Cyber Focus: Cybersecurity, National Security, and Critical Infrastructure

AI is changing the speed and scale of cyber conflict, but the burden on defenders remains the same: they have to protect complex systems all the time, while attackers only need one opening. That imbalance is especially urgent as critical infrastructure, intelligence missions, and space systems become more connected, more contested, and harder to secure. Chris Jones, Chief Technology Officer at Nig...

Note: This episode was first released on December 2, 2025 This week Army Principal Cyber Advisor Brandon Pugh joins Frank Cilluffo to address a stark reality: if critical infrastructure fails, the Army cannot mobilize. To meet this "no fail" mission, Pugh explains how the service is aggressively merging cyber with electronic warfare and cutting red tape to field new technology in days rather than...

As frontier AI models become more capable at finding vulnerabilities, cybersecurity is entering a period where old timelines, disclosure norms, and governance tools may no longer fit the speed of the technology. In this episode of Cyber Focus , Frank Cilluffo speaks with CyberScoop editor-in-chief Greg Otto about the recent controversy surrounding Anthropic's Fable-5 and Mythos 5 models, the gover...

In this episode of Cyber Focus, Frank Cilluffo sits down with Brett Leatherman, Assistant Director for Cyber at the FBI, for a wide-ranging conversation about how the Bureau is using law enforcement authorities, intelligence, partnerships, and court-authorized technical operations to disrupt adversaries, help victims, and defend U.S. critical infrastructure. Leatherman explains why the FBI expects...

A new executive order on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity sends a clear signal: advanced AI now sits at the center of how the United States thinks about cyber defense, national security, critical infrastructure resilience, and strategic competition. In this episode of Cyber Focus , Frank Cilluffo sits down with Daniel Kroese, Vice President of Global Policy at Palo Alto Networks and a Sen...

In this episode of Cyber Focus, Frank Cilluffo speaks with Geoffrey Fowler, head of public engagement for the Youth AI Safety Institute at Common Sense Media, about why AI requires a different kind of safety framework than movies, apps, games, or social media. Fowler argues that generative AI is not static content; it is dynamic, conversational, multipurpose, and capable of changing from one inter...

For Estonia, cyber resilience is not an abstract policy goal. It is a national survival issue shaped by history, geography, and the reality of living next to Russia. In this episode, Ambassador Kristjan Prikk explains how Estonia turned a lack of legacy infrastructure into a digital advantage, why the 2007 cyberattacks became a strategic wake-up call for the West, and what Ukraine's defense agains...

In this episode of Cyber Focus, Frank Cilluffo speaks with Walter Haydock, founder of StackAware, about the accountability, governance, and national security challenges emerging as organizations rush to deploy artificial intelligence. Haydock argues that AI does not erase familiar cybersecurity and risk-management problems; it accelerates them. From non-human identities and AI agents to third-part...

Cyber defense is entering a machine-speed era. With Anthropic's Mythos and Project Glasswing bringing AI-driven vulnerability discovery and exploit development into the center of the cyber conversation, CrowdStrike's Drew Bagley says organizations need to prepare for a world where vulnerabilities can be found, chained, and exploited faster than traditional patching cycles can handle. Bagley joins...

Most people think secure messaging begins and ends with encryption. Signal CTO Ehren Kret says that is only part of the picture. In this episode of Cyber Focus, host Frank Cilluffo sits down with Kret to discuss what private communication really requires, from protecting message content to limiting what platforms can learn from metadata, identity, group membership and social graphs. Kret explains...

America is asking more from its critical infrastructure just as adversaries are finding more ways to target it. AI, data centers, electrification, and next-generation energy systems all depend on operational technology—the control systems that keep power, water, transportation, and industry moving. As that backbone grows more connected, the stakes of securing it grow even higher. In this episode o...

A cyber incident can damage far more than systems and networks. It can also become a reputational crisis, especially when false or misleading narratives move faster than facts. In this episode of Cyber Focus , Frank Cilluffo speaks with Preston Golson of Brunswick Group about why organizations need to treat reputation as a vulnerability that can be tested, stress-tested, and defended much like any...

