KBKAST

KB recorded this episode of From the Field at DASH by Datadog 2026 at the Javits Center in New York, with two guests who come at security from different angles.

Andrew Krug, Head of Security Advocacy at Datadog, starts with what he calls the most boring truth about breaches: stay in business long enough and you’ll have one. Most companies accept that now, but few have actually prepared. He explains why long-lived credentials and machine identities are still one of the biggest gaps in cloud security, and how AI agents with broad permissions make it harder. He also covers why identity risk rarely makes a CISO’s top two priorities, and how pathfinding.cloud maps the way attackers go from read-only access to full admin.

Nathan Pitchaikani, Senior Security Engineer at Riot Games, explains how his team keeps up with supply chain attacks that now land almost daily. A teammate built an AI tool that scrapes threat feeds, checks Riot’s environment for matching IOCs and flags anything relevant to gaming. Nathan also gets into the downside: vibe-coded tools tripping detections, AI budgets blown in a month, and why peer review still matters. He wraps up on crown jewels, deception technology and running threat intel against SaaS and identity logs.

Recorded for VeeamON Sydney 2026, the one-day Sydney stop of Veeam’s global tour, this From The Field episode sees KB sit down with two Veeam leaders to explore what happens when AI enthusiasm runs ahead of trust.

Chief Marketing Officer and Customer AI Officer, Mika Yamamoto, explains why companies are now all in on AI but still searching for value as token costs climb. She also covers the gap between efficiency and efficacy, and why accurate answers, correct actions and protected data decide whether customers keep trusting you.

Chief Sales Officer, Worldwide Solutions, Shiva Pillay (Previously SVP Worldwide Data and Trust, as well as General Manager for Americas), unpacks AI FOMO, and how over-privileged agents can surface sensitive files nobody knew existed. He also explains why trustworthy AI needs data classification, access context and precise recovery working together, and how attitudes to AI risk differ across regions.

Key topics: VeeamON Sydney, AI FOMO, AI value and ROI, token costs, customer trust, agentic AI, over-privileged agents, sensitive data exposure, the data and AI trust layer, precision recovery, AI governance, regional approaches to AI risk.

RSA encryption has protected bank logins and digital signatures since 1977, and Mahesh Krishnan explains why its time is running out faster than most boards realise. Fujitsu’s own modelling suggests around 10,000 qubits could break it, not the 20 million once assumed.

He and KB dig into harvest now, decrypt later, Fujitsu’s upgrade, mitigate and govern approach, ASD’s post-quantum deadlines, and why Australian organisations are slow to act. They also look at what Q-Day might actually look like. Mahesh’s message is to be alert rather than alarmed, and to start now.

About Mahesh:

Keywords: quantum computing, post-quantum cryptography, PQC, harvest now decrypt later, Q-Day, Y2Q, RSA encryption, crypto agility, Shor’s algorithm, qubits, ASD, data retention, encryption, cyber risk, board risk, Fujitsu, Mahesh Krishnan, KBKast

Executives are spending longer than ever between roles, and Josh Hill and Luca Marzorati explain why. They look at why middle management has been hit hardest, and why the experience that got you to the top won’t necessarily get you the next job. They also get into why leading with “ex-CIO” doesn’t land.

The conversation covers whether taking a lesser role is worth it, why most executive roles never get advertised, and how to become the person who’s already lined up when one opens. They also unpack why Australian boards keep making safe carbon copy hires while search processes drag on for months.

To finish, they turn to AI. Anyone can now produce a polished CV and rehearse their way through a first interview, and fake candidates are on the rise. As a result, hiring is shifting away from credentials and toward trust and validation.

About The Guests:
Josh Hill and Luca Marzorati are Co-Founders and Partners at North Star Partners, a specialist executive search firm focused on Cyber Security, Data & AI, GTM and leadership across APAC and the US. They partner with Boards, CEOs, CISOs, CIOs, founders and technology leaders on critical hires in complex, regulated and high-growth environments.

Josh brings 15 years of experience in technology-focused recruitment, with a particular focus on AI, board and technology leadership. He is an advisor to a number of startups in Australia and the US. Originally from Italy and now based in Sydney, Luca brings 10 years of experience, with his work centred on cyber and technology leadership. He is passionate about the changing role of the CISO, the impact of AI on hiring and decision-making, and increasing cyber representation at board level.

They also co-founded The Cyber Neighbourhood and The Lounge, communities designed to bring senior leaders together, break silos and create more open conversations across cyber, technology and business.

Keywords: executive job market, executive search, executive recruitment, CISO careers, CIO careers, C-suite hiring, networking, personal brand, hidden job market, middle management, redundancy, career transition, board hiring, fake candidates, deepfake interviews, AI in recruitment, North Star Partners, Josh Hill, Luca Marzorati, KBKast

Recorded for VeeamON Sydney 2026, the one-day Sydney stop of Veeam’s global tour, held at Ilumina on 30 July. With the day split into resilience and security tracks, this ‘From The Field’ episode brings together two Veeam leaders on what it takes to deploy AI safely.

Chief Revenue Officer, John Jester, explains why resilience is now a board conversation, and how AI drift and over-permissioned agents end up corrupting data. He also covers how precision recovery lets companies undo an agent’s mistakes without rolling back their whole data estate.

President of Products and Technology, Rehan Jalil, looks at why companies need to understand their data before AI touches it, and how to manage the flood of disposable AI-generated data. He also explains why resilience becomes the last line of defence as frontier models and agent swarms make attacks faster.

