Russia’s cyberattacks against Ukraine’s electrical grid occupy a canonical place in the history of cyber warfare. By turning out the lights in Ukraine in 2016 and 2017, Russia demonstrated the reach of digital weapons. Now researchers have revealed that Moscow’s hackers struck the Ukrainian grid in 2022. CyberScoop reporters AJ Vicens and Christian Vasquez join the show to discuss the implications of the Russian attack on Ukrainian critical infrastructure and what it reveals about how the Kremlin is using its hacking corps to shape the conflict. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson also joins the show to discuss her efforts to keep elections safe, combat disinformation and the threat AI poses to American democracy.

Russian cyberattack cut power in Ukraine, Michigan secretary of state talks election security

Just as behavioral psychology revolutionized economics by integrating human behavior into the study of financial decisions — creating the field of behavioral economics — the study of cyberpsychology tries to put the human being at the center of conversations about cybersecurity. Dr.  Mary Aiken is one of its foremost practitioners and also happens to be the inspiration for Patricia Arquette’s character in “CSI: Cyber.” She sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss the emerging discipline of cyberpsychology. DefenseScoop reporter Brandi Vincent also joins the show to discuss how the U.S. military is thinking about autonomy.

A deep dive on cyberpsychology and a look at autonomy in the U.S. military

A growing industry exists today that provides governments with highly advanced tools to surveil their opponents. While this industry has become personified by Israel’s NSO Group, it in fact goes far beyond this one firm. The commercial spyware industry is growing rapidly, posing major human rights concerns and exposing dissidents, journalists and members of civil society to highly intrusive surveillance. Rasha Abdul Rahim leads Amnesty Tech, an organization that is on the front lines of documenting how spyware is being abused, and sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss her work. FedScoop reporter Rebecca Heilweil also joins the show to discuss how the U.S. government hopes its supercomputers can be put to work in the AI revolution.

Supercomputers for AI and the proliferation of commercial spyware

It was WikiLeaks that pioneered the publishing and hosting of sensitive information, and while Julian Assange’s whistleblowing project has withered away, groups like Distributed Denial of Secrets are carrying on the work of trying to make public interest material more widely available — and to do so more responsibly. Emma Best is the founder of DDOS and she sits down with CyberScoop reporter AJ Vicens to discuss their work publishing and hosting leaked material. Reporter Christian Vasquez joins host Elias Groll to discuss his reporting on a concerning vulnerability affecting automotive fleet management systems and the uphill battle to patch the flaw.

Five years of Distributed Denial of Secrets and a dangerous automotive vulnerability

In our final episode of the year, host Elias Groll sits down with reporters from CyberScoop, FedScoop and Defense Scoop to discuss the biggest stories of the year. Christian Vasquez and AJ Vicens join the show to talk through the biggest breaches of the year and how the cybersecurity landscape changed in 2023. Madison Alder and Rebecca Heilweil come on to discuss how the federal government responded to calls to regulate AI. Mickayla Easley and Brandi Vincent close out the episode by discussing how the U.S. military is changing how it operates in space and what the Pentagon is doing to get to the bottom of a string of UFO sightings.

Major breaches, the government’s AI push and UFOs: Scoop reporters on 2023’s biggest stories

In our first episode of the year, we begin by looking back at 2023. The NSA’s Rob Joyce and Morgan Adamski sit down with host Elias Groll to examine the major cybersecurity trends of the year, the evolution of Russian hacking operations, how China is targeting U.S. critical infrastructure and how AI is changing the cybersecurity business. FedScoop reporter Nihal Krishan also joins the show to discuss his reporting on how AI watermarking has become a key tool in addressing AI safety.

