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2024: The Year Cyber-Attacks Redefined Security Priorities Across Critical Sectors

By Adam Sewall

Date: 1/21/2025

In 2024, cyber-attacks surged significantly, marking a banner year for hackers and foreign adversaries. The frequency and intensity of these attacks heightened across various sectors, including Critical Infrastructure, Enterprise, and SMEs.

Within Critical Infrastructure, attacks focused on Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS), impacting vital sectors like power, water, transportation, and data services. Incidents such as the Volt Typhoon attacks and exploits targeting defense mechanisms’ vulnerabilities emphasized the necessity for a more comprehensive security approach.

In the Enterprise domain, cyber threats like business email compromise, phishing, ransomware, and malware remained prevalent as primary attack vectors. Additionally, social engineering, insider threats, third-party exposures, configuration errors, and artificial intelligence cyber threats saw a concerning increase.

Sophisticated attacks rapidly rose, with threat actors using targeted surveillance and mobile device exploits to infiltrate networks and compromise sensitive data. The emergence of new threat groups, such as FunkSec and SafePay, reported by ReliaQuest, highlighted the expanding threat landscape.

Organizations should embrace a Defense-in-Depth strategy to counter the escalating cyber threats, integrating advanced technologies like a sophisticated Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)/Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) system. Alongside a well-trained Security Operations Center (SOC) and integrated Incident Response (IR) teams leveraging telemetry and threat intelligence, this approach can mitigate a wide range of exploits proactively and reactively.

Without implementing such comprehensive security measures, government entities and enterprises remain vulnerable to increasing cyber-attacks and vulnerabilities. Stay tuned for our upcoming posts delving into the cost-effectiveness of prevention versus cleanup and Incident Response efforts. Remember, prevention is crucial in safeguarding against cyber threats.

Stay vigilant and stay safe out there.

Adam Sewall

CEO

Cyberleaf

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Jonathan Meyn

Director of Channel Sales

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Jonathan is responsible for the Channel Strategy at Cyberleaf. He has over 10 years of experience in various technology solutions sales leadership roles. He has driven cybersecurity strategy and growth within the nation’s leading managed service providers.

Jonathan has a Communications Degree from Pennsylvania State University.

Brant Feldman

CSO

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Brant served in Naval Special Warfare for 11 years.  He separated as a Lieutenant Commander having served at SEAL Team TWO, SEAL Team FOUR, and SEAL Team SIX.  Following his Naval service, Brant joined ADS in 2008 and was ultimately promoted to Chief Sales Officer, where he directed all sales, supplier, and marketing efforts.  His team was comprised of over 200 sales professionals who drove $3.2B in annual sales.  In 2022, Brant left ADS to pursue opportunities in Private Equity.

Brant has a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law, an Executive MBA from the Darden School of Business and degrees in Economics and Government from the University of Virginia.

Will Sendall

CFO

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Will served as Chief Financial Officer to various private equity and VC backed high growth technology companies where he managed the financial and operational functions.  Will has also successfully executed multiple debt and equity fundraising processes and led both buy and sell sides of M&A processes.

Will has a MBA from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and a degree in Accounting from Appalachian State University. 

Marshall Howard

Executive Vice President

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Marshall is responsible for engineering and project management for Waterleaf. He has over 20 years of executive experience across startup operations and Fortune 500 companies in multiple areas including Operations, Engineering, Technology Implementation, Business Planning/Budgeting, Finance/M&A, Revenue Assurance, and Regulatory Affairs.

Previously Marshall served as a Vice President at T3 Communications, Inc., a Fort Myers, FL-based CLEC and managed services provider. Before joining T3, Marshall served as VP of Network Technology and Business Development at Cleartel Communications (now part of Birch Communications), where he played a major role in acquiring and integrating three other CLECs.

Marshall earned a BS in Physics from Rhodes College, an MSEE from Vanderbilt University, an MBA from Southern Methodist University, and completed post-graduate work in Finance and Economics at Vanderbilt University. In addition, he has earned a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, and last but not least, he is a Certified CMMC Assessor.

David Levitan

President

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David has over 30 years of experience as a telecommunications industry executive, leading technology and services organizations that have designed, built, and maintained fiber and wireless infrastructure across the US and internationally. He has extensive development, product marketing and general management experience operating independent, sponsor-backed, and publicly traded companies.

David’s previous experience includes executive leadership roles in start-up and publicly traded companies. As President of C-COR Network Services, he drove over 30% sales growth through a team of 400 employees delivering network infrastructure services for broadband operators, while also serving as an officer of parent company C-COR, Inc. At Scientific-Atlanta, Inc David held a progression of leadership and executive positions as the broadband division grew from ~$100 million to over $1.5 billion in annual sales. During his tenure he held product management, strategic planning, and general management roles, including overseeing the rapid growth of the company’s largest business unit, and establishing and scaling a unit delivering domestic and international professional services. As Vice President of CableMatrix, David also helped raise $5 million in series A venture funding for a policy management software startup.

David completed his undergraduate work at Cornell University with a BA in Economics and holds an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business. 

Adam Sewall

CEO

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Adam has been a successful senior executive and entrepreneur in the telecomm industry for more than 20 years. Adam has demonstrated success in complex technology deployments, as well as strategic planning, corporate development M&A, business development, operations, and general management. This experience also includes several significant liquidity events for shareholders.

Adam has had significant experience in the design, deployment, and operation of fiber, cellular, point-to-point and other communications networks in the US, Asia and SE Asia. Included in these deployments are AMPS, GSM, CDMA/TDMA, spread spectrum, Wi-Max/Wi-Fi and various Metro and long-haul fiber networks.

Prior to Waterleaf Adam was the President and CEO of T3 Communications Inc. www.t3com.net a next generation CLEC based in Florida. He has also held executive management positions in operations, strategic planning and corporate development at T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.

Adam’s technical background includes work in RF engineering, SDR, mobile s/w development, hardware engineering and telecommunications architecture. His project management and operations background include certifications in project management, GSM/PCS, numerous telecom standards and the successful integration of complex infrastructure as well as global deployments of software and communications networks.

He holds a BS Degree from SUNY and has completed graduate studies in engineering, finance, mathematics and economics at Stevens Institute, Columbia and Pace Universities.