Cybersecurity's history is often told through breaches, crime, and disruption. Joe Menn argues that the story of early hacker culture also offers something constructive: a model for how technical curiosity, ethical reflection, and independent thinking can shape the public good. Drawing from his work on Cult of the Dead Cow , Menn traces how figures once associated with pranks, underground tools, a...

Cybersecurity now reaches far beyond government networks and traditional IT systems. In this episode, Sami Khoury explains how the threat environment increasingly touches critical infrastructure, operational technology, undersea cables, and space—and why that shift is pushing governments to work more closely with private industry and trusted international partners. Drawing on more than three decad...

Ukraine's cyber defense has become one of the clearest real-world tests of what resilience actually looks like under sustained attack. In this episode of Cyber Focus , Greg Rattray explains why Ukrainian defenders held up better than many expected, and what their experience reveals about the limits of prevention, the value of shared visibility, and the growing operational role of the private secto...

Overview Transatlantic cyber cooperation is being tested by political strain, regulatory divergence, and competing ideas about sovereignty, trust, and market access. In this episode of Cyber Focus , Sébastien Garnault argues that if the United States and Europe want to keep working together on security, they need to move quickly to make that cooperation practical, especially in critical infrastruc...

Electricity demand is surging—and DOE's Alex Fitzsimmons argues that the country's ability to "keep the lights on" is now inseparable from how fast we can expand energy infrastructure, how we manage affordability, and how seriously we treat security. In this conversation with Frank Cilluffo, Fitzsimmons, the Acting Under Secretary of Energy and Director of the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Secur...

Cyber deterrence has long lagged behind the threat. In this special episode of  Cyber Focus recorded on March 11, 2026, White House National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross argues that the United States can no longer afford a posture built mainly around resilience and response while adversaries, criminal groups, and state-backed proxies operate at low cost and low risk. He presents President Trump'...

Cyber is now woven into modern conflict, alongside conventional military force. In this episode, Frank Cilluffo examines how that shift shapes the threat from Iran—especially the risk of cyber retaliation aimed at U.S. critical infrastructure, U.S. businesses, and public confidence. Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies brings a strategic and military len...

 Cyber incident reporting is about to become mandatory for much of critical infrastructure—and the details are where the fight is. On February 26th, Frank Cilluffo spoke with Inside Cybersecurity managing editor Sara Friedman about CIRCIA's proposed reporting rules, what industry says is overbroad, and why the 72-hour clock is hard in the real world. They also dig into overlap with other federal r...

Cyber threats against the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) don't stop at the battlefield—they extend into suppliers, perimeter devices, and even hiring pipelines. Luke McNamara of Google's Threat Intelligence Group joins Frank Cilluffo to unpack Mandiant's report Beyond the Battlefield: Threats to the Defense Intelligence Base and the patterns it flags across today's threat landscape. They discuss ho...

A new wave of cyberattacks is being routed through everyday devices—and defenders can't rely on old assumptions about geography or "known bad" infrastructure. Daniel dos Santos, VP at Vedere Labs (Forescout), walks through findings from their 2025 Threat Roundup, drawn from a global network of hundreds of honeypots and decoy systems. The conversation focuses on why web-facing systems and edge devi...

Grid resilience has become a test of whether the U.S. can keep essential systems running through disruption—and recover fast when they don't. In this episode, Frank Cilluffo talks with Scott Aaronson about how the electric power sector plans for and responds to an "all-hazards" landscape, from major storms to cyber and physical attacks. Aaronson explains why the grid is a "network of networks" wit...

Supply chains are essential infrastructure—and the iPhone's supply chain sits at the center of U.S.–China competition. As Washington reassesses economic security, this episode explores what it looks like when market incentives collide with geopolitical reality. Frank Cilluffo speaks with Patrick McGee , author of Apple in China , about his reporting on Apple 's deep manufacturing reliance on China...

Madison Horn joins host Frank Cilluffo to explain why AI-driven cyber risk may be quieter, faster, and harder to spot in 2026. She breaks down "cascading failures" in critical infrastructure—and how a disruption in one sector can quickly ripple into others. The conversation zeroes in on AI agents, especially their ability to create new user accounts, get access to systems, and hide inside everyday...