In this episode of Security Nation, we’re joined by Don Spies and Kim Grauer of Chainalysis. They discuss the relationship between ransomware and cryptocurrency and how Chainalysis leverages unique characteristics of the latter to combat the former.
Stick around for our Rapid Rundown, where Tod and Jen discuss a newly discovered, very old crypto vulnerability (and by crypto we mean encryption!), as well as take a look at election security news here in the wake of literally hundreds of audits of polling results.
Kim Grauer
Kim Grauer is the Director of Research at Chainalysis, where she examines trends in cryptocurrency economics and crime. She was trained in economics at the London School of Economics and in politics at Oxford University. Previously, she explored technological advancements in developing countries as an academic research associate at the London School of Economics and was an economics researcher at the New York City Economic Development Corporation.
Don Spies
Don Spies is the Director of Strategic Initiatives for Chainalysis, where he works with federal agencies to address their cryptocurrency needs. This includes fighting terrorism, enforcing sanctions, and detecting money laundering. Previously, Don held various roles at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He also spent 13 years as an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Army Reserve.
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Black History Month is a time for every person, from all different backgrounds to honor and celebrate the achievements of Black and African Americans in the U.S. and their impact on world history. In honor of Black History Month, we would like to recognize some of our amazing team members who have made an impact on our company culture, embody our core values, and exude excellence. We pride ourselves on creating a safe space for everyone to be their authentic selves. Hear what Black History Month means to them!
Junior Carreira, Service Desk Technician, Boston, MA
What does Black History Month mean to you?
Black History Month to me means an opportunity for the black community to reconnect with their heritage and ancestry while celebrating how our accomplishments and heroes have impacted our ways of being today. It means legacy and continuing to add onto that legacy. It also stands as a reminder of our resilience and that our fight isn’t over as long as we’re still here.
What is one thing that you feel people can do to effect positive change?
I believe that one of the biggest ways that people can make the world a better place is to recognize the humanity/life of others and to respect them for who they are.
Which film or piece of literature was most impactful or life-changing for you and why?
My high school unfortunately did not offer a lot of STEM courses, so I took a lot of arts and drama classes. I had a chance to discover a lot of literature that shaped my life today. One of those was a book called, “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement,” by Angela Davis. It’s a collection of interviews, scholarly essays, and speeches that cover several different topics that are relevant today, such as Palestine, Ferguson, BLM and mass incarceration. The biggest impact this book had on me is that I learned about how important mass movements can be to effect positive change, and this also helped me learn how to work with others both in school and in life.
How did you get into cybersecurity?
I’ve always been interested in technology, specifically when it comes to cybersecurity. I got interested in it because my cousin was in the military and then transitioned to a security engineer. I remember asking him a bunch of questions at a young age, even though I never understood anything.
What was your path to Rapid7?
Prior to Rapid7, I had the opportunity to be part of the 2020 Hack.Diversity cohort, which allowed me to develop and grow my professionalism, leadership, communication, and many other skills. Developing these skills was essential and helped me through my interview process, during my internship, and even now as I continue to grow. Overall, being part of the Hack.Diversity cohort after graduating from UMass Boston with a major in IT created a path for me to Rapid7.
La-Qiana Perez-Saxon, Legal Counsel, Boston, MA
What does Black History Month mean to you?
Black History Month is a great time for every American to reflect on our past and present in relation to not only the plight, but also the contributions of Black Americans. While I think it is very important to remember the plight of Black people in America and the figures who pioneered change, I also think it is equally important for every American to learn and reflect on the contributions and accomplishments made by many Black Americans. This lack of knowledge is what I believe contributes to the “us vs. them” and “my country” mentality still plaguing our nation. It logically follows that if someone doesn’t see the person next to them as a meaningful contributor to an accomplishment, they will almost always have difficulty seeing that person as a rightful beneficiary of the resulting fruits.
What is one thing that you feel people can do to effect positive change?
