Channel Brief: Blue Mantis Names New CISO, Neuberger Asks to Remove Ransom Payments from Cyber Insurance

When you think about business continuity and disaster recovery, cyberattacks and outages are usually top-of-mind, not necessarily natural disasters. But we're witnessing that scenario in Appalachia right now as the recovery efforts after Helene continue.

If you want to help, Right of Boom founder Andrew Morgan set up a GoFundMe campaign to gather contributions. In a LinkedIn post, Morgan outlines donations and offers from many influencers that have already come in.

Check it out, and let's all pull together and do what we can!

As always, drop me a line at [email protected] if you have news to share or want to say hi!

Grab your coffee. Here's what you need to know today.

Today’s Tech, Channel and MSP News

1. Blue Mantis names Jay Martin to CISO role: MSP Blue Mantis has announced that VP of Security Jay Martin has been promoted to Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Martin will continue to lead the firm’s highly-regarded and fast-growing security practice, reporting to COO Jay Pasteris, Blue Mantis’ former CISO and CIO. As CISO, Martin ensures that the organization continues its zero-trust journey and stays ahead of the evolving threat landscape. In the new role, Martin aims to increase the firm’s security posture to ensure that all data and IT assets are protected from internal and external threats while supporting Blue Mantis and its clients’ adherence to compliance and regulatory requirements. Congratulations!

2. Layer raises $6M for trustworthy internet: Layer aims to extend the functionality of Ethereum by making the first developer tools that support full-stack decentralized applications with WebAssembly. The company has raised a $6 million seed round led by 1kx, with participation from Fabric Ventures, Arrington Capital, Stake Capital Group, and IOBC. Notable angels include Sreeram Kannan of EigenLayer, Rok Kopp and Mike Silagadze of Ether.fi, and Paul Taylor, formerly of BlackRock. The founders are blockchain leaders who have come together to bring the underlying trust guarantees of Ethereum to everyday software applications. Layer SDK allows developers to write fast, safe, executable code in any language with affordable, built-in decentralization. The company envisions a digital future where any internet application can be protected against manipulation of all kinds, including dangers posed by malicious AI.

3. Neuberger pushes to remove ransom payments from insurance coverage: Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger is urging insurance providers to cease policies encouraging ransomware-hit organizations to provide extortion payments amid increasingly severe intrusions around the world, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. "Some insurance company policies — for example, covering reimbursement of ransomware payments — incentivize payment of ransoms that fuel cybercrime ecosystems. This is a troubling practice that must end," wrote Neuberger in an op-ed for the Financial Times. Despite little action from the insurance industry, prohibiting the issuance of such policies could prompt the inclusion of cybersecurity requirements and verification in the underwriting process, Neuberger added.

4. Modern IAM benefits: SC Media reports that modern identity and access management (IAM) platforms are superior in enabling access oversight across software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps, cloud systems, and hybrid environments, compared with their legacy counterparts. Despite both legacy and modern IAM solutions being susceptible to browser session cookie exfiltration, modern IAM systems were noted to have significantly more defenses against potential attacks, as well as issues concerning excessive privileges due to its integration of privileged access management system features, according to experts. Modern IAM systems have also been advancing the least privileged access principle with its zero standing privileges and just-in-time access feature.

5. Pax8 names new vendor experience exec: Cloud marketplace Pax8 has appointed Oguo Atuanya as corporate vice president of vendor experience. In this role, Atuanya will oversee all vendor relationships to drive vendor success globally for Pax8 and our partner community, the company said. Atuanya will report to Nick Heddy, president of Pax8. Atuanya previously served as GM for Americas corporate and partner solution sales at Microsoft and has worked as a GM and sales expert in various roles at Microsoft for the past 16 years. Congratulations!

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