Nexus: A Claroty Podcast

ICS Advisory Project founder Dan Ricci joins the Nexus Podcat to discuss how to turn operational technology (OT) and cyber-physical systems (CPS) visibility into actual risk reduction. Dan describes the need to distinguish between asset lists and actual asset inventories, what those differences are, and how to make the most of the information made available. Device data such as firmware versions,...

Krista Arndt, the Associate Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at the St. Luke's University Health Network, a 15-hospital health system in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss cybersecurity and resilience in a large hospital system.  Krista and her team talk about the role of healthcare cybersecurity teams in ensuring patient safety, and some of the ongoing c...

Jon Holzbauer, OT Systems Manager at Silgan Containers, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss where IT security teams and OT operations run into challenges in protecting these diverse complicated environments in manufacturing. A clash of approaches may lead to rash decisions around cybersecurity that could disrupt key processes or impact safety and reliability.  This interview was pulled from Episode...

Ric Derbyshire, a Principal Security Researcher at Orange Cyberdefense and an Honorary Researcher at Imperial College London, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss how attackers are able to gain lateral movement across operational technology (OT) assets through a tactic known as Living Off the Plant. Similar to Living-off-the-Land attacks, Living-Off-the-Plant TTPs leverage native functionality speci...

Rapid7 Principal Security Research (IoT) lead Deral Heiland joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss work his team did on how attackers might weaponize cellular-based IoT.  Rapid7 conducted three phases of this research, with the most recent digging into how attackers with access to these systems can abuse them to gain unauthorized access, potentially exfiltrate critical data, or pivot into backend netw...

Rob King, Director of Applied Research at RunZero, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss the security risks and exposures introduced by digital transformation to operational technology environments.  As many OT and cyber-physical systems assets are connected online, there could be signification exposures introduced to these internet-facing devices and systems. Rob also discusses the effectiveness of...

Samir Boussarhane, senior cybersecurity engineer at MITRE, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss some new simulator plug-ins added to Caldera for OT. Caldera for OT is an open-source adversary emulation platform that automates security assessments for operational technology (OT) systems.  Samir provides context on a new simulator called the Aloha Water Treatment plant, which emulates a water utility...

Former Pfizer head of global automation engineering Jim LaBonty joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss an article he wrote for Nexus on the need to secure data centers during kinetic conflict . He also explains the interlock between data centers and manufacturing facilities, and why a cyberattack against a data center can be devastating to the uptime and reliability of factory floors.  This interview...

Tiffany Wilson, the founder of Wilson Inclusive Solutions (WINS), a disability accessibility consulting firm, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss the proliferation of consumer technology into healthcare infrastructure. This technology—smart speakers that help manage medications or cameras that monitor vulnerable individuals—often handles patient data and safety, and operates in a regulatory void. ...

Joe Slowik, Director of Cybersecurity Alerting Strategy at Dataminr, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss the alarming trend of lesser-skilled hacktivist groups leveraging operational technlogy (OT) and cyber-physical systems (CPS) in attacks.  Many of these exposed devices are easily scannable and accessible online, and attackers are hurdling low barriers to entry such as poor or missing authentica...

Phil Englert, VP, Medical Device Security, Health-ISAC joins to discuss the cybersecurity risks introduced by legacy technology in healthcare and how it impacts patient care and safety. Phil also brings some context and insight into the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) updated guidance on cybersecurity requirements for medical devices aimed at manufacturers and premarket product subm...

Raphael Arkelian, the OT/IOT cybersecurity manager at Accenture, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss his research into Operation Grim Beeper, the name given to a two-day attack in 2024 in the Middle East where explosives were introduced into pagers and walkie-talkies favored by Hezbollah. The explosions injured more than 1500 and killed dozens. Raphael’s research looks at several aspects of this at...

