Disinformation, Cyber Resilience, and Representation: What we learned in Afternoon Cyber Tea Season 5

You do not have to scroll far to read headlines on the latest ransomware attack, disinformation campaign, or data breach. As technology has become more ever-present in our lives, data and systems have become more valuable targets for nefarious actors. Cybercrime is now, unfortunately, a big business.??

?For leaders in the public and private sectors alike, addressing cybercrime is paramount. Mere minutes of cyber-attack downtime can result in significant loss of revenue, disruption to critical infrastructure, and irreparable reputational damage. Building cyber resilience is an imperative for organizations of all sizes to reduce this potential impact of attacks.?

?On Afternoon Cyber Tea, I invite cyber leaders, influencers, and researchers to discuss the cyber resilience imperative and unpack some of the big industry challenges and opportunities. We just wrapped an amazing season five, so I wanted to reflect on a few trends I heard consistently from guests.?

?Building cyber resilience?

Cyber resilience is increasingly critical to organizations as attacks become more pervasive, persistent, and intelligent. Cyber resilience is becoming a board-level conversation about risk – and when I speak with customers, I advocate for it to be equally important to business resilience planning.??

?My conversation with Tarun Sondhi, principal with KPMG managed services, centered on this topic. We discussed why it is critical for leaders to be thinking about resilience. “Now, our adversaries have kept up with this pace of disruption in the market. Their techniques are becoming a lot more sophisticated. They're super targeted against what they're trying to do, the mission that they have. And they've been able to evade those traditional controls and monitoring instruments that have been in place for a while,” Tarun mentioned. And on risk management, “That continuous part is going to be something that we see as a way for organizations to stay ahead of the risk and have a more measured approach, so they know what the associated tolerances are to manage through those risks.”?

?Cyber resilience is key to building customer trust, and on this topic, Wendy Thomas of SecureWorks and I discussed the importance of fundamentals. “First and foremost, it really is about the fundamentals. I only half-jokingly say that people think that buying a treadmill will make them lose weight. Nope. It really is just getting up and putting one foot in front of the other. And security is much the same way,” Wendy said. She also emphasized the need to run practical resiliency tests. “Run hunts. Run tabletop exercises. Test your resiliency as an organization. I mean, the best thing we can do to overcome these headlines is to just make sure we all have the basic controls in place to prevent, when prevention fails, to detect, and to be prepared with a great partner if something does happen.”?

?Defending societal foundations?

More and more frequently, cyber-attacks are aimed at the foundations that underpin our society–including trust in government, elections, and journalism. This is a concerning trend involving complex, interconnected issues, so I wanted to explore this further.?

?I discussed with Dr. Fiona Hill about the spread of disinformation. Dr. Hill, a former U.S. intelligence officer and recognized expert on Russia, spoke on the enormous amount of effort it will take to combat disinformation. “There's no one solution,” she said. “It's getting back our literacy equivalent– people knowing how to read information. It's trying to re-establish trusted sources,” Dr. Hill said, of potential strategies to combat this serious issue.??

?Sean Joyce, former Deputy Director of the FBI and now Global Cybersecurity and Privacy leader at PwC, echoed this thinking in our episode on building trust through cybersecurity. “I think it is one of the greatest threats facing us where it is hard to determine what information out there is actually accurate and what is inaccurate. And we still haven't decided who's responsible for that,” Sean said.??

?My conversation with Runa Sandvik on protecting journalism and free speech carried a similar theme. Runa, former senior director of information security at the New York Times, spoke on protecting journalists from an increasing number of attacks. “I think that there are things that individual reporters can do to improve their online security. There are things that nonprofit media orgs can do. There are things that more established newsrooms can do. But at the end of the day, the journalists will continue doing their work and will continue to report and research,” she said. Runa then spoke of what defenders can do, “I think that it gives us, as defenders then and as platforms, an opportunity to ensure that we are doing what we can to enable and support them to work safely.”?

?Driving greater industry diversity & inclusion?

Not unlike the broader technology industry–the cyber industry has work to do when it comes to ensuring greater diversity & inclusion. According to a recent Aspen Institute report, it’s estimated that only 4% of cybersecurity workers self-identify as Hispanic, 9% as Black, and 24% as women. And from an inclusion standpoint–everything from the industry lingo to the skills valued to the pipelines of talent needs improvement.?

?I began unpacking this issue with Jessica Gulick, founder and CEO of KATZCY, a women-owned cyber consulting firm. She and I discussed inclusion in our episode, The Next Cyber Defender. “Being more inclusive I really think it starts from the top. I know everybody has said it for years, but I think that we need to as a society start to define our perspective, our ideas on what leadership looks like, on how leadership acts like and really start to explore a more inclusive leadership and performance model that helps not just women, but everybody from a diverse background have an opportunity to become a leader in that organization,” Jessica said.?

?In my Season 5 closer, I spoke with Jeff Rivera, an author, producer, and co-founder of Collective 5 Entertainment. He and I discussed why representation is so critical to developing the next generation of cyber leaders. “It's so important, and it goes beyond just marginalized and underrepresented communities. Just seeing somebody visually who is like you–whether that means that they are a person of color or someone of the same gender or sexual orientation or geographical location that looks like you–really makes a huge impact on people just to know that it's possible.” Jeff also highlighted the importance of sponsorship and creating opportunities, “I think that, sometimes, men do that to women. They're like, oh, what's the big deal? You know, everybody has the same opportunities. Well, they really don't. I think that sometimes people are willing to stand on their own merits, but they need to be given a shot to do it.?

?What’s next??

Season 6 of Afternoon Cyber Tea launches on August 9, 2022, and I’m absolutely thrilled about the line-up of guests we have for you all. In this season, we’ll discuss securing the metaverse, trends in cyber investment, and so much more. In the first episode, I’ll be chatting with M.K. Palmore about a critical issue facing us all – addressing the cyber talent shortage. I hope you’ll join us–episodes are available on the Cyberwire and on major podcast platforms.??

?To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.?