Kevin Mandia is the Founder and CEO of Mandiant, the widely recognized leader in cybersecurity incident response which was recently acquired by Google for $5.4 Billion. On today’s episode, Jon Sakoda speaks with Kevin on why he founded Mandiant, and his personal journey to create a company to defend companies against cyber surveillance advanced persistent threats from Russia, China, and North Korea:
- Seeing the Future of Inevitable Breaches [15:32- 16:05] - Kevin started Mandiant after seeing the most advanced cyber surveillance attacks against this country. His big bet was that even the very best companies would struggle to protect themselves against nation states and that the uneven playing field would create opportunities for a firm that specialized in responding to breaches.
- Why Mandiant Went Public to Expose Chinese Military Attacks [26:52- 30:44] - In 2013, Mandiant was the first company to go public with an advanced persistent attack (APT-1) that was traced to a Chinese military facility, PLA Unit 61398. Kevin retells the story about how nobody believed him until the New York Times broke the news after 9 years of recorded attacks.
- How Services Companies Can Become Software Companies [36:24-37:58] - Kevin created his products as a software company by automating the most advanced and sophisticated workflows of his security researchers. Mandiant was built on the premise that great services are the foundation to great software.
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