Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of cyber attacks originating in Russia that target the United States, European Union and EU member-states. In Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine—a conflict that has claimed some 13,000 lives—Russia has employed cyber tactics on a regular basis, including release against Ukraine of the Petya and NotPetya viruses.
Those attacks had consequences far beyond Ukraine’s borders. The NonPetya attack, initiated against a small tech firm in Ukraine, spread to global businesses and government agencies throughout Europe and crossed the Atlantic to the United States. The West should closely examine the Ukrainian experience, as Russia perfects tactics that could be turned against Europe and the United States as well.
Improving the security of the Internet will require sharing knowledge and experience, promoting greater awareness on cyber security, developing cyber security capacities, and deepening communication and cooperation among different stakeholders. The Panel will discuss the nature of the threat as well as what governments, international organizations and businesses should do in these areas.
Speaker Bios:
Alex Stamos is a cybersecurity expert, business leader and entrepreneur working to improve the security and safety of the Internet through his teaching and research at Stanford University. Stamos is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford’s Freeman-Spogli Institute, a William J. Perry Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution. Prior to joining Stanford, Alex served as the Chief Security Officer of Facebook. In this role, Stamos led a team of engineers, researchers, investigators and analysts charged with understanding and mitigating information security risks to the company and safety risks to the 2.5 billion people on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. During his time at Facebook, he led the company’s investigation into manipulation of the 2016 US election and helped pioneer several successful protections against these new classes of abuse. As a senior executive, Alex represented Facebook and Silicon Valley to regulators, lawmakers and civil society on six continents, and has served as a bridge between the interests of the Internet policy community and the complicated reality of platforms operating at billion-user scale.
Oleh Derevianko is a business and social entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and chairman of the Board of ISSP — Information Systems Security Partners — a private international cybersecurity company founded in Ukraine in 2008 and currently operating in seven countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Middle Asia. Having a strong presence in the countries at the front line of cyber and hybrid war, such as Ukraine, and serving both private and public sectors, ISSP provides unique expertise for APT attacks analysis, detection and response. Derevianko is also a co-founder of International Cyber Academy (Kyiv), which provides worldclass learning opportunities for students who want to become skilled professionals in a world that depends on the use of cyberspace. In 2015–2016 he served as Deputy Minister, Chief of Staff at Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.
Dr. Sarah Lewis Cortes has managed Security at American Express, Putnam Investments, Fidelity, and Biogen, among others. A postoctoral researcher at ACSO Digital Crime Lab, she performs training and consultation with the FBI and Interpol. She earned her degrees at Harvard University and Northeastern, and her research focuses on threat intelligence and the darknet, privacy and privacy law, international criminal legal treaties (MLATs), and digital forensics. At Putnam Investments, which manages over $1.3 trillion in assets, Sarah was SVP, Security. She oversaw Putnam’s recovery on 9/11 when parent company Marsh & McLennan’s World Trade Center 99th floor data center was destroyed.
Jason Min is the Head of Business Development at Check Point Software Technologies. In this role he sources, evaluates, and executes M&A transactions. Jason is responsible for overseeing business development and sale enablement activities that involve Check Point technology partners. Since joining Check Point in 2014, Jason has contributed to the success of Check Point’s major acquisitions and partnership growth. Prior to joining Check Point, Jason was at Highland Capital, a global venture capital firm, where he sourced and executed investments in security and software companies. Before working at Highland Capital, Jason was at General Atlantic, a $28B global private equity firm, where he focused on security and software investments across all stages of company growth.
Dafina Toncheva invests in emerging technologies in the enterprise space with focus on Enterprise SaaS applications and security. Dafina joined USVP in 2012 and has led investments in and joined the boards of InsideSales.com, Apptimize, Luma Health, Arkose Labs and Raken. Most recently, Dafina served on the board of Prevoty, a leader in application security, who was acquired by Imperva where USVP was the lead investor and largest shareholder. Prior to joining USVP, Dafina was a principal investor with Tugboat Ventures since 2010. Before that, she spent two years at Venrock helping to expand the firm’s investments in SaaS, virtualization, security, infrastructure and enterprise applications. Dafina led the first institutional investment round in Cloudflare which has since transformed into one of the most successful Internet security startups in Silicon Valley.
Nataliya Mykolska is the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Fellow at Stanford Center for Democracy Development and Rule of Law. Before coming to Stanford Nataliya was the Trade Representative of Ukraine - Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade. In the government, Nataliya was responsible for developing and implementing consistent, predictable and efficient trade policy. She focused on export strategy and Ukrainian exportpromotion, free trade agreements, protecting Ukrainian trade interests in the World Trade Organization (WTO), dialogue with Ukrainian exporters. Nataliya was the Vice-Chair of the International Trade Council and the Intergovernmental Committee on International Trade.
Moderator:
Steven Pifer is a William J. Perry fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), where he is affiliated with FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and Europe Center. He is also a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. A retired Foreign Service officer, Pifer’s more than 25 years with the State Department focused on U.S. relations with the former Soviet Union and Europe, as well as arms control and security issues. He served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for Russia and Ukraine (2001-2004), ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000), and special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council (1996-1997).
