AI seems to be a "dime a dozen" if you trust the cybersecurity vendors. What does meaningful cybersecurity AI look like? What is on the horizon when it comes to the potential of cybersecurity and AI? And what does this mean when it comes to risk management? Chief Intelligence and Security Officer and Cybersecurity Professor Joan Ross discusses these and other cyber-related topics in this episode of Kitecast. She explains how AI can be used to detect and stop cyberattacks as well as rapidly respond to breaches when they happen. The conversation also touched on how cybercriminals and rogue nation-states are leveraging AI to create attacks that are more complex and harder to detect and stop.

Joan Ross: The Intersection of Cybersecurity and AI

Cybersecurity Recruiter André Tehrani talks about what matters most for his clients when they vet senior cybersecurity candidates. When it comes to CISOs, they must be able to articulate cyber risk through the lens of business impact: operational disruption, damaged brand, negative sales, and compliance fines and penalties. Check out other Kitecast shows at www.kiteworks.com/kitecast.

André Tehrani: How CISOs Can Raise Their Game Against Cybersecurity Threats

Software Entrepreneur and Executive Josh Horwitz built a highly successful customer engagement software company and sold it. What was his next move? He dived into the Dark Web and—working with a couple other entrepreneurs—launched a fast-growth cybersecurity startup. Learn how Josh and the team at Enzoic are transforming password security by mining the Dark Web. 

Check out other Kitecast episodes at www.kiteworks.com/kitecast.

Josh Horwitz: A Deep Dive Into the Dark Web

While Sylvain Hirsch played on the Swiss National Rugby Team over a period of eight years, he learned much about the importance of collective collaboration and response. This prepared him for a career in cyber forensics and incident response that has taken him on an interesting journey from Europe to the Asia-Pacific region. He's worked for international organizations such as Credit Suisse in threat detection and response and has spent the past two years as an incident responder at Mandiant. His academic endeavors include serving as a guest speaker at different conferences and guest lecturer and researcher at Interpol, University College Dublin, University of Lausanne, and Berner Fachhochschule. This Kitecast episode explores various aspects of cyber forensics and incident response and what Sylvain sees as best practices and anticipates will be key advances in the field.

Sylvain Hirsch: Cyber Forensics and Incident Response Through the Lens of Rugby

NCSi CTO Bryan Hadzik has spent over two decades with the Utah-based security and operations service provider. As cybercriminals and rogue nation-states focus their attention on hacking critical information, government and industry groups have responded by passing different compliance regulations, such as GDPR, FERPA, GBLA, PIPEDA, and others, and cybersecurity frameworks that include NIST CSF, ISO 27001, and SOC 2. Hadzik discusses how this has led to an intertwining of cybersecurity and compliance that organizations must address in order to manage private content and compliance risks effectively. He points out that insurance companies rate insurance policies based on an organization's adherence to these cybersecurity frameworks and ability to ensure compliance with data privacy regulations.

Bryan Hadzik: The Intertwining of Cybersecurity and Compliance

Over 20 years ago, Evgeniy Kharam launched his career on the “high seas” as a cybersecurity engineer for the Israeli Navy and in his subsequent professional career spent over 40,000 hours in pre- and post-sales support as a cybersecurity architect and consultant working with private and public sector organizations across the spectrum—from those with 500 employees to those with more than 100,000 employees. 

Evgeniy sees Zero Trust as a critical ingredient for any cybersecurity approach and argues in this podcast interview that protecting sensitive content requires appropriate governance tracking and controls. As part of this process, least-privilege access and employing zero trust when it comes to governance policies are crucial in managing security and compliance risks.

Check out Evgeniy's podcasts at https://linktr.ee/ekcyber.

Evgeniy Kharam: Pushing the Boundaries of Private Content Governance

Serial Entrepreneur and Cybersecurity and Risk Management Pioneer Taiye Lambo has worn a lot of different hats over the course of his career. He has led cybersecurity at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the City of Atlanta, and Harland Clarke, among others. He founded or co-founded organizations such as eFortresses (a Gartner Cool Vendor), CloudeAssurance, and the Holistic Information Security Practitioner Institute (HISPI). 

