Click here for Part I & Part II

Meeting evolving threats head-on with comprehensive cybersecurity solutions

Jeffrey Lipson serves as CEO at Layer 8 Security, a cybersecurity consulting, advisory, and technical services company. From risk management and assessments to staffing, training, monitoring, and incident response, Layer 8 Security helps clients meet rigorous and evolving security and regulatory needs. In his role at the company, Jeff draws on his 26 years of military service, intelligence and communications experience, and cybersecurity industry expertise.

EDWIN WARFIELD: Can you offer our readers a few practical tips to keep themselves and their organizations safe online?

JEFF LIPSON: There’s an age old saying: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. If you get an email—I think most of us recognize there is no longer a prince in Nigeria who wants to share his chest of gold with you. However, there are variations on a theme. If it looks like it doesn’t seem right—if someone is asking you to do something or wire something or take some kind of step… Like, the IRS does not ask you to send them your W-2s via email. They would do so in person. Other kinds of scams that are similar: if you get a request to buy gift cards, these are probably scams. I call it having a healthy dose of skepticism or having good Spidey Sense. That will literally eliminate 95% of the threats that most people face.

Q. How concerned should we be about malware?

A. Malware is always going to increase in sophistication and in lethality. We saw some of the really devastating ones between Petya and NotPetya and some of the others. There’s a lot of money in the hands of nefarious actors. Now they can actually pay for malware development. There is a lot of zero-day [vulnerabilities] out there that still have yet to be exploited. Nation-states are developing zero-days; and even though a Nation-State may release a zero-day against a political opponent, it doesn’t take long before it proliferates through the rest of the community and gets reversed-engineered and can be started to be used against businesses and individuals.

Q. What do you see ahead for your company and industry in the next ten years?

I’ve done a lot of speaking and the future of cybersecurity is often a topic that I am asked to speak on. Our view of the future is all about data privacy. It’s not only securing your data; it’s also about how it is secured. We see things with Cambridge Analytica and Facebook and other big tech companies: Who owns your data? Is it the big tech companies or is it the individual? And so when we start to see some of the laws that are coming down the pike—the EU just passed the General Data Privacy Rules (GDPR), California also just passed new privacy laws— this is going to be the future landscape of cybersecurity.

Security threats are always evolving. This is one of the things about warfare in general, and I do call it warfare for a reason. There’s an evolution. You develop a countermeasure to a specific security threat and the adversary will develop a new set of tools. We call them TTPs—tactics, tools, and procedures or protocols. With each step that you take, there will be a counter step to it. Just like we’ve seen evolution of armor and tanks, there will be an evolution in cybersecurity warfare. We see more and more the use of artificial intelligence to make cybersecurity more lethal. For Layer 8 Security, we’re positioning ourselves to look ahead. We want to be flexible and adaptable—again, that Marine Corp mantra of adapt, overcome, and survive—and so where we see ourselves in 10 years is trying to remain flexible and adaptable, even while we grow. Large organizations can become bureaucratic, and no matter how big we get, we want to remain agile.

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Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

If you're interested in reaching CEOs, please contact edwin.warfield@citybuzz.co

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