The Monica Talks Cyber Show

Have you ever felt lost in your career, unsure if you're heading in the right direction, or if you're making the impact you're capable of? You can ask others for guidance, but only you can truly direct yourself. Managing your career is your job and your job only. No one else's. In this episode, we dive into the importance of betting on yourself and taking calculated risks, how...

Have you ever called customer service, only to realize you’re speaking to an AI—one that understands your frustration, adjusts its tone, and even convinces you to buy more? AI is getting scarily good at mimicking human-like conversations, emotions, and even decision-making. But here’s the kicker—it doesn’t feel anything. So, how do you know if your decisions aren’t being influenced by AI? In this...

Feeling underpaid and undervalued? The truth is you are your best salary negotiator. Studies show that professionals who negotiate their salary increase their pay by an average of $5,000! In this episode, I’ll share 9 proven steps to help you negotiate your salary with confidence and secure the pay you truly deserve. You’ll Learn: The mindset shift you need to negotiate successfully, how to resear...

2023 was the year of the Gen AI boom and multimodal AI. 2024 was the year of overinflated valuations but also the start of AI agents. What trends are you going to see in the year 2025 that you need to be ready for?  From hyper-personalization to Explainable AI to AI-driven decision-making, 2025 is set to be a defining year for careers and businesses. In this episode, we break down 7 key AI trends...

AI is revolutionizing human decision making and cybersecurity, but it’s also being used by cybercriminals to launch cyberattacks, frauds and scams. Who’s really winning the battle — AI-driven security or AI-powered hackers? In this episode, which is based on my keynote, we’ll break down: 1) How AI is being used in cyberattacks; 2) How AI is fighting hackers and changing decision making; and 3) The...

9 years ago, this one quote from Daniel Kahneman changed my life: "We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events". I went from hacker to a leader in just 4 years, not just 'cause I worked hard. I took a huge risk by betting on myself even when others wouldn't. Here are 3 things you can do to change your lif...

Approximately 1.3 million people fall victim to online scams every day. I personally know 3 friends who fell victim to online fraud in just last 9 months. The good news is all 3 of them got their money back. How did the later happen? AI/ML in the background. AI in anti-fraud systems. AI in credit decisions. AI under the hood. That’s not all. Last year, I traveled 61 hours to the Cayman Islands and...

What’s the biggest digital threat to your business? “The Russians can now leverage supply chain attacks against Microsoft’s customers.” When Ukraine-Russia geopolitical crisis started many western news sources claimed that Russia apparently didn’t use cyber capabilities to the extent the West had expected. Can we say the same knowing that Russia’s attack against Microsoft (one of the biggest globa...

This is The 10x Weekly in Under 60 Seconds presented by The Monica Talks Cyber Show. Ever wondered how AI is changing the world? One of the major fundamental shift that's happening is that AI is creating news. It's creating ideas, it's creating culture, it's creating history. It's creating things that we don't even know if they existed or happened in reality or not. L...

“You are a good CISO that helps us make a difference” wrote one of my colleague to me. I attribute that feedback to a Japanese concept called Kaizen. My milestones, like most successful people I know, are outcome of a sense of self-belief and a whole lot of bias for action, leading to continuous incremental improvements, referred in the Japanese concept as Kaizen. Here are 12 ways [+BONUS] to 10x...

For the last 20 years, I’ve used 8 key elements of powerful storytelling to 10x my career. Here's how you can 10x your career. Reality is: If information is gold, storytelling is mining. Job seekers, interviewers, interviewees, entrepreneurs, security professionals are all storytellers. You are a storyteller. No matter what you do professionally, I can bet you, storytelling is some part of yo...

According to Forbes, in 2021 alone, ransomware cost the world $20 billion, and that number is expected to skyrocket to $265 billion by 2031. Over the last years, ransomware attacks have managed to cause disruptions to energy, gas pipelines, groceries stores and many more businesses and daily lives. In today's video of The Monica Talks Cyber Podcast Experience, Monica Verma sit down with secur...

