Redefining CyberSecurity

Across dozens of conversations centered on the CISO experience, one reality keeps surfacing: the role no longer exists to protect systems in isolation. It exists to protect the business itself. Today’s CISO operates at the intersection of operational risk, executive decision-making, and organizational trust. The responsibility is not just to identify threats, but to help leadership understand whic...

Across 152 conversations this year, a set of recurring patterns kept surfacing, regardless of whether the discussion focused on application security, software supply chain risk, AI systems, or creative work. The industries varied. The roles varied. The challenges did not. One theme rises above the rest: visibility remains the foundation of everything else, yet organizations continue to accept blin...

⬥ EPISODE NOTES ⬥ Modern application development depends on open source packages moving at extraordinary speed. Paul McCarty, Offensive Security Specialist focused on software supply chain threats, explains why that speed has quietly reshaped risk across development pipelines, developer laptops, and CI environments. JavaScript dominates modern software delivery, and the npm registry has become the...

⬥ EPISODE NOTES ⬥ Artificial intelligence is reshaping how public health organizations manage data, interpret trends, and support decision-making. In this episode, Sean Martin talks with Jim St. Clair, Vice President of Public Health Systems at a major public health research institute, Altarum, about what AI adoption really looks like across federal, state, and local agencies. Public health contin...

What Security Congress Reveals About the State of Cybersecurity This discussion focuses on what ISC2 Security Congress represents for practitioners, leaders, and organizations navigating constant technological change. Jon France, Chief Information Security Officer at ISC2, shares how the event brings together thousands of cybersecurity practitioners, certification holders, chapter leaders, and fut...

This episode focuses on a security incident that prompts an honest discussion about transparency, preparedness, and the importance of strong processes. Sean Martin speaks with Viktor Petersson, Founder and CEO of Screenly, who shares how his team approaches digital signage security and how a recent alert from their bug bounty program helped validate the strength of their culture and workflows. Scr...

⬥ EPISODE NOTES ⬥ Understanding the Startup Engine Behind Cybersecurity This episode brings Sean Martin together with Ross Haleliuk, author, investor, product leader, and creator of Venture Insecurity, for a candid look at the forces shaping cybersecurity startups today. Ross shares how his decade of product leadership and long involvement in the security community give him a unique perspective on...

⬥ EPISODE NOTES ⬥ Understanding Beg Bounties and Their Growing Impact This episode examines an issue that many organizations have begun to notice, yet often do not know how to interpret. Sean Martin is joined by Casey Ellis, Founder of Bugcrowd and Co-Founder of disclose.io, to break down what a “beg bounty” is, why it is increasing, and how security leaders should think about it in the context of...

Most organizations have security champions. Few have a real security culture. In this episode of AppSec Contradictions, Sean Martin explores why AppSec awareness efforts stall, why champion programs struggle to gain traction, and what leaders can do to turn intent into impact. 🔍 In this episode: Why compliance training doesn’t build culture The data showing champion programs lack leadership and i...

⬥ GUEST ⬥ Andrew Morgan , Chief Information Security Officer | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmorgancism/ ⬥ HOST ⬥ Host: Sean Martin , Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imsmartin/ | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com ⬥ EPISODE NOTES ⬥ The cybersecurity community has long recognized an uncomfortable tr...

⬥ GUEST ⬥ Eric O'Neill , Keynote Speaker, Cybersecurity Expert, Spy Hunter, Bestselling Author. Attorney | On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-m-oneill/ ⬥ HOST ⬥ Host: Sean Martin , Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imsmartin/ | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com ⬥ EPISODE NOTES ⬥ In this episode of the Red...

Organizations pour millions into protecting running applications—yet attackers are targeting the delivery path itself. This episode of AppSec Contradictions reveals why CI/CD and cloud pipelines are becoming the new frontline in cybersecurity. 🔍 In this episode: A 188% surge in malicious open-source packages (Sonatype 2025) 30% of 2024 cyberattacks traced to suppliers (Financial Times 2025) 47% o...

⬥ GUEST ⬥ Walter Haydock , Founder, StackAware | On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/walter-haydock/ ⬥ HOST ⬥ Sean Martin , Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imsmartin/ | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com ⬥ EPISODE NOTES ⬥ No-Code Meets AI: Who’s Really in Control? As AI gets embedded deeper into business workf...

