Dmitri Alperovitch

Last updated

Dmitri Alperovitch
Dmitri Alperovitch, official portrait, Homeland Security Council.jpg
Alperovitch in 2022
Born
Dmitri Mikhailovich Alperovitch

1980 (age 43–44)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Georgia Institute of Technology
Occupation(s)Co-founder and chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator
EmployerSilverado Policy Accelerator
Known for
Awards
  • Fortune 40 Under 40 (2017)
  • Politico 50 (2016)
  • TR35 (2013)
  • FP Top 100 Global Thinkers (2013)

Dmitri Alperovitch (born 1980) is an American think-tank founder, author, investor, philanthropist, podcast host and former computer security industry executive. He is the chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a geopolitics think-tank in Washington, D.C., and a co-founder and former chief technology officer of CrowdStrike. Alperovitch is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Russia who came to the United States in 1994 with his family. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Born in Moscow in the Russian SFSR, a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, Alperovitch is a U.S. citizen. [2] In 1994, his father was granted a visa to Canada, and a year later the family moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. [3] Alperovitch earned a BS in computer science in 2001, and a MS in information security in 2003, both from Georgia Institute of Technology. It was the school's first graduate degree in information security. [4]

Career

Alperovitch worked at a number of computer security startups in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including e-mail security startup CipherTrust, [4] where he was one of the leading inventors of the TrustedSource reputation system. [5] Upon acquisition of CipherTrust by Secure Computing in 2006, [6] he led the research team and launched the Software-as-a-Service business for the company. Alperovitch took over as vice president of threat research [7] at McAfee, when the company acquired Secure Computing in 2008. [8]

In January 2010, he led the investigation into Operation Aurora, the Chinese intrusions into Google and two dozen other companies. [9] Subsequently, he led the investigation of Night Dragon espionage operation of the Western multinational oil and gas companies, and traced them to Song Zhiyue, a Chinese national living in Heze City, Shandong. [10]

In August 2011, he published Operation Shady RAT , a report on suspected Chinese intrusions into at least 72 organizations, including defense contractors, businesses worldwide, the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee. [11]

CrowdStrike

In late 2011, along with entrepreneur George Kurtz and Gregg Marston, Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded and became the chief technology officer of CrowdStrike, [12] a security technology company focused on helping enterprises and governments protect their intellectual property and secrets against cyberespionage and cybercrime.

In 2015, CapitalG (formerly Google Capital), led a $100 million capital drive for CrowdStrike. [13] The firm brought on board senior FBI executives, such as Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director (EAD) of the FBI's Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch, and Steve Chabinsky, former deputy assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division. By May 2017, CrowdStrike had received $256 million in funding from Warburg Pincus, Accel Partners, and Google Capital and its stock was valued at just under $1 billion. [13]

In June 2019, the company made an initial public offering (IPO) on the NASDAQ, which valued the company at over $10 billion. [14] [15]

Silverado Policy Accelerator

In February 2020, Alperovitch left CrowdStrike to launch the Silverado Policy Accelerator, [16] a nonprofit focused on solving policy challenges connected to great power competition between the U.S. and its adversaries. The organization focuses in particular on policy issues related to cybersecurity, international trade and industrial security, and economic and environmental security. Silverado Policy Accelerator launched in March 2021 with Alperovitch as its executive chairman. [17]

In December 2021, Alperovitch correctly predicted the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022. [18]

On November 11, 2022, he was personally sanctioned by Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russia) and banned from entry to Russia, along with David Petraeus, James Stavridis and Ian Bremmer. [19]

U.S. Government

Alperovitch is an inaugural member of the Cyber Safety Review Board, an independent U.S. government board setup by Presidential Executive Order in 2021 with responsibility for cybersecurity incident investigations. [20] [21]

In March 2022, he was appointed a member of Homeland Security Advisory Council. [22]

Alperovitch has also served as a Special Advisor to the Department of Defense. [23]

Board Memberships

Alperovitch is the chairman of the board of directors of Automox, a cloud-based IT operations company [24] , a board member of Dragos, a company that provides cybersecurity solutions for industrial controls systems [25] , and a board observer for Sublime Security, an email security company [26] .