“Fake it till you make it” is the worst advice I ever received. 70% of people will experience imposter syndrome in their career. I know, I am one of them. ”How do you HANDLE imposter syndrome?” asked one of my mentees. Fake it till you make it is the worst advice you will ever receive. Instead, in the last 3 years, I applied these 7 principles, every day, to “embrace” my imposter syndrome. Not to...

How to land your dream job WITHOUT applying? Dream jobs that I landed, I didn’t apply to them. Instead, I was approached, I was connected to, I was networked with. In the last 7 years, I CHANGED entirely the way I approached job searching. Surely, I have applied to jobs online, but those have had the least impact. The biggest impact came from an entirely different approach. How can you land your d...

In 2009, I took one decision to cold email a hacker, and that changed my life forever. That one decision, that one cold message, changed my life forever. TODAY, for the very first time, I share my entire story on how I took that bold but scary decision, how it changed my life forever, and tips on how it can change your life forever, in my latest episode on Monica Talks Cyber . Looking to go from c...

No matter what people tell you, every single day we are seeing people break into this field with no experience and succeeding.  They are coming from all kinds of backgrounds such as retail, medical, transportation, and many other industries. Cyber Security is unique because you are able to write your own story on how you want to pursue this field.  If you are willing to have the motivation and put...

In this episode, Monica Verma , CISO, Hacker, CEO and Founder, talks with Naomi Buckwalter, Directory of Product Security, about the so-called talent gap. Is it the talent gap real? How can we fix it? How do we build diversity and inclusion in cybersecurity industry? Listen to hot takes with Monica and Naomi, on how to break into cybersecurity and leadership, and accelerate your career. Looking to...

Liz Truss' mobile was hacked allegedly by Kremlin agents. It was so heavily compromised that it had to be locked away in a safe inside a secure Government location. How do you protect people with high-risk profiles? What is the no. one factor to combat fake news and disinformation? In this episode, Monica Verma , CISO, Hacker, CEO, talk with Runa Sandvik, Security Researcher, about fake news,...

As technology, social media and smart devices have seeped into our private and business lives, do we have privacy as a human right any more? In this episode Monica Verma , CEO & CISO, talks with Debbie Reynolds "The Data Diva",  on the myths around privacy as human rights, privacy challenges related to social media, artificial intelligence and emerging technology, as well as how it&a...

How has the cyber health of healthcare evolved and what challenges lie ahead of us? In this episode Monica Verma , CEO | CISO, and Joseph Davis , Chief Security Advisor, Microsoft , talk about cyber threats, trends, risks and recommendations connected to healthcare services, medical devices, brownfield environment, and their interconnection and convergence with IoT, cloud and more. Looking to go f...

In today's episode, CISOs and hackers, Chris Roberts and Monica Verma dive deep into the world of ransomware and talk about exploitations through ransomware and it's impact on businesses, the advancement in technology & how it is shaping the ransomware landscape, the ethics landscape aka to pay or not to pay, what does it take to build a better defense against ransomware attacks, and...

In today's episode Monica Verma, Keynote Speaker and CISO, talks to Sarah Armstrong-Smith, Chief Security Advisor, Microsoft on how is the threat landscape and the cyber criminals evolving? What are some of the key factors of better defense going forward and key recommendations to combat cybercrime? How do we protect privacy and include ethics, especially with the convergence of the physical,...

In today's episode, CISOs Monica Verma and Gary Hayslip talk about how to communicate and report to the board, real value of cybersecurity and its ROI, managing both current and future risk, how to make security seamless, and tips for communication around breaches. For video check out MonicaTalksCyber . Looking to go from chaos and unpredictability to resilience in the world of AI? Start here...

In today’s episode Monica Verma talks to one of industry leaders within Cyber Insurance, Michael Spreitzenbarth on why you should care about cyber insurance, why you need it, what are the key elements to consider when underwriting a policy and some of the important gotchas, loopholes or myths around insurance policy. Looking to go from chaos and unpredictability to resilience in the world of AI? S...

In today’s episode Monica Verma talks to Katie Nickels on importance of cyber threat intelligence, evolution of threat landscape over the last decade, trends today and moving forward, as well as security and privacy challenges with threat intelligence. Looking to go from chaos and unpredictability to resilience in the world of AI? Start here with The Predictability Factor newsletter at The Monica...