Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense

Eric Amador from Thales joins the show to discuss pqctoday.com, an open initiative designed to simplify quantum-safe migration. Discover how browser-based cryptographic tools and AI help organizations understand upcoming global timelines, test new algorithms such as ML-KEM without friction, and prepare for the quantum threat.

The episode discusses India’s ambitious roadmap for quantum migration. The guests explore the aggressive 2029 deadline for critical infrastructure and the broader strategy for building a quantum resilient society. This conversation provides a detailed look at how one of the world’s largest digital economies is preparing for the quantum threat.

Antti Ropponen, Global Quantum Safe Transformation Leader at IBM Consulting, explains why the current shift toward post-quantum cryptography mirrors the early days of cloud migration. He details how organizations can avoid common pitfalls like inventory paralysis and explains why successful transitions require an organizational shift rather than just a technical update.

Louise Davey, President of LDIQ and author of Quantum How, joins the show to discuss why the transition to post-quantum cryptography is fundamentally a challenge of organizational governance rather than just a technical upgrade. Drawing on her unique perspective as a former experimental nuclear physicist, she explains how leaders can translate complex technical threats into the business language o...

Post-quantum cryptography has moved past the awareness phase. The challenge now is execution. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, Jo Lintzen speaks with Aisling Dawson, Senior Analyst at ABI Research, and Itan Barmes, Chief Strategy Officer at Qiz Security, live from RSA Conference 2026. They discuss why quantum conversations are losing visibility, what’s blocking progress...

Quantum readiness is increasingly about execution. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen speaks with Carolina Polito, a researcher at the Center for European Policy Studies and a PhD candidate in international relations. Carolina explains why post-quantum migration is less of a cryptographic problem and more of an organizational challenge. She outlines how in...

Post-quantum migration appears to be a technology problem from the outside. Inside a global financial institution, it looks like a coordination challenge. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, Sarah McCarthy, Quantum Readiness Program Lead at Citi, shares how Citi's quantum readiness program has evolved since 2022. They discuss what their vendor survey is revealing about sup...

Artificial intelligence is reshaping cybersecurity on both sides of the battlefield. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen speaks with two experts at Mobile World Conference in Barcelona. Amidst the buzz of the industry being in one place, they discuss the security landscape in the AI era. The guests are working at different layers; Geri Revay, Principal Secu...

Post-quantum cryptography is often framed as an algorithm selection problem. Stefan Kölbl reframes it as something else entirely: a key management and lifecycle discipline challenge. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen speaks with Stefan, an information security engineer at Google, about what it actually takes to migrate cryptography across complex global s...

Post-quantum risk is no longer a distant technical concern. It is an emerging legal exposure. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen speaks with Darren Bender, a US litigation attorney and Chief Litigation Officer in the post-quantum cryptography sector. Darren introduces the concept of post-quantum negligence and explains how quantum threats intersect with fo...

Post-quantum cryptography does not fail because the math is hard. It stalls because systems are old, upgrades feel risky, and organizations struggle to explain the work in business terms. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen speaks with Jan Schaumann, Chief Information Security Architect at Akamai Technologies, about how PQC migration actually unfolds inside...

Post-quantum cryptography changes the rules of cybersecurity. This special episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense brings together experts from cryptography, security architecture, and risk to explain what comes next. The conversation clarifies that security can no longer rely on fixed algorithms or one-time upgrades. Organizations must design for constant cryptographic change, stronge...

Post-quantum cryptography is not a future ambition. It is already embedded into the web’s core confidentiality protocols. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen speaks with Sofia Celi, Senior Cryptography and Security Researcher at Brave, co-author of the MAYO signature scheme, and co-chair of an IETF working group driving global PQC standards. Sofia explains...

The timelines for post-quantum cryptography are tightening, and the real threat surface extends far beyond decrypting old data. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen speaks with Konstantinos Karagiannis, Director of Quantum Computing Services at Protiviti and host of The Post-Quantum World podcast, about the attacker’s perspective on quantum risk and why the...

Post-quantum security will reshape every system that depends on cryptography. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen speaks with Kevin Reifsteck, Director for Critical Infrastructure Protection at Microsoft, about how governments and global enterprises can turn quantum-safe readiness from policy into practice. Kevin shares how Microsoft’s Quantum Safe Program...

Hardware defines trust. If its cryptography fails, no amount of software protection can recover it. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen speaks with Thalia Laing, Principal Cryptographer at HP, about how HP engineered quantum-safe protection directly into the hardware root of trust. Thalia explains how her team launched the world’s first quantum-safe Secure...

As quantum computing accelerates, organizations can no longer treat cryptographic migration as a distant technical task. Dr Richard Searle of Fortanix explains how confidential computing and a software-first model enable enterprises to adopt post-quantum cryptography (PQC) rapidly while maintaining control, compliance, and agility. He describes how Fortanix integrates standardized PQC algorithms w...

Hardware security modules (HSMs) have quietly powered the digital economy for decades, but are they ready for the quantum era? In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Johannes Lintzen speaks with Bruno Couillard, CEO and co-founder of Crypto4a, about his journey from designing the original Luna HSM to building the next generation of quantum-safe hardware. Bruno explains t...

What if quantum computing grabs the headlines, but the real risk is complacency about cryptography? In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Johannes Lintzen welcomes Mike Silverman, Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer at FS-ISAC. Mike shares why treating cryptographic migrations as one-off projects leaves organisations exposed, how building inventories and risk-based mode...

Quantum threats may feel distant, but your migration shouldn’t be. In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen talks with Will Collison, Interim Global Head of Cryptography at HSBC. Will explains why enterprises must start now and measure as they go, how to separate PQC, QKD, and quantum computing, and why cryptographic agility is the real objective. Expect practic...

What if quantum computing feels like a distant threat, but your timeline to prepare is already running out? In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Johannes Lintzen welcomes Adrian Neal, Senior Director and Global Lead for Post-Quantum Cryptography at Capgemini. Adrian shares the urgent realities of PQC migration, from why a three-to-five-year plan is really an eight-year...

What does it take to keep the world’s most widely used cryptographic library secure in the quantum era? In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Johannes Lintzen welcomes Tomáš Mráz, Director of the OpenSSL Software Foundation, and Jon Ericson, Community Manager at the Foundation. Together, they explore OpenSSL’s evolution, from its 25-year legacy to its upcoming OpenSSL 3...

What if quantum computing feels years away, but your migration to post-quantum cryptography needs to start today? In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Jo Lintzen welcomes Kevin Hilscher, Senior Director of Product Management at DigiCert. Kevin shares the practical realities of PQC adoption, from TLS 1.3 prerequisites and hybrid cryptography to vendor readiness and glob...

What if treating post-quantum cryptography like Y2K is your first and most dangerous mistake? In this episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, host Johannes Lintzen welcomes Yolanda Reid, former IBM Consulting leader and U.S. defense veteran, to explain why PQC is not a patch, but a permanent shift in how we secure systems, train teams, and think about risk. From executive blind spots...

It’s been one year since NIST finalized its post‑quantum cryptography (PQC) standards, a milestone that sparked urgency across government, industry, and security leaders. In this special episode of Shielded: The Last Line of Cyber Defense, we revisit those early conversations about PQC migration to see how far we’ve come (and how far we still have to go). Host Johannes Lintzen is joined by experts...