Shows / UnHack with Drex DeFord
UnHack with Drex DeFord
Cyber-safety is patient-safety. On “UnHack,” Drex DeFord, veteran healthcare CIO and infused strategist, breaks down the biggest cybersecurity and risk challenges facing healthcare today. Drex and expert guests explore what happened, why it matters, and how to build real-world resilience. The show's a mostly plain-English, mostly non-technical discussion that dives into the people, process, and technology making healthcare more secure; and it's NOT just for cyber-professionals; it’s for…
Episodes
UnHack with Drex DeFordUnHack (the Podcast): Your Vulnerability Scanner Is Lying to You with Jack Kufahl & Gregory Garneau
January 27, 2026: Jack Kufahl, CISO at Michigan Medicine, and Gregory Garneau, System VP and CISO at Hospital Sisters Health System, join Drex for an…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: The ROI Ultimatum: Healthcare's New Survival Rule for 2026 with Zahid Rathore
January 26, 2026: Fresh from J.P. Morgan 2026, the This Week Health team joins Zahid Rathore, Senior Partner at Chartis, to dissect healthcare's new reality…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Cybersecurity Insiders Plead Guilty to Healthcare Ransomware Attacks with Drex DeFord
In a stunning betrayal of trust, two cybersecurity professionals—an incident response manager and a ransomware negotiator—pled guilty to operating as…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: OpenAI's Big Healthcare Launch and a New Age of Personal Records
January 19, 2026: Bill Russell, Drex DeFord, and Sarah Richardson unpack OpenAI's two major healthcare announcements that could fundamentally reshape how…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Epic Faces Lawsuits and the AI Proving Ground with This Week Health
January 12, 2026: Epic is defending three simultaneous lawsuits while CIOs grapple with vendors imposing staggering price increases—some as high as 600%. Bill…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Healthcare's Cybersecurity Workforce Crisis With Drex DeFord
Drex breaks down ISC2's 2025 cybersecurity workforce study and explains why healthcare's security staffing problem isn't about finding more people—it's about…
UnHack with Drex DeFordThis Week Health 2026 Snapshot: Expanding Events, Training, & Community Growth
January 6, 2026: Healthcare is transforming through connection, and 2026 promises to take that mission further than ever before. This Week Health is expanding…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: The $7B ServiceNow-Armis Deal & What's Coming in 2026 with Jason Rose
January 5, 2026: ServiceNow's $7 billion acquisition of Armis signals a major shift in healthcare IT consolidation strategy. Jason Rose, CEO of Clearsense…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2025 Healthcare Recap: CIO Pressures, AI Advances, and Cultural Shifts
December 29, 2025: As 2025 draws to a close, Drex, Sarah, and Bill gather to reflect on a year of struggles and triumphs. From unprecedented CIO turnover among…
UnHack with Drex DeFordReflecting on the 2025 AI Rush: What Worked, What Failed, and What's Next
December 23, 2025: The AI revolution swept through healthcare in 2025, but did it deliver on its promises? Bill Russell, Drex DeFord, and Sarah Richardson pull…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: CMS ACCESS Model & Tech-Enabled Care with Laura O’Toole
December 19, 2025: CMS has unveiled its new ACCESS Model—an ambitious 10-year initiative aimed at expanding digital, tech-enabled care for millions of Medicare…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Spark a Global Race Against Attackers with Drex DeFord
A critical vulnerability called React to Shell exposed tens of thousands of systems worldwide, triggering immediate exploitation by threat actors—including…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: How PhD-Level AI Agents are Changing Healthcare with Dan Schubert
December 15, 2025: What if healthcare's biggest breakthroughs require throwing out the playbook? Joined by Daniel Schubert, CEO and Co-Founder of Revuud, this…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Preparing for Cloud Outages and Phishing Attacks with Charles Knight
December 12, 2025: When cloud platforms like AWS and Azure experience outages, hospitals across the country feel the impact. But are healthcare organizations…
UnHack with Drex DeFordSolution Showcase: Innovating Data Centers to Data-Driven Care with Brian Jones and Jason Jones
December 10, 2025: Valley Medical Center's CIO and SVP, Brian Jones, faced a critical challenge: transform aging infrastructure while enabling his team to…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Streamlining Patient Access and Healthcare Abroad with Will Akers
December 8, 2025: Healthcare systems are drowning in administrative calls while patients struggle with fragmented portals and coordination nightmares. Will…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: How AI-Powered Scams Are Reshaping Healthcare Cybersecurity with Drex DeFord
Drex DeFord explores what he calls the "trust recession"—a era where deepfakes, AI-generated content, and sophisticated social engineering have made it nearly…
UnHack with Drex DeFordSolution Showcase: Pro Security In Your Pocket With Will Houston, Preston Duren, and Spencer Bales
December 3, 2025: When Will Houston, Network Security Manager at MDI Hospital, received security alerts at 5 AM on a holiday, he faced every healthcare…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: The AI Staffing Dilemma - The Productivity Paradox with This Week Health
