June 28 marked our third SolarWinds Day – our opportunity to share SolarWinds news, knowledge, features, and benefits with everyone in tech. This time was a bit different, though.
On this SolarWinds Day, we focused on the SolarWinds Secure by Design approach and explored the importance of public-private partnerships to secure our common cyberinfrastructure. Hosted by SolarWinds CISO and VP of Security Tim Brown, this event was held in conjunction with a bipartisan panel of government leaders discussing the United States National Cybersecurity Strategy, its related frameworks, and the nature of today’s cyber risks.
Collaboration is foundational to success
Led by SolarWinds Vice President of Government Affairs Chip Daniels and in conjunction with Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), and CISA Executive Assistant Director for Cybersecurity Eric Goldstein, SolarWinds President and CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna shared perspectives on public-private collaboration within the ecosystem.
The conversation moved from discussing cyber threats from China and the war in Ukraine, to how the public and private sectors can and must join together. Goldstein says, “The criticality of this moment to driving real change in our country couldn’t be more important. It is really focused on… this move to persistent collaboration at the speed of the adversary. And what that means is that we need a model where government, where industry, and where our international partners are seamlessly and frictionlessly working together day in and day out to combat the threats that we are seeing today and get ahead of the ones we are seeing tomorrow.”
Leading the way, Secure by Design
“When I initiated Secure by Design as part of SolarWinds, we said transparency, collaboration, and humility will be part of who we are. What we can do to further it and accelerate it is what we need to be doing together,” Sudhakar says.
Our Secure by Design initiative is designed to enhance the strength of the company’s security framework and set a new gold-plated cybersecurity standard. A key component of this initiative is the Next-Generation Build System, a transformational and unique model for software development built to make supply chain attacks more difficult to execute. The Next-Generation Build System establishes software development practices and technology designed to strengthen the integrity of the SolarWinds build environment through a “parallel build” process where software is developed in multiple secure, duplicate environments with separate user credentials designed to ensure the security of the process. We plan to release components of this build system as open-source technology in line with our commitment to fostering transparency and collaboration within the industry.
Building the way to a more secure future
At the end of the event, Tim dove deeper into the Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF), the importance of its requirements, and additional actions SolarWinds is taking to ensure we are as secure as possible.
“The threat landscape has evolved significantly, and the SUNBURST incident demonstrated nation-state threat actors have the ability to launch highly sophisticated and unforeseeable attacks,” said Brown. “This requires government leadership working in collaboration with private sector companies to support a community vigil and protect the industry at large. At SolarWinds, we’re proud to have taken a leadership role by communicating openly and transparently with customers and the industry.”
You can view the full event here. To learn more about Secure by Design and how SolarWinds is building security into its solutions, visit our Secure by Design Resource Center.
