Episodes

Dave Shackleford and Jennifer Minella

Stolen MSFT Source Code, Possible Chinese Crane Espionage

March 13th, 2024 With IANS Faculty Dave Shackleford and Jennifer Minella
This Episode Details:
  • Microsoft Source Code Stolen - Microsoft has revealed that the Russian 'Midnight Blizzard' hacking group gained access to source code and internal systems with harvested authentication tokens and credentials.
  • Chinese Cranes: Possible Espionage? - In March of 2023, the U.S. Pentagon reported that Chinese-manufactured cranes in U.S. ports may contain monitoring equipment used in long-range espionage. After a yearlong investigation, these concerns are proving to be accurate.
Dave Shackleford and Jessica Hebenstreit

Change Healthcare Hack, I-Soon Leaks, NIST CSF 2.0

February 28th, 2024 With IANS Faculty Jessica Hebenstreit and Dave Shackleford
This Episode Details:
  • Change Healthcare Impacted by Cyber Attack - Explore the impacts of Change Healthcare's recent BlackCat breach.
  • I-Soon Hackers for Hire Used by Chinese Government Agencies - Last week, leaks surfaced on Github that various Cinese government agencies have been using hackers for hire as part of an ongoing campaign to break into foreign governments and telecoms.
  • NIST CST 2.0 - In addition to the original five core pillars of NIST CSF, "govern" was added with the goal of helping organizations incorporate cybersecurity risk management into enterprise risk management.
Jake Williams and Gal Shpantzer

Shim Secure Boot Bypass, Fortinet CVE, Ivanti Vulns

February 14th, 2024 With IANS Faculty Jake Williams and Gal Shpantzer
This Episode Details:
  • Shim Secure Boot Bypass Vulnerability - New vulnerabilities in the Shim service are being used to securely boot on Linux. Impacted systems that use HTTP boot services risk full compromise of the device.
  • New Fortinet Vulnerabilities - Following the announcement of CVE-2024-21762 from Fortinet, CUSA quickly added the vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list, indicating it has reports of threat actors using it in the wild.
  • Additional Ivanti Disclosures - Ivanti has disclosed additional security vulnerabilities in it's Pulse line of VPN products.
Jessica Hebenstreit and Jennifer Minella

Volt Typhoon, Ivanti Zero Day, Cloudflare Breach, AnyDesk Hack

February 7th, 2024 With IANS Faculty Jessica Hebenstreit and Jennifer Minella
This Episode Details:
  • China Targeting U.S. Infrastructure - The director of the FBU discolsed that China's "Volt Typhoon" group is ramping up hacking operations aimed at critical infrastructure in the United States in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.
  • Ivanti: CISA Sets 48-hour Deadline for Removal - The CIA issued a directive that gave federal agencies using Ivanti Connect Secure or Ivanti Policy Secure solutions less than 48 hours to disconnect all instances and take specific steps to put it back into production.
  • Cloudflare Hacked With Stolen Okta Auth Tokens - The Okta breach of 2023 left in it's wake lost tokens and service account credentials related to Cloudflare, since a victim of nation-state actor infiltration. This is how they addressed it.

Faculty Directory

Jessica Hebenstreit

Expertise:

  • Security Leadership
  • Cyber Fusion Center
  • Attack Surface Management
  • Cyber Program Development
  • Incident Response

Jessica Hebenstreit

IANS Faculty

Jessica is the Senior Director Corporate Security at Quorum Software. Before Quorum Software, Jessica served as Director of Security Operations & Infrastructure at Eptura. Previously, she held a role as Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, consulting on Cyber Fusion Centers, Attack Surface Management, other cyber defense capabilities, and cyber program development and leadership.  Jessica has consulted with many of the largest companies in the world including many Fortune 100.

