Malicious Actors Depend on Your Unknowns. Disappoint Them!
Brian Contos
SAINTCON 2025 · Day 1 · Main Track 3
In an era of rapidly evolving technology and expanding digital attack surfaces, Brian Contos, Field CISO at Mitiga, and Patrick "Pio" Zakowski, an expert in security automation, delivered a compelling talk at SAINTCON, highlighting critical blind spots that malicious actors routinely exploit. Titled "Malicious Actors Depend on Your Unknowns. Disappoint Them!", the presentation systematically dissects the pervasive lack of visibility and outdated security paradigms prevalent in three key domains: wireless networks, extended IoT (X-IoT) environments, and cloud infrastructure. The speakers argue that while traditional security approaches have focused on known endpoints and network segments, the explosion of new, often unmonitored, devices and interconnected cloud services creates vast "shadows" where attackers can operate undetected.