I think education is truly the key. Black history should not be an optional education topic. Black history is American history, but has been either siloed, or presented as little more than a textbook footnote. This must end. It would be nice to get to a point where we can also ask non-Black individuals what Black History Month means to them, where Black people are truly seen and valued for their contributions to this great nation. Many of us grow up learning about Thomas Edison’s invention of the lightbulb but learn nothing about Lewis Latimer’s 1881 invention of the actual filament that made the lightbulb a success. Learning the role that Black people played in America’s speedy rise to world power will go far in improving the way many Black people are valued and still viewed today.
Which film or piece of literature was most impactful or life-changing for you and why?
Without pause, I have to say “The Allegory of The Cave,” by Plato. As an educated woman of color coming from a severely disadvantaged background, for more reasons than the obvious, I found this reading to be very insightful. It’s a great illustration (albeit fictional) of how a person’s environment can be one of the most powerful forces in forming who they are and how they see the world. Additionally, how without additional knowledge we give others the ability to manipulate us into believing what they will and seeing things as they do. Even more, it highlights the responsibility of those who are fortunate enough to break free from the bondage of the metaphorical cave and experience the splendor that is true freedom. Tim McGraw may have put it best: “When you get where you’re going, don’t forget to turn back around and help the next one in line.”
How did you get into cybersecurity?
At a time in the industry where cybersecurity was just at its infancy, my first job after leaving college was with a global internet service provider that happened to have a security department. My first role with the company was an Internet Abuse Investigator assisting local, state and federal law enforcement in tracking down people who would utilize the Internet in the commission of a crime. The things I witnessed and accomplished during my time in this role is what really got me hooked into cybersecurity, and ultimately what put me on a path to Rapid7.
Reuben Williams, Customer Advisor, Arlington, VA
What does Black History Month mean to you?
Black History Month (BHM) is a time to reflect on the struggles, as well as celebrating the resilience and achievements, made by black people. It’s a special period where I can slow myself down and really explore the rich history of people who look like me. It’s also a time when I am humbled and appreciative toward those who blazed the trails that we all now traverse. BHM is joyful and rewarding, understanding that we are all connected, and that BHM is everyone’s history—a history that can truly have a positive impact on the lives of everyone from every race.
What is one thing that you feel people can do to effect positive change?
Building a true dialogue is what first comes to mind. I’m a firm believer that in order to effect positive change, one must be open-minded, objective, and willing enough to listen to those with opposing viewpoints, with the mindset that something can be learned and achieved in such a dialogue.
Which film or piece of literature was most impactful of life-changing for you and why?
A film that has impacted me more than I expected is “Hidden Figures.” It’s a film that represents what I believe is an overlooked segment of the population when it comes to role models in film—black women. As a father of a daughter, it was very gratifying watching this film with her where examples of strong and intelligent women exhibited their determination to not allow barriers and challenges from different directions stop them from reaching their goals. These women are true heroes on the big screen as well as in life.
Terrica Byrd, VP, Change Management, Remote, U.S.
What does Black History Month mean to you?
To me, Black History Month is an opportunity for us to collectively remember and celebrate the sacrifices, contributions, and accomplishments of an amazing and often underappreciated group within our society. As someone who shares this history, it’s also a time of great pride and a call to action.
What is one thing that you feel people can do to effect positive change?
I think the one thing people can do to effect positive change is to embody empathy, personally and professionally. Empathy removes artificial barriers and encourages the desire to understand and meet the needs of others. I can’t think of anything more impactful.
How did you get into cybersecurity?
I had a very specific set of criteria that primarily focused on cultural fit, relevance, and a shared philosophy on organizational change. For me, relevance meant aligning with a global, technology-focused company. I wasn’t sure this really existed, but Rapid7 checked all of the boxes. The fact that it’s cybersecurity is icing on the cake! I feel very fortunate to do the work that I love for a company that I believe in and an industry that has no limits.
At Rapid7, our software engineers defend the digital world and design the future of security. With a supportive, collaborative team, immense learning and development opportunities to fine-tune and hone in on skills and knowledge, opportunities to work with innovative technology, and the pursuance of continuous innovation to achieve secure advancement for all, joining our team of Vulnerability and Risk Management software engineers is a no-brainer.
As we continue to build this team, we are looking for engineers who exemplify our core values and are passionate about making a positive impact on our customers.
