Secure Talk Podcast

Most companies chase certifications to win deals — but what actually keeps customers is something no audit can measure. In this episode, vCISO David Grazer makes the case that trust is a measurable economic asset hiding in plain sight: your customer retention rate. Drawing on 15+ years inside high-growth tech companies, David explains why compliance frameworks are customer acquisition tools, not r...

You did your self assessment and received a perfect 110 score, congratulations! You met with your C3PAO and scored less than 0. What happened! How can two CMMC assessors examine the same defense contractor and arrive at completely different scores? A lack of rigor in assessment methodology could mean the entire certification system is measuring the assessor — not your security. Logan Therrien, Chi...

Mark Zuckerberg built an AI version of himself that attends meetings and approves budgets while he's elsewhere. That's not science fiction — it's happening now. But when an AI replica makes a consequential decision, who's legally responsible? Who owns it when you die? Dr. Candi Cann, Thanatologist and professor at Baylor University, joins SecureTalk host Justin Beals to explore the uncomfortable i...

The biggest cybersecurity failures in recent memory — Raytheon, Penn State, Georgia Tech — weren't caused by missing software. They were caused by the wrong people being assigned the wrong tasks, with no shared language to connect the rules to the work. This SecureTalk episode with Dorian Cougias (MoxyWolf, former Unified Compliance Framework CEO) is one of the most systems-level conversations we'...

Why do most cybersecurity investments feel impossible to justify? Because the measurement tools are broken — built on gut instinct, not research. Researchers Minh Nguyen (Florida Atlantic University) and Thi Tran (Binghamton University) set out to fix that. In this episode, they break down their landmark paper "Effects of Cybersecurity Readiness on Firm Performance: Evidence from Conference Calls"...

The West has been building AI like it's the apocalypse. China has been building it like it's a tool. That one difference — rooted in centuries of philosophy, theology, and cultural storytelling — may be the most important thing nobody is talking about in the AI debate right now. SecureTalk host Justin Beals sits down with scholars Bogna Konior (NYU Shanghai), Mi You (University of Kassel), and Vin...

Every American has a Social Security number. Most assume it's protected. Chuck Borges was the person responsible for that protection at the SSA — and what he discovered from the inside is something every American deserves to know. Chuck is a combat veteran, MIT graduate, and the Social Security Administration's first dedicated Chief Data Officer. He arrived two weeks before the 2025 administration...

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, John Ackerly was briefing White House officials on federal privacy legislation. Hours later, everything changed — and those two realities, data that wasn't shared when it should have been, and data that was exposed when it shouldn't have been, became the founding idea behind Virtru. In this episode of SecureTalk, host Justin Beals sits down with John Ackerly...

You consider yourself pretty tech-savvy. You know not to click suspicious links. You've heard the warnings. So why are more people losing more money to online scams than ever before? Robert Siciliano has spent 30 years as a private investigator, appearing on CNN, The Today Show, and Fox News to explain exactly how con artists and cybercriminals think — and why your brain is actually working agains...

What happens when federal law enforcement refuses to follow court orders? In Minneapolis, ICE agents denied state investigators access to crime scenes despite court-issued warrants—a breakdown that national security experts had been warning about for months. Dr. Claire Finkelstein, Professor of Law at University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, saw this co...

Most AI discourse swings between paradise and doom—but the real question is how we architect these systems to enhance human understanding rather than replace decision-making. MIT Professor Alex "Sandy" Pentland reveals why treating AI as an information tool instead of an authority is critical for cybersecurity teams, business leaders, and anyone navigating the intersection of technology and cultur...

While most organizations treat security as a cost center, a select group is using it to win enterprise deals, open new markets, and outpace competitors. The difference? They've stopped asking "how much does security cost?" and started asking "how much value does security create?" This strategic edition synthesizes lessons from security leaders at Walmart, PayPal, Postman, and the defense industria...

"In 20 years, we transformed food allergy awareness from nonexistent to universal—no law required. What if we could do the same for data security and AI governance?" This special episode reveals how grassroots cultural shifts create lasting change, and why 2026 might be the year cybersecurity professionals become architects of something bigger than defenses. We've distilled 2025's conversations wi...

