TDL 008 | Defending the Frontline: Ransomware, AI, and Real-World Lessons

Summary

In this episode of “The Defender’s Log,” host David Redekop interviews Alexander Rau, a cybersecurity partner at KPMG, about the evolving incident response (IR) landscape.

Rau notes that the past summer was exceptionally busy for IR, driven largely by zero-day firewall vulnerabilities. He highlights that threat actors are innovating, even using AI chatbots for initial ransom negotiations.

They discuss the challenges of the “human element.” Rau warns that multi-factor authentication (MFA) is no longer a silver bullet against Business Email Compromise (BEC) due to threats like session token stealing and sophisticated deepfakes.

Rau expresses significant concern for small-to-medium businesses (SMBs), which he calls the “backbone of the Canadian industry.” He observes that SMBs often lack the resources for proactive cybersecurity, only prioritizing it after a devastating breach. When an incident occurs, Rau says his team’s role is to bring a calm, methodical “marathon, not a sprint” approach to the client’s chaos.

Rau’s final advice, especially for SMBs, is to ask for help. He stresses that investing in proactive security, even through a small managed services provider, is far cheaper than the costs of recovering from an attack.

Full episode of The Defender’s Log here:

Defending the Frontline: Ransomware, AI, and Real-World Lessons | Alexander Rau | The Defender’s Log

TL;DR