What does it really take to be a CISO the business can rely on? In this episode, Sean Martin shares insights from a recent conversation with Tim Brown, CISO at SolarWinds, following his keynote at AISA CyberCon and his role in leading a CISO Bootcamp for current and future security leaders. The article at the heart of this episode focuses not on technical skills or frameworks, but on the leadershi...

First CISO Charged by SEC: Tim Brown on Trust, Context, and Leading Through Crisis - Interview with Tim Brown | AISA CyberCon Melbourne 2025 Coverage | On Location with Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli AISA CyberCon Melbourne | October 15-17, 2025 Tim Brown's job changed overnight. December 11th, he was the CISO at SolarWinds managing security operations. December 12th, he was leading the response...

During his keynote at SecTor 2025, HD Moore, founder and CEO of runZero and widely recognized for creating Metasploit, invites the cybersecurity community to rethink the foundational “rules” we continue to follow—often without question. In conversation with Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli for ITSPmagazine’s on-location event coverage, Moore breaks down where our security doctrines came from, why s...

In this issue of the Future of Cyber newsletter, Sean Martin digs into a topic that’s quietly reshaping how software gets built—and how it breaks: the rise of AI-powered coding tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and GitHub Copilot. These tools promise speed, efficiency, and reduced boilerplate—but what are the hidden trade-offs? What happens when the tools go offline, or when the systems built through th...

⬥ GUEST ⬥ Pieter VanIperen , CISO and CIO of AlphaSense | On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pietervaniperen/ ⬥ HOST ⬥ Host: Sean Martin , Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imsmartin/ | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com ⬥ EPISODE NOTES ⬥ Real-World Principles for Real-World Security: A Conversation with Pieter...

SBOMs were supposed to be the ingredient label for software—bringing transparency, faster response, and stronger trust. But reality shows otherwise. Fewer than 1% of GitHub projects have policy-driven SBOMs. Only 15% of developer SBOM questions get answered. And while 86% of EU firms claim supply chain policies, just 47% actually fund them. So why do SBOMs stall as compliance artifacts instead of...

⬥ GUEST ⬥ Aunshul Rege , Director at The CARE Lab at Temple University | On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aunshul-rege-26526b59/ ⬥ CO-HOST ⬥ Julie Haney , Computer scientist and Human-Centered Cybersecurity Program Lead, National Institute of Standards and Technology | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-haney-037449119/ ⬥ HOST ⬥ Host: Sean Martin , Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine an...

Threat modeling is often called the foundation of secure software design—anticipating attackers, uncovering flaws, and embedding resilience before a single line of code is written. But does it really work in practice? In this episode of AppSec Contradictions , Sean Martin explores why threat modeling so often fails to deliver: It’s treated as a one-time exercise, not a continuous process Research...

AI is everywhere in application security today — but instead of fixing the problem of false positives, it often makes the noise worse. In this first episode of AppSec Contradictions, Sean Martin explores why AI in application security is failing to deliver on its promises. False positives dominate AppSec programs, with analysts wasting time on irrelevant alerts, developers struggling with insecure...

⬥ GUEST ⬥ Andy Ellis , Legendary CISO [ https://howtociso.com ] | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/csoandy/ ⬥ HOST ⬥ Host: Sean Martin , Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imsmartin/ | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com ⬥ EPISODE NOTES ⬥ In this episode of Redefining CyberSecurity , host Sean Martin speaks wit...

At Black Hat USA 2025, artificial intelligence wasn’t the shiny new thing — it was the baseline. Nearly every product launch, feature update, and hallway conversation had an “AI-powered” stamp on it. But when AI becomes the lowest common denominator for security, the questions shift. In this episode, I read my latest opinion piece exploring what happens when the tools we build to protect us are th...

Black Hat 2025 was a showcase of cybersecurity innovation — or at least, that’s how it appeared on the surface. With more than 60 vendor announcements over the course of the week, the event floor was full of “AI-powered” solutions promising to integrate seamlessly, reduce analyst fatigue, and transform SOC operations. But after walking the floor, talking with CISOs, and reviewing the press release...