Thoughts on Cyber Security

Firms:

In the past few years, the contractors have embarked on their own cyber building binge parallel to the construction boom at Fort Meade: General Dynamics opened a 28,000-square-foot facility near the NSA; SAIC cut the ribbon on its new seven-story Cyber Innovation Center; the giant CSC unveiled its Virtual Cyber Security Center. And at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, where former NSA director Mike McConnell was hired to lead the cyber effort, the company announced a “cyber-solutions network” that linked together nine cyber-focused facilities. Not to be outdone, Boeing built a new Cyber Engagement Center.

One of the most secretive of these contractors is Endgame Systems, a startup backed by VCs including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Paladin Capital Group. Established in Atlanta in 2008, Endgame is transparently antitransparent. “We’ve been very careful not to have a public face on our company,” former vice president John M. Farrell wrote to a business associate in an email that appeared in a WikiLeaks dump. “We don’t ever want to see our name in a press release,” added founder Christopher Rouland. True to form, the company declined Wired’s interview requests.

Dragos Security - critical infrastructure security firm

Books:
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/threat-research/cybercanon

Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What To Do About It (2010) by Richard Clarke and Robert Knake
-focuses on policy

@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex (2014) by Shane Harris
"This is a book that any cyber professional can have family members and friends read; once read, they can all have lively, informed discussions on the hot topics of surveillance, espionage, power grabs, etc.—it is that readable and engaging."

Future Crimes:  Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It (2015) by Marc Goodman
 "basic historical background on computer security and then guides the reader through a cybercrime journey spanning consumer, industrial, medical, and various other technologies."