Detection at Scale Panther Labs

In this episode, Jack speaks with David Seidman, Head of Detection and Response at Robinhood. David has worked for large tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce in a variety of D&R roles. 
During this episode, David shares his tactical advice on how his team is building the pipes and engines of security at Robinhood, his top tools to improve fidelity of detections, and what he’s learned in his career that’s made him a better practitioner and leader. 
Topics discussed: 
The ‘unusual strategies’ and hypothesis on the kill chain model David has not shared before publicly 
His top five tools to use to improve the fidelity of your detections 
How David has seen composite detection be effective in practice and why it is most effective when it’s analyst driven 
His experience working on Google Cloud's Event Threat Detection 
What a mature IR process look like today and how to train staff that’s run IR in the past
A big challenge and growth area in the industry that doesn’t get enough attention 
The new frontier of what the detection and response stack will look like in the future
David’s keys to an effective IR program, such as regular exercises, communications plan, having access and permissions to data, strong controls, and more.  
The three actionable takeaways David learned from his roles at Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and now Robinhood that make him a better practitioner and leader today

In this episode, Jack chats with Christopher Witter (aka Witter), Engineering Manager, Detection & Response at Spotify and a founding member and former lead for Crowdstrike’s Falcon OverWatch managed hunting service. 
Witter has nearly two decades of experience in incident response and information security, holding leadership roles on computer security and incident response teams (CSIRT) with both a top five global bank and a top ten defense contractor. 
During this episode, Witter shares his behind the scenes experiences helping build the Falcon Overwatch Team at Crowdstrike, why it’s critical to measure queries in seconds, not minutes, his tips on running highly effective D&R teams at scale, and more! 
Topics discussed:
Witter’s experience as one of the first 100 people on the Falcon Overwatch Team at Crowdstrike 
Why the Overwatch team didn’t follow traditional SOC mentalities 
The various data sources Witter uses to improve accuracy and gather context 
How D&R is like going to court – telling the story around Who, What, Where, Why, How, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this incident happened
Why Witter measures in seconds, not minutes and why timescale is critical 
Why it could be a mistake to choose cybersecurity tools based on financial capability and budget and what criteria should be considered instead
Why Witter still believes in custom systems 
Witter’s rule of thumb that if a human does the same thing 10x manually, it should be automated  
Managing a remote D&R team and building psychological safety
Witter’s advice for how others can get involved in the D&R community 
His 3 pieces of advice to build a high-performing D&R team at scale, including a focus on ‘Jack of all trades’ people, avoiding distractions, and why it’s critical to capture everything to improve search. 

In this episode, Jack Naglieri speaks to Kelly Jackson Higgins, Editor-in-Chief at Dark Reading. During the episode, they share their thoughts about how cyber threats have changed over the years. 
Topics discussed:
Kelly offers fascinating insights into how cybersecurity journalism has evolved to keep pace with the ever-changing industry.
She offers an example of why choosing to patch systems is not always an easy decision for security teams.
Jack and Kelly talk about how perceptions around which organizations are likely targets have changed over the years.
Kelly shares some of the crazier threat actor trends she has observed during her career covering cybersecurity.
She offers three pieces of valuable advice for security teams.

In this episode of the Detection at Scale, Jack speaks with Michael Hanley, Chief Security Officer and SVP of Engineering at GitHub. He also spent five years at Duo Security building their security program, and is passionate about making security easy and accessible for everyone.
Topics include: 
How to think about managing in a dual role as both head of security and engineering, and what success looks like for both.
What some of the synergies are between security and engineering, and why the two should work as closely as possible.
The security strategy of retaining the integrity of the world's important projects at GitHub.
The importance of democratizing security, and making it accessible for everyone.
The mentality of baking software development into security.
When to introduce a security team into an organization, how to build a SecOps team, and the evolution of security within companies.
Actionable steps for security leaders to take regarding professional development, culture, and sharing notes.  
Resources: 
Michael's favorite open source security tools: Stream Alert, Cloud Mapper, SiLK Suite
Keep in touch with Michael Hanley on LinkedIn

Adeel Saeed is VP of Technology Strategy and Execution Management at Kyndryl and is a former CISO/CIO at large financial services companies, aviation companies, and more. 
Adeel is an experienced technology strategist and digital transformation leader with extensive hands-on technology and information security management experience and has led multiple large-scale complex technology transformation projects. 
Topics include: 
How enabling your internal clients with the right tools and tech empowers them to serve their customer-base easier 
Tool consolidation, risk metrics, reporting analytics, and more of what Adeel is focusing on in the risk management environment
The experience that taught Adeel the most about practical security 
Why experience and exposure are the ultimate teachers 
Actionable steps to going from reactive to proactive in threat detection and response 
The benefits of fine-tuned threat intelligence tools to better make risk-based judgments 
Why security is not an ivory tower, it’s part of the business
How security can better partner with business versus just being a component of it
Why gamification can be a great tool to engage the executive team
Standardization of all the data and the fundamental data problem 
What Adeel has been paying attention to in the market around detection
What true secure data governance looks like 
Adeel's biggest challenge as a CISO, CSO, and overall security technology strategy leader 
How Covid helped shape business security and where it should be embedded 
Why it’s critical to position yourself as a business partner to your company 
Adeel's tips for security leaders to succeed in the future of threat detection and response 
Resources: 
Keep in touch with Adeel on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/adeelsaeed/

Chris Hodson is the CISO at Contentful, which helps digital teams assemble content and deliver experiences, faster. Prior to Contentful, Chris was at Zscaler and Tanium and also busy writing a book called Cyber Risk Management: Prioritize Threat, Identify Vulnerabilities, and Apply Controls. 
Chris builds and runs cybersecurity organizations that manage technology risks and helps product teams develop security solutions that work. As comfortable in the server room as the board room, he tailors cybersecurity strategy to organizational risk appetite and business objectives. 
Topics include: 
Chris’s hottest security take on the role of a CISO 
How Chris started developing the skills that better enabled him as a better technical CISO 
How Chris works more closely with DevOps teams
How his team gets smart about what to detect
How to work with application developers to get more useful data
Prioritize the services that are most sensitive, so things that are touching customer data get the most attention 
The application signals Chris typically cares about 
Building out tools internally to send telemetry to a single source
The organization of cross-functional security team and the focus on security engineers 
The Kubernetes 4Cs - Code, Container, Clusters, Cloud
The importance of organizational-specific context to succeed in fixing symptoms at the cause 
Chris’s advice that he’d give to detection teams living in a cloud-based world 
Resources: 
Keep in touch with Chris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherjhodson/?originalSubdomain=uk
Learn more about Chris’s book here: https://cybersecuritymattersdotblog.wordpress.com/my-books/
Kubernetes 4Cs: https://www.enterprisedb.com/blog/4cs-security-model-kubernetes