
Perhaps it is a good idea to start from the beginning and set the stage for this podcast. Our chat comes the day after Winn Schwartau is awarded the 2019 ISSA Hall of Fame and was recognized with a lifetime achievement award by ISSA International for being an individual with exceptional leadership as well as an exemplary commitment to the information security profession.
There are two words here that warrant some added color:
Exceptional—this word doesn't do Winn's accomplishments justice
Exemplary—only if you can keep up
We talk about a lot of things during our chat with Winn - and it was hard for us (OK, Sean) to keep up. Here is a sample of the menu:
The singularity wasn't enough. Let's talk about quantum computing and physics.
The concept of time and its impact on how we interpret and look at security.
The fundamental importance of seeking and sharing knowledge.
Shouldn't we require a license to use technology (similar to driving a vehicle)?
Do you know what goes well together? Artificial Intelligence and Ethics.
Where are we going with GDPR, CCPA, and privacy?
What if our entire approach to cybersecurity has been wrong?
It's not clear how many things we tackled and questions we answered. We sure learned a lot, had some fun, and Winn did a great job summarizing the state of the security industry. Maybe his quote sums it up:
“Complexity has made security almost impossible to achieve — security by complexity is what a lot of vendors are really happy about.”
Ready? Good. Come on, join us.
