This episode is brought to you by the 2026 iTnews State of Security report and Brennan. Stay tuned to the end to hear from Peter soulsby, the director of cyber security and government at Brennan, as he discusses how AI is changing the threat landscape for organisations, but also how visibility can help cyber security practitioners move forward in enabling their organisations to embrace the technology and continue to redefine how work gets done.

Hello and welcome to the iTnews Podcast. Our guest this fortnight is Chris Horlyck, head of cyber security resilience at the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) within ASD.

Chris sat down with iTnews recently to discuss the planned changes to the Essential Eight, including its planned replacement with a new Essentials series.

There’s been a lot of discussion out in the industry since we first published our story in late June.

Here, iTnews editor Ry Crozier and our security specialist Juha Saarinen talk to Chris to unpack the changes with Essentials, as well as recent changes to the Information Security Manual or ISM, and how these might also be reflected within the Essentials.