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What if securing buildings was as easy as your smartphone? – Damon McDougald, Blaine Frederick, Punit Minocha – ESW #382

The future is here! Imagine if you could get into the office, a datacenter, or even an apartment building as easily as you unlock your smartphone. Alcatraz AI is doing exactly that with technology that works similarly to how smartphones unlock using your face. It works in the dark, if you shave off your beard, and so quickly you don't even need to slow down for the scan - you can just keep on walking. We don't often cover physical security, so this interview is going to be a treat for us. There are SO many questions to ask here, particularly for our hosts who have done physical penetration tests, social engineering, and tailgating in the past to get past physical security measures. This week...

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Full Show Notes
Segment One

What if securing buildings was as easy as your smartphone? – Blaine Frederick – ESW #382

The future is here! Imagine if you could get into the office, a datacenter, or even an apartment building as easily as you unlock your smartphone. Alcatraz AI is doing exactly that with technology that works similarly to how smartphones unlock using your face. It works in the dark, if you shave off your beard, and so quickly you don't even need to slow down for the scan - you can just keep on walking.

We don't often cover physical security, so this interview is going to be a treat for us. There are SO many questions to ask here, particularly for our hosts who have done physical penetration tests, social engineering, and tailgating in the past to get past physical security measures.

Guest
VP of Product at Alcatraz AI

Blaine Frederick serves as the VP of Product at Alcatraz AI, a global provider of frictionless, AI-powered biometric access control solutions revolutionizing security through facial authentication. In this role, Blaine leads the Product and Engineering teams. He brings 20+ years of experience in the Physical Security industry with a specific expertise in the Biometric space. Prior to his work at Alcatraz, he served as Co-Founder and Principal of BDIS which provides Consultation and Professional Services for the physical security market. Previously, Blaine held the role of VP of Product for EyeLock, where he captained the firm’s vision for iris authentication products and solutions in physical and logical security as well as numerous other commercial applications. Blaine also acted as the former Director of Product Management at STANLEY Security, a global division of Stanley Black & Decker where he led the creation of the industry-leading security management software suite, Commander. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.

Segment Two

Funding, AI controls your PC, Cyberstarts stops Sunrise, public cyber goes private – ESW #382

This week, in the enterprise security news:

  1. the latest cybersecurity fundings
  2. Cyera acquires Trail Security
  3. Sophos acquires Secureworks
  4. new companies and products
  5. more coverage on Cyberstarts’ sunrise program
  6. AI can control your PC
  7. public cybersecurity companies are going private
  8. Splunk and Palo Alto beef

All that and more, on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly.

List of Articles

Adrian Sanabria

  1. FUNDING: Select fundings from the Security, Funded newsletter: Socket, Reality Defender, and Stream.Security
    1. Socket lands a $40 million Series B to "save the world from open-source attacks"
    2. Reality Defender Expands Series A to $33 Million to Enhance AI Detection Capabilities
    3. Stream.Security Secures $30 Million in Series B Funding for "Real Time Cloud Threat & Exposure Detection and Response"
  2. ACQUISITIONS: Cyera acquires Trail Security for $162M; Cyera is now raising at a $3B valuation
  3. ACQUISITIONS: Sophos to Acquire Secureworks to Accelerate Cybersecurity Services and Technology for Organizations Worldwide
  4. NEW COMPANIES: AI Data Compliance and Security Posture Enforcement ≡ Chorology
  5. NEW PRODUCTS: Introducing EVA — The Employee Verification App
  6. CYBERSTARTS: This VC Built A Cybersecurity Unicorn Machine. Then Came A Conflict Of Interest Mess.
  7. LOSSES: BlackBerry Cuts Cylance Spend to Focus on Profitable Areas
  8. FINES: SEC fines 4 firms for sloppy incident disclosures related to SolarWinds case
  9. WINS: Anthropic’s new AI model can control your PC
  10. ESSAYS: Platforms vs. best of breed is a wrong way of looking at the industry
  11. ESSAYS: Eleven cybersecurity companies have gone private in the past five years (Cole Grolmus)
  12. BEEFS: Splunk vs Palo Alto Networks
  13. BUG BOUNTIES: Security research on Private Cloud Compute – Apple Security Research
  14. SQUIRREL: Reverse Engineering Redbox

Ayman Elsawah

  1. Reflections From TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 As a Security Professional

    This week I had the opportunity to attend TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. I think it was the first time I have ever attended a non-security conference.

    I didn’t know what to expect. Everything I knew about Disrupt was from the show Silicon Valley.

  2. AI x Cybersecurity w/Kevin Mandia, Rami Habal, Jake Seid, and Loris Degioanni

    Ayman went to a cybersecurity happy hour, hosted at a $68M estate in the SF Bay Area! It was hosted by a hacker house called AGI House.

Segment Three

Today’s Hybrid Work Era: Integrated Approach & Implementing Identity – ESW #382

Today’s cyber threat actors are capitalizing on organizations’ identity vulnerabilities, such as MFA. Nearly 75% of cloud security failures now result from mismanaged identities, access, and privileges, and the identity attack surface is becoming more challenging to protect as companies expand their cloud environments and supply chains to meet their IT needs.

Damon McDougald, Global Cyber Protection lead at Accenture, joins Security Weekly's Mandy Logan to share his perspective on why identity is so crucial in today’s hybrid work environment, the innovations that are changing the game when it comes to cybersecurity, the top challenges companies face in implementing identity, and how identity can help keep threat actors at bay.

Segment Resources: https://www.accenture.com/us-en/services/security/digital-identity

Hybrid workforces are here to stay. This means protecting today’s workforce requires securing access to applications from any device, anywhere, while maintaining a seamless user experience. Punit Minocha, the EVP of Business Development & Corporate Strategy at Zscaler, joins SC Media to discuss the challenges companies are facing with securing their hybrid workforces and how integrated, best-of-breed solutions from Zscaler and Okta deliver zero trust security that helps companies protect their data, infrastructure, and employees as they scale and innovate.

Segment Resources: https://www.okta.com/press-room/press-releases/zscaler-and-okta-enhance-enterprise-cybersecurity-with-new-zero-trust/

This segment is sponsored by Oktane, to view all of the CyberRisk TV coverage from Oktane visit https://securityweekly.com/oktane.

Guests
Global Security Services Lead at Accenture

Damon McDougald is the Global Security Services Lead at Accenture. Damon has assisted his clients for more than 20 years, including some of the globe’s largest organizations, to help modernize, transform, and evolve their security controls to secure their digital core. Damon leads a global capability team of 7,000 dedicated security professionals providing advisory, system integration, and managed security services to organizations in every industry. Damon has delivered over 100 successful projects with over 50 global organizations.

EVP, Business Development & Corporate Strategy at Zscaler

Punit Minocha is an established security executive with a history of nurturing key partnerships to develop robust technology ecosystems, driving strategic growth initiatives including mergers and acquisitions, and overall corporate strategy at industry-leading organizations, including Palo Alto Networks and Trend Micro. As the Executive Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at Zscaler, Minocha is responsible for corporate and strategic development, including acquisitions, investments, technology alliances, partnerships, new business initiatives, and strategic planning. Minocha earned his MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, and his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire.

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