Public-private partnerships vital in disrupting China's Typhoons, says RSA panel with no government speakers

Summary

RSA 2026 Back in the day (circa 2023) when cybercrime group Scattered Spider and its help-desk voice-phishing calls were a relatively new threat, the feds considered pulling the government's top cyber-threat hunters and their private-sector counterparts into one room to share information, in real time, about this loosely knit extortion ring that was terrorizing enterprises. "Scattered Spider was evolving so quickly, and there were private-sector partners who had such exquisite information and intelligence," EY managing director Dave Scott said on an RSAC panel Monday morning. At the time, Scott led the FBI's Cyber Operations Branch. While the private-sector intelligence analysts were moving fast, "here we were, with the government, and waiting for legal process and then waiting for the approvals and everything else to share that information," Scott remembered. "And I know it frustrated a lot of our industry partners. You know, we even proposed, back during Scattered Spider, to actually pull private sector, public sector together into one room and stand up a coordination cell where they're sharing in real time." Proposed is the key word. This real-time collab did not happen. Fast forward a few years, and phone calls are the second most common method used by cybercriminals to gain initial access to their victims' IT estate – as well as the top tactic used when breaking into cloud environments. Scott made these comments during a panel discussion titled Inside the Hunt for China's Typhoons: Disrupt, Deter, and Defend. It was originally billed as a "behind-the-scenes" look at the FBI, NSA, and private industry's joint operations to disrupt the operations of Beijing's Typhoon gangs and their attempts to target US critical infrastructure. Then the federal government speakers all cancelled, and the panel became a four-person, all-private-sector discussion with an actual empty chair on the stage. Attorney David Lashway, who co-chairs Sidley Austin's global privacy and cybers...