#BeCyberSmart: Cyber War — Understanding & Mitigating Cyber Threats to U.S. Business [Part 1]

The recent joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) — authored by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and National Security Agency (NSA) — encourages the cybersecurity community, especially critical infrastructure network defenders, to adopt a heightened state of awareness and to conduct proactive threat hunting in regards to Russian state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threats (APT). 

In this special two-part discussion in our #BeCyberSmart series, McAfee & Taft cybersecurity and privacy attorney Joshua Snavely talks with special guests Donnie Hassletine and Sonia Arista about the current threat landscape and what businesses need to be doing now to protect their organizations.

About our guests

George ‘Donnie’ Hasseltine is a cybersecurity professional and Marine Corps combat veteran who currently serves as the chief security officer for Xenon Partners, a tech private equity firm that focuses on Business to Business Software as a Service (SaaS) companies. He also serves as chief executive officer at Packagecloud, a one-stop cloud-based service to store and distribute different software packages in a reliable and scalable way. Donnie is a retired Marine Corps officer who completed combat deployments to Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. His Marine Corps assignments included infantry, recruiting, and staff positions, including command of 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. He currently serves as the information technology sector chief for the Bay Area Chapter of Infragard, a public-private partnership with the FBI to protect critical infrastructure. Additionally, he is a board member of the Marine Reconnaissance Foundation that works to support reconnaissance Marines and their families, and an advisor to the Athena Leadership Project that explores how gender-diverse teams shape national security. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the Virginia Military Institute, a diploma in Strategic Intelligence from the Joint Military Intelligence College, a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College, and an executive master in cybersecurity from Brown University.

A seasoned information security and technology specialist with over 25 years’ experience, Sonia Arista recently joined Signify Health as their senior vice president, chief information security officer with oversight for governance, risk and compliance. Prior to Signify Health, Sonia worked for Fortinet, a global S&P 500 network security company as a subject matter expert in healthcare cyber security, defining their go-to -market strategy and sales alignment for US and Canada as well as governing their Enterprise Advisory Board. Sonia has been contracted to serve as an Chief Information Security Officer for several healthcare-related entities like Wellforce, Nuance Communications and Verscend Technologies, providing  program validation, incident response support and board-level education. Sonia has also held CISO leadership positions for Tufts Medical Center, and the New England Quality Care Alliance where she was responsible for the development and management of their Information Security programs. Sonia has been invited to speak at a number of healthcare information technology and cyber security events and is active with many nationally recognized healthcare information technology security organizations like the College of Healthcare information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS). In 2021, she was invited to contribute to a published book, Fight Fire with Fire – Proactive Cybersecurity Strategies for Today’s Leaders, notably all contributors are female executives in risk management and security. Sonia earned a BBA in Management Information Systems and a BA in Latin American Studies from Southern Methodist University and has certifications in Certified Information Security Management (CISM) and as a HITRUST Alliance Certified CSF Practitioner (CCSFP). In 2019, Sonia completed her Executive Master’s Degree in Cybersecurity at Brown University.

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Captioning/transcript provided by Rev.

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