Looking back at 2023 with the NSA’s Rob Joyce and Morgan Adamski

The upcoming year will feature an unprecedented number of democratic elections. In addition to the United States’s pivotal federal elections, countries that collectively make up more than half of the world’s populations will head to the polls. These elections are taking place against the backdrop of pervasive security vulnerabilities and come on the heels of a series of elections that have featured all kinds of digital meddling. Mick Baccio served as the first-ever chief information security officer of a presidential campaign, working on the Pete Buttigieg campaign in 2020. On this episode of Safe Mode, he sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss what it takes to secure a political campaign in 2024. CyberScoop reporter AJ Vicens also joins the show to discuss the FBI’s efforts to combat cybercrime and how the NSA is relying on AI to combat Chinese hacking operations.

How do you prevent a political campaign from getting hacked?

In the year 2024, elections will take place around the world affecting some 4 billion people — an election year unlike any other. Besides the United States, voters will go to the polls in the European Union, the United Kingdom, India, Mexico and Indonesia, just to name a few. The next time we’ll see this many elections in one year will be in 2048. On Safe Mode this week, host Elias Groll sits down with Katie Harbath, who spent a decade at Facebook overseeing the platform’s work on elections, to discuss how the major technology platforms are preparing for an unprecedented election year. CyberScoop reporter Derek B. Johnson joins the show to discuss a deepfake robocall in the New Hampshire primary and what the incident tells us about what to expect regarding AI-driven disinformation in 2024.

Threats to elections in 2024 and a deepfake in New Hampshire

Whether you call it hacking or legitimate security research, getting computers to do things that they shouldn’t is an activity that exists in a legal gray area. Sometimes, hackers acting in good faith will find themselves on the other end of a cease-and-desist letter, a lawsuit, or even a prosecution. A new initiative called the Security Research Legal Defense Fund is trying to make sure that white hat hackers who do find themselves in trouble have the legal representation they need. Harley Geiger is the founder of the Security Research Legal Defense Fund and is also a cybersecurity lawyer at Venable. He sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss his work funding legal aid for hackers. CyberScoop reporter AJ Vicens joins the show to discuss calls by major tech companies for governments to do more to combat commercial spyware.

Legal aid for hackers; Big Tech wants action on commercial spyware

When Hamas fighters crossed into Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping hundreds more, it marked a new era of the conflict between Israel and an array of militant groups. Most of that conflict has played out in the form of brutal, bloody fighting, but it has also taken place online in the form of cyber operations. Adam Meyers, Crowdstrike’s head of counter adversary operations, sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss how the digital dimensions of the conflict have played out. CyberScoop reporter AJ Vicens also joins the show to discuss a wide-ranging takedown operation targeting the LockBit ransomware gang.

LockBit’s very bad day; Adam Meyers on Israel-Gaza cyber ops

In recent months, U.S. security officials have issued a series of dire warnings about the hacking threat to American critical infrastructure. According to a chorus of intelligence officials, Chinese hacking groups have infiltrated U.S. critical infrastructure entities like ports and power grids, prepositioning themselves in the event of a conflict. But Chinese hackers are just one part of the threat landscape facing critical infrastructure entities. Dragos CEO Robert M. Lee is on the frontline of protecting critical infrastructure entities and he sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss how Chinese operations are shifting. CyberScoop reporter AJ Vicens joins the show to discuss claims by LockBit that the ransomware group has returned following last week’s takedown operation.

Robert M. Lee on critical infrastructure attacks; and is LockBit back?

Every day, AI models are being deployed in new places, and that is creating demand for a new industry: companies that secure AI systems. Whether it’s preventing models from being used to write malicious code or creating spearphishing emails or keeping safe the data that companies are using to train AI systems, large language models raise a host of new security challenges. David Haber is the CEO of Lakera, a start-up that builds tools to keep AI models secure, and he sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss this new industry and how companies are approaching the challenge of securing AI systems. CyberScoop reporter AJ Vicens joins the show to discuss a ransomware attack by the group known as ALPHV that has caused major disruptions to the U.S. health care systems.