In this Kitecast episode, Lambo discusses a range of topics related to cybersecurity and risk management. He argues that cybersecurity frameworks like NIST CSF, ISO 27001, and SOC 2 empower organizations to measure their risk and institute technologies and processes to manage that risk. He also overviews the HISPI Certification Program and how cybersecurity and risk management professionals can get certified.

https://www.hispi.org 
https://www.cloudeassurance.com 
https://efortresses.com

Taiye Lambo: Managing Risk Using Cybersecurity Frameworks

Vertosoft's CTO Chet Hayes is a technologist at heart and has kept his finger on the pulse of the public sector for much of his career. Early on in his career, he cut his teeth in technical software architecture roles in organizations such as Sun Microsystems, Hughes Information Technology, and BEA Systems. Based in Virginia, much of his customer-facing work was with the federal government. For the past 15 years, Hayes has worked in various senior leadership positions serving the public sector.



While government organizations face many of the same technology challenges as private sector organizations, they also have unique requirements. Federal government agencies and their supply chains, in particular, tend to be ahead of the private sector when it comes to the use of cybersecurity frameworks. In this Kitecast episode, Hayes discusses how the NIST CSF, CMMC 2.0, FedRAMP Authorization, and other federal cybersecurity standards are driving the adoption of zero trust and other security best practices. Discover what he thinks are some of the biggest security opportunities and challenges facing the government sector today and how data privacy exposure risks play into both components by listening to this podcast.

For more on Vertosoft, visit www.vertosoft.com.

For more on Chet Hayes, visit www.linkedin.com/in/chetdhayes.

Chet Hayes on Data Privacy and Governance in the Public Sector

In this Kitecast episode, Michael Redman, who is a Knowledge & Learning Management Instructor at Schellman and a subject-matter expert in various cybersecurity and compliance standards, spoke at length about Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF), and other topics that are pressing concerns for the Defense Industrial base (DIB). Redman asserts that businesses must approach cybersecurity as a risk management issue, just like any other business risk. Organizations must take proactive measures to mitigate cybersecurity risks and ensure they have a robust cybersecurity program in place.

Part of the podcast discussion with Redman involved the role of Certified Third-Party Assessor Organizations (3CAPAOs) and CMMC compliance. He explains that C3PAOs are an interesting entity and are being asked to shoulder a whole lot of responsibility with not a lot of reward. C3PAOs are swimming in murky water and need to be patient. As we proceed closer to CMMC implementation, the good, better, and best 3CPAOs will rise to the top, and the ones that aren’t fully invested will focus their energies elsewhere.

Midway through the podcast, Redman spoke about the CMMC Standards Council, of which he is a part. He explains that the Standards Council is working to create an objective matrix that can be used to rate C3PAOs objectively. He believes this will help organizations choose the right C3PAO based on their needs and budget. The alpha version of the objective matrix was just completed and is circulating it among subject-matter experts for feedback.

Redman also talks about the importance of having a risk-based approach to cybersecurity. He suggests that organizations need to identify their high-value assets and focus on protecting them. He believes a risk-based approach is more effective than a compliance-based approach, as it helps organizations focus on what really matters. He emphasizes the importance of having a cybersecurity program aligned with the business objectives of the organization and one that accounts for third-party risk management (TPRM).

Digital transformation is driving dramatic changes in cybersecurity. The confluence of cybersecurity and compliance demands a risk management model, and one focused on keeping private data private. Organizations can no longer view cybersecurity and compliance in separate silos but rather as intertwined and predictors of risk. Kiteworks content-defined zero trust approach, which relies on the Kiteworks Private Content Network, is used by thousands of organizations around the world to unify security and compliance approaches to sensitive content communications while wrapping them in a hardened virtual appliance.

For more on Schellman, visit https://www.schellman.com/.

Michael Redman: Mapping Out Your CMMC Roadmap: Insights & Tips

Richard Stiennon, a cybersecurity pioneer, author, and industry executive, spoke about the hottest trending topic of our day in this Kitecast episode: artificial intelligence (AI). He currently serves as the Chief Research Analyst at IT-Harvest, a research organization he founded in 2017, which provides access to data on more than 3,318 cybersecurity vendors. To streamline and automate the compilation of data, Stiennon explains how IT-Harvest is using ChatGPT 4.0. Stiennon discusses how AI is transforming cybersecurity—both for the good and the bad. 

