In our recent special Hot Ones-style episode of Detection at Scale, Panther CEO Will Lowe and Founder & CTO Jack Naglieri sit down to taste hot sauces and talk hot topics in the field of cybersecurity. Jack shares his evolution from security professionals to founders, emphasizing the importance of experience and understanding attacker profiles.

Jack also gives his insights on the foundational skills to becoming a detection engineer, including building detection engineering functions and having war room experience. He also discusses the evolving role of AI in the security field, such as its usefulness in generating code for detection programs.

Topics discussed:

• Jack’s transition from practitioner to company founder, emphasizing the importance of saying yes to opportunities and keeping an open mind.
• Building detection engineering functions with a focus on understanding what needs to be detected and why.
• The significance of measurement in detection engineering and the importance of a growth mindset for continuous improvement.
• The importance of understanding the experiences of security practitioners and software engineers.
• The role of war room experience in understanding attacker profiles and the importance of incident response strategies to prepare for a role as a detection engineer.
• The importance of sharing knowledge and experiences within the cybersecurity community.

Resources Mentioned: Jack Naglieri’s Substack

In a recent episode of the Detection at Scale podcast recorded at the RSA conference, Jack chats with Corey Quinn, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, an AWS cost-management agency. They talked about the intersection of security and billing in the context of AWS environments, highlighting the significance of observability through billing data to enhance security measures.

Corey also discussed key offenders in AWS services for security and highlighted the challenges companies face in determining optimal investments in security services. Throughout our discussion, Corey offers valuable takeaways on navigating the evolving landscape of AWS security practices and optimizing billing strategies for enhanced cloud security.

Topics discussed:

• The importance of observability via billing data to bolster AWS security measures and optimize investments in security services.
• How to identify key security offenders in AWS services to enhance cloud security practices and mitigate potential breaches.
• The challenges in determining optimal security investments within AWS environments.
• Detecting potential breaches through AWS billing insights and the significance of understanding billing intricacies for security enhancements.
• The impact of billing data on identifying security vulnerabilities and navigating the AWS security landscape with enhanced strategies.
• The role of services like Route 53 in bolstering security measures and considerations for AWS spending on security services.

Resources Mentioned:

• Corey Quinn on LinkedIn
• The Duckbill Group website

In this episode, Jack Naglieri speaks to Jeff Bollinger, Director of Incident Response and Detection Engineering at LinkedIn, who shares valuable insights on his journey in security, key technological shifts he's witnessed, and his approach to threat intelligence, incident response, and monitoring.

Jeff highlights the importance of contextual understanding in security operations and emphasized the critical role of human intuition, adaptability, and creativity in addressing security challenges. He also discussed the need for a balanced team with diverse skill sets and his views on the evolving role of AI in security operations.

Topics discussed:

• Technological shifts in the field of incident response and detection engineering, from the Y2K era to the present.
• The nuances of monitoring behaviors and moving towards higher-level monitoring: it’s useful but imperfect because humans can be unpredictable.
• Automation in security operations and how human analysts are still important and relevant because they have intuition that AI does not.
• Incorporating threat intelligence effectively in security programs: knowing what your scale is and what threats correspond to it.
• Building effective incident response programs and key considerations in security operations.