Secured

In this Secured clip, Dr. Jacqueline Benson, licensed clinical psychologist and Founder & CEO of Center Stage Psychology, addresses a growing concern: teens turning to AI for mental health support.

Dr. Benson makes a critical distinction — AI is not mental health treatment. While AI tools can provide information and function as digital resources, they were not designed to replace licensed professionals. Mental health care requires years of clinical training and, just as importantly, real-time human judgment. Effective therapy is individualized, responsive, and deeply human — something AI cannot replicate.

She also warns that while AI can offer helpful information, it can just as easily surface harmful or inaccurate content. In vulnerable moments, that misinformation can do real damage. Emerging cases have already shown AI interactions worsening psychotic symptoms or even encouraging suicidality in teens.

Dr. Benson emphasizes that licensed mental health professionals must play an active role in shaping ethical safeguards around AI systems, particularly because the populations most likely to rely on these tools — adolescents and vulnerable individuals — are also those most at risk.

For parents, her advice is clear: stay engaged. Learn about AI alongside your children. Have open conversations. And when serious mental health concerns arise, prioritize support from trusted, licensed professionals over quick digital responses.

Speed and accessibility do not equal safety — especially when it comes to mental health.

In this Secured clip, Dr. Jared L. Ross, Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri, weighs in on Tennessee’s new policy mandating firearm safety education in K–12 schools.

Ross calls the policy a positive step toward ensuring that students gain a foundational understanding of firearm safety. The legislation includes age-appropriate instruction — teaching younger students not to touch unattended firearms and guiding older students on safe storage practices.

However, he argues the policy does not go far enough.

According to Ross, the absence of a hands-on training component limits its effectiveness. He also notes that the curriculum omits core principles such as the four universal rules of firearm safety — widely recognized standards in safe handling.

With an estimated 400 to 500 million firearms in the United States, Ross contends that basic firearm literacy should be considered a practical safety issue rather than a political one. In his view, understanding firearm safety is comparable to learning driver’s education or financial literacy — a foundational life skill in today’s environment.

He also points out that implementing more comprehensive training would not necessarily overburden schools, as local law enforcement, school resource officers, and established organizations already have the capacity to support structured safety education.

In this Secured clip, Irina Tsukerman, President of Scarab Rising, Inc. and geopolitical analyst at the Arabian Peninsula Institute, explains how extremist groups have transformed propaganda into their most powerful weapon.

What once relied on underground sermons or low-quality recordings has evolved into sophisticated, multi-platform content ecosystems. Al Qaeda affiliates and ISIS offshoots now embed their messaging into popular digital formats — from short-form video to gaming-inspired visuals — lowering skepticism and normalizing extremist narratives.

By borrowing aesthetics from mainstream culture, including video games like Call of Duty, propaganda becomes gamified. Radicalization feels less like indoctrination and more like participation. The goal isn’t just recruitment — it’s narrative dominance, shaping perceptions until extremist messaging blends into the digital background.

Tsukerman emphasizes that the solution isn’t simply removing content. Suppression alone creates gaps that new propaganda quickly fills. The real challenge is replacement — building authentic counter-narratives that directly compete with extremist fantasies and resonate with the same audiences.

In today’s digital environment, authenticity — not censorship alone — is the decisive factor in defending the information space.

In this Secured clip, Mark Gagas of Sensory Robotics outlines the future of human-machine collaboration in high-risk industrial environments.

Rather than relying on rigid safeguards that trigger full system shutdowns, the next generation of industrial robotics will be context-aware. These machines will continuously interpret their surroundings, adjusting speed, direction, and behavior in real time based on human presence and activity.

Instead of a binary “stop or go” response, safety and productivity logic will operate together. Systems will slow down, reroute, or dynamically reshape protective zones rather than halting operations entirely. This approach reduces unnecessary downtime while maintaining high safety standards.

Gagas also points to the evolution of safety certifications. As robots and humans increasingly share workspace, standards will need to reflect real collaborative work patterns — not just legacy safeguarding models built around separation and barriers.

Ultimately, the vision is clear: intelligent robotic systems that safely coexist alongside workers without traditional cages or fencing, integrating adaptive safety directly into operational design.

In this Secured clip, Andrew Feigenson, CEO of InformData, explains how AI is fundamentally reshaping trust in the workplace — both by enabling more sophisticated fraud and by strengthening detection.

With the rise of AI-generated resumes, fabricated credentials, and synthetic identities, identity fraud is becoming harder to detect and easier to scale. This evolution raises the bar for employers and screening providers, who can no longer rely on traditional verification methods to ensure accuracy.

At the same time, AI is equipping organizations with more powerful tools to combat these risks. Machine learning can identify subtle data patterns that signal fraud, detect inconsistencies that human reviewers might overlook, and accelerate verification processes — improving both security and the candidate experience.

But Feigenson emphasizes that the most important shift is conceptual. Risk is no longer binary. It’s not simply “cleared” or “not cleared,” nor is it confined to a single moment in time. Instead, trust must be contextual, ongoing, and adaptive.

He draws a parallel to cybersecurity: just as one-time security scans are insufficient in a constantly evolving threat landscape, background screening cannot remain a static, check-the-box compliance exercise. It must become part of a broader, continuous trust strategy — one that protects not only the organization, but also its clients, partners, and workforce.

In this Secured clip, Mark Gagas, COO of Sensory Robotics, explains how 3D vision technology is reshaping safety standards in modern manufacturing environments.

