b'WWhat do you think is the greatest challenge facing Network Securitytoday and can you describe for our readers why the threat is so critical?Steven Hernandez: I think its a couple of things. The first being just the vast complexity of the network environment. It used to be that our data centers were inside, our networks were around the data center, we had a very isometric approach and linear approach to how we got in and out, and then a lot of cool things happened. We got the cloud and all of a sudden, the data center is no longer inside the network, its outside. Then the pandemic hit. Beforetelework was kind of the exception for a lot of organizations, and now its the vast majority of how we do our work. Of course, thats turned the network inside out. And then finally, its all these other technologies and capabilities Were in a hyper-converged environment with all these different sorts of technologies. Some very classic and physical because we still need a physical presence for the networkThen all the way up through this awesome idea of where AI and machine learning may be applied to more efficiently route networks. You have that entire spectrum of technology and capabilities and therein lies that complexity. How do you keep ahead of attackers and evolve your existing network technology to something thats more agile in the future? Mike Witt: First, Im going to start with social engineering, and the second will be cyber supply chain. If you take a look at the volume of breaches that weve had over the past few years that involve phishing email, text messages, even scareware pop-ups, these attacks are not just being delivered electronically anymore. Social engineering has even become a criminal business These social engineering attacks havent stopped, simply because they work As for cyber supply chain, take a look at the most recent SolarWinds attacks. Vendors are a major part of our supply chain. Not just in the federal government, but also in the private sector. [Vendors] come with vulnerabilities in our operating systems, vulnerabilities within our applications. Not just on site, but also the cyber supply chain specifically includes the vendors enterprise, along with the cloud providers and our SAS providers, as well. As we saw withSolarWinds, vendors also get targeted, but vendors also write code and vendors also make mistakes. Some of them, more critical than others. These vendors fix their mistakes with things we call patches, but not all vulnerabilities are being discovered by the vendors. Nation states and other threat actors are now dedicating resources to find these vulnerabilities to exploit them before a patch can even be delivered by the victim. As Ive said many timesbefore in my past, the internet has become a weapon. Brian Gattoni: When it comes to the security of our nations digital network, its clear the stakes are increasing and weve already seen very real consequences of malicious activity targeting our critical infrastructure. It has been quite a year for cyber security. Malicious threat actors continue to demonstrate their willingness to conduct malicious cyber activity against our critical infrastructure by exploiting those internet accessible assets. Weve seen this firsthand over the course of the year from the SolarWinds cyber incident, the exploitation of vulnerabilities found in the Microsoft server exchange and pulse connector products.Unfortunately, its not like common cyber criminals. Were increasingly finding ourselves up against nation state sponsored cyber-attacks. So, in April the White House formally attributed Government Business Council Securing the Nations Network|Page 3'