Achievements & Noteworthy Contributions

  • Creator of the DREAMR framework
  • Appearances on podcasts such as DtSR and Detections
  • Speaker at conferences including RSA, COISSA on topics ranging from Automated Incident
  • Response to Program Building
  • Served as COO for the Diana Initiative

Certifications & Credentials

  • MSIT Information Security and Assurance from Capella University
  • BIS International Business and Spanish from Arizona State University
  • GNFA, GCIH

Hobbies & Fun Facts

Jessica can turn everyday life into a musical by simply recalling a song from something someone has said.  She enjoys baseball and spending time with her kids.

gal-shpantzer
Gal Shpantzer
gal-shpantzer

Expertise:

  • vCISO/Security Leadership
  • Security Architecture
  • Observability pipelines
  • M&A Security
  • Vendor selection
  • SIEM, Splunk, Big Data
  • Incident Response
  • Vulnerability Assessment/Management

Gal Shpantzer

IANS Faculty

Gal Shpantzer has been a full-time security consultant since the year 2000, providing (mostly good) advice to early-stage tech startups, security vendors, Ivy League universities, non-profits, and Fortune 50 clients. Gal owns and operates a boutique consultancy focused on vCISO and Observability Pipeline services that enable modern, scalable, user-friendly, auditable, and forensically ready security programs. Gal leads security programs and projects that empower business and technical leadership to prevent, detect and respond to security incidents, including threats to confidentiality (sophisticated IP theft) and availability (DDoS, ransomware).

Achievements & Noteworthy Contributions

  • Contributed to global security/privacy standards in the energy sector (NIST 7628, ES-C2M2)
  • Architected and deployed a high-speed streaming analytics data pipeline and multi-petabyte data lake for a Fortune 100 megaglobocorp, enabling drastically reduced MTTD. Provided flexible, real-time, ultra-scale observability to CISO and CIO orgs in on-prem and multi-cloud endpoint/network/server workloads and applications. Project included the largest supported MiNiFi deployment in the world.
  • Expert witness for a billion-dollar GSA protest relating to managed security services
  • SANS Newsbites co-editor since 2002. Quoted in Scientific American, eWeek, Dark Reading, Governing.com and others.

Hobbies & Fun Facts

Wildlife photography, anything on/under the water (SCUBA diving/snorkeling/swimming/kayaking), winter camping/snowshoeing, emergency first aid. Gal enjoys desert and frozen landscapes, and spoofing song lyrics with infosec themes.
jake-williams
Jake Williams
jake-williams

Expertise:

  • Incident Response
  • Digital Forensics
  • Threat Modeling
  • Penetration Testing
  • Security Architecture

Jake Williams

IANS Faculty

Jake Williams (aka MalwareJake) is a seasoned security researcher with decades of experience in the technology and security. Jake is a former startup founder, former senior SANS instructor and course author, and an intelligence community and military veteran. He loves forensics, incident response, cyber threat intelligence, and offensive methodologies. Today, Jake is an IANS faculty member, an independent security consultant, and is performing security-focused research to benefit the broader community. He has had the honor of twice winning the DoD Cyber Crime Center (DC3) annual digital forensics challenge. You may also know Jake from one of his many conference talks, webcasts, media appearances, or his postings about cybersecurity.

Achievements & Noteworthy Contributions

  • Two-Time Winner of the Annual DC3 Forensics Challenge
  • Speaker at information security conferences such as Black Hat, DEF CON, ShmooCon, RSA, and DC3
  • Designated a Master Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) Operator by the NSA
  • Former Vulnerability Analyst at US Department of Defense
  • Former Senior Systems Engineer at Dell Services

Certifications & Credentials

  • MSIA, Information Assurance –Capitol College
  • GSE, GSNA, GCFE, GREM, GCWN, GCIA, GCIH, GPEN, GCFA, GXPN, GSEC –GIAC
jennifer-minella
Jennifer Minella
jennifer-minella

Expertise:

  • Zero Trust and network access control
  • Network architecture and security
  • Wireless architecture and security
  • Internet of Things (IoT) Security
  • Management & Leadership
  • Medical Device & Healthcare Security
  • Applied mindfulness
  • Mobility and Communications
  • CBRS, Private LTE, Private 5G

Jennifer Minella

IANS Faculty

Author of “Wireless Security Architecture”, “Low Tech Hacking” and other titles, Jennifer (JJ) Minella has been named as a Top 10 Power Player in cyber security by SC Magazine. As an advisor to more than 50 Fortune-rated companies and hundreds of others, JJ brings a uniquely energetic approach to cyber security, blending deep technical experience with strategic guidance. Her ability to connect with audiences and articulate technical concepts in simple terms has taken her all over the world. She is also the creator of the Mindfulness-Based Leadership for Infosec workshop series. Jennifer is the founder and principal advisor of Viszen Security, offering technical strategy and coaching solutions to CXOs and practitioners.

