Black Hat USA 2025 was nothing short of groundbreaking. The show floor and conference tracks were buzzing with innovation, but one theme stood above all others – the rapid advancement...
The post AI Takes Center Stage at Black Hat USA 2025 – Booz Allen Leads the Conversation appeared first on Cyber Defense Magazine.
After Congress approved his nomination in 2021, Chris Inglis served as the first-ever National Cyber Director for the White House. Now, he plans to retire. So who’s next?
As of this writing in January of 2023, there remains uncertainty around who will fill the role. However, the frontrunner is Kemba Walden, Acting Director of the National Cyber Director’s office. Walden is a former Microsoft executive who joined the National Cyber Director’s office in May. Before her appointment, Walden was the Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology in the Biden Administration.
If not Walden, who else might take over from Inglis? The best answer is to look at the senior cybersecurity folks in the Biden administration who advise Biden directly.
The national cybersecurity of the United States has been a priority for President Biden. To ensure that the most efficient protocols are being followed, the president has designated several senior members from his team to serve as direct advisors with specific responsibility for cybersecurity issues. These advisors bring extensive expertise in national security operations and risk management from multiple sectors. They played key roles in establishing national defenses, and are expert problem-solvers in the face of evolving threats. This highly specialized group provides the strength and stability needed to maintain national cybersecurity in a rapidly evolving threat landscape.
The key senior cybersecurity officials include the aforementioned Chris Inglis as the first National Cyber Director, Jen Easterly as the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Alejandro Mayorkas as the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kemba Walden as the first Principal Deputy National Cyber Director, Neal Higgins as Deputy National Cyber Director for National Cybersecurity and Rob Knake as Deputy National Cyber Director for Budget and Policy.
While everyone here plays a crucial role, Jen Easterly stands out based on her comprehensive cybersecurity background. Easterly is an internationally renowned cybersecurity expert, formerly serving as the Deputy Director of the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Before joining CISA, she held management positions in both private industries and within the government. This included a four-year tenure with IBM Global Services as Senior Consulting Analyst.
Ms. Easterly’s expansive career has seen cybersecurity accomplishments in both the public and private sectors. Many of her notable successes occurred while working at CISA, initiating groundbreaking efforts to enhance information sharing among critical infrastructure sectors, as well as leading work that addressed cyber threats from foreign actors. She also spearheaded cybersecurity workforce development and led a collective effort to modernize Federal government organizations’ response to ever-increasing threats from malicious actors online.
Outside of her government service, Easterly was also instrumental in creating several successful commercial programs focused on protecting corporate IT assets through best practices such as risk assignment and attack surface reduction.
Though many promising candidates have emerged for National Cyber Director, the role itself was not without contention. After the appointment of Chris Inglis, concerns arose that there were “too many cooks” in the federal cyber leadership kitchen. Additionally, there was uncertainty as to who would be the true “quarterback” taking over command of national cybersecurity going forward. While Inglis’ extended background in national security steered much of the discourse toward a sense of assurance, undertones still remained that he was just one man wielding undue power without a larger organization behind him for support.
Though uncertain at the time, these concerns have since dissolved. Inglis has proven himself more than capable of tackling national cybersecurity amid a coalition of national leaders and organizations.
As National Cyber Director, Inglis developed national-level policies to protect organizations of all sizes from cyber threats and worked with government agencies to identify areas of need throughout the cybersecurity landscape. As a result, businesses could prioritize cybersecurity investments. know their threats better, remain at the cutting edge of technological innovation and adopt best practices — all in an effort to ensure national security.
IBM Security Intelligence reached out to the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) about the role. They responded with the following statement:
“ONCD’s mission is to create a resilient, safe and equitable cyber space. We’re doing so by focusing on long-term strategic planning while executing on near-term tactics to mitigate existing vulnerabilities. Ultimately, we desire to seize the initiative back from the adversary and reimagine cyberspace with an affirmative vision consistent with our values.”
