Spotlight Podcast: Chris Petersen CEO Of RADICL On Protecting Defense Industry SMBs Spotlight Podcast: RADICL Is Coming To The Rescue Of Defense SMBs

In this Spotlight episode of the Security Ledger podcast, I interview Chris Petersen, the CEO and founder of RADICL, about his company’s mission to protect small and midsized businesses serving the defense industrial base, which are increasingly in the cross-hairs of sophisticated, nation-state actors.  [MP3] [Video] [Transcript] The companies that serve the U.S. and other militaries have always been at the top of the target list for so-called “advanced persistent threat” cyber adversaries. In fact, the term “advanced persistent threat” (or APT) was concocted by U.S. Air Force personnel way back in 2005 as a way to talk about the kinds of enduring cyber attacks and attempts at data exfiltration they were observing. Eighteen years later, the situation hasn’t improved all that much. In October of 2022, for example, CISA joined with the FBI and NSA to warn about forays by multiple APTs onto the networks of a defense industrial base firm – some with long-term access to the environment involving the theft of sensitive data. The DIB’s Long Tail: Small Businesses As we contemplate attacks on defense industrial base companies, a certain image may come to mind: one of hacks or attempted hacks on giant and wealthy firms like Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, BAE Systems or Raytheon. Without a doubt: sophisticated, nation-state cyber actors target those firms. But the reality of the defense sector – as with so many other sectors of our economy – is that it is small and midsized businesses (SMBs) that make up the bulk of the defense industrial base (DIB). In fact, there are an astounding 220,000 firms that make up the DIB, with many of them having fewer than 500 employees. And those firms are under attack. According to a 2022 report by the firm ConnectWise (PDF), in fact, more than three quarters of small to medium-sized businesses within the defense ecosystem (76%) reported suffering at least one cyber-attack. Given their small sizes and limited resources, however, these firms often struggle to stay on top of cyber risks including the forays of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian nation-state actors, ransomware gangs, and other cyber criminal groups on the hunt for sensitive data and intellectual property. That phenomenon, in which security solutions are targeted at larger, wealthier firms at the expense of more common small businesses,  has been described as the “security poverty line.” And its a big problem. (Check out this 2021 podcast featuring Josh Corman and Lisa Young of the COVID task force at CISA who talk about the agency’s work to improve the security of critical sectors of the U.S. economy.) RADICL to the rescue of Defense SMBs Our guest on this week’s Spotlight Podcast set out to lend a helping hand to SMBs serving the defense sector.  Chris Petersen is the CEO and founder of RADICL, a new company that hopes to extend top tier threat detection, threat hunting and incident response capabilities to small and midsized businesses in the defense industrial base. His company just scored a $9 million funding round, its second, bringing total RADICL funding to $12 million.