Safe Mode Podcast

An epidemic of ransomware, cyberattacks on gas pipelines, Chinese infiltration of American critical infrastructure — these are just some of the cybersecurity issues the Biden administration has tackled during the president’s first term in office. With President Joe Biden’s time in office winding down, it’s worth taking stock: Has his administration managed to move the needle on cybersecurity? On this episode of Safe Mode, CyberScoop Senior Reporter Tim Starks sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss the administration’s numerous cybersecurity initiatives and to consider their impact.

AI governance regimes the world over have seized on compute thresholds as a mechanism for implementing various controls on artificial intelligence systems. The basic idea is that if an AI model relies on a sufficiently large amount of computing power, then various controls kick in. As AI models get larger, the thinking goes, they also get riskier, and this means that AI governance regimes should focus on the largest models, as measured by computing power. But does this idea make any sense as a governing tool for the models of today and tomorrow? Sara Hooker leads Cohere’s research operation, and she’s looked hard at whether compute thresholds can be applied to AI systems to mitigate risks. On this episode of Safe Mode, she sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss her research on compute thresholds. CyberScoop’s newly minted editor in chief, Greg Otto, also joins the show to discuss how an errant CrowdStrike software update took down a huge number of critical services across the internet. Links: On the Limits of Compute Thresholds as a Governance Strategy | arXiv CrowdStrike Falcon flaw sends Windows computers into chaos worldwide | CyberScoop

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.

We are living through an epidemic of ransomware. Last year alone, the amount paid to ransomware operators exceeded $1 billion, and the entities getting hit and seeing their operations disrupted by ransomware included hospitals, schools and libraries. Ransomware is both a public-health and national-security crisis, yet efforts to address the problem are not making a dent. Allan Liska is a senior intelligence analyst at Recorded Future and a leading analyst of the ransomware phenomenon, and on this episode of Safe Mode he sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss why it’s long past time to ban ransomware payments. CyberScoop reporter Derek Johnson also joins the show to discuss the U.S. intelligence community’s observations of information operations targeting the 2024 election.

Selena Larson, a senior threat intelligence analyst, highlights the impact of criminal hacking groups on society. They discuss the importance of focusing on e-crime alongside state-backed hackers, the fallout of a Supreme Court ruling on disinformation, and the need to prioritize cybersecurity measures based on real risks faced by organizations.

The proliferation of artificial intelligence is exposing teens to a new online threat: AI-generated sexual imagery. Heather Barnhart is a fellow at the SANS Institute and a digital forensic expert, and on this episode of Safe Mode she sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss how teenagers and their families can protect themselves against the scourge of sextortion. CyberScoop reporter Derek Johnson also joins the show to discuss how election administrators are leaving their posts due to widespread harassment.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian power grid has come under sustained attack by Russian forces, and keeping it up and running has been a significant challenge. One of the major issues Ukrainian energy officials have had to confront is the way in which Russian electronic warfare systems have disrupted GPS, which is a key tool in running electrical distribution systems. Taras Vasyliv, the head of the Dispatching Control Systems Department at the Ukrainian energy utility Ukrenergo, and Joe Marshall, a security researcher at Cisco, collaborated on an innovative solution to address the vulnerabilities of GPS systems in the Ukrainian grid. And on this episode of Safe Mode, they sit down with host Elias Groll to discuss the novel tool they developed to maintain the delivery of electricity even in the face of Russian jamming. CyberScoop reporter AJ Vicens also joins the show to discuss a wide-ranging operation targeting customers of the data storage company Snowflake. As many as 165 companies ‘potentially exposed’ in Snowflake-related attacks, Mandiant says | CyberScoop

To address AI risks, policymakers and technologists around the world have embraced the concept of AI red-teaming — the adversarial testing of AI models. But AI red-teaming is such a new concept that few people know how to conduct such tests. The discipline of AI red-teaming very much remains under development, but as AI systems are rolled out far and wide, this discipline is only going to become more important to make sure that AI tools work as intended. On this episode of Safe Mode, host Elias Groll sits down with Josh Harguess, the AI security chief at Cranium AI who is one of the few bona fide experts in the field, to dive deep on how to carry out AI red-teaming. CyberScoop reporter Derek Johnson also joins the show to discuss an Israeli information operation targeting audiences in the United States and Canada.

Joe Sullivan on his legal battle with the feds; the latest on Russian influence operations by Safe Mode Podcast

In recent weeks, a series of troubling operations targeting open source software libraries have been uncovered in which bad actors — likely tied to nation states — have attempted to use social engineering to be designated as maintainers of security critical libraries. Operations such as these have the potential to insert backdoors in widely used software libraries that provide the building blocks of modern computing. As the general manager of the Open Source Software Security Foundation, Omkhar Arasaratnam is on the frontlines of protecting the open source software ecosystem, and on this episode of Safe Mode, he sits down with host Elias Groll to discuss what’s needed to improve the security of some of the world’s most widely used software. DefenseScoop reporter Mikayla Easley also joins the show to discuss her reporting about how the Air Force is experimenting with putting AI behind the controls of American fighter jets.