Achievements & Noteworthy Contributions

  • Author including co-author of “Low Tech Hacking” and various CISSP courseware versions
  • International speaker including NSA Trusted Computing, RSA Conference, INFOSEC World, BruCon, Sector, Wireless Technology Forum, DeepSec, (ISC)2 Security Summit Hong Kong, Interop, Techno Security, (ISC)2 Security Congress, BSides, various local, state gov, education and healthcare conferences, various events for FBI and US Secret Service ECTF
  • Contributor to community efforts including biomedical device security task force in healthcare and security, wireless and secure networking in other vertical task forces
  • Program committee member for RSAC USA, Executive Women’s Forum (EWF) and others
  • Published writer in Dark Reading, Information Security Magazine, Network Computing and others
  • Creator of Mindfulness-Based Leadership for Infosec workshops
  • Former (ISC)2 chairperson and board member
  • Former SC Magazine Top 10 Power Players
  • Former VP of Engineering & Security for Carolina Advanced Digital, Inc.
  • Invited VIP/technical ambassador for multiple technology manufacturers including Juniper and HPE
  • Former member National Speakers Association (NSA)
  • Cyberpatriot mentor for Cyber Security in high schools
  • #4 Global Security Thought Leadership
  • Author of award-winning Security Uncorked blog

Certifications & Credentials

  • (ISC)2 CISSP
  • Google's Search Inside Yourself Leadership Training
  • Certified Wireless IoT Solutions Administrator (CWISA)
  • Numerous technical certifications around WiFi, IoT, switch/route, security, AI and AIOps

Hobbies & Fun Facts

In her spare time aside from cyber security mentorship and volunteering, Jen gets in to all kinds of things. She's a World Record powerlifter and former competitive ballroom dancer who loves reading and the outdoors. She's traded in her Ducati for a kayak and still enjoys Figment the Imagination Dragon. She can usually be lured anywhere with promises of rye whisky.

dave-shackleford
Dave Shackleford
dave-shackleford

Expertise:

  • Cloud Security
  • Virtualization and Container Security
  • Network Architecture and Security Monitoring
  • Security Operations
  • Event Log Management and Monitoring

Dave Shackleford

IANS Faculty

Dave is the Founder and Principal Consultant with Voodoo Security, an information security consulting firm with broad expertise. He is also a Senior Instructor, Analyst, and Course Author for the SANS Institute and a VMware vExpert with extensive experience designing and configuring secure virtualized infrastructures. In addition, Dave has served as Co-Chair of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Top Threats Working Group and founded the CSA Atlanta Chapter. Dave has consulted with hundreds of organizations in the areas of security, regulatory compliance, network architecture, and engineering. He has also worked as a security architect, analyst, and manager for several Fortune 500 companies.

Achievements & Noteworthy Contributions

  • Former CSO for Configuresoft
  • Former CTO for the Center for Internet Security
  • Speaker at information security conferences such as RSA, DEF CON, and BSides
  • Author of Virtualization Security: Protecting Virtualized Environments (2012)

Certifications & Credentials

  • MBA – Georgia State University
  • BS, Computer Information Systems – Kennesaw State University
  • BS, Psychology & Microbiology – Georgia State University
  • CISSP – (ISC)2

Hobbies & Fun Facts

In his free time, Dave enjoys running, camping, cooking and playing music (piano, guitar and DJing).

Any views or opinions presented in this document are solely those of the Faculty and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of IANS. Although reasonable efforts will be made to ensure the completeness and accuracy of the information contained in our written reports, no liability can be accepted by IANS or our Faculty members for the results of any actions taken by the client in connection with such information, opinions, or advice.
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About IANS

For the security practitioner caught between rapidly evolving threats and demanding executives, IANS Research is a clear-headed resource for making decisions and articulating risk. We provide experience-based security insights for chief information security officers and their teams. The core of our value comes from the IANS Faculty, a network of seasoned practitioners. We support client decisions and executive communications with Ask-an-Expert inquiries, our peer community, deployment-focused reports, tools and templates, and consulting.