December 1, 2025: As AI tools rapidly transform healthcare IT workflows, leaders face an unexpected challenge: what happens when your team becomes dramatically…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Insider Threats in Healthcare: Employee Recruitment Schemes with Drex DeFord
Drex examines the growing insider threat landscape in healthcare cybersecurity. The episode covers CrowdStrike's recent insider incident where screenshots were…
UnHack with Drex DeFordUnHack (the Podcast): Breaking Down Silos and Building Up Culture with Shawna Hofer
November 25, 2025: What if cybersecurity awareness training could be fun, like mixing bratwurst and flu shots? Shawna Hofer, CISO at St. Luke's Health System…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Merger Madness and Why Hospitals are Moving Back to On-Prem Data with Dave Dyell
November 24, 2025: Healthcare organizations are drowning in applications they can't even inventory, especially after mergers and acquisitions. But the real…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Doing More with Less and Budgeting Wake-Up Calls with Bill Willis
November 21, 2025: What if your organization could reclaim millions of dollars just by rethinking processes you already have in place? Bill Willis, CTO of…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Cybercriminals Weaponize AI: Self-Modifying Malware with Drex DeFord
Cybercriminals are escalating their tactics by deploying AI-enabled malware that adapts in real-time. Google Cloud and Anthropic threat intelligence reports…
UnHack with Drex DeFordExecutive Interview: How Complexity Kills Innovation and Lasting IT Leadership with Kurt Telep
November 19, 2025: Healthcare IT infrastructure has become so complex that teams have lost sight of the actual patient impact. Kurt Telep, Healthcare Field CTO…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Security Culture Saves Hospital and Resource Gaps with George Pappas
November 17, 2025: How does a 25-bed critical access hospital successfully stop a cyberattack when larger health systems fall victim? George Pappas, CEO of…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: CISA Extension, Oracle Breach Fallout, and the Wiz Acquisition with Drex DeFord
CISA 2015's temporary extension buys time until January, but what happens next? Drex breaks down the Oracle E-Business Suite ransomware attack affecting 29…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: AWS Outage Exploration and Removing Risk from Your Data with Vik Patel
November 10, 2025: When AWS experienced a major outage affecting over 500 companies, healthcare IT leaders were reminded that cloud architecture isn't just a…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: EY Data Leak, India's Cybercrime Villages, and AI Browser Risks with Drex DeFord
Ernst & Young exposed 4TB of client data on an unsecured database, highlighting data hygiene failures even at major consulting firms. India's cybercrime…
UnHack with Drex DeFordUnHack (the Podcast): Passion Over Paychecks and Hidden Risk with Mary Dickerson and Gordon Groschl
November 4, 2025: Identity has become the foundation of healthcare security, but managing it is more complex than ever. In part two of this UnHack (the…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: The CxO Pulse - Insights and Lessons from 229 Summits with This Week Health
November 3, 2025: What are healthcare IT leaders really concerned about? Fresh from three 229 Project summits across the country, Bill Russell, Sarah…
UnHack with Drex DeFordSolution Showcase: Smooth and Rapid Growth In the M&A Era with Glen Phares and Brent Lamm
October 29, 2025: When UNC Health embarked on integrating 14 hospitals and hundreds of clinics across North Carolina, they needed more than just…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Pokemon Go's Hidden Agenda: How AR Apps Map the World With Drex DeFord
Drex explores how Niantic's Pokemon Go used gameplay to crowdsource geospatial AI training data, including strategically placing Pokemon at hospitals and…
UnHack with Drex DeFordUnHack (the Podcast): Zero Trust and the Identity Perimeter with Mary Dickerson and Gordon Groschl
October 28, 2025: Mary Dickerson, Associate VP and CISO of UTHealth Houston & Gordon Groschl, CISO and Director of HTM at Texas Children’s Hospitals, discuss…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Why Constraints Drive Innovation - AI Agents and the Jobs They Can’t Fill
October 27, 2025: Bill, Drex, and Sarah discuss the realities of implementing AI agents across organizations. The group tackles uncomfortable questions about…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: AI Infrastructure Power Crisis and AWS Updates with Drex DeFord
The future of AI resilience isn't just about firewalls and backups—it's about ensuring power grids, chip fabrication facilities, and cloud infrastructure can…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: MFA Isn't Enough and Why Healthcare Can’t Just Hack Back with Preston Duren
Multi-factor authentication isn't the bulletproof security measure it once was. Preston Duren, VP of Threat Services at Fortified Health Security, explores how…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Why Your MFA Isn't Stopping Direct Deposit Theft with Drex DeFord
Cybercriminals are hijacking employee paychecks by exploiting outdated MFA systems in payroll platforms like Workday. Drex breaks down how attackers use…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: CIO Turnover - Leadership Challenges in a Fast-Paced Era with Laura O’Toole
October 13, 2025: Healthcare IT leaders are exhausted, CIO positions remain unfilled for months, and the pressure keeps mounting. In this candid conversation…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Preparing Your Team for the Synthetic Media Tidal Wave with Drex DeFord
