Introducing Maxime Lamothe-Brassard

This month’s interview is going to be a little bit different as we are speaking with LimaCharlie founder Maxime Lamothe-Brassard.

Maxime is an accomplished computer scientist and information security specialist. As part of the Canadian Intelligence apparatus, Maxime worked in positions ranging from development of cyber defence technologies through Counter Computer Network Exploitation and Counter Intelligence. Maxime led the creation of an advanced cyber security program for the Canadian government and received several Director’s awards for his service.

After leaving the government, Maxime provided direct help to private and public organizations in matters of cyber defence and spent some time working with CrowdStrike. For the past few years Maxime has also been providing analysis and guidance to major Canadian media organizations. Maxime was a founding member of Google X’s Chronicle Security. He left in 2018 to found LimaCharlie.

And as you may have guessed, Maxime is a very busy man so we are going to get straight to it in this interview.

What is LimaCharlie?

LimaCharlie is a story that is currently underway. It starts with an EDR delivered as a self-serve platform. It grows up and adds a few other capabilities like parsing and processing of external artifacts and it’s about to go through some very interesting growth spurts. It dreams of becoming the security infrastructure as a service platform the same way it’s seen its heros, GCP and AWS become IT as a service.

Those familiar with the history of LimaCharlie know that it started as an open source project. Can you briefly talk about when and how the initial idea came to fruition? And ultimately what led to its commercialization?

The original LimaCharlie was an open source EDR. It was more of an outlet of experimentation on new agent technologies for me than a full product. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment in time when it was conceived since it is really the culmination of so many ideas and experiences working in security and with agents.

LimaCharlie took its current name while I was working at Google which is when it was first open sourced. The name has two distinct origins: Lima Charlie is the NATO phonetic alphabet for L and C, which is the short-form of ‘loud and clear’, an expression often used in radio communications to express that the message was received and understood. The second meaning is more personal. Some of the ideas around LimaCharlie came up while I was working from the south of France. There I worked out of a small cafe almost every morning, the “Cafe LC”, so LimaCharlie is a small tribute to the cafe that welcomed me every day.

Leaving Google, I knew I had the seed of something special with the open source EDR technology; but I also knew that the security industry didn’t need “one more EDR”. The first couple of years as a company were spent refining the underlying technology, but it is also when we formulated the vision. We knew that we wanted to push the market somewhere new and to provide something that was truly unique and useful. I think we’ve accomplished that and in the grand scheme of things we are going to accomplish a whole lot more.

What do you see as the biggest problems with the information security landscape as it is today?

I think there is too much focus on the “shiny new toy”. I wish it wasn’t true but, the reality is that to secure a company or organization, no one new product will be the one “stopping all attacks”. As a society we increase our reliance on technology at a very fast pace and we need the security industry to grow up in maturity.

Comparing the security industry to other industries that have increased in maturity, for example databases: we talk of relational databases or NoSQL databases. Which specific one you use will depend on your use case, each with their own pros and cons; however, what matters are the fundamentals. Looking at Engineering, no engineering company claims to have the best formula to make sure a bridge doesn’t collapse; they focus on the fundamentals. This is the approach that needs to be taken in cyber security. Industry players need to leverage well known security industry best practices and do so competently. Less shiny toys with more well integrated and  coherent solutions.

This is the exact approach we are taking with LimaCharlie: we don’t have the magic wand (nobody does). What we do have is an ecosystem of the staples of security and deliver them on demand in a way that makes it easy for people to adopt.

What do you do with your spare time (assuming you have any)?

Over the past few years I’ve enjoyed getting into Freediving. Not competitively or anything like that, but I’ve always been interested in sports that require some introspection and a better understanding of your own body, and this fits the bill very well.

How did you come to a career in technology?

I’ve always been interested in technology. My parents were big believers in the role of computers in the future of technology, so as far as I can remember we had a computer at home, starting with a Mac Classic. From the early days I was involved in a Macintosh club in my hometown, so when it came to studies, it was a normal course to go into Computer Science.

Do you use any philosophies to guide the work that you do?

I’m not sure if it falls within the term of “philosophy”, but I believe in being of service. I think it’s one thing that’s always served me well, trying to be helpful. Everybody needs a hand at one point or another and it’s at those times that it makes the biggest difference for them.

Do you have any predictions about the future?

I don’t want to jinx it.

Do you have any pets?

We have a dog named Lana, a mix Jack Russel x Chihuahua who’s been with us for 8 years and has been an amazing travel companion.

The vaccine is a huge success and you are taking the LimaCharlie team out - where are we going and what are we eating? 

As we’re a remote company, I assume there is no geographical limitation. We’re going to a french cafe called “Sucre Sale” in Cozumel. Great food, sun and warmth.

Favourite quote?

Some variation of “no plan ever survives first contact”.

Do you have a tech hero? And if so who?

I’ve never been a fan of having specific persons be heroes, I feel it implies perfection and it makes me uncomfortable. I would say I admire certain characteristics of some people in tech:

• The product focus of Steve Jobs

• Depth of knowledge of John Carmack

Famous person you share a birthday with?

Good question, I have no idea…...googles furiously...

Hahah, the Dalai Lama and George W. Bush.