This episode features Angie Klein, IAM Business Technology Manager at Federated Insurance.

Angie brings over a decade of experience spanning systems development and identity security leadership, holding CISSP, CIDPRO, and CISM certifications and working hands-on with CyberArk, SailPoint IDN, and Active Directory in a regulated environment.

In this episode, Angie dives into the organizational and cultural work that most identity programs skip. She shares why identity deserves its own program, how to apply OCM to bring resistant stakeholders on board, and why governance must come first. Angie's core argument is that if identity security creates too much friction, people will route around it, and that's where the real risk lives.

This episode makes the case that the hardest part of identity security isn't the technology, it's getting people to trust it enough to stop working around it.

Guest Bio

Angie bring over a decade of experience as a Systems Developer, providing extensive technical expertise in the Identity Security domain. I hold certifications, including CISSP, CIDPRO, and CISM. Additionally, she has experience working in the insurance industry and am skilled in CyberArk, Active Directory, SailPoint IDN, Analytical Skills, Project Management, and Public Speaking.

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This episode features Sarah Cecchetti, Director of Product Management at Semperis.

A veteran identity executive, Sarah co-founded IDPro and co-authored NIST SP 800-63-3C Digital Identity Guidelines. She previously led Amazon Cognito as Head of Product at AWS, where she also open-sourced Cedar, the policy language at the center of this conversation.

In this episode, Sarah presents her Bsides Seattle talk "Identity Crisis: IAM's Wild Ride in the AI Jungle" on why the assumptions that shaped modern identity have been overturned by the pace of agentic AI. She covers where authentication and authorization standards currently fall short for non-human identities and walks through the emerging frameworks the industry is building to fill that gap.

This episode makes the case that natural language safety instructions are not a substitute for provable, external guardrails.

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This episode features a virtual roundtable hosted by Michele Crockett, Associate VP of Product Marketing at Semperis.

The panel brings together five practitioners with deep experience in identity security: Alex Weinert, Chief Product Officer at Semperis; Christopher Brumm, Cyber Security Architect at glueckkanja; Eric Woodruff, Chief Identity Architect at Semperis; Jorge de Almeida Pinto, Senior Incident Response Lead at Semperis; and Michael Van Horenbeeck, CEO and Senior Solution Architect at The Collective Consulting. Collectively, they represent experience across incident response, Microsoft product development, enterprise architecture, and security leadership.

In this discussion, the panel addresses how to allocate limited security budgets across prevention and recovery, why the same AD misconfigurations keep appearing in assessments year after year, and what AI means for defenders and attackers alike.

This episode is a practical, field-tested conversation about what moves the needle when resources are constrained.

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This episode features Sander Berkouwer and Raymond Comvalius, two longtime identity security experts and Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs).

Sander is an independent identity architect and author of the Active Directory Cookbooks. Raymond is an IT specialist and senior technical consultant specializing in hybrid identity, Microsoft Entra ID, and identity lifecycle automation.

In this episode, they explore a growing blind spot in cloud security: application governance. As organizations adopt more cloud apps and integrations, identity platforms like Microsoft Entra ID often accumulate hundreds of application registrations with little oversight.

They explain why governance so often falls behind adoption, share practical steps organizations can take to regain control, and discuss the next frontier of identity.

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Sander Berkouwer

Raymond Comvalius

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“There's a difference between an application and an agent. An agent is far more ephemeral. It does a job that requires some sort of permission. It spins up, it does its thing, and it spins down.” - Sander Berkouwer

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This episode features Krista Arndt, Associate CISO at St. Luke’s University Health Network.

With a career spanning healthcare, finance, crypto, and the Department of Defense, Krista brings a uniquely nontraditional path into cybersecurity, one shaped by mission-driven leadership, authenticity, and a commitment to mentorship.

In this episode, Krista explains why identity sits at the center of nearly every major cyber incident and shares lessons from real-world response work. She also draws a striking parallel between incident response and her life as a national drag racing competitor, where staying calm under pressure and building in fail-safes can mean the difference between disaster and resilience.

This episode is a powerful look at what it means to lead in cybersecurity.

Guest Bio

Krista is an active member of ISACA, serves as InfraGard Philadelphia Chapter’s Healthcare Sector Chief, serves on Neumann University's Business Advisory Council and is Marketing Committee chair for Women in Cybersecurity-Delaware Valley Affiliate. Krista is also a published author, detailing her journey to embracing her unique authenticity in her book, “Permission to be Real; How to Lead, Influence, and Thrive Without Fitting the Mold". Through this service and her writing, Krista's mission is to give back to her community by providing mentorship and support for aspiring cybersecurity professionals, especially for women who wish to enter the field. 

When off the clock, Krista takes her affinity for overcoming challenges to the garage and the race track, where she enjoys building and improving her own race car, competing as a driver in national drag racing events with her family, and using her racing as a forum to advocate for neurodiversity awareness and inclusion.

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This episode features Cliff Fisher, Senior Solutions Architect at Semperis and former Senior Technical Program Manager on Microsoft’s Active Directory product group.

With over a decade spent inside Microsoft supporting enterprise customers and helping guide Active Directory’s security and roadmap, Cliff brings a rare insider perspective on what’s actually happening behind the scenes of one of the world’s most widely deployed identity platforms.

