Security Insights

In this episode, we hear how security researchers and law enforcement worked together to disrupt Tycoon 2FA, a phishing as a service group. How did they discover, and then counter the group's activities? And what were the results? Our guest is Robert McArdle , director of forward threat research at TrendAI .

In this episode we welcome back the Cyber Agony Aunts, Amelia Hewitt and Rebecca Taylor. As the UK's Cybersecurity and Resilience Bill works its way through Parliament, has the debate about cyber resilience changed? What does a resilient organisation look like? And above all, how do we create one, without putting cybersecurity professionals under extreme pressure? As Amelia and Rebecca explain in...

Cybersecurity has its share of innovators, inventors and, of course, entrepreneurs. Benny Czarny created OPSWAT more than 20 years ago, to develop a common language for security applications. Today, the business is best known for its “firewall of data” approach to detecting and removing malware. In the first of an occasional series of interviews with founders, we speak to Czarny about his journey...

Security researchers have found millions of hard-coded secrets, in plain text, across both public and private code repositories. These include credentials, API keys, AI tokens and MCP configuration files. And AI is making the problem worse, with AI-assisted commits adding to this "secrets sprawl". Unless developers control how they manage secrets in their code, we are leaving the door open to mali...

How can cybersecurity professionals "engineer" resilience? And why is an effective community an increasingly important part of our defence against cyber attacks? In this episide, editor Stephen Pritchard caught up with Ameet Jugnauth, president of ISACA's London Chapter at their recent conference. They discuss building resilience, why we have reached a tipping point in boards' understanding of cyb...

How do you live through a cyber attack, and recover from it? What lessons can you learn? And why is resilience moving up the cybersecurity agenda? In this special episode, we speak to Edwin Moraal , CISO at Dutch public safety body Veiligheidsregio Noord- en Oost-Gelderland (VNOG), about his experiences. And he's joined by Tim Pfaelzer, Veeam GM for EMEA, whose team helped with the recovery. Howev...

Soon, quantum computers will be able to decrypt "production grade" encryption, putting both privacy and security at risk. But how close is "Q Day", and is a cryptographically relevant quantum computer a realistic prospect? Is it something malicious actors will be able to obtain, and if so, how would they use it and what threat does that pose to confidentiality of our files, as well as our communic...

DDoS attacks have posed a threat since the late 1990s. And distributed denial of service attacks have proven to be hard to prevent, and to deter. Security teams are better at detecting and blocking DDoS attacks than they were. But malicious actors have not stood still. They are now using complex, multi-vector attacks rather than relying on volume alone; they are using AI to design attacks, and com...

In this CISO interview, we discuss the role of a CISO in a global technology services business, the changing threat landscape -- from geopolitics to the growth of AI -- and the importance of skills,  learning and cybersecurity education. Our guest is Mike Baker, vice president and global chief information officer at DXC Technology. Above all, he says, the CISO's role is to build a resilient team....

Over the last few years, we’ve seen the resurgence of geopolitics as a driver for cybersecurity, especially in Europe. But the return of war to the continent is just one factor changing CISOs’ views of risk. In this Insights Interview, we discuss developments in the threat landscape with Haider Pasha, CSO for EMEA at Palo Alto Networks, following the company’s recent Ignite event in London. As he...

What, exactly, is threat intelligence? And how do CISOs use it? Security teams now have access to multiple sources of information on threats and threat actors. These come from industry, from law enforcement, and even their own networks and SOCs. But how effective is it against an ever-changing roster of adversaries? And how do CISOs become informed consumers of intelligence? We invited Rafe Pillin...

What is digital sovereignty, how does it relate to data sovereignty, and to resilience? In this CISO Interview, we speak to Kim Larsen, CISO at Keepit, a service provider specialising in protecting data for SaaS applications. With a career spanning policing, government and the private sector, he has witnessed the growing influence of geopolitics on cybersecurity. And he suggests both businesses an...

