The Defender's Advantage Podcast

All too often, hiring managers find themselves seeking candidates who fit 100% of the description for the role they are trying to fill. Because of this, they overlook a swath of applicants who are good for the job. In this week’s Skills Gap episode of The Defender’s Advantage Podcast, host Chris Campbell speaks with Mandiant consulting team members Dan Nutting, Kal Guntuku, and Chris Linklater abo...

In this Threat Trends episode of The Defender’s Advantage Podcast, hear from Michelle Cantos who joins host Luke McNamara to discuss artificial intelligence (AI) in cyber and how adversaries are using AI in their activities today. Michelle details manipulated media techniques such as artificially generated images and vishing, tactics that have been increasingly employed by threat actors. She also...

This special episode of The Defender’s Advantage Podcast features Mandiant CTO Marshall Heilman speaking with Edgard Capdevielle, CEO of Nozomi Networks. The conversation, recorded in-person at RSA Conference 2022, delves into the partnership between Mandiant and Nozomi, and how the organizations can take on escalating cyber risks to secure cyber-physical infrastructure. Marshall and Edgard discus...

In this week’s episode of The Defender’s Advantage Podcast Threat Trends series, host Luke McNamara is joined by Anne Marie Engtoft Larsen to discuss her role as Danish Tech Ambassador and how the role has evolved since Denmark appointed the first Tech Ambassador in 2017. She chats about her views on cyber diplomacy and the value of partnerships with private sector cyber security companies. Ambass...

This week’s episode of The Defender’s Advantage Podcast kicks off our new monthly series, Skills Gap, which focuses on thoughts, ideas, and initiatives for narrowing the skills gap in cyber security. Our host Chris Campbell was joined for this conversation by Mandiant’s John Doyle, Principal Consultant, and Matt Shelton, Director of Technology Risk and Threat Intelligence, to discuss talent and br...

This week’s Threat Trends episode of The Defender’s Advantage Podcast features Jacqueline Koven, Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence at Chainalysis, who joined host Luke McNamara to discuss the trends in cryptocurrency and cyber activity. She also breaks down some examples of nation state usage and targeting of crypto and the adoption of cryptocurrency by different threat actors.  Learn more about C...

In this Frontline Stories episode of the Defender’s Advantage Podcast, host Kerry Matre is joined by Joshua Bass, Director of Product Management, and Sarah Korth, Director of Commercial Intel Services, to discuss Mandiant’s Digital Risk Protection (DRP) solution. The group discusses digital risk protection, what it can reveal about cyber threat profiles, and how attackers find weaknesses. They als...

In this week’s Threat Trends episode of The Defender’s Advantage Podcast, host Luke McNamara is joined by Jonathan Yaron, CEO and Chairman of Kiteworks to discuss navigating customer trust following a breach. During the conversation, Jonathan talks about lessons learned from the breach he led the company through and what leaders should consider in the event their organization experiences a breach....

In the inaugural episode of the Frontline Stories series, part of The Defender’s Advantage Podcast, host Kerry Matre is joined by Rob Caldwell, Director of OT/ICS Services at Mandiant. During the conversation, they discuss OT/ICS security and the impact an OT attack can have on an organization. They also dive specifically into the INCONTROLLER and INDUSTROYER2 attacks and how they targeted OT envi...

In this week’s Threat Trends episode of The Defender’s Advantage Podcast, host Luke McNamara is joined by Sam Riddell and Alden Wahlstrom, analysts on Mandiant’s IO team, to discuss what they are seeing in the cyber threat landscape around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They talk about what their team has observed in the lead up to the invasion and the activity they have seen in the IO space since....

In this week’s episode of The Defender’s Advantage Podcast, host Luke McNamara is joined by Doug Bienstock and Josh Madeley, members of the Mandiant consulting team to discuss a new threat actor, UNC3524. Doug and Josh share their observations of the group’s activities and tactics, like the use of IoT devices.  Read more about UNC3524 in the team’s latest blog post, “UNC3524: Eye Spy on Your Email...

It’s that time of year again: Mandiant has just published its M-Trends 2022 report. With almost 100 pages to unpack in this year’s report, host Luke McNamara is joined by Regina Elwell, Senior Principal Threat Analyst and Kirstie Failey, Senior Threat Analyst, who both contributed to the development of this year’s report.   Among the aspects highlighted during the conversation are notable threat a...

