The Cyber Why: What We Read This Week...
... and why you should too! (11/4/2022)
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Welcome to your weekly “The Cyber Why: What We Read This Week” news round-up. The brilliant staff at Cyber Why spend a lot of time sifting through piles of hot garbage content to find the weekly gems worth checking out - and we pass them directly onto you!
Here are some of the notable headlines from the past week.
What The Bloody Hell Is An Application? (Crash Override Blog - Mark Curphey)
While I don’t totally agree with Mark’s definition of how we “should” define an application, I do agree that the amorphous definition used today is extremely detrimental to the ability to do security. We have to do better here. As Mark mentioned if you don’t know what it is how to to scope it there is no way you can properly secure it. I’ll try to find the time to write a piece on my view on application atomization and it’s impact on cybersecurity in the coming weeks.
IronNet Faces Delisting from the NYSE (Market Screener)
Oh boy. Another victim of the SPAC debacle. A lot has changed since IronNet went public in August of 2021 via a reverse merger with a SPAC. So much so that they are now facing a potential delisting as their stock has dropped to under $1. For a hot minute everything SPAC was golden - now it seems anything that touched a SPAC is being flushed down the drain! $14 down to $1… Sorry IronNet but it looks like you are going to get a swirly!
The Rise and Fall of AlphaBay Part II (Wired)
After an absolutely riveting part one, the hunt for the Darkweb’s biggest kingpin continues with an even better part two. Everything from the Dark Web, Bangkok, crypto, and more is covered. What more could you ask for? I’m sure I’ll be featuring this six part story every time the next part drops. For now make sure to go back and read part one as well so you can be all caught up. It’s not every day Wired does a book style piece on the takedown of a major cyber kingpin!
Cybersecurity Funding Continues Slide In Q3 (Crunchbase)
The market's fluctuations have affected all tech sectors in the past year and no one is surprised by this trend at this point. Cybersecurity is no exception. The continued decline is worrying with increased tensions and the growing risk of serious cyberattacks. Cybersecurity companies attempting to get ahead of the downturn are bolstering their operations and cash flow by laying off workers. More cybersecurity companies like Snyk and Cybereason will follow suit with the rest of the tech industry and continue make cuts as we seemingly head into a full-on recession next year. Case in point Stripe and Lyft are reportedly laying off hundreds of employees, citing economic conditions.
Preliminary Research on Attack Surfaces - Lists Vs Graphs (JupiterOne Blog)
No, I am not simply pushing my employers agenda, I actually believe that this type of research will go a long way when it comes to demonstrating the best way to analyze your attack surface. This brief summary written by Sarah Hartland just whets the appetite to hopefully get you interested in the super nerdy discussion when deep diving graph theory based attack surface analysis. Link to the full report is located in the teaser.
Palo Alto Networks CEO: “We will be the first $100B Cyber Company” (Calcalist)
A great interview with one hell of a business leader and CEO. Nikesh Arora has built empires at Google, Softbank, and now as CEO of Palo Alto Networks (PAN). His strategy for acquiring a collection of interrelated cyber security startups and essentially rebranding PAN from what could have been seen as a “traditional networking company” into a cyber security powerhouse has been hugely successful. His story from field CMO all the way through to CEO of what he states will be the first $100B cyber company is a must read. Lots to learn from his approach and risk tolerance levels.
For API security to succeed, devs need integrated tooling (TechTarget)
I’m not sure to laugh or cry at this line: “…developer teams should start merging the principle of shifting security left, or closer to development, with another principle for post-development protection known as shield right.” I have been shouting from the top of the mountains for a few years now that “shiftleft” is never going to work in isolation and we need to shift BOTH WAYS in order to get any level of application security efficacy. A movement to an API driven application universe doesn’t really change this. What really makes me cry however is that I didn’t come up with the term “Shield Right” - I mean jeeesh it’s my LAST NAME! I totally should have thought of that! There isn’t much new in the article other than that.. but I couldn’t resist the mention here.
Amazon Closes Below $1 Trillion in Market Value for First Time Since 2020 (Bloomberg)
A lot of people including Bezos ended up selling at the top of the market during the pandemic. The latest news of Amazon’s less than stellar earnings report certainly caused the market to take a dip and investors to reconsider a once-beloved-stock. Drops in the general tech sector and FANG stocks are an early indicator of what’s to come in the economy and US consumer sentiment aligns with these trends as well. The market bottoms once the generals are shot. Are we there yet?
Why Apple Keeps Winning (Unsupervised Learning - Daniel Miessler)
THE original gangster of technology and cyber content creation, Daniel Miessler chimes in on why he believes Apple is continuing to dominate the markets they are in. He is absolute correct when he says that “Apple's competitors haven't solved the trinity of quality, design, and ecosystem”, however I don’t think their moat is as full as of water as it once was. There are other products starting to make headway when it comes to quality and design. Where Apple is still dominating is in the ecosystem approach. My friends all get angry with me when I make them send the dreaded “green message”. If that’s not a sign that they have ecosystem lock in I don’t know what is!
Special Edition: Elon Musk - The Billionaire Drama Machine
In our first inaugural newsletter it just so happens that a large number of Elon Musk articles surfaced demanding our attention. While we picked the most interesting for your review it does beg the question - What do you think of Elon? Is he a benevolent dictator? Is he the technology messiah? or is he simply just another egomaniacal uber rich dude who likes to abuse his power? Let’s ask our audience and find out!
Twitter is planning to start charging $20 per month for verification (The Verge)
Any commentary on tech news would not be complete without sweeping changes at Twitter with new owner, Elon Musk. Is it really worth it for a blue checkmark? I guess for the “socially famous” it might be. I have a few thousand follower myself and there is no way I’m paying for a blue check. Absolutely NOT!
Elon Musk fired Twitter execs including CEO Parag Agrawal 'for cause' in a bid to avoid paying out tens of millions in severance, report says (Insider)
This just in from the land of “HOLY SHIT!” I guess I knew all along that there would be an explosion the day that Elon took the helm of Twitter but it never occurred to me that he would go full Lizzie Borden on the entire e-staff and fire them WITH CAUSE! There generally is a certainly level of professional courtesy that exists when these types of things happen but Elon was having NONE of it. He directly took the hatchet to heads of the CEO, CFO, Chief Legal, and General Counsel minute one post closing his aggressive takeover. I promise you there will be lawsuits over this one as these executives fight for over $100M of payouts I’m sure they already had mentally spent on their jets and mansions!
People are pretending to be laid-off Twitter employees carrying boxes outside of HQ (The Verge)
This might be the funniest part of the Twitter saga. Two people carrying boxes, pretending to be laid off from Twitter, completely trolled at least one news reporter who interviewed them. Using the name Rahul LIGMA they said some crazy outrageous quotes. This might be the best thing that we’ve read all week.
Musk Plans to Eliminate Half of Twitter Jobs to Cut Costs (Bloomberg)
Another round of sweeping changes are coming at Twitter and it’s brutal. Elon and team are continuing their reduction plans and reportedly firing 50% of the Twitter workforce. On Friday, employees are barred from entering the office and have a 50/50 chance of getting the golden ticket via their Twitter email or a one-way exit via their personal emails. It’s going to be rough goings at the Twitter offices but the reality is that it was never going to last forever.
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