The Pushback

Is AI giving attackers the upper hand?

Tom and Maulik put that question to Neil Robinson, CISO of Virgin Money, who explains why defenders should have the advantage in theory, since they know their own environment better. Turning that into a real advantage depends on data, and Neil shares why reliable automation and AI agents need an accurate, shared picture of the environment before they can be trusted to act at machine speed. Listen now for a practical look at how security teams can close the gap as AI-enabled attacks get faster.

Julie Sheah, UX/UI Designer (PenFed Credit Union), and Jonathan Farley, Lead Penetration Tester (Mastercard), join us to talk about usability in cybersecurity. Julie brings the design perspective and Jonathan brings years of hands-on security work, and together they explore why the tools security teams rely on every day should be built around the people using them.

Dr. Lovelie Moore joins us for our third Speed Vegas special during Black Hat Week. She’s the BISO at Toyota Financial Services, a former Navy officer, and previously worked in public sector security with the City of Dallas. We get into how to shift a culture that keeps accepting risk on legacy systems and her doctoral research on gamified security training.

AI Security Architect Kashish Mittal joins us for our second Speed Vegas special during Black Hat Week. He holds a security degree from Carnegie Mellon, and has previously led security at Duo, Elevate, Microsoft, MileIQ, and Brex. We talk through how startups should prioritize security as they scale and why he won’t let agents run unsupervised.

During Black Hat week, we sat down with Jaye Tillson, Field CTO and Distinguished Technologist for Security at HPE. Jaye has spent 25+ years in the industry, helped Zscaler build ZPA, and co-founded the SSE Forum. His resume also runs from Formula One to shaping zero trust as we know it today. He's got strong opinions on pineapple pizza and even stronger ones on the any-any firewall rule that sat quietly on one company's network for ten years. Fair warning, you'll walk away wondering what's still lurking in yours.

In episode 3, we're looking at one of the coolest careers in cyber. Tod Beardsley, VP of Threat Research at runZero and former cyber sleuth at CISA joins us to get into the truth about AI’s recent breakthroughs in discovering zero-day vulnerabilities and why it’s both a game-changer and a cause for concern. Plus a look-in at Tod's side hustles which range from Lovecraftian podcasts and AI-driven horror fiction.

Your favourite cartoons might have more to do with North Korea's weapons program than you think. In this episode, cybersecurity experts Nick Roy and 'Barni' delve into North Korea's cyber operations, exploring their tactics, funding, and the unique hybrid criminal-nation state ecosystem. Discover how these activities impact global security and what organizations can do to defend against them.

Jothi “JoJo D” Dugar and Ty Hughes join Tom and Maulik to discuss cyber-wellness and why human resilience has become the critical infrastructure in cybersecurity. Drawing on their experience across government and federal cyber defense, they explore how organizations can better support the people protecting their most important systems.