In this episode, Cliff tackles the question many organizations are still asking: Is Active Directory really going away? He explains why the shift to cloud identity has moved far slower than expected, shares polling data that confirms hybrid environments are here for the long term, and breaks down how Microsoft is still investing in AD through security hardening, supportability improvements, and features like Windows LAPS.

This episode offers a clearer look at why Active Directory remains central to enterprise identity and what defenders need to prepare for as hybrid becomes the default reality.

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This episode features Tim Beasley, a Senior Incident Response Consultant at Semperis with decades of experience in compromise recovery and post-breach response.

With a background that includes leading recovery efforts at Microsoft’s DART team and helping build the Compromise Recovery Security Practice, Tim brings deep operational insight into what happens after attackers gain access. His work spans ransomware, nation-state intrusions, and large-scale identity compromises across public and private sector organizations.

In this episode, Tim explains why gaining access is only the beginning of modern attacks and why identity remains the primary path for escalation. He breaks down how attackers exploit credential exposure and identity infrastructure, and why prevention alone fails without a recovery-first mindset. He shares real-world lessons from incident response and recovery, including how teams contain threats and limit the impact of identity compromises.

This episode reframes identity security as a resilience problem and offers a clearer way to think about preparing for the breach you haven’t detected yet.

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This episode features Dr. Mary Aiken, Professor of Cyberpsychology at Capitol Technology University and one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of technology on human behavior.

With a career spanning academia, law enforcement advisory roles, and global policy work with organizations like INTERPOL and Europol, Dr. Aiken brings deep insight into how human psychology shapes security outcomes. Her work focuses on the human layer of cyber risk—how trust, perception, fatigue, and bias influence behavior in digital environments.

In this episode, Dr. Aiken explains why humans aren’t the weakest link in cybersecurity but the most targeted. She shows how attackers weaponize human behavior through phishing, MFA fatigue, and insider recruitment, and why hybrid identity must be treated as a cyber-psychological battlefield. She also discusses what human-aware defenses look like in practice and why intelligence augmentation is critical to psychological and technical resilience.

This episode reframes identity security as a human problem first and offers a clearer way to think about protecting people in an increasingly manipulative digital world.

Guest Bio

Dr Mary Aiken is a world leading expert in Cyberpsychology – the study of the impact of technology on human behaviour. She is Professor of Cyberpsychology and Chair of the Department of Cyberpsychology at Capitol Technology University Washington D.C.’s premier STEM University, and Professor of Forensic Cyberpsychology at the University of East London. Professor Aiken is a Member of the INTERPOL Global Cybercrime Expert Group and an Academic Advisor to Europol's European Cyber Crime Centre (EC3). She is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Medicine, a member of the Medico-Legal Society and an International Affiliate Member of the American Psychological Association (APA). She is a former Global Fellow at the Washington DC Wilson Center, and is a Fellow of the Society for Chartered IT Professionals. She is a former Director of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) Cyberpsychology Research Centre. Dr Aiken's work inspired the CBS PrimeTime TV series 'CSI: Cyber.' Her landmark bestselling book 'The Cyber Effect' was a 2016 'Times book of the year.' Dr Mary Aiken is recognised as an international expert in industry and policy debates at the intersection of technology and human behaviour she has been invited to present at events organised by global organisations such as the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, G7, Europol, INTERPOL and the White House.

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“People talk about humans being the weakest link in the cybersecurity equation. They're not the weakest link, they're just simply the most targeted link.”

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01:58 Meet Dr. Mary Aiken: World-leading Expert in Cyberpsychology

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The HIP Podcast is brought to you by Semperis, the leader in identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise. Trusted by the world’s leading businesses, Semperis protects critical Active Directory and Entra ID environments from cyberattacks, ensuring rapid recovery and business continuity when every second counts. Visit semperis.com to learn more.

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This episode features Andy Drag, Staff Product Manager at Cohesity.

With a background in systems administration and two managed service provider startups, Andy brings deep, hands-on insight into the challenges IT teams face. Over the last decade, he’s led product management across backup vendors and SaaS continuity platforms, shaping products around integrations, cyber recovery, and resilience.

In this episode, Andy shows how ransomware has changed the stakes for backup and identity, and why they must be treated as tier-zero systems. He explains how attackers now target backup platforms, what tighter roles, isolation, and immutability look like in practice, and why actually rehearsing recovery is more important than any architecture diagram.

This is a realistic look at whether your recovery plan will work in a real-world attack or only looks good on paper.

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This episode features host Sean Deuby and fellow Semperis colleague Guido Grillenmeier, Principal Technologist, EMEA, in a candid recap of the 2025 Hybrid Identity Protection Conference in Charleston. They trade takeaways on what they heard, what surprised them, and what the event revealed about where hybrid identity security is headed.

Sean and Guido highlight some key observations from keynote speakers including Chris Inglis (former US National Cyber Director), Alex Weinert (Semperis CPO and former VP of Identity Security at Microsoft), and other identity security and recovery experts across the world.

This is a fast, grounded debrief designed to help you take in the conference highlights and carry forward the insights that will matter most in the year ahead.

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04:27 The Biggest Conference Themes and What They Signal

08:39 Active Directory’s Evolution + Microsoft’s Presence

12:54 Keynotes and the Broader Identity Threat Picture

17:14 Practical Practitioner Takeaways

26:49 Identity Security as an Ongoing Program

31:39 Wrap-Up and What’s Next for HIP Conf

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