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CYBER THOUGHTS NEWSLETTER
FEBRUARY 2022
The war in Ukraine has everyone’s attention, but we have been focusing on the ramifications of cybersecurity and attacks by Russia on the US. It is generally believed that Russia will likely use cyberattacks against the US and NATO allies to retaliate for sanctions. This is a gray area since NATO has stated that cyber-attacks could trigger Article 5 and be an act of war. There is an article below highlighting this.
But, thus far, US companies are waiting to see if they will see an increased activity level. While attacks are constant, it doesn’t appear that they have increased significantly at this time.
While this is a time of uncertainty, we feel confident that cybersecurity and the companies that provide those solutions will only be more critical as the world moves forward.
Below are a few of the articles that caught our attention this month. Moreover, we’ve inserted one or two sentences in italics, summarizing each article’s importance. We hope you enjoy and appreciate the material.
WHAT WE'RE READING
Here's a curated list of things we found interesting.
Amid Warnings of Cyberattacks in Ukraine, U.S. Companies 'Sitting and Waiting'
So far Russia doesn't appear to have retaliated against US companies for the sanctions being imposed on them, but most people believe it's only a matter of time. Weeks of warnings from Western security officials that cyberattacks in Ukraine could spread globally have pushed international companies into an uncomfortable waiting game. Worst-case scenarios for hacks that wreak havoc on the digital economy haven't materialized as of Friday.
Who Hacked The DAO? This Crypto CEO Likely Stole $11 Billion Of Ether In The 2016 Hack
An excellent short video on how a journalist tracked down a hacker that stole $11B from an Ethereum contract. Laura Shin tells how she identified the apparent hacker - he denies it - by following a complicated trail of crypto transactions...
Cyberattack on NATO could trigger collective defense clause - official
Cyberattacks are more likely than conventional warfare to accidentally get out of hand and unintentionally cross national boundaries. For this reason it is possible that Russia could accidentally trigger NATO's collective defense clause.
A cyberattack on a NATO member state could trigger Article 5, its collective defense clause, a NATO official said on Monday, amid concerns that chaos in cyberspace around Russia's invasion of Ukraine could spill over into other territories.
TRANSACTIONS
Deals that caught our eye.
Cloudflare to Acquire Area 1 Security To Expand Its Zero Trust Platform for $162MM
San Francisco, CA, February 23, 2022 - Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET), the security, performance, and reliability company helping to build a better Internet, today announced that it has agreed to acquire Area 1 Security. Area 1 Security's cloud-native platform, which works seamlessly with any email offering, stops phishing attacks by preemptively discovering and eliminating them before they can inflict damage in a corporate environment.
Splunk stock rallies on report of Cisco $20 billion offer to buy company
Splunk Inc. shares rallied Monday following a report late last week that Cisco Systems Inc. had made a $20 billion offer to buy the cloud-based enterprise software company. Late Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Cisco made the offer recently, but the two companies were not in active talks, according to unnamed sources close to the matter.
PODCASTS
Our partner, Steve Berg, is back with another season of his excellent podcasts on how to cultivate intangible qualities.
Trust - Stephen Covey
Stephen M. R. Covey is a New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The SPEED of Trust. The One Thing That Changes Everything. He is the former CEO of Covey Leadership Center, which, under his stewardship, became the largest leadership development company in the world.
ABOUT LYTICAL
Lytical Ventures is a New York City-based venture firm investing in Enterprise Intelligence, comprising cybersecurity, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Lytical’s professionals have decades of experience in direct investing generally and in Corporate Intelligence specifically.