Philanthropy

In October 2021, Alperovitch announced the launch of the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies [27] to be based at the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. The institute will offer Master of Arts and doctor of philosophy degrees in cybersecurity studies and policy, and an Executive Education program for private sector and government leaders. [28]

Podcasting

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Alperovitch became the host of Geopolitics Decanted podcast, where he discusses current geopolitical events with military experts, historians, economists and political scientists. [29] Dmitri is also an occasional guest on the Risky Business IT Security podcast to provide his insights into the field and Geopolitics [30]

Books

World on the Brink

Alperovitch is an author, along with Garrett Graff, of an upcoming book World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century. [31]

The book will be released in the United States on April 30, 2024. It lays out the case for why China's Xi Jinping is preparing to conquer Taiwan in the coming years and the dire stakes for America and the whole world if he is not deterred.

The book argues that we are already in the midst of Cold War II, with China, and that Taiwan is the perilous strategic flashpoint of this new conflict that risks triggering a devastating war between major nuclear powers in a similar role that West Berlin nearly played during Cold War I. It offers a comprehensive strategy to deter war and maintain U.S. place as the world's leading superpower in the face of rising China.

Awards

Alperovitch was awarded the prestigious Federal 100 Award for his contributions to the U.S. federal information security [32] and was recognized in 2013 and 2015 as one of Washingtonian's Tech Titans for his accomplishments in the field of cybersecurity.

In August 2013, he was selected as one of MIT Technology Review's Top 35 Innovators Under 35, an award previously won by Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg. [33]

In 2016, Politico Magazine featured him as one of "Politico 50" influential thinkers, doers, and visionaries transforming U.S. politics. [34]

In 2017, Fortune magazine listed Alperovitch in "40 Under 40" annual ranking of the most influential young people in business, along with Emmanuel Macron, Mark Zuckerberg, and Serena Williams. [35]

He was named in December 2013 as one of Foreign Policy's Top 100 Leading Global Thinkers, along with Angela Merkel, John Kerry, Ben Bernanke, and Jeff Bezos. [36]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Munich Security Conference</span> Annual conference on international security policy

The Munich Security Conference is an annual conference on international security policy that has been held in Munich, Bavaria, Germany since 1963. Formerly named the Munich Conference on Security Policy, the motto is: Peace through Dialogue. It is the world's largest gathering of its kind.

Cyberwarfare by Russia includes denial of service attacks, hacker attacks, dissemination of disinformation and propaganda, participation of state-sponsored teams in political blogs, internet surveillance using SORM technology, persecution of cyber-dissidents and other active measures. According to investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, some of these activities were coordinated by the Russian signals intelligence, which was part of the FSB and formerly a part of the 16th KGB department. An analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2017 outlines Russia's view of "Information Countermeasures" or IPb as "strategically decisive and critically important to control its domestic populace and influence adversary states", dividing 'Information Countermeasures' into two categories of "Informational-Technical" and "Informational-Psychological" groups. The former encompasses network operations relating to defense, attack, and exploitation and the latter to "attempts to change people's behavior or beliefs in favor of Russian governmental objectives."

Trellix is a privately held cybersecurity company that was founded in 2022. It has been involved in the detection and prevention of major cybersecurity attacks. It provides hardware, software, and services to investigate cybersecurity attacks, protect against malicious software, and analyze IT security risks.

An advanced persistent threat (APT) is a stealthy threat actor, typically a state or state-sponsored group, which gains unauthorized access to a computer network and remains undetected for an extended period. In recent times, the term may also refer to non-state-sponsored groups conducting large-scale targeted intrusions for specific goals.

Cyberwarfare is the use of computer technology to disrupt the activities of a state or organization, especially the deliberate attacking of information systems for strategic or military purposes. As a major developed economy, the United States is highly dependent on the Internet and therefore greatly exposed to cyber attacks. At the same time, the United States has substantial capabilities in both defense and power projection thanks to comparatively advanced technology and a large military budget. Cyber warfare presents a growing threat to physical systems and infrastructures that are linked to the internet. Malicious hacking from domestic or foreign enemies remains a constant threat to the United States. In response to these growing threats, the United States has developed significant cyber capabilities.

A cyberattack is any offensive maneuver that targets computer information systems, computer networks, infrastructures, personal computer devices, or smartphones. An attacker is a person or process that attempts to access data, functions, or other restricted areas of the system without authorization, potentially with malicious intent. Depending on the context, cyberattacks can be part of cyber warfare or cyberterrorism. A cyberattack can be employed by sovereign states, individuals, groups, societies or organizations and it may originate from an anonymous source. A product that facilitates a cyberattack is sometimes called a cyber weapon. Cyberattacks have increased over the last few years. A well-known example of a cyberattack is a distributed denial of service attack.