Traditional safeguarding systems typically monitor fixed points or flat safety planes — creating rigid on/off zones that can halt operations entirely when breached. But 3D vision shifts that paradigm.

By monitoring an entire workspace in real time, 3D vision systems dynamically adapt protective zones based on human movement. Instead of treating safety as a binary state, these systems continuously assess spatial relationships between workers and machines. The result is more precise intervention — reducing unnecessary shutdowns while maintaining protection.

This adaptive capability also opens the door to “fenceless” operations in environments where physical barriers once limited flexibility and productivity.

As adoption grows, standards bodies are beginning to evaluate how to measure and regulate performance in these responsive, 3D safeguarding systems. It represents a move beyond legacy safety models toward intelligent, real-time risk mitigation.

For manufacturing leaders, the shift is significant: safety is no longer static — it’s spatial, dynamic, and increasingly data-driven.

In this Secured clip, Jason Crawford, Founder and CEO of Sware, discusses how artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping trust in digital media.

Today, nearly every industry — from insurance and logistics to healthcare, security, military, and intelligence — relies on digital content to communicate, validate processes, and substantiate decisions. The authenticity of that content has long been assumed. But as AI enables the creation of hyper-realistic synthetic media, that assumption is eroding.

Crawford warns that we are entering a world where the burden of proof shifts. Historically, the responsibility was to prove that something was fake. Increasingly, organizations will need to prove that something is real — particularly in high-stakes environments like the legal system, where evidentiary standards will inevitably tighten.

Most current efforts focus on defense: forensic analysis designed to detect manipulated media after it circulates. But Crawford argues this approach is unsustainable. As the velocity and sophistication of AI-generated content increases, detection becomes a reactive, unwinnable arms race.

Instead, he advocates protecting authenticity at the moment of creation — establishing an independent chain of custody that secures not just the pixels or audio, but the full context: when, where, how, and by whom the content was recorded.

By separating security from the asset itself — using cryptographic fingerprints and distributed verification models — organizations can create stronger, tamper-evident proof of authenticity before trust is compromised.

In this Secured clip, Joe Anderson of Fortify Risk Management highlights an often-overlooked business threat: war and terrorism risk.

While many U.S.-based organizations consider war a low-probability event, its ripple effects are far-reaching. Global conflicts can disrupt supply chains, restrict access to foreign markets, threaten employee safety, and create hesitation in investment and expansion strategies. Even when the conflict is overseas, the operational and financial consequences can be immediate.

Terrorism presents a parallel risk — whether as a direct threat tied to industry or geography, or as an indirect shock that disrupts markets and confidence, as seen during events like 9/11.

So how should organizations respond?

Anderson outlines three core strategies: avoidance, transfer, and diversification. Companies should conduct international security and risk assessments, prioritize operations in lower-risk regions, and explore tools like political risk insurance or contractual risk transfer. Beyond that, resilient risk management means building redundancy — dual sites, multiple suppliers, and diversified revenue streams.

Ultimately, he challenges leaders to ask a critical question: If this crisis happens, who benefits? And how can your organization position itself to remain stable — or even pivot — in the face of disruption?

In this Secured bonus soundbite, Amanda Singleton, Customer Care Manager at Lightcurve, highlights one of the most common—and effective—tactics used in social engineering attacks: urgency.

Singleton explains that scammers succeed not because of sophisticated technology, but because they exploit human behavior during busy, distracted moments. By creating a sense of urgency, attackers pressure individuals to act quickly, bypassing normal verification steps and critical thinking.

She emphasizes a clear best practice her teams reinforce with customers: legitimate organizations will never request confidential information through unsolicited messages. Any unexpected request for sensitive data should be verified through a trusted, alternate channel—such as calling a known phone number or logging into an official account portal.

This guidance is especially important as phishing and impersonation attempts become more convincing and widespread. Attackers are intentionally trying to interrupt routines, trigger emotional reactions, and rush decisions before red flags are noticed.

Singleton’s advice aligns closely with a core theme of Secured: strong security isn’t just about tools—it’s about habits. Slowing down, questioning urgency, and validating requests can stop many attacks before they cause harm. In an environment where speed is often rewarded, she reminds organizations that hesitation can be a powerful defensive move.

In this Secured bonus soundbite, Joshua Sullivan, Chief Operating Officer and Master Instructor of the Alive Active Shooter Survival Training Program, addresses one of the most overlooked gaps in organizational safety: mindset and preparation.

Sullivan explains that many organizations remain trapped in “optimism bias”—the belief that violence is unlikely to happen to them—despite clear evidence that workplace violence and political intimidation are occurring across offices, hospitals, schools, and public spaces nationwide. This mental blind spot, he argues, is one of the biggest barriers to effective preparedness.

When high-stress incidents occur, people don’t default to logic—they default to training. Without prior preparation, the brain is more likely to freeze in a fight-or-flight response. Sullivan emphasizes that proactive training gives individuals something to fall back on in moments of chaos, increasing the likelihood of decisive, life-saving action.

He draws a powerful comparison to fire drills, which most people have practiced since childhood, despite fires being statistically less likely than workplace violence events. The imbalance highlights a critical need for organizations to treat violence preparedness with the same seriousness and repetition.

Sullivan’s message reinforces a core theme of Secured: resilience isn’t built during a crisis—it’s built long before one occurs. By confronting bias, investing in accessible training, and normalizing preparedness, organizations can better protect their people in an increasingly unpredictable environment.