The mistakes we made building the internet don't have to be repeated in the metaverse—if we act now. Join SecureTalk host Justin Beals for an essential conversation with Dr. Paola Cecchi-Dimeglio about building secure, ethical virtual worlds. Dr. Cecchi-Dimeglio brings 25 years of experience advising governments, Fortune 500 companies, and global institutions on AI ethics and technology governance...

Brown University cognitive scientist Steven Sloman reveals the hidden mechanism driving cultural division—and why it matters for security leadership. In this wide-ranging conversation, Sloman explains the fundamental tension between sacred values and consequentialist thinking, and how understanding this dynamic transforms how leaders communicate risk and build organizational culture. Justin Beals...

Most threat intelligence programs can't prove their value. Joe Rossi's team at Zions Bank did the opposite—preventing $3 million in fraud annually while actually attracting new customers to the bank. In this episode, former punk rock kid turned threat intelligence leader Joe Rossi reveals why your most valuable security intelligence isn't from expensive vendor feeds—it's sitting in your own logs r...

Bob Kolasky walked the halls where CMMC was built. As founding director of CISA's National Risk Management Center, he watched this policy evolve from concept to pilot program to federal law—surviving three presidential administrations because the need never changed. On November 10, 2025, that policy becomes mandatory reality for every defense contractor pursuing new DoD solicitations. Self-certifi...

When we think about cybersecurity, images of tech giants and major financial centers come to mind—but what about the towns where most of us actually live? This SecureTalk episode with cybersecurity researcher Lars Kruse explores an often-overlooked question: how do communities of 20,000-100,000 residents protect themselves in an increasingly digital world? Host Justin Beals and Kruse, who studies...

Quantum computing represents one of the most significant advances in computer science we'll see in our lifetimes. We're watching error correction rates improve faster than predicted, with Google's Willow chip achieving benchmarks that compress development timelines dramatically. For security professionals, this creates an exciting challenge: how do we architect systems today that remain secure as...

Discover how strategic foresight is revolutionizing cybersecurity thinking. In this compelling SecureTalk episode, renowned futurist Heather Vescent reveals the 12 invisible paradigms that have shaped our entire approach to cybersecurity - and why breaking them could transform how we defend digital systems. Back in 2017, Vescent applied strategic foresight methodology to cybersecurity, uncovering...

In a converted hat factory in 1990s Boston, a group of hackers worked through the night to techno beats and Soul Coughing, driven by a simple philosophy: "smarter beats bigger." One of them, Chris Wysopal, would later stand before Congress and deliver a stark warning—a small group of dedicated hackers could bring down the entire internet in 30 minutes. Today, that same hacker faces a new challenge...

90% of Twitter users are represented by only 3% of tweets. When you scroll through your feed and form opinions about what "people are saying" about politics, you're not seeing the voices of nine out of ten users. You're seeing the loudest, most extreme 10% who create 97% of all political content on the platform. In this episode of SecureTalk, host Justin Beals explores the "invisible majority prob...

The cybersecurity landscape just shifted permanently, and most organizations aren't ready. While CISOs struggle with alert fatigue from 40+ security tools, a new threat vector is emerging that makes traditional identity management obsolete: AI agents acting autonomously across enterprise systems. Join Secure Talk host Justin Beals for a critical conversation with Rishi Bhargava, the security archi...

The most dangerous threats don't break down the door - they already have the keys. March 23, 2003, Kuwait: Command Sergeant Major Bart Womack was loading ammunition and watching Tiger Woods play golf at 1 AM when a grenade rolled into his tent. What followed was every leader's worst nightmare - discovering that one of your own had been planning to destroy you all along. This isn't just a military...

Machines Running Amok: We've Created More Than We Can Secure Twenty years ago, you could count the servers in your data center. Today, we've unleashed an army of digital entities that's spiraling beyond our control. For every human employee, there are 50-100 machine identities operating in your environment—containers, serverless functions, and automated processes that spawn and disappear by the mi...