Cozy Bear, classified by the United States federal government as advanced persistent threat APT29, is a Russian hacker group believed to be associated with one or more intelligence agencies of Russia. The Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) deduced from security camera footage that it is led by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), a view shared by the United States. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike also previously suggested that it may be associated with either the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) or SVR. The group has been given various nicknames by other cybersecurity firms, including CozyCar, CozyDuke, Dark Halo, The Dukes, Midnight Blizzard, NOBELIUM, Office Monkeys, StellarParticle, UNC2452, and YTTRIUM.

Fancy Bear, also known as APT28, Pawn Storm, Sofacy Group, Sednit, Tsar Team and STRONTIUM or Forest Blizzard, is a Russian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has said with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU. The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office as well as security firms SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and Mandiant, have also said the group is sponsored by the Russian government. In 2018, an indictment by the United States Special Counsel identified Fancy Bear as GRU Unit 26165. This refers to its unified Military Unit Number of the Russian army regiments. The headquarters of Fancy Bear and the entire military unit, which reportedly specializes in state-sponsored cyberattacks and decryption of hacked data, were targeted by Ukrainian drones on July 24, 2023, the rooftop on one of the buildings collapsed as a result of the explosion.

CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. is an American cybersecurity technology company based in Austin, Texas. It provides cloud workload and endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyberattack response services. The company has been involved in investigations of several high-profile cyberattacks, including the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, the 2015–16 cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and the 2016 email leak involving the DNC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democratic National Committee cyber attacks</span> 2015-16 data breaches by Russian hackers as part of US election interference

The Democratic National Committee cyber attacks took place in 2015 and 2016, in which two groups of Russian computer hackers infiltrated the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network, leading to a data breach. Cybersecurity experts, as well as the U.S. government, determined that the cyberespionage was the work of Russian intelligence agencies.

On Friday July 29, 2016 the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reported that its computer systems had been infiltrated. It is strongly believed by US intelligence sources that the infiltrator groups are Russian foreign intelligence groups that breached the Democratic National Committee's computer systems. These groups are known as Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Kurtz</span> American billionaire businessman

George Kurtz is the co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity company CrowdStrike and an American racing driver. He was also the founder of Foundstone and chief technology officer of McAfee.

Election cybersecurity or election security refers to the protection of elections and voting infrastructure from cyberattack or cyber threat – including the tampering with or infiltration of voting machines and equipment, election office networks and practices, and voter registration databases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency</span> Agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is a component of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for cybersecurity and infrastructure protection across all levels of government, coordinating cybersecurity programs with U.S. states, and improving the government's cybersecurity protections against private and nation-state hackers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jake Braun</span> American political, cyber and national security expert

Jacob H. Braun is an American politician, cyber and national security expert. He was appointed by President Joseph Biden as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary's Senior Advisor to the Management Directorate. Braun is also a lecturer at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies where he teaches courses on cyber policy and election security. He previously served as the Executive Director for the University of Chicago Harris Cyber Policy Initiative (CPI).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Krebs</span> American cybersecurity and infrastructure security expert (born 1977)

Christopher Cox Krebs is an American attorney who served as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the United States Department of Homeland Security from November 2018 until November 17, 2020, when President Donald Trump fired Krebs for contradicting Trump's claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 United States federal government data breach</span> US federal government data breach

In 2020, a major cyberattack suspected to have been committed by a group backed by the Russian government penetrated thousands of organizations globally including multiple parts of the United States federal government, leading to a series of data breaches. The cyberattack and data breach were reported to be among the worst cyber-espionage incidents ever suffered by the U.S., due to the sensitivity and high profile of the targets and the long duration in which the hackers had access. Within days of its discovery, at least 200 organizations around the world had been reported to be affected by the attack, and some of these may also have suffered data breaches. Affected organizations worldwide included NATO, the U.K. government, the European Parliament, Microsoft and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jen Easterly</span> American government official

Jen Easterly is an American intelligence and former military official who is serving as the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the Biden administration. She was confirmed by a voice vote in the Senate on July 12, 2021.

The Cyber Safety Review Board was established by the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board, it will meet in cases of significant cybersecurity incidents. The board's creation was announced upon President Joe Biden's signing of Executive Order 14028 on May 12, 2021.

Camille Stewart is an American technology and cybersecurity attorney, public speaker, and entrepreneur. She served as the Senior Policy advisor for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under the Obama administration from 2015 to 2017 under the Barack Obama administration. She also served as the Head of Product Security Strategy Google after serving as the Lead for Security Policy & Election Integrity, Google Play & Android at Google.

