IT SPARC Cast

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes, John Barger & Lou Schmidt break down three major moves reshaping the future of AI infrastructure, chip design, and enterprise automation. Elon Musk announces TeraFab, a massive new effort to bring chip fabrication back in-house for greater control over AI hardware and supply chains. Mark Zuckerberg pushes deeper into agentic AI with plans for a pe...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break from a single CVE to tackle a broader and increasingly critical issue: router supply chain security . From botnets built on consumer routers to concerns about firmware, silicon-level vulnerabilities, and manufacturing visibility, the conversation explores why your home or small office router may be one of the we...

📄 Episode Description In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – Interview, John Barger sits down with Dr. Ewelina Kurtys of Final Spark to explore one of the most futuristic ideas in computing: building computers from living neurons. Final Spark is a Swiss startup working to create biological computing systems using neurons derived from human stem cells. The goal is to develop a new form of compute that...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes, John Barger & Lou Schmidt break down four major stories reshaping enterprise IT, AI infrastructure, and the future of software. Millions of Pokémon Go players unknowingly helped train real-world delivery robots using billions of images. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s ambitious Stargate data center expansion hits a major setback, highlighting the challenges o...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break down a rapidly growing cybersecurity threat: North Korean operatives posing as remote IT workers inside enterprise environments . These actors are not just external attackers — they are getting hired, accessing corporate systems, and creating persistent insider threats that are extremely difficult to detect. The...

Oooops. We uploaded the wrong audio. It's been fix now. In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes, John Barger & Lou Schmidt explore four major stories shaping enterprise IT, open-source software, AI infrastructure, and the future of data centers. A new report reveals that two-thirds of Node.js installations are running outdated versions , creating major security and operational risks acro...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes, John Barger & Lou Schmidt explore four major stories shaping enterprise IT, open-source software, AI infrastructure, and the future of data centers. A new report reveals that two-thirds of Node.js installations are running outdated versions , creating major security and operational risks across modern software stacks. Meanwhile, Meta hires the cre...

A new malware campaign has compromised more than 14,000 ASUS routers , creating a resilient botnet that security researchers say is unusually difficult to dismantle. In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt examine the KadNap router malware , which targets unpatched ASUS routers and installs a persistent backdoor designed to survive typical remediation effor...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes, John Barger & Lou Schmidt break down three major developments shaping the future of networking and internet infrastructure. Google begins testing a new quantum-resistant HTTPS certificate approach designed to defend the web against future quantum computing attacks. Meanwhile, Qualcomm’s CEO declares that the coming 6G mobile revolution will be ess...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt dive into a newly exploited Android vulnerability that many IT teams may be overlooking. The issue centers around CVE-2026-21385 , a high-severity vulnerability affecting Qualcomm graphics components used in Android devices . While the vulnerability requires physical access, it is actively being exploited in the wild...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break down three major stories shaping the future of AI, enterprise infrastructure, and software security. Anthropic revises its flagship AI safety pledge amid competitive pressure, open source registries warn they lack funding for basic security protections, and OpenAI scrambles for compute power as large-scale infrastruc...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break down a massive ransomware-driven data breach impacting Conduent , a major business process services provider that handles public sector programs, healthcare benefits processing, and corporate HR services. What began as reports of a 10.5 million record breach has now escalated to an estimated 25 million impacted...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes , John Barger & Lou Schmidt unpack three stories that expose the real friction points in enterprise IT: AI ethics in defense contracts, looming hardware shortages, and data governance risks in Microsoft Copilot. Anthropic and the Pentagon clash over Claude’s military use, Western Digital reports zero remaining HDD capacity for 2026, and Microsoft c...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt examine a critical Apple security vulnerability patched in iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS 26.3 . The focus: CVE-2026-20700 , a memory corruption flaw in Apple’s dynamic link layer that could allow attackers to break out of the sandbox and achieve remote code execution (RCE) . Although exploitation req...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes , John Barger & Lou Schmidt break down a week where enterprise IT collided with energy policy, nuclear power, and outer space. UniFi Network 10.1 pushes further into enterprise territory with improved scalability and Wi-Fi visibility. Meanwhile, the White House explores voluntary agreements to manage rising energy costs from AI data centers. Then t...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break down a shocking vulnerability: CVE-2026-2841 , a Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw in the modern Windows 11 Notepad application distributed via the Microsoft Store. Yes — even Notepad isn’t safe anymore. This vulnerability stems from a command injection flaw in the modern Windows 11 Store version of Notepad (11.x...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes , John Barger and Lou Schmidt explore three stories reshaping enterprise IT strategy. From a quantum cooling breakthrough that could accelerate real-world quantum computing, to Oracle’s plan to raise $50 billion for AI cloud infrastructure, the episode highlights how fast the AI arms race is escalating. They also break down why the AI boom is starting...

Agentic AI systems like OpenClaw represent the future of automation, productivity, and intelligent workflows — but today, they also represent a serious and underappreciated enterprise security risk . In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John and Lou break down why running OpenClaw (and related platforms like MoltBook) on corporate hardware or with access to enterprise data is dange...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes , John Barger & Lou Schmidt break down three stories that reveal how enterprise IT is being reshaped by workforce realities, infrastructure constraints, and custom silicon. From mounting evidence that work-from-office mandates are driving top talent out the door, to a Los Angeles startup using SpaceX rocket technology to cool data centers without w...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break format to examine two high-impact security and privacy stories that every enterprise IT and security leader should be paying attention to. First, we dive into a new lawsuit alleging that Meta can access or infer WhatsApp message contents , despite years of public claims that WhatsApp is fully end-to-end encrypte...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes , John Barger & Lou Schmidt dig into three stories that highlight how enterprise IT is quietly—but fundamentally—restructuring itself. From executives questioning the long-term future of traditional ERP systems, to Ubiquiti introducing a new orchestration-driven take on network fabrics, to a grounded discussion on whether the AI bubble is real and...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break from the traditional single-CVE format to examine VoidLink , a newly discovered Linux malware framework that represents a major shift in how cyberattacks may be built and executed going forward. Rather than focusing on one vulnerability, VoidLink is designed to chain together many smaller flaws across Linux, con...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes, John Barger & Lou Schmidt break down a week of moves that signal where enterprise AI, cloud platforms, and data center infrastructure are really headed. From Apple officially leaning on Google to power its AI ambitions, to Microsoft giving IT admins the ability to remove Copilot, this episode highlights growing tension between vendor momentum and...

This week on IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break down CVE-2025-20393 , a CVSS 10.0 zero-day vulnerability affecting Cisco Secure Email Gateway (SEG) and related AsyncOS-based email security products. The flaw is actively exploited in the wild, remains unpatched , and—ironically—uses the spam filtering engine itself as the attack vector . With no user interaction req...

CES may be a consumer show, but this week it sent shockwaves through enterprise IT. In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break down why nearly every major chip vendor chose CES to unveil next-generation CPUs, what Lenovo’s new agentic AI strategy means for IT teams, and why Microsoft embedding Copilot deep into Windows could fundamentally change how operating...