David Haber breaks down the AI security industry; ALPHV snarls U.S. health care

Kiersten Todt has worked on just about every hot-button cybersecurity issue you can imagine. Currently the CEO of Liberty Group Ventures, her most recent role in government was as the chief of staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. As a Senate staffer, she drafted key parts of the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security, and during the Obama years, she was the executive director of the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. She sits down with host Elias Groll for a wide-ranging conversation about the cybersecurity policy landscape. CyberScoop reporter Derek B. Johnson also joins the show to discuss his reporting on how election officials are preparing for the ways AI might disrupt this fall’s elections.

Kiersten Todt on the cybersecurity policy landscape; AI training for election officials

When ChatGPT debuted in the fall of 2022, it set the internet ablaze and opened many people’s eyes to the capabilities of a new generation of machine learning technology. It also caught the attention of some of the world’s most sophisticated hackers. For the companies developing leading edge AI models, preventing hackers from misusing them now represents a key challenge. Sherrod DeGrippo is the director of threat intelligence strategy at Microsoft, and on this episode of Safe Mode sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss how state-backed hackers are experimenting with AI tools. CyberScoop reporter Christian Vasquez also joins the show to discuss how industrial cybersecurity experts are responding to Chinese hacking operations targeting critical infrastructure.

Sherrod DeGrippo on APT groups experimenting with AI

Journalist Byron Tau sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss his eye-opening book about commercially available data. CyberScoop reporter Derek B. Johnson joins the show to discuss recent indictments and sanctions targeting Chinese hackers accused of surveilling politicians and dissidents.

Byron Tau on data brokers; US sanctions, indicts Chinese hackers

In order to deliver major improvement in the security of the digital systems we all rely on, the Biden administration has embarked on a major initiative known as secure by design. That initiative aims to build more secure hardware and software by prioritizing security in the design process and asks developers to rethink how they approach building products. So can it be done? On this episode of Safe Mode, the veteran cybersecurity executive Dave Aitel, who spent six years at the National Security Agency before founding the security firm Immunity, sits down with host Elias Groll to offer a hacker’s perspective on secure by design. CyberScoop reporter Christian Vasquez joins the show to discuss the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s proposed new rules for when critical infrastructure entities will have to report cybersecurity incidents.

Dave Aitel on ‘secure by design’; CISA’s rules for cyber incident reporting

Kiersten Todt has worked on just about every hot-button cybersecurity issue you can imagine. Currently the CEO of Liberty Group Ventures, her most recent role in government was as the chief of staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. As a Senate staffer, she drafted key parts of the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security, and during the Obama years, she was the executive director of the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. 

She sits down with CyberScoop’s Elias Groll for a wide-ranging conversation about the evolving cybersecurity policy landscape.

The evolution of the cybersecurity policy landscape

Amid the endless hype about AI — how it will either revolutionize the world or end it as we know it — Sayash Kapoor is a rare voice of reason. A PhD candidate at Princeton University and a researcher at the Center for Information Technology and Policy, he is also the author of the newsletter AI Snake Oil, an essential resource to understand AI, its risks, and what to do about them. On this episode of Safe Mode, he sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss his research around AI risk, how best to understand it and the interventions necessary to better study AI models. CyberScoop reporter Tim Starks and FedScoop reporter Rebecca Heilweil also join the show to describe how U.S. federal agencies have been affected by a breach of Microsoft carried out by a notorious Russian hacking group.

Sayash Kapoor on AI risk; Federal agencies affected by Russian breach of Microsoft

Around the world policymakers seem to be grappling with the same question: How best to govern artificial intelligence? The Center for Security and Emerging Technology, a Washington-based think tank, has emerged as a key and influential player in that conversation. And on this episode of Safe Mode, its executive director, Dewey Murdick, sits down with host Elias Groll to describe what he sees as the enabling principles of AI governance. Also on the show this week, CyberScoop reporter AJ Vicens discusses a landmark breach affecting AT&T that saw call and text records of nearly all the company’s customers be stolen.

Dewey Murdick on enabling principles for AI governance; a landmark breach at AT&T

A podcast covering the latest news & trends facing top government leaders on topics such as technology, management & workforce. Hosted by Billy Mitchell on FedScoop and released every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

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