This week, host Luke McNamara is joined by Jens Monrad, Director, EMEA, Mandiant Threat Intelligence. The two discuss the evolving threat landscape in Europe following the COVID-19 pandemic and touch on the cyber aspect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  You can follow Jens on Twitter at @jenschm . Learn about Mandiant's Ukraine Crisis Resource Center: https://mndt.info/3roZ4Jv Read the Mandia...

Looking for Eye on Security? We are still here, but with a few important changes.  This week we're launching Mandiant's new Defender's Advantage Podcast featuring the same great content you've come to expect from us and even more. Host Luke McNamara anchors our Threat Trends series, chatting with Mandiant intel analysts, consultants, and researchers, as well as external practit...

In this episode, Ryan Tomcik, Emiel Haeghebaert, and Tufail Ahmed joins host Luke McNamara to discuss their blog post detailing their investigation on the activity of UNC3313. The group details the collaboration between their respective teams at Mandiant to detect and respond to an intrusion by the threat actor. Read their blog post, “Left on Read: Telegram Malware Spotted in Latest Iranian Cyber...

In this episode, Mandiant Principal Analyst Cristiana Brafman Kittner joins host Luke McNamara to discuss the potential cyber threats to the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. The conversation delves into cyber incidents attached to previous games as well as what we could see this year at the games being held in Beijing.

Host Luke McNamara is joined by Michelle Cantos, John Doyle, and James Sadowski to discuss the role of contractors in cyber network exploitation (CNE) and other cyber operations.  For further reading on this topic for Mandiant Advantage and MA Free users, please see  “She Doesn’t Even Go Here: The Role of Contractors in the Cyber Landscape” at https://advantage.mandiant.com/reports/21-00013849 . R...

For our last episode of the year, Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia joins host Luke McNamara for a year in review of 2021. The discussion includes a look back at the SolarWinds incident one year later as well as look forward to 2022 with the three things that are top of his mind going into the New Year. Additionally, Kevin touches on the future of Mandiant and the Mandiant Advantage platform.

Columbia University researcher Jason Healey joins host Luke McNamara to discuss how cyber policy has evolved over the years, the dynamics of cyber conflict, and more. In particular, this conversation delves into the risks of escalation in a crisis, how norms may (and may not) shape such conflicts, and changing the role between defense and attack. 

Jake Knowlton, Andy Schmidt, and Paul Shaver join host Luke McNamara to discuss making the transition from the military to working in cyber security. Jake, Andy, and Paul share their perspectives and how they became involved in this field, some of the challenges veterans might face, and how veterans can position their prior experience for roles in infosec.  For more on Mandiant’s partnership with...

Jared Semrau and James Sadowski join host Luke McNamara to discuss some of their teams’ research this year into the rise of observed 0-days and other exploitation trends. They cover how the vulnerability landscape has evolved over the years, what has made 2021 stand out so far, and how the nature of threat activity—particularly the growth of ransomware—has shifted the makeup of actors in this spac...

While the broader discussion of cyber-related incidents, events, and trends are contributed to by many different types of organizations and individuals, journalists play an important role in furthering our collective understanding of this space. Journalist Kim Zetter joins host Luke McNamara on Eye on Security to share her perspective in covering cybersecurity as a journalist. Kim discusses how th...

For the launch of Mandiant’s most newly graduated threat group, FIN12, Kimberly Goody (Director, Financial Crime Analysis) and Josh Shilko (Principal Technical Analyst, Financial Crime Analysis) join Eye on Security to discuss this actor. They cover this group’s TTPs and targets, where they fit into the ransomware ecosystem, and what makes this particular threat actor unique in the landscape.  

Host Luke McNamara is joined by Eli Fox and Michael Barnhart, both Senior Analysts at Mandiant, to discuss some of their work tracking various North Korean threat clusters. Michael and Eli share their perspectives on the continuously changing landscape of DPRK threat actors, some of the challenges in tracking them, and how information from defectors augments the technical data in their analysis. T...

This episode of Eye on Security delves into a security topic that continues to be front and center for many organizations: ransomware.  Dave Wong, Vice President for Mandiant Consulting, joined host Luke McNamara to discuss some of the recent changes with threat activity in this space. Dave covered where the trends in ransomware operations have taken us over the last year and a half, with increasi...