ONCD’s statement went on to elaborate on how it has tackled those objectives:
“Most notably, ONCD is leading the interagency drafting process for the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy. A process through which we’ve solicited input from over 300 stakeholders across industry, foreign governments, academia and the nonprofit sector. This exceptional level of collaboration is a recognition that the terrain in cyber space is principally privately owned, and public-private partnerships are paramount to addressing cybersecurity challenges successfully. “We also initiated an ongoing series of topical executive fora. By using the unique convening power of the White House, we’re bringing together industry executives with Cabinet Secretaries and Deputies to share threat intelligence and drive collaboration at the highest levels possible. Among these was the National Cyber Workforce and Education Summit in July. At the Summit, ONCD announced the development of a National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy. A resulting RFI received over 150 responses from a broad section of stakeholders. ONCD is reviewing those and working to publish the full strategy, incorporating many of those inputs, in the coming months. “Finally, we worked aggressively with our colleagues across the interagency to bring enhanced security to the federal enterprise. This included overseeing the implementation of Executive Order 14028, deployment of Zero Trust Architecture, release of first-of-its-kind ‘Spring Guidance’ on cybersecurity budgeting and initiating a planning process for post-quantum encryption.”
This still leaves the identity of the next National Cyber Director in question. As the U.S. government bolsters its cyber defenses, replacing Inglis remains a priority. This influential role will develop and coordinate the nation’s cybersecurity strategy.
Asked about any insights as to plans once Chris Inglis retires, the ONCD states:
“With respect to Director Inglis’ retirement — he will retire sometime this year after five decades of public service. At that time, Principal Deputy Kemba Walden will become Acting National Cyber Director and continue to lead the organization with the same passion as she has as Deputy Principal.”
Whether it’s Walden, Easterly or another senior official, the country’s cybersecurity efforts appear to be in good hands.
The post Who Will Be the Next National Cyber Director? appeared first on Security Intelligence.
Cybersecurity officers tasked with finding and mitigating vulnerabilities in government organizations are already operating at capacity—and it’s not getting any easier.
First, the constant push for fast paced, develop-test-deploy cycles continuously introduces risk of new vulnerabilities. Then there are changes in mission at the agency level, plus competing priorities to develop while simultaneously trying to secure everything (heard of DevSecOps?). Without additional capacity, it’s difficult to find exploitable critical vulnerabilities, remediate at scale and execute human-led offensive testing of the entire attack surface.
The traditional remedy for increased security demands has been to increase penetration testing in the tried and true fashion: hire a consulting firm or a single (and usually junior) FTE to pentest the assets that are glaring red. That method worked for most agencies, through 2007 anyway. In 2022, however, traditional methodology isn’t realistic. It doesn’t address the ongoing deficiencies in security testing capacity or capability. It’s also too slow and doesn’t scale for government agencies.
So in the face of an acute cybersecurity talent shortage, what’s a mission leader’s best option if they want to improve and expand their cybersecurity testing program, discover and mitigate vulnerabilities rapidly, and incorporate findings into their overall intelligence collection management framework?
Security leaders should ask themselves the following questions as they look to scale their offensive and vulnerability intelligence programs:
There is a way to kick-start a better security testing experience—in a FedRAMP Moderate environment with a diverse community of security researchers that provide scale to support the largest of directorates with global footprints. The Synack Platform pairs the talents of the Synack Red Team, a group of elite bug hunters, with continuous scanning and reporting capabilities.
Together, this pairing empowers cybersecurity officers to know what’s being tested, where it’s happening, and how much testing is being done with vulnerability intelligence. Correlated with publicly available information (PAI) and threat intelligence feeds, the blend of insights can further enhance an agency’s offensive cybersecurity stance and improve risk reduction efforts.
