Tom Kellermann

Tom Kellermann is the Chief Cybersecurity Officer for Carbon Black Inc. Prior to joining Carbon Black, Tom was the CEO and founder of Strategic Cyber Ventures and was appointed the Wilson Center's Global Fellow for Cyber Policy in 2017.

Shira Rubinoff: Why do we keep hearing about data breaches in the news? The practice of information security in the realm of digital data has been around for decades. Why do we still have such a problem?

Tom Kellermann: There's a handful of reasons why this is occurring: firstly, you see more of an arms bazaar of attack capabilities that are widely available to cyber criminals, allowing them to bypass traditional cybersecurity capabilities, like firewalls, encryption, and antivirus software.

Secondly, much of the time—over 50% of the time, according to Carbon Black—we're seeing adversaries conduct what's called island hopping. Essentially, they target an organization and...