Ex-Uber CSO is gellin' like a felon with teen cyber crims, explains why they do it

Two convicted felons walk into a room at the request of a federal judge who wanted one of them - Joe Sullivan, the former Uber chief security officer found guilty of attempting to cover up a 2016 breach at the rideshare company - to help rehabilitate the other, whom the feds accused of hacking into corporate networks as a teen …

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, but Uber is still a scummy company despite his conviction

and he knew better and still tried to cover for them. And how did they repay him? There is no corporate loyalty, fool!

[Irongut]

Re: OK, but Uber is still a scummy company despite his conviction

And he's still a criminal that thinks he did nothing wrong.

[Pascal Monett]

"He started his own consulting firm, Joe Sullivan Security"

That is going on my blacklist right now.

You can go on pretending that you've seen the light, I don't care.

On the other hand, you probably have a brilliant career ahead of you with Trump. You should ask for a meeting. Don't expect to get paid, though. Trump keeps whatever money he has for himself.

[lglethal]

See i was right there, quite happy for him moving forward with his life, with his own security company, helping other people get their security sorted properly. That was great to hear.

And then out he comes with that bollocks about having done no wrong and appealing his sentence.

He did do wrong. Should he have taken the can for it alone, Absolutely Not. But he still falsified records and did illegal corporate acts. Accept it and move on... If he wins that appeal, it's just another arrow in the quiver of dodgy lawyers getting their C-Suite scumbags off other corporate malfeasance crimes...

[Jeff 11]

Exactly, he took the path of least resistance to his career at the time and knowingly broke the law by failing to disclose the breach and then covering it up - the latter the definition of obstruction of justice. An honest justice system would almost certainly deny his appeal on that alone, but in Trump's America his chances are probably better...

There was another path open to him - record everything, then blow the whistle on the whole thing. He'd have been fired for sure, but would've almost certainly won big in court for unfair dismissal in performing the company's legal obligations.

[goblinski]

...he took the path of least resistance to his career at the time...

Eh. His whole pay package was probably in company stocks or something. My guess is his path was not resistance-free at all, just self-preserving.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality is that savings will continue, until something breaks

The problem that every CISO has is that they rarely get the budget they need, even if they pare it down to the bare minimum required there will always be a beancounter who will try and srape bits off of it, and that's because the expenditure is still seen as a cost instead of as an insurance.

I hear it often from IT department that they're the people who make the moeny for the company (which is IMHO rather arrogantly ignoring all the other people contributing, and I even include the cleaners in that), my answer is that the people managing compliance, risk and security ensure that that money actually stays around long enough to pay their salaries..

[ChoHag]

"leaders now realize that operational resiliency is foundational to keeping the business up and running"

I'll just leave that there.

[MiguelC]

Is your keyboard too dirty to show in public?

[Irongut]

Still a felon

"I still don't think I did anything wrong, and I don't think that that's the right legal standard."

Unrepentant and still refuses to accept he committed a crime - the first step towards rehabilitation. NO JUDGE should be asking this man to meet with convicted teens (or anyone else) to help with their rehabilitation.

[Blackjack]

[I still don't think I did anything wrong]

Hiding information from shareholders, hiding a crime, disguising money paid to criminals as a bounty reward.

The CEO should have been convicted too but yes you did commit a crime.

[Filippo]

>business leaders now realize that operational resiliency is foundational to keeping the business up and running

No, they don't. They have become aware of the problem, they are starting to think about it, but they are still pretty far from understanding how big it is. Still, that is progress, compared to not that long ago, when they didn't know what the words even meant.

We will be able to tell they have understood the issue, if and when they do, because incidents will actually start decreasing in number and severity. It's a big problem, but, once you take it seriously, it's not impossible to solve or at least effectively mitigate.

[Anonymous Coward]

moved away from the sole security exec and toward the rest of the leadership team,

Permanently lock up the whole C·Suite and draw lots for the one that is taken to the basement.

Can only but dream.

[Whoopsie]

Still making this a "CISOs are in danger!" issue

Sullivan belongs in jail. He's brought the CISO's role into disrepute, he still fails to accept any responsibility, and news sites and conferences still give the grifter stage time and column inches.

He wasn't charged because of the breach - he was charged becaused he colluded with the CEO and head of legal to *lie to the regulator* about the breach.

At a time when the regulator was already investigating Uber's dodgy exec team. As an ex-prosecutor, he was completely aware that he was choosing to break the law.

And he decided that his Uber stock options were worth more than the chance of getting found out, and now he continues his "woe is me" world tour.