Geopolitical Cyber Threats

Chairman of SINET Robert Rodriguez and Partner at SYN Ventures and his wife Heather Rodriguez the CEO of SINET & Partner at Evolution Equity hosted an amazing and gracious event in New York City at the University Club, bringing great minds together to explore tough questions

I was honored to partake in the session and be part of the group of great thought leaders, influencers and people of power who were both equally passionate and concerned.

We started the evening with a United States Government Senior Executive exploring the big questions.

1.???? What Does the Future Have in Store - Based on the Current Threats?

• Update on Russia – As the continual threat of Ukraine plays out the consensus was "it is a situation based on attrition" and the numbers do not look good for Ukraine. When you have less skilled soldiers and the opposition has more people, resources, and less care for the sanctity of life the outcome is inevitable. To win the war it is ultimately about beating the other side into submission or more eloquently put, "beating their will to fight." More concerning however is what will probably happen next. After Ukraine, then Poland and the growth of the Russian empire continues where it begs the question; when do we step in to stop the domino effect.
• Update on China – Xi Jinping, The President of China has declared as part of his 5 year plan that by 2027 they will be taking over Taiwan. China historically has always had a clearly defined plan and execution which they rarely deviate from. The Taiwan people at this stage are just waiting for it to happen where the quote of the night was it was like they were "sitting ducks..." just waiting for the tides to shift.

These percolating political threats, the proliferation of both cyber-attacks and cyber defense are becoming more critical and relevant in an age where everything is placed on the internet and therefore vulnerable to attack. The increasing threats are literarily "mind-boggling" ?where I posted an article more about this found here.

2.???? How Do We Get Ahead of Cyber Warfare, and what is the role of Government and Corporations?

Voices from the Government:

• Innovation follows money. Think Tanks and DARPA use cases sometimes evolve into the endless cycle of innovate, then protect which results in security being an afterthought as opposed to a secure by design approach. "We are great at knowing the why" of the intention and motivation of the sophisticated enemy with years of intelligence, "We Need Support on the How" will they attack?
• Tech innovation is on the rise and while we have great organizations such as FS-ISAC, SIFMA , ARC , etc there is a cultural shift coming where we must find a way to get ahead of the attack and create true partnerships on the front end between the public and private sector and not after a crisis.

Voices from the Private Sector referred to the need for:

• "Certain regulations stifle innovation while others accelerate it, with the state of generative AI we are still all collectively playing catch up"
• "We need to accelerate a cultural shift to bring innovation and security at the forefront."

As we discussed the approaches on technology selection, evaluation, and funding it became even more apparent that we need the private and public sectors to come together as part of the inception of new technologies and not after the fact.

The private sector is where a lot of the innovation is happening, however without the right regulatory support and guardrails it becomes harder to mobilize and accelerate the competitive advances especially given concerns on AI as it relates to privacy, intellectual property, copyright, and proprietary methods, algorithms and methodologies.

The night continued where some of the members mentioned how one of the proven methods we have used in the past to evaluate risk is based on a SWOT analysis, in particular one used heavily by Bank of America, which is outlined further below.

Bank of America SWOT analysis. Evaluating Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

It was a great discussion and a practical one as we find new ways to bring together the public and private sectors together.

Robert shown in the picture below who is a retired US Secret Service Agent knows the importance of intelligence and interconnectivity with both government and corporate, hence his desire to establish this exclusive round table.

In his role he focuses on

• Advancement of innovation within the international Cybersecurity domain
• Strategic adviser on the development of global public private partnerships
• Connecting early stage companies to investors and industry & government buyers