Shows / Safe Mode Podcast
Episodes
Safe Mode PodcastPatch and move on? Why vulnerability response doesn't end there
Fresh off the PHP2Shell advisory, former DHS CISO and acting deputy CIO Hemant Baidwan — now executive CISO at Knox Systems, the largest federal managed cloud…
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Even safe mode can't save PHP this time
Two critical PHP bugs, found by AI before attackers, leaked before the embargo, patched a day early. Cisco Talos' Matt Olney joins Safe Mode — the show, not…
- Safe Mode Podcast
The messy middle of AI-powered bug disclosure
AI is making vulnerabilities easier to find, but who’s going to fix them? On this episode, Greg Otto talks with Josh Bressers, VulnCheck’s director of…
- Safe Mode Podcast
Which nation-sate should worry us most
What has changed in the cyber threat landscape—and what should defenders do about it? On this episode of Safe Mode, CyberScoop’s Greg Otto speaks with retired…
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What AI alignment means for cybersecurity
The debate over AI alignment often centers on guardrails, model behavior, and whether increasingly capable systems could act in unexpected ways. But what does…
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Jailbreaks, sandboxes, and the limits of AI safeguards
Matt Fredrikson, associate professor at Carnegie Mellon and CEO and co-founder of Gray Swan AI, built the world's largest AI red teaming arena, with more than…
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ClickFix and the social engineering of routine
It starts with a fake error message. It ends with a pasted command. ClickFix has become one of the most reliable ways for attackers to get an initial foothold…
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Defending in the middle of the vulnpocalypse
CyberScoop editor-in-chief Greg Otto talks with WatchTowr founder and CEO Ben Harris about how cybersecurity teams are adapting as AI accelerates vulnerability…
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The Vulnpocalypse arrived early
NEA partner Aaron Jacobson put $250 million behind autonomous pen testing company Horizon3.ai on the bet that cybersecurity has entered an AI-versus-AI era —…
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Rethinking how federal cyber hiring actually works
The federal government can't reliably say how many cybersecurity workers it has or what they cost — and that uncertainty sits at the heart of a much bigger…
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The world still treats bug hunters like criminals
Kat Sommer, head of government affairs at NCC Group, joins Safe Mode to unpack the DEF CON talk she gave on how governments around the world are — and mostly…
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The SOC wasn't built for this
Security operations centers have run on the same playbook for decades — collect, queue, triage, investigate, escalate. But attackers now move at machine speed…
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Why Cybersecurity is at the heart of the US-China AI race
The US-China AI competition has quietly become a cybersecurity arms race, and this week made that impossible to ignore. Booz Allen's Brad Medairy joins Safe…
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A builder's view of the AI arms race
It's been a wild six weeks for frontier AI models — Mythos launched, got yanked offline by the Department of Commerce over export controls, and came back…
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What the Section 702 lapse means for cybersecurity
For the first time in its operational history, FISA Section 702 has lapsed, plunging U.S. intelligence agencies and telecom providers into a highly uncertain…
Safe Mode PodcastWhat the post-quantum executive order means for CISOs
In this week’s episode, Greg speaks with Ellen Boehm, SVP of Strategy and AI Operations at Keyfactor, about what the administration’s post-quantum cryptography…
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How security investigators can get the right info out of AI security tools
This week on Safe Mode, Greg sits down with Dov Yoran, CEO and co-founder of Command Zero, to talk about one of the most persistent problems in enterprise…
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Inside Operation Disruption Week: Taking Down Southeast Asia's Scam Machine
What does it actually take to dismantle an industrial-scale scam operation running bulletproof hosting, distributed ASNs, and crypto laundering across multiple…
Safe Mode PodcastZero days, zero order: The chaos reshaping vulnerability disclosure
The rules of responsible disclosure were written for a different era — one where humans found bugs, humans reported them, and 90 days felt like plenty of time…
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Why the autonomous SOC Is the wrong goal
On this week's episode, we're joined by Mike Nichols, General Manager of Security at Elastic, fresh off the Gartner Security and Risk Summit in the D.C. area…
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The last layer standing
What happens when an "assume breach" scenario turns into a total corporate wipeout? In this episode of Safe Mode, host Greg welcomes Brandon Willitts, Director…
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From Two Weeks to Three Days: The KEV Deadline Debate
Drawing on his experience from his time in government working directly on CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, Todd Beardsley, VP of Security…
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Can specialized security survive Daybreak and Mythos?