Read on to meet and learn more about our North America VRM Software Engineering team, why they chose to bring their talents to Rapid7, and why you should, too!
Courtney Wood: Software Engineer II, VRM (Los Angeles)
Rapid7 is an amazing company to learn and grow your career. As someone who began my career at Rapid7, I was intimidated by my lack of cybersecurity knowledge. Fortunately, I joined a team full of passionate engineers who were more than willing to teach me about the cybersecurity landscape. The people at Rapid7 truly make this an amazing place to work. The VRM software engineering team is a bright, enthusiastic, and determined group of people who consistently exhibit a “never done” attitude. On top of that, they are a team that loves to have fun! Whether it’s KBBQ dinners, team-building activities, or just a competitive game of ping pong, there is always something exciting going on in the office.
David Castellanos: Manager, Engineering, VRM (Toronto)
Cybersecurity is a dynamic and ever-changing field that takes on the problems of an ever-connected world. Sophisticated cyber-actors and nation-states exploit vulnerabilities to steal information and money and are developing capabilities to disrupt, destroy, or threaten the delivery of essential services. At Rapid7, we are tackling those challenges head on. We develop software solutions to help private companies as well as public institutions secure their information infrastructure. We develop a range of software solutions, from cloud-based services to on-premises software. We need engaged and committed software engineers who enjoy solving complex and often difficult problems to simplify security practices for our customers. We need creative people that can collaborate, challenge us, and help us grow and innovate. We offer a collaborative environment that will both challenge and help you (and us) grow together.
Pearce Barry: Manager, Engineering, VRM (Austin)
Enjoy “taking the offensive” with your work? Our Offensive Security teams build and improve a number of well-known, top-tier security applications, such as Metasploit Framework and Metasploit Pro. These teams also create exciting new security apps, like AttackerKB (The Attacker Knowledge Base). Working alongside the bright and curious software developers on these teams provides an amazing opportunity to learn and grow while helping make our customers more secure with your contributions. In addition, your impact has the potential to be felt even beyond our customers with the open source (Metasploit Framework) and open data (AttackerKB) nature of some of our projects!
Jimmy Cancilla: Lead Software Engineer, VRM (Toronto)
We are a full-stack team, and our work spans the technological spectrum. We offer opportunities that include UI development, building and managing cloud-based web services, as well as working with low-level network scanning technologies. We are a diverse team made up of an exceptional group of brilliant engineers who are eager and willing to share their knowledge. By joining the team, not only would you be bringing a unique perspective to the table, but you would also be able to expand your expertise and skills. Also, we have beer on tap in the office!
Richard Tsang: Manager, Engineering, VRM (Toronto)
Do you know about CVE-2013-4866? No? It details a hardcoded PIN in a Smart Bidet giving attackers access to the functionality of the toilet—discomforting to know. Unfortunately, InsightVM doesn’t scan for this, but for all the hundreds of thousands of other vulnerabilities out there, we work to understand and distill this information down into actionable steps that give our customers a peace of mind knowing which risks hide within their environment and what can be done to secure it. If you’re curious of all the various products in existence and ways we can harden (and weaken) security, join our InsightVM Coverage Team and learn of the craziness that is the reality of cybersecurity.
Interested in learning more and joining the herd? Check out our Software Engineer, VRM roles in North America today and read more about our technology in our blog!
Web applications have been growing in complexity over the past several years, while also becoming the preferred method for attackers looking to capitalize on emergent technologies. This is a trend that will only persist and evolve, so it’s crucial to extend your web application testing strategy to your development team’s practices and languages. We’ll say it simply: Managing your overall risk must extend to weaknesses in your web apps and APIs. This webcast will be offered live on two dates—please register by choosing the region closest to you:
Exploitation can happen anywhere across your attack surface, so it’s critical that your vulnerability risk management (VRM) program provides enhanced visibility into web apps as well as traditional on-premises and cloud infrastructure.
