Landon Winkelvoss, Nisos co-founder and VP of Legal and Intelligence Advisory met with the Duke Cybersecurity students

Landon Winkelvoss, co-founder of Nisos (Threat Intelligence & Advisory Services) where he also serves as the VP of Legal and Intelligence Advisory, was the October 27th guest speaker for the Duke Cybersecurity Seminar. Landon discussed timely cybersecurity topics, including the importance of open-source intelligence for the cyber arena, and the important questions that threat intelligence must answer in today’s world. 

Landon told students that cybersecurity analysts need to understand the active threats against their organizations and key personnel and identify who is targeting them to build better defenses. He described profiles of the main US adversaries – their sophisticated cyber operations, coordinated influence, and their involvement in various types of fraud and espionage. Students learned that US adversaries are targeting critical infrastructure, government, and military, weaponizing legit software to operate undetected. The motives of their cyber-attacks can vary from gaining influence, stealing defense plans, compromising intellectual property, stealing data for espionage, or committing cybercrime for monetary purposes. Art Ehuan, Executive in Residence at the Pratt School of Engineering and Adjunct Professor in the ME in Cybersecurity, asked Landon Winkelvoss to describe the work of data analysts and the desired skills set for being successful. “Our analysts are very client focused and very dedicated to understanding customer’s needs and use investigative techniques with commercially available data and proprietary tooling. They generally provide three main threat intelligence services: assessments, monitoring and investigations by responding to RFIs (Requests for Information). Our four primary buyers are cybersecurity/fraud, physical security, trust and safety, and government” Landon said. He added that being curious with professional writing and critical analysis skills are key for being successful at Nisos. “It is not accurate that our teammates need to have experience in the US Intelligence community or Fortune 500 enterprise,” he said. 

In addition to leading Nisos intelligence advisors, Landon also sits on the Board of Directors and is involved in the strategic direction of Nisos with Columbia Capital, Paladin Capital Group, and Skylab Capital. His vision as a founder was to deliver intelligence community-level digital insights to blue-chip companies to enable a stronger defense and more effective response against advanced cyberattacks, fraud, disinformation, threats to executives and physical assets, and abuse of digital and financial platforms. Prior to founding Nisos, he spent 10 years as a Technical Targeting Officer for the U.S. Intelligence Community, including multiple warzone deployments and overseas postings.