Drex tackles an urgent emerging threat in healthcare cybersecurity: the explosion of AI-generated synthetic media. With Meta's new Vibes video generator and…
UnHack with Drex DeFordExecutive Interview: Solving Healthcare's Identity Access Management Complexity with Bill Willis
October 8, 2025: Bill Willis, CTO of IDMWORKS, joins Drex DeFord to unpack why healthcare organizations struggle with identity and access management despite…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: IT Expecting 18% Hiring Cut and Innovating Access in the AI World with Bill Willis
October 6, 2025: New research reveals an expected 18% reduction in hiring over the next two years, but this isn't about downsizing—it's about strategic…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Ascension Lawsuit Moves Forward, OneBlood Settlement, and Government Shutdown Impact with Drex DeFord
Healthcare security takes center stage as Ascension's 5.6 million patient data breach leads to prolonged legal battles, while OneBlood settles after a…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: The Perfect Storm in Healthcare Cybersecurity: AI, Costs, and Risk with Russell Teague
September 29, 2025: In this episode of Newsday, Drex is joined by Russell Teague of Fortified Health Security for a candid look at the storm brewing in…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Salesforce Breach Spreads and New Liability Era with George Pappas
September 26, 2025: George Pappas, CEO of Intraprise Health by Health Catalyst, joins This Week Health for the News. Together, they unpack the Salesforce…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Secret Service Busts Massive SIM Farm Network in NYC with Drex DeFord
The US Secret Service dismantled a covert communication network in New York City featuring 300+ SIM servers and over 100,000 SIM cards capable of overwhelming…
UnHack with Drex DeFordUnHack (the Podcast): A Peek Behind the Health ISAC Curtain with Sahan Fernando
September 23, 2025: Sahan Fernando, CISO at Rady Children's Health San Diego, reveals the split-second decisions that keep pediatric healthcare running while…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Virtual Care Integration, EHR AI, and Rural Healthcare with Jacob Hansen
September 22: Today on Newsday Sarah and Drex speak with Jacob Hansen, Chief Product and Technology Officer at AvaSure, about virtual care, AI, and more from…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Why AI "Hallucinates" and How Healthcare Leaders Can Stay Safe with Drex DeFord
Drex breaks down why AI models like ChatGPT sometimes fabricate confident-sounding but false information, calling it "bluffing" rather than hallucinating. He…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Possible Government Shutdown and Epic's Big Ambient Push with Ryan Bengtson
September 15, 2025: Patients now walk into doctors' offices armed with AI-generated diagnoses and treatment plans—but what happens when ChatGPT becomes your…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Qantas' Bold Move to Cut Senior Leadership Bonuses with Drex DeFordAfter Data Breach
Qantas made headlines by cutting all senior executive bonuses by 15% following a data breach affecting 5.7 million customers. This episode explores why…
UnHack with Drex DeFordSolution Showcase: The Future of Patient Monitoring with Terri Couts and Rachel Weissberg
September 10, 2025: Terri Couts, Chief Digital Officer at Guthrie Clinic, and Rachel Weissberg, Head of Healthcare Provider Strategy (North America) at…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Healthcare Under Siege - Cybersecurity Expert Ed Gaudet on AI Threats & Third-Party Risks
September 8, 2025: Ed Gaudet, CEO and Founder of Censinet, joins the This Week Health team for the news. When SalesLoft's Drift chatbot breach exposes over 700…
- UnHack with Drex DeFord
UnHack (the News): Help Desk Hacks, Fake IT Workers & AI Ransomware - The New Cyber Threat Playbook
September 1, 2025: Cristian Rodriguez, Americas Field CTO at CrowdStrike, joins Drex for the news. What starts as a simple phone call to your help desk could…
UnHack with Drex DeFordNewsday: Remote Patient Monitoring and Staffing Solutions with Margaret Ptacek
August 25, 2025: Margaret Ptacek, Vice President of Client Solutions from Experis Health, tackles three critical shifts happening in healthcare today. The…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Salesforce Breach, CEO Deepfakes, and Otter AI Lawsuit with Drex DeFord
This week's cybersecurity updates cover three critical stories: Workday discloses a data breach connected to ongoing Salesforce compromises by the Shiny…
UnHack with Drex DeFordUnHack (the News): Cybersecurity Leadership and Rural Hospitals Under Attack with George Pappas
August 18, 2025: George Pappas, CEO of Intraprise Health, by Health Catalyst, joins Drex for the news. They tackle the pressing question of how CISOs can…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Cyber Subscriptions vs. Staff and CRM Systems Targeted with Drex DeFord
Drex covers three critical cybersecurity trends: companies swapping full-time security staff for platform subscriptions (requiring premium salaries for…
UnHack with Drex DeFordUnHack (the News): Summer Breach’s Surge and Hidden Security Lessons with Josh Howell
August 11, 2025: Josh Howell, Healthcare CTO from Rubrik, joins Drex for the news. They examine the spike of healthcare organization breaches in summer 2025…
UnHack with Drex DeFord2 Minute Drill: Hacker Infiltration, Corporate Leaks, and North Korean Updates with Drex DeFord
This episode covers three critical cybersecurity developments affecting healthcare organizations. First, FBI warnings about Scattered Spider ransomware group…