Joining the podcast this week is Stefan Soesanto, Senior Researcher in the Cyberdefense Project with the Risk and Resilience Team at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich. He recently authored the excellent research report “IT Army of Ukraine” that examined in detail how it was stood up out of necessity for what many have called the ‘first cyberwar.’

Join us this week for a discussion with Brian Knappenberger, a producer and director renowned for such documentaries as Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies and the Internet, The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists, and Turning Point: 9/11, to name a few. He shares insights from his recent documentary series Web of Make Believe and also  discusses the trajectory of misinformation through a lens from the 2016 election forward.

We go deep into the dark web and ransomware 2022 with this week’s guest Tom Hofmann, SVP, Intelligence at Flashpoint. He tracks ransomware from its beginnings in 1989 through to present-day ransomware gang shenanigans including Maze double extortion tactics that attackers have enthusiastically embraced. He also gets real on what’s happening on the dark web – and the things that you can’t unsee.

John Shier, Senior Security Advisor at Sophos, joins the podcast this week for a deep dive into today’s ransomware threats landscape and insights uncovered in the recent Sophos research reports, including the “2022 State of Ransomware Report” and “Active Adversary Playbook.”

This week Rob McDonald, SVP of Platform at Virtru joins the podcast to double-click into the data and privacy protection discussion. We explore subsidizing the pain of giving personal data in exchange for ‘free’ services, informed consent, regulation alone isn’t a silver bullet, and what outcomes we could we drive when we combine user decisions with regulation.

We have two guests joining the podcast this week to talk about election security - Marci Andino, Senior Director of the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) at the Center for Internet Security, and Trevor Timmons, chairperson of the Executive Committee of the EI-ISAC and CIO for the Colorado Secretary of State.

We’re back with part two of our discussion with Jill Aitoro, SVP for Content Strategy at CyberRisk Alliance where we pick the conversation up on privacy today and efforts by big tech and government to protect sensitive information.

Jill Aitoro, Associate Director at RTX, joins the podcast this week for the discussion of a hot topic across recent developments in the ongoing cyber war playbook involving Ukraine, Russia, and a supporting cast of many public and private entities including NATO, Microsoft, Lithuania, and others. 

This week Gerald Caron, CIO for the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) joins the podcast to share real-world impact in bringing communications and accessibility to an organization. Gerald also breaks down a football analogy of IT as an enabler and the criticality of the fans (users) to the equation.

This week Rachael and Eric discuss the world’s first cyber war and the recently published "Defending Ukraine: Early Lessons from the Cyber War" report from Microsoft and the accompanying blog post by Microsoft President and Vice-Chair Brad Smith. They share insights and raise lingering questions on the report’s findings and the five conclusions Microsoft framed from the war’s first four months.