Hackers, Pen Tests, and Security Research: A Conversation with Chris Rohlf

Play Button Pause Button
0:00 0:00
x
Episode Guests
  • Micah Zenko
    Senior Fellow

Show Notes

I spoke with Chris Rohlf, former head of Yahoo’s red team in New York and a thoughtful and respected voice in the security community. Chris has extensive experience as a pen tester, developer, engineer, and consultant for various organizations, including within the Department of Defense and on the Black Hat review board. We discuss how the government should bridge the gap with the security community, like the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) and the recent Hack the Pentagon bug bounty. We also talk about how organizations will grapple with the challenges presented by the Internet of Things, the “IoT”: the growing network of objects that sense and interact with each other. Chris offers useful advice for aspiring hackers, and three practical suggestions for how you can protect your own devices. Follow Chris on Twitter @chrisrohlf.

Politics and Government

I was joined this week by Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and regular contributor to the Washington Post. Professor…

Trade

Senior Fellow Micah Zenko speaks with Temple University Assistant Professor of Political Science Alexandra Guisinger about her new book, American Opinion on Trade: Preferences Without Politics, and how gender and race affect support for trade protection.

Middle East and North Africa

Zenko is joined by Steven A. Cook, CFR's Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies. They discuss Cook's latest book, False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East, and U.S. policy in the Middle East and North Africa.

Top Stories on CFR

Russia

Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at CFR, and Thomas Graham, a distinguished fellow at CFR, sit down with James M. Lindsay to discuss the future of U.S. policy toward Russia and the risks posed by heightened tensions between two nuclear powers. This episode is the first in a special TPI series on the U.S. 2024 presidential election and is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Terrorism and Counterterrorism

Violence around U.S. elections in 2024 could not only destabilize American democracy but also embolden autocrats across the world. Jacob Ware recommends that political leaders take steps to shore up civic trust and remove the opportunity for violence ahead of the 2024 election season.

China

Those seeking to profit from fentanyl and governments seeking to control its supply are locked in a never-ending competition, with each new countermeasure spurring further innovation to circumvent it.