I recently caught up with Phil Guimond, Principal Cloud Security Architect at ViacomCBS. He describes his role as a fancy way of saying he likes to be involved in All The Things™. This includes cloud security and architecture, application security, penetration testing, and digital forensics and incident response, and even vendor reviews and risk management from time to time. He works in a very cross-functional team. We had a great discussion, and I wanted to share it with all of you.

Penetration testing is a common technique used to analyze the security posture of IT infrastructure. Web application penetration testing can assist you in identifying the potential security weaknesses in your web-based applications so that they can be fixed before attackers exploit them.

For over a year the future has lacked clarity. As parts of the world start to open up and the life sciences industry ramps back up to pre-pandemic activity, the fog of uncertainty is starting to lift. We are seeing an acceleration of digital transformation across the Life Sciences industry with the adoption of decentralized trials, real world evidence, and remote monitoring.

At Elastic, we internally use, test, and provide feedback on all of our products. For example, the Information Security team is helping the Product team build a stronger solution for our customers. The InfoSec team is an extremely valuable resource who acts not only as an extension of Quality Assurance/Testing, but also as a data custodian.

Business decision-makers are inundated today with messages about the importance of digital transformation and innovation. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, you're told, you need to take full advantage of the cloud, move to microservices, replace your VMs with containers and so on. Yet what often gets lost or overlooked in those conversations is the digital risk that goes hand-in-hand with digital transformation.

Machine learning is a loaded term. While machine learning offers amazing potential for advancing technologies, it often gets used as a marketing buzzword describing glorified pattern recognition. So it becomes increasingly difficult to know if the application of machine learning to existing technology is going to break new ground or sell more licenses. That’s the problem that Frank Fischer, Product Marketing for Snyk Code, explores in his RSAC 2021 talk ML in SAST: Disruption or Distraction.

The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation and telework on a scale never seen before. Employees are working from anywhere and collaboration in the cloud has skyrocketed. But this new environment has expanded the cyber attack surface, compromising critical U.S. infrastructure and lives of our citizens. The recent slew of major cyber attacks including SolarWinds, Microsoft Exchange and Colonial Pipeline, has moved cybersecurity improvements to the top of the agenda for the U.S.