References

  1. ↑ Poulsen, Kevin (September 25, 2019). "The Truth About Trump's Insane Ukraine 'Server' Conspiracy". The Daily Beast . Retrieved September 27, 2019.
  2. ↑ "CrowdStrike CEO says company is 'nonpartisan,' issues 2020 warning". The Business Journals.
  3. ↑ "The Russian Expat Leading the Fight to Protect America". Esquire.
  4. 1 2 "CrowdStrike's Immigrant Cofounder Fighting Cyber Criminals". Forbes.
  5. ↑ "Dmitri Alperovitch talks about reputation-based spam protection". itworld.com.
  6. ↑ "Secure Computing to buy CipherTrust". networkworld.com.
  7. ↑ "Should Companies Bolster Their Cybersecurity by 'Hacking Back?'". Fortune.
  8. ↑ "Tech firm moving headquarters from Hudson to St. Paul". The Business Journals.
  9. ↑ Kim Zetter (January 14, 2010). "Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show". Wired . Retrieved November 23, 2012.
  10. ↑ Nathan Hodge and Adam Entous (February 10, 2011). "Oil Firms Hit by Hackers From China, Report Says". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved November 23, 2012.
  11. ↑ Jim Finkle (August 3, 2011). "State actor seen in "enormous" range of cyber attacks". Reuters . Retrieved August 3, 2011.
  12. ↑ "CrowdStrike: Cloud-Native Endpoint Protection Platform". crowdstrike.com.
  13. 1 2 "Google Capital Bets Big on CrowdStrike to Accelerate Hyper-growth". crowdstrike.com. July 13, 2015.
  14. ↑ "These CrowdStrike IPO winners' stakes are now worth billions". Silicon Valley Business Journal. June 14, 2019.
  15. ↑ "CrowdStrike's IPO A Stunning Success, $10 Billion Valuation And Rising". The Software Report. June 27, 2019.
  16. ↑ "CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch on his new policy accelerator that's all about action". The Record by Recorded Future. March 19, 2021. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  17. ↑ "About". Silverado Policy Accelerator.
  18. ↑ "Russian Invasion of Ukraine is 'Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says". SpyTalk. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
  19. ↑ "US citizens under personal sanctions, including a ban on entry into the Russian Federation". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (in Russian). Retrieved November 30, 2022.
  20. ↑ "DHS Launches First-Ever Cyber Safety Review Board". US Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
  21. ↑ Page, Carly (February 3, 2022). "Homeland Security establishes the Cyber Safety Review Board to learn the mistakes from past cyber incidents". TechCrunch.
  22. ↑ "Homeland Security Advisory Council Members". US Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
  23. ↑ "Can the United States Curb the Threat From Cyberspace?". Foreign Affairs. February 4, 2022. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
  24. ↑ "Automox Secures $110 Million in Series C Funding to Modernize IT Operations" (Press release).
  25. ↑ "Dragos Appoints CrowdStrike Co-founder and CTO Dmitri Alperovitch to Board of Director" (Press release). July 11, 2019.
  26. ↑ "Sublime Security Raises $20M Series A Led by Index Ventures to Redefine Email Security". PR Newswire. April 24, 2024. Archived from the original on April 24, 2024. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  27. ↑ "Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and CrowdStrike Co-Founder Dmitri Alperovitch Announce Launch of the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies". Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. October 13, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  28. ↑ "Johns Hopkins to launch degree program in cybersecurity and policy". The Hill. October 13, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  29. ↑ "Geopolitics Decanted by Silverado". Silverado Policy Accelerator. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
  30. ↑ "Feature Interview: How Sandworm prepared Ukraine for a cyber war - Risky Business". risky.biz. Retrieved October 17, 2023.
  31. ↑ World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century. New York: PublicAffairs. 2024. ISBN   978-1541704091.
  32. ↑ "Federal 100: Dmitri Alperovitch". FCW. March 28, 2011. Retrieved November 23, 2012.
  33. ↑ "35 Innovators Under 35 2013". MIT Technology Review. August 21, 2013. Retrieved August 23, 2013.
  34. ↑ "Dmitri Alperovitch (Politico 50)". POLITICO Magazine. 2017. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
  35. ↑ "Dmitri Alperovitch (Fortune 40 Under 40)". Fortune. 2017. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  36. ↑ "Top 100 Leading Global Thinkers". Foreign Policy. October 9, 2013. Archived from the original on December 11, 2013. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.