Synack helps government agencies mitigate cybersecurity hiring hurdles and the talent gap by delivering the offensive workforce needed quickly and at scale to ensure compliance and reduce risk. And we’re trusted by dozens of government agencies. By adding Synack Red Team mission findings into workflows for vulnerability assessment, security operations teams are given the vulnerability data needed to make faster and more informed decisions.
Intrigued? Let’s set up an intelligent demo. If you’re attending the Intelligence & National Security Summit at the Gaylord in National Harbor, Md., next week, we’ll be there attending sessions and chatting with officers at Kiosk 124. We hope to see you there!
Luke Luckett is Senior Product Marketing Manager at Synack.
The post Accelerated Decision-making in Cybersecurity Requires Actionable Vulnerability Intelligence appeared first on Synack.
It’s natural to wonder who makes up the Synack Red Team (SRT), our dedicated team of 1,500+ security researchers, and how they ended up finding vulnerabilities in our customers’ IT systems (with permission, of course).
Companies want assurance they’re not opening the front door to just anybody. Much like you wouldn’t want a stranger in your home without a warm introduction from a mutual friend, we’ll explain how SRT researchers become part of an elite, global community of ethical hackers with diverse skill sets.
One of the strengths of the SRT comes from its diverse community; our SRT members are top researchers in their respective fields—academia, government and the private sector. They hail from countries all around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Human ingenuity takes many forms, and it’s that richness of difference that makes the SRT able to take on a seemingly endless list of security testing and tasks.
Before joining the team, each prospective SRT member must first complete a 5-step vetting process that is designed to assess skill and trustworthiness. Historically, less than 10% of applicants have been accepted into the SRT, as we strive to add only those trusted individuals who will contribute positive results without excess noise to the platform. While our process loosely resembles bug bounty models, Synack sets the bar higher.
Synack’s community team monitors online behavior from SRT members and removes SRT members immediately when required. Synack maintains a common standard and reward level across the SRT, allowing our clients to benefit from the clear understanding and agreement between SRT members and Synack for what constitutes a thorough report deserving of a high reward. They have collectively earned millions of dollars and have found thousands of vulnerabilities for Synack clients, including the U.S. Army and Air Force, the Centers for Disease Control and Protection and the Internal Revenue Service.
The Synack Platform ultimately powers our researchers. Synack works closely with clients to accurately scope testing and instruct them on how to use the Platform effectively.
The Platform is also where SRT researchers submit findings to be triaged by our Vulnerability Operations team. VulnOps ensures that quality results are delivered to the client in a variety of formats (e.g. easily digestible reports, integration of data into existing security software). Clients are also able to communicate directly with researchers for questions or follow up.
All SRT traffic goes through Synack’s VPN LaunchPoint to provide control and assurance around pentesting traffic. LaunchPoint focuses penetration testing traffic through one source, pauses or stops testing at the push of a button, provides complete visibility into the researcher’s testing activity with full packet capture, time-stamps traffic for auditing purposes and allows for data cleansing and deletion of sensitive customer data by Synack after it is no longer needed for testing.
Setting the bar higher allows Synack to work with clients who need additional assurance. Recently, we completed the requirements to achieve our FedRAMP Moderate “In Progress” level, which allows us to work with almost any U.S. federal agency. In past years, we’ve participated in Hack the Pentagon and several public hacking competitions for U.S. defense agencies, such as a 2019 effort in Las Vegas to find critical weaknesses in the F-15 fighter jet.
Malicious actors don’t need any clearance to hack into systems. Synack takes the task of combatting those bad actors seriously and our teams–from the Red Team to VulnOps–have worked to ensure that our clients receive vulnerability reports with actionable, secure information. We continue to innovate in the security testing and pentesting-as-a-service industry, ensuring privacy and security for all our clients while providing clear visibility into all testing through our trusted technology.
Interested in our work with the public sector? Click here.
The post Building Trust with a Vetted Team of Security Researchers appeared first on Synack.
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