Black Hat 2024: Cyber Resilience, Endpoint Tooling, Bouncing Back Quickly

There's a host of causes for network downtime — crippling attacks, malware, corrupt software, and natural disasters, to name a few. So how best to ensure your network and its endpoints can withstand the inevitable storms and get back to full operation ASAP?

That's the essence of "cyber resilience," according to Nicko van Someren, CTO of Absolute, in this conversation with contributing editor Terry Sweeney during his visit to the Dark Reading News Desk at Black Hat USA 2024.

In addition to good hygiene with regular backups, organizations must consistently install and manage security controls on their devices, all in service of cyber resilience. This step is critical, in fact, "to bouncing back after a real attack [and] critical to maintaining that good security posture," notes van Someren. "Cyber resilience is really all about the ability to bounce back as strong if not stronger," than before a service-affecting incident, he adds.

Boards of directors must also adopt a cyber resilience mindset, van Someren advises, especially since the board's central duty is to manage risk for the organization. Given the board's roles in oversight and management, "they need to talk to their [technology] management team about how you approach cyber resilience," he says, and make sure it's clear what the plans are. Van Someren also encourages asking lots of questions. "'Have you checked those plans?' and 'What tools do you have in place in the face of adverse circumstances?'," are also productive queries to get that conversation moving, he adds.

Nicko van Someren serves as Absolute's CTO, where he oversees the direction and strategic vision of Absolute's product architecture and security roadmap. He has more than two decades of experience leading, developing, and bringing to market disruptive security technologies. Prior to Absolute, Nicko was CSO and CIO at nanopay Inc., a financial services technology company. He has also served as CTO at the Linux Foundation, Good Technology (now part of BlackBerry), and nCipher (now part of Entrust Datacard), as well as the chief security architect at Juniper Networks. Nicko is as a board member and advisor for numerous startups and is a mentor for the Techstars accelerator program in Boulder, Colo. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and fellowships from the Royal Academy of Engineering and British Computer Society.