Former NSA Director and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command Adm. Michael S. Rogers (Ret. USN) joins the Nexus Podcast. Rogers spoke in advance of an RSA Conference panel discussion today with the other living NSA directors, Keith Alexander, Paul Nakasone, and Tim Haugh, a rare time when the four can be in the same room.  Rogers describes the principles that guided his time as director of these intelli...

Michael Pyle, Director of Product Cybersecurity at Schneider Electric, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss Internet Exposure Prevention, a new SE approach to preventing illicit connections to operational technology and industrial control systems that are insecurely connected to the internet.  Attackers are adept at enumerating exposed devices and leveraging OT and ICS to access process and corporat...

Gus Serino, President of I&C Secure, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss the formation and evolution of an ongoing water utility cybersecurity collaborative that leans on a collective defense model to share resources and threat intelligence among six water & wastewater companies in the commonwealth.  Serino helped put together this coalition, and he explains how a feasibility study came tog...

Industrial cybersecurity expert Dan Ricci, the founder and maintainer of the ICS Advisory Project , joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss the evolution of the industry's premier ICS and OT security advisory repository as it turns 4 years old.  Dan talks about the impact of the project on OT security teams, the dashboards he's created to better parse the volume of data on the site, and uniqu...

Insane Cyber CEO and founder Dan Gunter joins the Nexus Podcast in an episode recorded live at the S4 Conference in Miami. Dan explains a process for generating malicous OT data in order to test the efficacy of an organization's intrusion detection and other security products. Generating such data has its barriers, but it's crucial, he said, in order to train products and security analys...

Mike Holcomb joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss a Converged Actor Framework he developed and presented at the S4 Conference. The framework delineates  groups such as hacktivists and state threat actors based on the impact and frequency of their activity. State actors are leveraging hacktivist groups with greater frequency, and this convergence must be considered as defenders tasked with protecting...

Matthew Rogers, ICS Cybersecurity Lead at the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss new guidance published by the agency to help manufacturers and asset owners move toward more secure OT communication protocols.  Legacy protocols that contain little to no basic security capabilities are still prevalent in OT environments today. Rogers explains t...

Jay Catherine, security architect for a major retailer, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss the intricacies of securing logistics and operational technology within the retail sector.  Catherine covers various aspects of logistics cybersecurity, including risks introduced by connecting OT and IoT to the network, and the challenges of managing third-party vendor and supply chain relationships.  He al...

Greg Garcia, Executive Director of the Health Sector Coordinating Council Cybersecurity Working Group, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss the recent publication of the working group’s Sector Mapping and Risk Toolkit.  The SMART toolkit is a methodology that helps healthcare providers visualize key services that support workflows in the industry and is also used to measure risk appropriately for ea...

O'Reilly coauthor of Evidence-Based Security and longtime healthcare CISO Christopher Frenz joins the Nexus podcast to describe his organization's approach to cybersecurity that is rooted in transforming security from an artform to a science.  Frenz discusses how this process through how he tests the efficacy of controls in his environment, and how the insights gained from this testing h...

Retired four-star U.S. Navy Admiral Michael S. Rogers joins the Nexus Podcast for a wide-ranging discussion on deterrence in cyberspace and an examination of adversarial tactics and strategies.  Adm. Rogers explains that deterrence relies on having the will to employ tactics that will reshape the choices adversaries are making in the targeting of U.S. critical infrastructure.  Adm. Rogers also tou...

Bob Maley, Chief Security Officer at Black Kite and former CISO for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss how critical infrastructure operators and state and local governments are meeting cybersecurity resourcing challenges. Whether it's budgets, workforce shortages, or technical debt, security leaders are facing volatile times in protecting critical sectors.  L...

Pankaj Goyal, Chief Operating Officer at Safe Security, joins the Nexus Podcast to discuss the challenges cyber insurance carriers and brokers have in determing and providing coverage for asset heavy operational technology (OT) and cyber-physical systems (CPS) environments.  Underwriters have prolific amounts of historical data and experience in calculating risk and exposure around IT, but cannot...