In this episode, we sit down with Lior Div, CEO of 7AI, at a moment when the ground is shifting under the entire security industry. With AI lowering the…
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Why access brokers have stubbornly remained successful
Anna Pham of Huntress joins Safe Mode to discuss the current landscape of initial access brokers and how their tactics continue to support ransomware…
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Can you prove which agent did what?
In this week's episode, Greg Otto talks with Howard Ting, CEO of Opal Security, about the growing security challenges created by AI agents inside the…
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How government and Industry can raise the cost of cybercrime
Sophos CEO Joe Levy and Director of Government Partnerships Alex Rose join Safe Mode from Washington, D.C. to discuss what meaningful public-private…
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Proving Identity in the age of agents
As AI makes deepfakes and voice cloning more convincing, attackers are shifting away from traditional vulnerabilities and focusing on identity as the easiest…
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The federal government's most underrated cybersecurity tool
In this episode of Safe Mode, we sit down with Philip George, Executive Technical Strategist at Merlin Group to talk about the real challenges federal agencies…
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What does industry think of the White House's cybersecurity strategy?
Bob Ackerman (founder of Allegis Cyber and a partner at DataTribe) joins Safe Mode to talk about where the new national cybersecurity strategy is trying to…
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When iPhone exploits turn into commodities
A sophisticated iPhone exploit kit known as DarkSword has escaped the world of targeted espionage and landed in public view—leaked on GitHub in a form that…
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Behind the scenes of the Socksescort takedown
In this episode, we sit down with Chris Formosa to break down the Socksescort disruption—a proxy botnet powered by AVRecon that compromised edge devices at…
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What comes next for Trump's cybersecurity plan?
On this episode of Safe Mode, Greg Otto and Tim Starks look past the headline release of President Trump’s new cyber strategy and focus on what comes next: the…
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A plea to improve quantum security in the federal government
In this episode, we sit down with Gharun Lacy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Cyber and Technology Security Directorate at the U.S. Department of State…
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Is the 'Shields Up' era of CISA over?
One year into the second Trump administration, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is facing what former officials and industry…
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Should you still trust your password manager?
In this episode, Greg explores the gap between password manager marketing claims of "Zero Knowledge Encryption" and the reality uncovered by Swiss researchers…
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No exceptions: How Amazon killed the password and unified security
In this episode, we sit down with Stephen Schmidt, SVP & Chief Security Officer at Amazon, to explore the engineering and leadership required to run a "no…
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What leaders can learn from the WEF's Cybersecurity Outlook
AI is reshaping cybersecurity faster than most organizations can govern it—and the risk no longer stops at the edge of the enterprise. In this episode, Greg…
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Opportunistic by Default: How OT gets pulled into the blast radius
In this episode of Safe Mode, we look at how opportunistic campaigns—often starting as loud disruption like DDoS—can probe for weak points and, in some cases…
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How do you win a conflict most Americans can’t see?
Retired Lt. Gen. Charlie “Tuna” Moore, former deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, joins Safe Mode to break down his new paper on “dominating the digital…
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What's powering the 'Steroid Era' of cybercrime?