The cybersecurity skills gap might be narrowing. According to the latest Cybersecurity Workforce Study, from ISC2, CISOs are less concerned about the number of cyber professionals in their organisations. Instead, the focus is on whether they have the right mix of skills, to take on an increasingly complex threat landscape. We go through the results of the research, and what it might mean for cyber...

In the first episode of Series 7 of Security Insights,we welcome back Charl van der Walt, head of security research at Orange Cyber Defense. We discuss the key findings of his team's 2026 Security Navigator report, how AI is tipping the balance of power in favour of malicious actors, and why resilience and agility should be on the CISO's agenda for this year.

Cybersecurity is about building resilient organisations. But this is impossible without resilient people. Cyber defence is often a highly pressured working environment. And it can be lonely too. But if teams are unable to function at their best, attackers will exploit this. In the second of our two episodes on cyber resilience, we look at its human side. Our guests are Rebecca Taylor, threat intel...

Cybersecurity is changing its focus. Increasingly, it is less about defence and more about resilience. Organisations have to be able to withstand and recover from an attack. It's no longer about preventing breaches: the sheer volume of cyberattacks means that is no longer possible. Instead, security teams and boards should assume an attack will happen, prepare keep the organisation operating durin...

This year has not been easy for cybersecurity teams. Businesses continue to face cybercrime and state-sponsored attacks, especially ransomware. AI is proving to be a double-edged sword, helping both defenders and malicious actors. And there are the ongoing issues of skills, recruitment and retention. How, then, do cybersecurity professionals navigate their way through all these challanges? And wha...

Critical infrastructure is on the front line of the war in Ukraine. And as the conflict approaches its fourth year, there is little sign of that changing. Strikes against infrastructure, though, are only part of the picture. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, and even before, Ukraine’s defenders have waged an equally intense, but less visible, cyber war. What lessons can we draw from Ukraine’s ex...

A growing number of organisations now offer "bug bounties", paying hackers or security researchers rewards for finding vulnerabilities. But how do these programmes operate, and how do CISOs ensure that they are run ethically? What are the risks of inviting researchers to hack your organisation? How do bug bounties stack up against other methods of security testing? And what are the benefits to sec...

DDoS – or distributed denial of service attacks – remain a serious source of disruption across the internet. DDoS attacks continue to grow in their frequency and volume. And increasingly, they’re aligned to geopolitical events. A driver is sites offering “DDoS for hire”. The groups behind these sites even offer DDoS as a service attacks for free. But cybercrime groups are making use of AI too. Thi...

Is cybersecurity's skills crisis one of its own making? And why have initiatives to close the skills gap made relatively little impact? In this episode, our guests Thom Langford, of Rapid7, and Lee Munson, of the ISF, discuss career changes, hiring practices, certifications and what needs to change with editor Stephen Pritchard

Education is increasingly in the crosshairs for malicous actors. Along with other public sector bodies, schools, colleges and universities are being targeted for the information they hold, as well as for extortion and ransom.   What, then, can leaders in the sector do to bolster their defences, especially when budgets are under pressure? Our guest is Joe Rooke, director of risk insights at Recorde...

In this episode, we discuss whether vulnerability scores are still a viable tool when it comes to measuring cyber threats. Both CVEs and CVSS are core security tools. But, our guest this week argues, they are often misused. In a worst case scenario, they add little to effective defence, and can divert security teams from the real threats. Tod Beardsley is VP of security research at runZero, is on...

More than three quarters of security breaches result from human behaviour. But as an industry, we focus far more on technical security measures, than on the human element. Human risk management sets out to change this. Its proponents aruge that by measuring what people do on networks and systems, we create a much clearer picture of risk. In fact, they say, the risks posed by people should be on th...

Artificial intelligence is often described as a "black box". We can see what we put in, and what comes out. But not how the model comes to its results. And, unlike conventional software, large language models are non-deterministic. The same inputs can produce different results. This makes it hard to secure AI systems, and to assure their users that they are secure. There is already growing evidenc...