KBKAST

In the first weeks of March, Omar Santos got early access to the model that became Anthropic’s Mythos. About an hour of testing was enough to convince him cybersecurity had changed for good. Omar, a Distinguished Engineer in AI Security Engineering at Cisco and co-chair of the Coalition for Secure AI, says his bigger worry is how fast everyone else is catching up. Open weight models are closing in on the frontier labs, so attackers no longer need access to Mythos to find and exploit vulnerabilities. KB and Omar get into why Cisco won’t send a finding to engineering without proof of an active exploit, how a public open source fix gives attackers a ready-made recipe, and why a library a student abandoned years ago could be running inside your patient records system. Omar wants defenders to go further than finding and fixing faster. That means refactoring code, adding compensating controls, and turning the risk register from an annual exercise into something that runs continuously. About Omar: Omar Santos is a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco, focused on AI security, cybersecurity research, incident response and vulnerability disclosure. He co-chairs the Coalition for Secure AI (CoSAI) and the FIRST PSIRT Special Interest Group, sits on the board of OASIS Open, and chairs the OpenEoX and CSAF technical committees, where his work led to CSAF becoming an ISO standard. He also led the DEF CON Red Team Village for several years. Omar has written more than 25 books, 21 video courses and over 50 research papers, and holds multiple patents. Before Cisco, he served in the United States Marines. Keywords: Mythos, Anthropic, Project Glasswing, frontier AI, open weight models, AI security, AI in cybersecurity, vulnerability management, zero days, exploit development, open source security, software supply chain, SBOM, OpenEoX, CSAF, CodeGuard, Coalition for Secure AI, CoSAI, Cisco, compensating controls, eBPF, secure by design, zero trust, incident response, threat hunting, continuous assessment, risk register, GRC, CISO, board, KBKast

Most boards approved AI for the productivity gains, and far fewer asked what it would expose. Dean Saunders says conversations with large organisations usually start with models and end up on data: where it lives, who can reach it, and how quickly an agent can move it once staff have gone home. KB and Dean talk about shadow AI, approved tools used on personal accounts, and trusted apps that quietly add AI features without security knowing. They also get into why compliance keeps getting mistaken for security, and why regulators now want proof of what you did rather than the policies you wrote. About Dean: Dean Saunders is the Regional Director for Australia and New Zealand at Forcepoint, where he supports customers and partners in protecting sensitive data across modern cloud, SaaS and AI‑enabled environments. He focuses on expanding Forcepoint’s data security footprint in the region, helping security leaders strengthen visibility and control over high‑risk data through the company’s portfolio. With more than two decades of leadership experience in enterprise software, cybersecurity, SaaS, channel strategy and go‑to‑market execution across Australia and the broader Asia Pacific, Dean has built a strong track record driving regional growth. His background includes leading high‑performing sales teams, developing partner ecosystems and supporting technology organisations competing in complex markets. Before joining Forcepoint, Dean held senior commercial and leadership positions at Cyara, Forticode, Unitrends/Kaseya, Teradici, CommVault and Total Defense. His diverse experience spans direct sales, channel and alliances, partner‑led growth and strategic market development, complemented by advisory work focused on improving sales execution and market strategy. He holds an MBA from the University of the Sunshine Coast and has completed extensive professional development in enterprise selling, leadership, key account management and media training. Keywords: AI data security, data security posture management, agentic AI, shadow AI, data loss prevention, DLP, data discovery and classification, AI governance, compliance vs security, insider risk, Forcepoint, cyber risk, board cyber governance, KBKast

Dr. Ahana Datta Fasel has spent years mapping 30 years of China’s cyber operations, and she opens by dismantling the story most of us have absorbed. China isn’t only hunting our secrets. Sometimes it wants to know what we know about them, sometimes it’s watching its own diaspora, and often the intent behind an operation is genuinely hard to read. She walks KB through why cyber has become inseparable from live conflict, from Ukraine’s power grids to the CCTVs of Tehran, and why the line between spying and preparing for war keeps moving. She explains the operation sitting inside America’s major telecom networks, where hackers have held access for three years and done nothing with it, and what that patience might mean. We also get into Five Eyes politics, the Huawei decisions, and why the West still doesn’t have a coherent China strategy. Ahana’s book, Full Stack Spies: Cyber Espionage in the Age of US-China Competition, is out in North America on 1 October. Grab it on Amazon (https://a.co/d/01aovOFW) or from Oxford University Press (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/full-stack-spies-9780197871386), where the code ADISTA5 takes 30 percent off. About Ahana: A former UK Government cyber leader and Financial Times cyber chief, Dr. Ahana Datta Fasel advises global governments and industry on geopolitical, AI and systemic risk strategies. She serves as non-executive director at a leading global digital rights charity, adviser to deep tech start-ups, and a strategic adviser on national security and resilience to the UK body for research, innovation and international partnerships. She has held fellowships at Cornell, Cambridge, Imperial and Durham, and her op-eds have appeared in the FT, Foreign Policy, Euractiv and the Columbia Journalism Review. Keywords: China cyber operations, cyber espionage, US-China competition, Full Stack Spies, geopolitics, Five Eyes, telecom breach, act of war, Taiwan, national security, hybrid warfare, Huawei

Shane Buckley, CEO of Gigamon, has watched the AI spending story turn in months. Companies that treated token consumption as a badge of honour are now blowing through their AI budget by day three of the month, with the bill hitting earnings reports and boardrooms. He explains why more tools never meant more security, why he expects rising data centre costs to push token prices up, and why augmentation beats replacement. Then comes the security squeeze. Using his pizza analogy, AI eats the budget just as attackers get their own AI. About Shane: Shane Buckley is President and Chief Executive Officer of Gigamon, having previously held the title of President and Chief Operating Officer before his appointment as CEO in 2022. He brings more than 25 years of executive management experience to the team with prior roles including CEO at Xirrus, General Manager and Senior Vice President at NETGEAR, President and CEO of Rohati Systems, and COO at Nevis Networks. Shane is a graduate of engineering from the Munster Technological University in Ireland. Keywords: tokenomics, AI budget, tool bloat, next-generation SIEM, data lake, AI security, augmentation, hybrid AI, on-premise LLMs, cloud adoption, network visibility, vibe coding

Reece takes us behind the scenes of the Instructure incident, where his team fielded 65 instructions in 48 hours, and explains how a catastrophic cyber event actually gets run across insurers, government and thousands of schools at once. KB & Reece get into the hidden cost almost no one budgets for, business interruption, and what the JLR and Change Healthcare cases reveal about how dependent our economy has become on a handful of suppliers. He also makes the case that AI is quietly splitting security budgets in two, and why that worries him. For any leader thinking seriously about resilience, this one is worth your time. About Reece: Reece Corbett-Wilkins is the Head of First Response Australia, and is the Chief Strategy Officer at Atmos. For over 10 years, Reece has focused exclusively on cyber and privacy risk, having helped 1,000+ organisations through some of their most challenging times. Reece is particularly experienced in managing large scale multi-party data breaches, both locally and globally, and ransomware response. Reece works closely with the incident response industry, government, and law enforcement to achieve optimal outcomes for clients. Keywords: cyber resilience, incident response, business interruption, cyber insurance, critical infrastructure, SPHERE, ransomware, supply chain risk, SOCI reform, AI security budget, CAT event, small business cyber