Podcast Episode 92: Uncle Sam Ices Tech Acquisitions and RSA Conference 2018

In this episode of The Security Ledger Podcast (#92): Adam Isles of The Chertoff Group joins us to talk about the growing specter of software supply chain risk the recent trend of the US Government shooting down major tech acquisitions by Chinese firms.  Also: with the RSA Conference * kicking off in San Francisco, we hear from two experts from LookingGlass, this week’s podcast sponsor, about how to make sense of the hot threat intelligence space. 

Uncle Sam is icing Tech M&A. Why?

What do firms like chip testing firm XCERRA, in flight wi-fi provider Global Eagle and money transfer firm MoneyGram have in common? They’ve all had acquisitions by willing foreign firms blocked by the US Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) in recent months.

What’s going on? In our first segment this week, we speak with Adam Isles, a principal at The Chertoff Group, which has highlighted the increasing risk posed by third party software and supply chain partners as a trend to watch in 2018.

[Check out: Podcast Episode 88: Inside Russia’s DragonFly Group and How Cyber Crooks Launder Money]

Adam Isles is a Principal at The Chertoff Group. (Image courtesy of Chertoff Group.)

Isles says that the increased scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions is  just one manifestation of the broadening understanding and scope of cyber risk. We also talk about another of the Chertoff Group’s prognostications for 2018: increased attacks on The Internet of Things.

RSA 2018: Understanding Threat Intelligence

As attendees gather at The RSA Conference in San Francisco, they’re being barraged with marketing pitches of all stripes. One of the most persistent is about the need for organizations to make use of cyber threat intelligence. That sounds good: but what does it mean exactly? And what are the different ways that threat intelligence can be applied to real world threats? Is there a hierarchy of threat intelligence and if so, what is it? How exactly does one tell useful threat intelligence from expensive digital clutter?

This week’s podcast sponsor, Looking Glass, thinks they can answer those questions. We sat down with two LG experts in the Security Ledger studio: James Carnall, VP of Customer Support at the firm Looking Glass Cyber and Eric Olson, SVP of Product to talk about the evolving threat intelligence space, how threat intelligence is best put to use in combatting sophisticated threats and how to make sense of the cacophony of pitches and solicitations from the countless threat intelligence vendors.

To start out with, I asked James and Eric to tell us a little about LookingGlass’s platform and what it does.

(*) Disclosure: Security Ledger’s coverage of RSA Conference is sponsored by the following organizations: RSA Security (a division of Dell), LookingGlass Cyber SolutionsQualys Inc., Pulse Secure Inc., DigiCert Inc., and Keysite Technologies. For more information on how Security Ledger works with its sponsors and sponsored content on Security Ledger, check out our About Security Ledger page on sponsorships and sponsor relations.

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