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Why Security Intelligence Fails Before the Attack - Assaf Kipnis (EP 23)

Why Security Intelligence Fails Before the Attack - Assaf Kipnis (EP 23)

The In-Between Tech and Trust Podcast vor 6 Monaten

0:00

31:20

Most security failures are organisational: This episode is about
the gap between threat intelligence that exists and the human
systems that never act on it, and what that costs the
organisations that keep losing to attacks they already
understood.

Assaf Kipnis has spent over a decade inside the threat
intelligence and trust and safety functions of some of the
world's largest platforms. In this conversation, he maps a
structural failure that runs across the industry: the team that
identifies threats and the team that deploys detection operate in
parallel, with no reliable mechanism to connect them.
Intelligence gets produced, reports get written, and the
knowledge sits unused while the same attacks return. Assaf
describes what it actually took to stop a sophisticated actor
group ahead of the 2020 US elections - a rare case where
structure and resources aligned - and explains why that outcome
is the exception rather than the rule. He also walks through the
design decisions behind Catalyst Labs, the company he is now
building to close the gap, and why he made provenance
non-negotiable even at the cost of speed.

Key themes discussed

Why security teams are structurally rewarded for fighting
fires rather than preventing them

The organisational gap between threat intelligence and
detection - and why it persists even in well-resourced teams

What data provenance means in practice, and why it matters
more than speed when using AI in security

How attackers learn your defences faster than you can adapt -
and what the military analogy reveals

Why trust online currently feels, in Assaf's words, like a
pipe dream

About the guest

Assaf Kipnis is the founder of Catalyst Labs, with over 12 years
working across threat intelligence, information security, and
trust and safety at LinkedIn, Google, Meta, and ElevenLabs. He
brings the perspective of someone who has spent his career making
threats legible to organisations - and watching those
organisations lack the structure to act on what they could now
see.

Chapter markers

[00:18] Why the industry keeps fighting the same fires

[08:04] What it actually took to stop an actor group - the 2020
elections case

[12:36] How AI is widening an asymmetry that already existed

[15:31] Catalyst Labs: the provenance problem and why speed comes
second

[20:35] What to build first if you're starting a threat
intelligence team

Links

Assaf Kipnis https://www.linkedin.com/in/assafkipnis/

KTLYST Labs https://www.ktlystlabs.com

Background information on MGM / FBI reports:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/fbi-struggled-disrupt-dangerous-casino-hacking-gang-cyber-responders-say-2023-11-14/

Related episode: organisational trust and AI implementation with
Simon Berkler
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6y8PMaVUnZVAR1hOAR15DN

Related episode: accountability and invisible infrastructure with
Sergiu Petean
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4KcsZBDgFzkSuwQVihjNR5