Join Forrester’s principal analyst for security and risk professionals, Sandy Carielli, and Hypertherm’s information-security manager, James Thompson, for our Feb. 11 webcast as they discuss:
Best practices and common challenges for a sound VRM strategy
Their thoughts on extending a holistic VRM approach to the application layer
How James uses both InsightVM and InsightAppSec to secure every layer of the modern environment
Why it’s so important to have mitigating controls in place for possible exploitation
And, if your team is considering an expanded presence in the cloud, your solution needs to eliminate as many blind spots across your environment as possible. Start gaining deeper visibility into potential real-time attacks and minimize their ability to create chaos in your world.
We hope to see you there!
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Here at Rapid7, we’re pretty proud of the work that goes into keeping InsightVM a leader in the vulnerability risk management space. We’re constantly investing in and improving InsightVM capabilities so our customers have no trouble seeing and proving value. That said, here’s our roundup of the new and improved features we’ve updated in Q4.
[NEW] Fewer false alarms and faster reporting with InsightVM’s new false positive investigation tool
You can now investigate vulnerability findings as potential false positives directly from your Security Console. If your investigation determines that the finding could indeed be a false positive, you can send the results to Rapid7 for analysis with just one click. For more details, see our help documentation and blog post.
[NEW] Improvements made to the Goals and SLAs wizard
We’re excited to announce that creating a goal or SLA in InsightVM just became a lot simpler. Instead of following a four-step process, we’ve gotten it down to three: use, sort, and define your data, establish the conditions you want to meet, and save your goal using our three-step wizard. This new context-sensitive workflow allows you to create meaningful goals faster and with fewer steps. For more details, see our help documentation and blog post.
[NEW] Creation of Insight Platform accounts for non-admin users
The Rapid7 Insight platform provides data collection, visibility, analytics, and automation to establish a shared point of view between security, IT operations, and DevOps teams. Insight platform accounts are now available for non-admin users of InsightVM. This allows access to InsightVM through insight.rapid7.com. To complete the activation process, check out our help documentation. At the conclusion of this activation process, your Insight account will be used to authenticate your access to InsightVM’s cloud capabilities.
[IMPROVED] More dashboard controls for admins
Administrators now have full visibility on all user-created dashboards in their organization and can delete them if necessary. Simply navigate to the Dashboard Library to see a list of InsightVM dashboards created by other users. The ability for Admins to now delete user-created dashboards eases the pain of managing dashboards across the organization. This is especially beneficial for if an employee leaves – you’ll now have an easy way to manage/remove orphaned dashboards. For more information on managing dashboards in InsightVM, see our help documentation.
[NEW] New Snyk vulnerability content for container assessment
We know many development teams these days are taking advantage of containerized software applications that may contain all of the necessary code, runtime, system tools, and libraries needed to run an application. Despite the benefits of efficiency from a development standpoint, containers may present risks that are often difficult for security teams to identify. This can be attributed to multiple factors, including how fast things change in containerized environments and the types of packages found within these environments.
InsightVM now integrates with Snyk, a leading provider of software composition analysis (SCA) in containerized applications. Snyk provides deep visibility into Open Source Software (OSS) vulnerabilities. With this new integration, InsightVM can consume Java vulnerability content from Snyk Intel Vulnerability DB. No customer action is needed to leverage this integration. Behind the scenes, InsightVM is consuming content from Snyk, building vulnerability checks around this content, and delivering it as checks within the Container Security feature in InsightVM. For more details, see our blog post.
[NEW] Scope and schedule reports with the new report creation wizard
We’ve made it easier to collect, analyze, and report InsightVM data all in one place. Using our Report Creation Wizard powered by Query Builder, you can create customized reports and opt to run recurring reports on a schedule. You can share directly with stakeholders to help you communicate about your work and gain insight into your organization’s vulnerability management program. For more information, see our help documentation.
[NEW] Audit logging for Custom Policy Builder
As organizations continue to harden their policies through customizations, it becomes extremely important to keep track of all these changes, because these customizations may significantly impact an organization’s overall compliance. You can now configure Custom Policy Builder to send audit logs that capture every policy update implemented by your users. These audit logs record which changes were made to a policy, when those changes were applied, and who was responsible for them. Use this new functionality to allow another user or an auditor to view the change history of any policy when needed. For more details, see our help documentation and blog post.
Not an InsightVM customer? Watch a demo of our award-winning vulnerability management solution.
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