Cybercriminals are finding ways around guardrails instituted in commercially available AI solutions like ChatGPT and Bard or simply developing their own to accelerate the development of malware, automate advanced persistent threats, and generate human-like phishing and spear-phishing attacks. At the same time, cybersecurity vendors are rapidly adding new AI capabilities to their product portfolios that improve the efficacy and efficiency of threat prevention, incident response, threat correlation and analysis, and more. Beyond the topic of AI, Stiennon addressed his thoughts on the role of cybersecurity leaders and subject-matter experts when it comes to serving as a board member or advisor. As a board member and advisor for a number of cybersecurity and compliance companies, he argues that organizations need to rethink how cybersecurity is discussed at the business level. Rather than teaching CISOs to speak the language of the business, they need to speak the language of cybersecurity and teach boards to understand cybersecurity risk through the lens of cybersecurity. 

LinkedIn Profile: 
www.linkedin.com/in/stiennon/ 

IT-Harvest: 
www.it-harvest.com 

Published Books:
Net Zeros and Ones: How Data Erasure Promotes Sustainability, Privacy, and Security
https://www.amazon.com/Net-Zeros-Ones-Promotes-Sustainability-ebook/dp/B0BN72M57X/ref=sr_1_3

Secure Cloud Transformation: The CIO's Journey
https://www.amazon.com/Secure-Cloud-Transformation-CIOS-Journey/dp/1945254203

UP and to the RIGHT: Strategy and Tactics of Analyst Influence
https://www.amazon.com/UP-RIGHT-Strategy-Influence-influence/dp/0985460709

There Will Be Cyberwar: How the Move to Network-centric War Fighting Has Set the Stage for Cyberwar
https://www.amazon.com/There-Will-Be-Cyberwar-Network-Centric/dp/0985460784/

Surviving Cyber War
https://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Cyberwar-Richard-Stiennon/dp/1605906883/

Richard Stiennon: The Good, Bad, and Ugly About AI in Cybersecurity

Kevin Powers, Faculty Director of the Masters of Legal Studies in Cybersecurity Risk and Governance at Boston College Law School, began his professional and academic journey when he volunteered for a task force exploring cybersecurity education at Boston College. Rather than developing a purely technical curriculum, he advocated for an interdisciplinary approach that would integrate law, business, and risk management. "Cybersecurity is not just a technical issue," Powers explained during the podcast episode. Working with stakeholders from the White House, FBI, major financial institutions, and technology companies, the team built a curriculum designed to produce well-rounded cybersecurity professionals.

The program launched in 2015 and recently transitioned to BC Law School, offering 10 courses taught entirely by practitioners actively working in the field. Students include FBI agents, financial compliance officers, and executives from Fortune 50 companies, with an average age of 33.
A central theme of Powers' program is bridging the communication divide between technical teams and business leadership. With recent SEC regulations and requirements like New York's DFS Part 500 mandating board-level cybersecurity oversight, organizations need professionals who understand both technical controls and business implications.

"Boards are recognizing cybersecurity as a core business function," Powers noted, emphasizing that every company operating on networks faces operational risk when systems go down. The program prepares students to communicate cyber risk in business terms and develop governance frameworks aligned with regulatory requirements like CMMC 2.0, FedRAMP, and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.

The program has evolved rapidly to address artificial intelligence governance. Powers redesigned his coursework after discovering AI tools could complete assignments in minutes, shifting 70% of grading to oral presentations that emphasize critical thinking over output.
Looking ahead, Powers identified cloud security and data sovereignty as critical concerns. Many organizations mistakenly believe SaaS platforms automatically back up their data, leaving them vulnerable during incidents. The CDK Global attack on car dealerships illustrated how unprepared businesses can be when cloud services fail.

Beyond academics, Powers emphasizes creating networks. Graduates maintain connections with government agencies, financial institutions, and technology companies, facilitating collaboration across sectors. The program hosts the annual Boston Conference on Cybersecurity, which draws hundreds of attendees including CISOs from major sports franchises and law enforcement leaders.

For organizations navigating increasingly complex regulatory landscapes, Powers' message is clear: cybersecurity expertise must extend beyond technical skills to encompass governance, compliance, and strategic business alignment. As cyber threats evolve, professionals need frameworks like NIST to demonstrate reasonable security practices to regulators while protecting operational continuity.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-powers-54893a8/ 
Boston College School of Law: https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/law.html 


Kevin Powers: From Academic to Practical Cybersecurity

Kitecast features interviews with security, IT, compliance, and risk management leaders and influencers, highlighting best practices, trends, and strategic analysis and insights. Kitecast is cohosted by Tim Freestone and Patrick Spencer who have more than four decades of combined experience in technology and cybersecurity senior leadership roles.

Kevin Powers: From Academic to Practical Cybersecurity

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