Key topics: agentic AI, AI governance, AI drift, precision recovery, over-permissioned agents, the data and AI trust layer, data hygiene, obsolete data, identity and access controls, data retention, cyber resilience, frontier model threats.

KB sits down with Andre Durand, founder and CEO of Ping Identity, to talk about who gave an AI agent its authority, and who answers for it when something goes wrong.

They start with liability and why it has to trace back to a person, since agents face no consequences. From there they get into why logging in was good enough for people but isn't for agents, and why Andre thinks authorization, checked on every action, becomes the new gate.

KB pushes on human in the loop, rubber-stamp approvals and the self-driving car comparison, then they move to models that collude to get around permissions, agents that can approve their own privilege escalation, and why a one-time passcode no longer proves a human is at the keyboard.

They finish on what the next six months look like as companies try to work out which agents are already inside.

About Andre: Andre Durand founded Ping Identity in 2002 with a mission to secure the internet through identity. Today, Ping Identity is a leader in securing digital identities for the world’s largest enterprises  The company’s technology lets enterprises combine Ping’s identity solutions with third-party services they already use to remove passwords, prevent fraud, support Zero Trust, or anything in between.

In addition, Andre previously founded the identity industry conference, Identiverse, to accelerate the adoption of identity and serve as a community resource for professionals serving the identity industry. Prior to Ping Identity, Andre founded Jabber to commercialise the Jabber open source instant messaging platform which was acquired by Cisco in 2008. Andre serves on the board of Jamf and in his spare time focuses on causes related to children in the foster care system, building great culture and creating opportunities for entrepreneurs. He holds a BA in Biology and Economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Keywords: AI agents, agentic AI, identity security, identity and access management, IAM, zero trust, authorization, fine-grained authorization, authentication, accountability, liability, human in the loop, human oversight, MFA fatigue, least privilege, standing privilege, privilege escalation, segregation of duties, AI collusion, model drift, AI bias, agent registry, agent discovery, observability, biometrics, OTP, computer-using agents, Air Canada, Ping Identity, CISO, board, KBKast

Recorded at NetApp INSIGHT 2026, NetApp’s annual customer conference at MGM Grand in Las Vegas from 29 September to 1 October, this From The Field episode brings together three of the company’s senior leaders.

This year’s INSIGHT centred on AI, cyber resilience and intelligent data infrastructure, with launches including the NetApp platform with its AI Data Engine (AIDE) and NetApp Novus.

CEO George Kurian explains NetApp’s shift from storage provider to data platform, why curated context matters more than models, and the thinking behind Novus. President César Cernuda tackles why AI pilots stall before production, arguing for trusted, accessible data and zero-copy access to it wherever it lives. Chief Partner and Ecosystem Officer Álvaro Celis explores whether ecosystems simplify modernisation or just add vendors, and why execution at scale decides the answer. Together, they offer a view from the top of what it takes to turn AI ambition into results.

Karim Toubba has spent 29 years in cyber, and he says shadow AI is the biggest risk he’s seen in that time.

Boards want AI everywhere, and security teams that used to say no are being overruled. Karim explains why the privileged access model falls over when one person could have 100 or more agents working for them, and why governance has to start with knowing what AI is actually in use.

He and KB also get into companies cutting tools and teams before the token economics are clear, and why Karim’s advice is to move fast, but not through a one-way door.

About Karim:

Keywords: shadow AI, AI governance, agentic AI, AI agents, identity security, non-human identity, privileged access management, PAM, agent identity, AI visibility, AI adoption, governance theatre, data governance, token economics, AI costs, frontier models, multi-model, vibe coding, SaaS, vendor pressure, process re-engineering, LastPass, Karim Toubba, CISO, board, KBKast

Getting data back after an attack used to be the finish line. Now boards want proof the business keeps running while it happens. KB sits down with John Jester, Chief Revenue Officer at Veeam, to talk about that shift.

John explains why some companies pay ransoms even when they could recover, because recovery was simply too slow. He also covers why AI agents with too much access now cause more problems than attackers do. In one forum he ran, two-thirds of the Fortune 500 CISOs in the room had reported a data leak to their board or a regulator. And he makes the case for precision recovery: undoing a single agent’s mistakes without rolling back everything.

About John:

John joined Veeam from a successful tenure at Google Cloud, where he helped build the GTM organization through his leadership of the Customer Experience function. In this role, he drove cloud adoption and business value for customers, supporting Google Cloud’s growth to over $23B ARR.

Prior to Google, John spent 20 years at Microsoft leading sales organizations and reimagining the GTM across the customer lifecycle. His most recent role was Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Customer Success, where he established a new organization to drive adoption of Microsoft’s cloud services. Throughout his career, John has worked closely with partners and sees them as integral to crafting solutions for customers.

John earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s degree in business administration from George Mason University.

Keywords: business continuity, cyber resilience, ransomware recovery, AI agents, AI governance, precision recovery, data leakage, shadow AI, Veeam, Coveware, Securiti AI, CISO

In this episode of From The Field, recorded at DASH by Datadog in New York City, KB sits down with both of Datadog’s co-founders.

First up is Olivier Pomel, Co-founder and CEO. He talks through the new security launches, including AI Guard and Bits AI for security, and explains why an observability background gave Datadog its right to win in security. He also covers why Datadog rebuilds acquisitions on its own platform instead of bolting them on, and why he expects security tooling to consolidate the way observability did.

Then KB is joined by Alexis Lê-Quôc, Co-founder and CTO. He argues that AI has shrunk the gap between disclosure and exploit from weeks to hours. He explains why detection now has to be agentic, and why deciding which assets matter is still a human call. He also makes the case that lasting change comes from the teams on the ground.