Google SRE Prodcast The One With Heather Adkins and Security (and AI)
Jan 14, 2026
Heather Adkins, leader of Google's Office of Cybersecurity Resilience and a seasoned expert with over two decades at Google, dives into the future of digital defenses. She discusses the rise of 'Agentic AI hackers' and polymorphic malware, urging a shift in how we approach cybersecurity. From the 'Secure by Design' philosophy to innovative defense strategies, Heather emphasizes the importance of layered security. Her insights on utilizing AI for incident analysis and the need to harden critical nodes reveal a crucial evolution in tackling emerging threats.
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Episode notes
Long Run At Google Shaped Threat View
- Heather Adkins recalled meeting people usually during crises and leading Google's Office of Cybersecurity Resilience.
- She reflected on 23 years at Google and how threat models evolved as the company grew.
Security Incidents Add Adversarial Chess
- Security incidents differ because a malicious actor often instigates them, adding adversarial anticipation to incident response.
- Heather notes incident analysis, blameless postmortems, and frameworks overlap strongly with SRE practices.
Keep Security Incidents Off Public Outage Logs
- Avoid announcing security incidents in public incident-tracking systems to protect OPSEC and attacker awareness.
- Integrate security context into tooling but be mindful of fragmentation and exposure risks.
