Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Most people don’t realize it, but software is what economists call a credence good, you can’t easily judge its quality before or after you buy it. That means organizations are often running on code they can’t fully evaluate for security or reliability.

Our economy, healthcare, energy, and even water systems are powered by software. But here’s the hard truth is that most of that software is built insecurely. And that’s why cyberattacks keep growing in scale and impact. When code underpins everything we rely on, every flaw becomes a national risk.

Welcome to Data Security Decoded. Join host Caleb Tolin in conversation with Lauren Zabierek, Senior Vice President for the Future of Digital Security at the Institute for Security and Technology. A former CISA leader and long-time national security professional, Lauren unpacks the principles of Secure by Design, Secure by Default, and Secure by Demand and how these frameworks are reshaping the software supply chain.

Is your VMware environment secure? A sophisticated backdoor called BRICKSTORM, used by espionage actor UNC5221, could be hiding in your vCenter backups right now. Restoring from a compromised snapshot means letting the attackers right back in. But what if your backups could be your best defense? In our new 4-minute demo, we walk through the exact steps to: Proactively hunt for BRICKSTORM within your backups using YARA rules. Instantly quarantine infected snapshots to stop the threat from spreading. Identify a guaranteed 'Gold Copy' for a fast, safe, clean-room recovery.

With attackers now logging in instead of hacking in, securing your identity infrastructure is more critical than ever. Relying on a patchwork of tools for Active Directory and Entra ID creates dangerous blind spots and slows your response to threats.

Cyber resilience in financial services is often treated as a checklist of tools and controls, rather than what it truly is: a system of people, intelligence, and collaboration working together.

A ransomware attack will take a hospital down for 2-3 weeks on average. When you define the few core applications most critical to maintaining patient continuity of care, and create a plan to quickly recover them, you can turn disaster into a testament to preparedness. This is your Minimum Viable Hospital.

With attackers now logging in instead of hacking in, securing your identity infrastructure is more critical than ever. Relying on a patchwork of tools for Active Directory and Entra ID creates dangerous blind spots and slows your response to threats.

Ransomware isn’t just about locking files anymore; attackers like Scattered Spider can take entire backup systems offline. Joe Hladik explains how hypervisor encryption lets them access virtualization interfaces and encrypt entire ESXi clusters, leaving organizations with no way to recover. Joe lays out why this tactic is so dangerous: it turns a backup, your last line of defense, into another point of failure.

Identity-based ransomware is no longer a fringe tactic; it’s becoming the playbook of today’s most dangerous adversaries. Scattered Spider, a financially motivated e-crime group, has shifted the model from smash-and-grab encryption to a far more devastating combination of double extortion, social engineering, and hypervisor encryption attacks.