Episodes

  • What comes next for Trump's cybersecurity plan?

    What comes next for Trump's cybersecurity plan?
    Mar 12 2026
    On this episode of Safe Mode, Greg Otto and Tim Starks look past the headline release of President Trump’s new cyber strategy and focus on what comes next: the promised follow-on guidance, the rollout of an interagency “cell” spanning DOJ, State, FBI, DoD and others that pairs cyber operations with diplomacy and arrests, and the state-by-state critical infrastructure pilot programs designed to test what actually works before scaling. In our interview segment, acting Federal CISO Mike Duffy lays out his priorities for 2026.
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    29 mins
  • A plea to improve quantum security in the federal government

    A plea to improve quantum security in the federal government
    Mar 5 2026
    In this episode, we sit down with Gharun Lacy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Cyber and Technology Security Directorate at the U.S. Department of State, who issues a stark warning: no organization can defend against quantum-enabled cyber threats alone. Hear Lacy explain why adversaries like China are already harvesting encrypted data today—planning to crack it years from now when quantum computers arrive. He breaks down the "harvest now, decrypt later" threat and why your encrypted data may outlive multiple leadership cycles, creating risks that stretch across generations like an accordion through time. Lacy challenges both public and private sector defenders to stop thinking about their post-quantum encryption plans in isolation. Instead, he argues we must defend "holistically as an ecosystem," with industries and sectors coordinating their transition to quantum-resistant algorithms by 2035. But is that timeline fast enough? In our reporter chat, Greg talks with Derek Johnson about a new study that finds that LLMs can used to deanonymize online profiles.
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    18 mins
  • Is the 'Shields Up' era of CISA over?

    Is the 'Shields Up' era of CISA over?
    Feb 26 2026
    One year into the second Trump administration, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is facing what former officials and industry partners describe in stark terms: “decimated,” “amateur hour,” and “pretty much fallen apart.” In this episode, Greg Otto dives in with Tim Starks to unpack what’s happened inside the nation’s lead civilian cyber defense agency—and what it could mean for the country’s ability to withstand the next major cyber crisis. In the interview segment, we bring two experts from the DOD's Cyber Crime Center to speak about what they're seeing on the threat landscape.
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    33 mins
  • Should you still trust your password manager?

    Should you still trust your password manager?
    Feb 19 2026
    In this episode, Greg explores the gap between password manager marketing claims of "Zero Knowledge Encryption" and the reality uncovered by Swiss researchers who found 25 attacks against Bitwarden, LastPass, and Dashlane. Professor Kenny Patterson joins Greg to discuss why the industry's "honest-but-curious" security model is dangerously inadequate compared to a "malicious server" threat model, diving into three critical vulnerability categories: account recovery mechanisms that allow attackers to swap encryption keys, seemingly innocent features like icon fetching that leak passwords, and "vault malleability" where individual item encryption lets attackers cut-and-paste data between vault fields. They also discuss how legacy code support and backwards compatibility create cryptographic hazards, and what non-negotiable features are needed to build a truly "provably secure" password manager from scratch.
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    37 mins
  • No exceptions: How Amazon killed the password and unified security

    No exceptions: How Amazon killed the password and unified security
    Feb 12 2026
    In this episode, we sit down with Stephen Schmidt, SVP & Chief Security Officer at Amazon, to explore the engineering and leadership required to run a "no exceptions" identity program at a global scale. Most organizations suffer from the "fragmentation problem"—a mix of high-security cloud apps and vulnerable legacy systems. Stephen explains how Amazon unified its authentication standard to ensure that every internal account, from a fresh developer environment to a legacy application from 2003, meets the same rigorous bar. In our reporter chat, Greg talks with Derek Johnson on why your AI doctor does not have the same privacy protections as your real doctor. https://cyberscoop.com/radio/how-amazon-killed-the-password-and-unified-security/ Join Virtru on Feb 18th for the inaugural DCMMC at 1801 Pennsylvania Ave for a no-nonsense CMMC deep dive followed by a bourbon tasting—grab your spot here. - https://www.virtru.com/dcmmc-event Follow CyberScoop on Social Media • https://www.twitter.com/CyberScoopNews • https://www.linkedin.com/company/cyberscoop • https://www.facebook.com/cyberscoop/ • https://www.instagram.com/cyberscoopnews/ • https://www.tiktok.com/@cyberscoopnews • https://bsky.app/profile/cyberscoop.bsky.social About Safe Mode Every week we break down the most pressing issues in technology, provide you with the knowledge and tools to stay ahead of the latest threats and take you behind the scenes of the biggest stories in cyberspace. https://cyberscoop.com/show/safe-mode/
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    37 mins
  • What leaders can learn from the WEF's Cybersecurity Outlook

    What leaders can learn from the WEF's Cybersecurity Outlook
    Feb 5 2026
    AI is reshaping cybersecurity faster than most organizations can govern it—and the risk no longer stops at the edge of the enterprise. In this episode, Greg speaks with Brian Dye, CEO of Corelight, about the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026: why fraud and phishing are rising on the CEO agenda, why ransomware still dominates operations, and how leaders can build measurable resilience amid growing third‑party and cloud dependencies. In the reporter chat, Greg talks with Derek Johnson on the reaction at the recent NASS conference to the raid on election efforts in Fulton County, Georgia. Join Virtru on Feb 18th for the inaugural DCMMC at 1801 Pennsylvania Ave for a no-nonsense CMMC deep dive followed by a bourbon tasting—grab your spot here. https://www.virtru.com/dcmmc-event
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    37 mins
  • Opportunistic by Default: How OT gets pulled into the blast radius

    Opportunistic by Default: How OT gets pulled into the blast radius
    Jan 29 2026
    In this episode of Safe Mode, we look at how opportunistic campaigns—often starting as loud disruption like DDoS—can probe for weak points and, in some cases, move closer to operational technology and industrial control systems. Using a recent Justice Department case tied to pro‑Russia hacktivist groups as a jumping-off point, we discuss what this pattern says about the OT threat landscape in 2025, from remote access and trust boundaries to engineering workflows and data integrity risk. Chris Grove, Director of Cybersecurity Strategy at Nozomi Networks, joins to explain what defenders should prioritize now to keep “noise” from becoming real-world operational impact.
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    34 mins
  • How do you win a conflict most Americans can’t see?

    How do you win a conflict most Americans can’t see?
    Jan 22 2026
    Retired Lt. Gen. Charlie “Tuna” Moore, former deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, joins Safe Mode to break down his new paper on “dominating the digital space” and a whole-of-society strategy for defending the United States from cyber aggression. Host Greg Otto digs into why cyber deterrence often fails below the threshold of armed conflict and what a National Cyber Operations Team—integrating private-sector talent under Cyber Command oversight—could look like in practice. Plus, journalist Matt Kapko returns to unpack the messy ethics and incentives behind ransomware negotiations after new guilty pleas spotlight just how unregulated the space can be.
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    36 mins