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Dr. Bob Sohval

VP & Fellow, Data Science, SecurityScorecard · 1 appearance on the record.

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executivescientistengineersecurityscorecard.com ↗

Dr. Bob Sohval holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from MIT and designed medical imaging systems prior to moving into data science. At SecurityScorecard, he oversees machine learning algorithms for predictive cybersecurity risk ratings and holds multiple patents in cyber risk quantification.

10statements → 6claims → 2claims resolved → 3.7/5average certainty → 1.4/5average debate potential →

1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 4 assertions · 1 opinion · 1 insight · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Dr. argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Sohval: Corporate digital footprints by IP count span over eight orders of magnitude
“In terms of digital footprint, number of IPs, that spans more than eight orders of magnitude.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 8:45 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)

How they sound: speaking style how? →

223 words/min while actually speaking · 43.9 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Dr. Bob Sohval: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 2,254 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

Everything Dr. Bob Sohval said on the MAD Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Experian's outdated browser usage signals poor security hygiene, says Bob Sohval
“Northwestern Mutual on the left is, is doing a pretty reasonable job of keeping their browser browser use up to date. Experian, not so much. And this is a signal that they're not paying enough attention to security hygiene in, in their company.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 10:13 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)
Insight
Cyber breach prediction is more accurate on portfolios than individual companies
“And I would say that, ah, in general, breach prediction on portfolios is somewhat easier than for individual entities. The law of large numbers does apply here, and it's easier to make statements at a portfolio level.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 13:55 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Companies with poor security scores are five times more likely to breach
“Of the probability of a breach given a poor score versus a good score, and we look at our data, and that is a ratio of five, something like that. So poor scores are predictive of breach.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 14:44 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)
Disclosure
SecurityScorecard operates proprietary honeypots and sinkholes to detect corporate malware
“We are able, we operate our own bank of sinkholes and honeypots to detect malware on, on systems that are at the, on the companies that we monitor.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 6:00 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)
Assertion Supported
Sohval: Corporate digital footprints by IP count span over eight orders of magnitude
“In terms of digital footprint, number of IPs, that spans more than eight orders of magnitude.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 8:45 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)
Disclosure
SecurityScorecard observes a 1,000-to-1 ratio of non-breached to breached companies
“The number of non-breached companies, the ratio of non-breached to breached is something like, in our system or our platform, something like a thousand to one.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 11:45 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)
Assertion Partly supported
Industry-wide cyber breach detection takes an average of five months
“Industry average is five months.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 13:27 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
SecurityScorecard monitored around 200,000 entities as of October 2017
“Currently we monitor in the vicinity of some 200,000 entities, mostly companies, but also government organizations, government agencies, hospitals, different organizations.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 4:18 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)
Prediction Not checkable as stated
SecurityScorecard aimed to monitor one million entities by the end of 2018
“We plan on growing that to about one million by the end of next year.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 4:30 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)
Prediction Not checkable as stated
SecurityScorecard predicted data ingestion would reach petabyte scale by late 2018
“That will grow a factor of six at least next year. And by the end of next year we'll be at the petabyte. Level.”
Dr. Bob Sohval Oct 26, 2017 ▶ 4:37 Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven)

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Cybersecurity Data at Scale // Sam Kassoumeh & Bob Sohval, SecurityScorecard (Data Driven) Oct 26, 2017 13m
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