EP222 From Post-IR Lessons to Proactive Security: Deconstructing Mandiant M-Trends

Guests: Kirstie Failey @ Google Threat Intelligence Group Scott Runnels @ Mandiant Incident Response   Topics: What is the hardest thing about turning distinct incident reports into a fun to read and useful report like M-Trends? How much are the lessons and recommendations skewed by the fact that they are all “post-IR” stories? Are “IR-derived” security lessons the best way to improve security? Isn’t this a bit like learning how to build safely from fires vs learning safety engineering? The report implies that F500 companies suffer from certain security issues despite their resources, does this automatically mean that smaller companies suffer from the same but more? "Dwell time" metrics sound obvious, but is there magic behind how this is done? Sometimes “dwell tie going down” is not automatically the defender’s win, right? What is the expected minimum dwell time? If “it depends”, then what does it  depend on? Impactful outliers vs general trends (“by the numbers”), what teaches us more about security? Why do we seem to repeat the mistakes so much in security? Do we think it is useful to give the same advice repeatedly if the data implies that it is correct advice but people clearly do not do it? Resources: M-Trends 2025 report Mandiant Attack Lifecycle EP205 Cybersecurity Forecast 2025: Beyond the Hype and into the Reality EP147 Special: 2024 Security Forecast Report  

Om Podcasten

Cloud Security Podcast by Google focuses on security in the cloud, delivering security from the cloud, and all things at the intersection of security and cloud. Of course, we will also cover what we are doing in Google Cloud to help keep our users' data safe and workloads secure. We’re going to do our best to avoid security theater, and cut to the heart of real security questions and issues. Expect us to question threat models and ask if something is done for the data subject’s benefit or just for organizational benefit. We hope you’ll join us if you’re interested in where technology overlaps with process and bumps up against organizational design. We’re hoping to attract listeners who are happy to hear conventional wisdom questioned, and who are curious about what lessons we can and can’t keep as the world moves from on-premises computing to cloud computing.