Greg sits down with Adam Myers, Head of Counter Adversary Operations at CrowdStrike, and Elia Zaitsev, CTO of CrowdStrike, to discuss why 2025 has been dubbed…
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The Access‑Trust Gap: Why security can’t see what work depends on
In our final episode of 2025, Dave Lewis, global advisory CISO for 1Password, joins Greg Otto to unpack the “access‑trust gap”: the growing mismatch between…
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How AI has complicated enterprise mobile security
In this episode of Safe Mode, Jim Dolce, CEO of Lookout, reveals that 40% of phishing attacks now target mobile devices—yet CISOs are drastically underspending…
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Breaking down the latest era of Chinese cyberespionage with Booz Allen's Nate Beach-Westmoreland
In this episode, we sit down with Nate Beach-Westmoreland, Head of Strategic Cyber Threat Intelligence at Booz Allen, to explore the evolving sophistication of…
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How Visa's CISO turns a 'paranoid and pessimisitic mindset' into positive security outcomes
Visa CISO Subra Kumaraswamy joins Safe Mode to discuss the global scale and complexities of cybersecurity at Visa, from managing a billion transactions daily…
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What security teams should do to prepare for the quantum computing future
Rebecca Krauthamer, CEO of QSecure, joins Safe Mode to delve into the rapidly shifting landscape of quantum computing and cybersecurity. The conversation…
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How MSP's are dealing CISA changes
On this week’s Safe Mode, Greg welcomes Jason Pufahl, VP of Security Services at Vancord. Jason shares deep insights into the evolving managed security…
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Mobilizing Main Street: Inside the Cyber Civic Engagement Program
In this episode of Safe Mode, Betsy Cooper, founding director of the Aspen Institute’s Policy Academy, details a new initiative designed to mobilize ordinary…
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A reset on information sharing
Kevin Greene, chief cybersecurity technologist for the public sector at BeyondTrust, joins Greg to unpack the fallout from the recent lapse of the CISA…
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Rethinking resilience with WatchTowr CEO Benjamin Harris
This episode of Safe Mode features a nuanced conversation with Ben Harris, CEO of Watchtower, who delves into the complexities of vulnerability management in…
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What's it like to go through the FedRAMP process?
This week on Safe Mode, we talk with Scott Montgomery, VP of Federal at Island, about the realities of achieving FedRAMP authorization. Scott demystifies the…
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Andesite's Brian Carbaugh on how lessons from the CIA can power an AI-powered SOC
In this week's episode of Safe Mode, Greg Otto talks with Brian Carbaugh, CEO of Andesite, who reveals how lessons learned in the CIA are transforming…
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Censys’ Silas Cutler on how adversaries chain vulns together for big attacks
In this episode of Safe Mode, Greg talks with Silas Cutler, principal security researcher at Census, how ransomware attackers chain together overlooked…
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Veracode’s Chris Wysopal on the security issues with AI code development
On this episode of Safe Mode, we’re joined by a renowned cybersecurity expert and CyberScoop 50 winner, Veracode co-founder and CTO Chris Wysopal, to discuss…
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Phosphorus’ Sonu Shankar on IoT Vulnerabilities and Salt Typhoon Tactics
In this episode, Greg Otto talks with Sonu Shankar, President at Phosphorus, to discuss the unique security challenges facing today’s rapidly expanding…
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Halcyon’s Cynthia Kaiser on the state of ransomware
In this episode, Greg Otto talks with Cynthia Kaiser Sr. Vice President of Halcyon’s Ransomware Research Center, discussing the latest ransomware operations…
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What happens if CISA 2015 lapses?
In this episode of Safe Mode, host Greg Otto talks with Tim Starks about what would happen if the nation’s information sharing law – known as CISA 2015 –…
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Dave DeWalt on how to get a board to buy in on cybersecurity
In this episode of Safe Mode, host Greg Otto talks with Dave DeWalt, founder and CEO of NightDragon, about advising boards and portfolio companies on making…
Safe Mode PodcastAre enterprises having the right AI security conversations?
In this episode of Safe Mode, host Greg Otto sits down with Chris Sestito, CEO of HiddenLayer Technologies, to discuss the evolving landscape of AI security…
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What is CISA’s focus moving forward
On this episode of Safe Mode, Greg Otto sits with two CISA leaders, Chris Butera, Acting Executive Assistant Director for CISA’s Cybersecurity Division, and…
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Inside the AI Action Plan with Dreadnode’s Daria Bahrami
On this episode of Safe Mode, host Greg Otto sits down with Daria Bahrami, Head of Policy at Dreadnode, for an in-depth exploration of the new AI Action Plan…