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Fortinet Uncovers Long-Term Cyberespionage in Region
An Iranian state-sponsored threat group conducted a years-long cyberespionage campaign targeting a Middle East critical infrastructure provider, with its operational technology network a key target. The attackers focused reconnaissance activity and credential theft on the OT network.

Flattery Glitch Forces Rollback, Potential Procedural Overhaul
OpenAI faced an unexpected publiclity storm when its latest GPT-4o update turned ChatGPT into an overzealous cheerleader, lavishing praise on everything from risky life choices to dubious opinions. CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the issue, with OpenAI outlining changes to prevent a repeat performance.

National Cybersecurity Alliance's Lisa Plaggemier on Replacing Shrinking Public Funds
Lisa Plaggemier, executive director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance, urges nonprofits to embrace private-sector partnerships and creative outreach to protect vulnerable groups such as senior citizens as federal funding support wanes.

FBI's Cynthia Kaiser on How AI Is Helping to Evolve Cyberthreats
Artificial intelligence is changing the way people work, including cybercriminals and fraudsters. But instead of introducing new types of cybercrime, AI has enhanced existing criminal activities, said Cynthia Kaiser, deputy assistant director at the FBI.

Ex-National Cyber Director Emphasizes a Unified Approach to Cybersecurity
Public-private partnerships are of grave importance to tackle cyberthreats, given their ability to transcend geographical boundaries and affect individuals regardless of location, says Harry Coker, secretary of the Maryland Department of Commerce and former U.S. national cyber director.

Politecnico di Milano's Zanero on Evolving Malware Detection and Hardware Security
Machine learning excels at identifying repetitive patterns and anomalies, but human insight remains vital for understanding the broader context of cyberattacks - especially in cyber-physical ecosystems, said Stefano Zanero, professor at Politecnico di Milano.

SolarWinds CISO Tim Brown's Case Shows Personal, Legal and Health Risks for CISOs
CISOs face tremendous stress in dealing with regulatory scrutiny and legal exposure in the wake of a data breach. SolarWinds CISO Tim Brown shares the personal and professional impact of Securities and Exchange Commission charges against him after the 2020 SolarWinds supply chain attack.

ISC2 CISO Jon France on Why Quantum Resilience Falls Squarely Under the CISO
Quantum computing is at a tipping point, moving from theoretical math to deployable physics, said Jon France, CISO at ISC2. So, security teams need to start addressing the implementation of quantum-safe algorithms now, beginning with the five new safe algorithms released by NIST.

Google Cloud's Hultquist on How State Hackers Exploit Code and Corporate Hiring
John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group, Google Cloud, discussed how China and North Korea are transforming cyberattacks into organized, factory-like operations. Alongside zero-day exploits, North Korean IT operatives are quietly infiltrating Fortune 500 companies under false identities.

Rain Capital's Chenxi Wang Warns About AI's Emerging Role in Coding
AI can significantly accelerate code generation - helping developers go from idea to implementation in minutes - but AI-generated code is frequently based on insecure or flawed examples found in public code repositories, explains Chenxi Wang, founder and general partner at Rain Capital.

NightDragon CEO Dave DeWalt Sees Cautious Optimism With Agentic AI
Advances in scalable AI and agentic technologies are creating a long-awaited shift in the defender-offender dynamic. With autonomy and agentic capabilities entering production, CISOs may soon deploy 100,000 autonomous agents instead of hiring more staff, said Dave DeWalt, CEO of NightDragon.

Anthropic's Jason Clinton Discusses the Benefits and Challenges of AI Agents
AI agents will be crucial in the software development life cycle to eliminate bugs, improving the quality of software, which could significantly reduce security vulnerabilities. Although managing AI agents for identity and access controls will be hard, said Jason Clinton, CISO at Anthropic.

FBI's Sanjay Virmani Discusses Recent FBI Takedowns
Developing strong relationships with private sector and international partner organizations is vital for tackling cybercrime. A proactive approach ensures more efficient incident responses, said Sanjay Vermani, the special agent in charge of the FBI in San Francisco

National Security Council's Bulazel to Reset Cyber Norms With Offensive Strategy
National Security Council's Alexei Bulazel told RSA attendees that offensive cyber tools must play a bigger role in U.S. defense. He called for a streamlined regulatory approach, more robust interagency coordination and a narrower role for CISA focused on critical infrastructure and civilian agencies.

DistributedApps.ai's Ken Huang on Agentic AI Risks and Threat Modeling
As AI agents gain autonomy and access dynamic tools, organizations must adopt new threat modeling approaches like mixture threat modeling, a new method that accounts for AI's unpredictability, said Ken Huang, chief AI officer at DistributedApps.ai.

Menlo Venture's Rama Sekhar on AI Threats and Opportunities
Public attention has been focused on the dangers of large language models such as hallucinations or harmful output, but the most pressing security risks are no longer rooted in the models, but in how they are integrated with real-world tools, said Rama Sekhar, partner at Menlo Ventures.

DOD's Stacy Bostjanick Shares Cyber Strategies for Enhancing Cyber Resilience
Stacy Bostjanick, deputy CIO and chief of Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity at the Department of Defense, shared a robust plan to protect the DIB from relentless cyberattacks through stronger standards and proactive cyber strategies.

Administration's Budget Proposals Would Slash Cyber Defense Agency Spending by 16%
President Donald Trump proposed a series of budget cuts Friday that would in part reduce the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's spending for fiscal year 2026 by nearly $500 million - a 16% reduction the administration said was aimed at realigning the agency with its core mission.

Hacker Who Feigned Russian Hacktivist Persona Faces Up to a Decade in Prison
A California man whose theft of a terabyte of company data from Disney led the media and entertainment conglomerate to eschew Slack pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court to two felony charges. Santa Clarita resident Ryan Mitchell Kramer, 25, gained access to a Disney employee's computer.

Ellis of YL Ventures on How Modern CISOs Must Lead, Not Master Every Discipline
There were never many 'do everything' CISOs. Today there are even fewer. But with a specialist area, strong overview and ability to channel expertise, CISOs can align with business goals, embrace the business enabler role, demonstrate quick wins, and ensure their organization makes better risk decisions.