The New Normal: Defending Against State Sponsored Attackers
In 2014, Yahoo (now Oath) faced a sophisticated attack by Russian intelligence services. The resulting investigation concluded with the indictment of four individuals (including two FSB officers). This talk will describe the investigation, the transformation within the company as a result of the attack, and the new normal facing Internet companies in 2017 and beyond.
A light lunch is included for attendees who RSVP in advance.
Sean Zadig is the director of threat investigations within the Oath (formerly Yahoo) Paranoids team. At Oath, Sean focuses on child safety, cybercrime investigation and mitigation, threat intelligence, and protecting users who are targeted by government-sponsored attackers. Prior to joining Yahoo three years ago, he worked in Google’s trust & safety team, and before that he was a special agent with the NASA Office of Inspector General, Computer Crimes Division. Prior to joining NASA, Sean worked in information security for UC Davis. While at NASA, Sean was the lead agent on numerous cases resulting in arrests and convictions worldwide, including Nigeria, Estonia, China, South Africa, and the United States. These investigations spanned a variety of criminal activity, including child pornography, spam botnets, bulletproof hosting (3FN and McColo), click fraud (Operation Ghost Click), West African fraud, and computer intrusion. Sean holds a BS in computer science from UC Davis, a master's in criminal justice from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in information systems from Nova Southeastern University. Sean’s research at NSU focused on hacker deterrence and hacker innovation diffusion in underground communities.
