Hybrid Identity Protection Podcast

Semperis

The HIP Podcast is the premier podcast for cybersecurity pros charged with defending hybrid identity environments. Hosted by 15-time Microsoft MVP and Active Directory security expert, Sean Deuby. Presented by Semperis: the pioneers of identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise.

  1. 1 Sept

    Why Less Than 20% of Ransomware Victims Ever Pay with Marc Jason Grens, President of Chaintrax

    This episode features Marc Jason Grens, President of Chaintrax. Marc has led Chaintrax for twelve years, growing it from a compliance and anti-money-laundering firm in cash-to-crypto services into a licensed blockchain forensics practice after entering the ransomware payment business in 2017. He has since advised on more than 4,000 incidents. In this episode, Marc explains why ransomware victims decide to pay, why that payment can violate US sanctions law if it isn't vetted first, and why tracking the money afterward is how law enforcement works to recover it. This episode makes the case that paying a ransom is only the beginning of a compliance and recovery process, not the end of one. Guest Bio Marc Grens is the President of Chaintrax,  which has been providing cutting-edge financial, technological, and consulting services for the payments and incident response industry for the last 12 years. He is a serial entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience in the investment industry. Prior to Chaintrax, Marc held senior positions at Charles Schwab, HighTower Advisors, and Alpha Strategies. He received his M.B.A. from the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University in 2010, and a B.A. from Illinois State University. Marc is an active angel investor and serves on multiple advisory boards of companies in the Chicago tech community. Sponsor The HIP Podcast is brought to you by Semperis, the leader in identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise. Trusted by the world’s leading businesses, Semperis protects critical Active Directory and Entra ID environments from cyberattacks, ensuring rapid recovery and business continuity when every second counts. Visit semperis.com to learn more. Links Connect with Marc on LinkedIn Connect with Sean on LinkedIn Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn Don't miss future episodes Learn more about Semperis HIP Conference 26 is coming to Nashville, September 8–10, 2026. Join us to explore this year's theme, Redefining Resilience, at the world's premier practitioner-led conference focused on securing hybrid identity environments. If you love the conversations on the HIP Podcast, this is where the community comes together in person. Learn more and register at https://www.hipconf.com/.

    Why Less Than 20% of Ransomware Victims Ever Pay with Marc Jason Grens, President of Chaintrax

  2. 18 Aug

    What Cloud Identity Really Costs When It Fails with Chris Steinke, Director of Product Strategy at Semperis

    This episode features Chris Steinke, Director of Product Strategy at Semperis. Chris has spent more than 20 years across cybersecurity, digital identity, infrastructure, and operations, including leadership roles at American Express and Early Warning Services (Zelle) and early work at MightyID, where he helped bring one of the industry's first dedicated identity resilience platforms to market. In this episode, Chris explains why moving identity to the cloud creates a single point of failure, why backup and recovery alone aren't enough, and why the next frontier is making trust portable, so applications aren't locked to a single identity provider. This episode reframes identity resilience as a continuity problem: not just recovering after an outage but keeping the business running through one. Guest Bio Chris Steinke is Director of Product Strategy at Semperis and a technology executive with more than 20 years of experience in cybersecurity, digital identity, infrastructure, and operations. Throughout his career, including leadership roles at American Express and Early Warning Services (Zelle), he has helped organizations build resilient digital ecosystems and defend against large-scale identity threats. As an early pioneer at MightyID, Chris helped bring one of the industry's first dedicated identity resilience platforms to market. Today, his work focuses on the future of digital trust, including identity resilience, multi-IdP architectures, and trust portability - the next evolution in ensuring business continuity in an identity-centric world. Guest Quote “We spent years making identities portable, and that's what we did really at the start. We were worried about the identities. So, the next challenge is how do we make trust portable?” Time stamps 02:11 Meet Chris Steinke: 20+ year Technology Executive 03:10 Why Identity Resilience Matters 08:43 Hidden Risks in Cloud Identity 15:52 Multi-IdP Failover Playbooks 23:06 Applications Are the Hard Part 31:46 The IRON Framework 37:35 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Sponsor The HIP Podcast is brought to you by Semperis, the leader in identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise. Trusted by the world’s leading businesses, Semperis protects critical Active Directory and Entra ID environments from cyberattacks, ensuring rapid recovery and business continuity when every second counts. Visit semperis.com to learn more. Links Connect with Chris on LinkedIn Connect with Sean on LinkedIn Don't miss future episodes Learn more about Semperis HIP Conference 26 is coming to Nashville, September 8–10, 2026. Join us to explore this year's theme, Redefining Resilience, at the world's premier practitioner-led conference focused on securing hybrid identity environments. If you love the conversations on the HIP Podcast, this is where the community comes together in person. Learn more and register at https://www.hipconf.com/.

    What Cloud Identity Really Costs When It Fails with Chris Steinke, Director of Product Strategy at Semperis

  3. 4 Aug

    Inside a Veteran CISO's Playbook for Crisis and Communication with Philip Keibler, VP and CISO at Meijer

    This episode features Philip Keibler, Vice President and CISO at Meijer, one of the nation's largest privately held retailers. With nearly three decades of security leadership, including CISO roles at Bass Pro Shops and Finish Line, Phil brings a rare long-view perspective on what the job actually requires day to day. He also talks about his feature in Semperis' upcoming documentary Midnight in the War Room, premiering at Black Hat on August 5. In this episode, Phil explains why CISOs who struggle to get budget usually have a storytelling problem, how he defines success in a role where stopping every attack is impossible, and what it takes to lead a team through an active incident. He also dives into why fundamentals are what actually address most of an organization's risk. This episode makes the case that the hardest parts of the CISO job are rarely technical, and that mastering the basics matters more than chasing the newest tool. Guest Bio Philip Keibler has spent nearly three decades at the intersection of technology, risk, and business building information security programs that work in the real world. As Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at Meijer, Phil leads security for one of the nation's largest privately held retailers, overseeing the protection of supply chains, customer data, and critical operations across hundreds of locations in the Midwest. Phil's career spans industries where the stakes are high and the margin for error is low. Before joining Meijer in 2015, he served as CISO at Bass Pro Shops and previously held the CISO role at Finish Line. Earlier in his career he led security at Herff Jones, bringing security discipline to the manufacturing sector. He began his career at EDS and spent years consulting in the Aerospace sector where he got his start in security. What sets Phil apart is not just longevity, it is perspective. He has watched information security evolve from a reactive, audit-driven function into a proactive capability that enables business velocity. His approach centers on integrating security into how organizations operate, not as a checkbox, but as a competitive advantage that lets teams move fast while managing risk in practical ways. Beyond the day-to-day, Phil is a passionate contributor to the broader security community. He has served as a guest lecturer on cybersecurity and data privacy at the University of Chicago Law School, sits on the Institute for Cybersecurity Education and Research Advisory Board at Grand Valley State University, serves on the IT Advisory Committee at Kent County Technical Center, and is a board member the Meijer Credit Union. He is also featured in Midnight in the War Room, a Semperis documentary examining the human reality behind enterprise cyber defense. Phil has held his CISSP certification since 2009, attained his MBA from Davenport University, and a career's worth of operational experience across retail, aerospace, insurance, and manufacturing. Guest Quote “A successful CISO understands that it's not about prevention, it's about resilience, it's about recovery, and it's about identifying those things in your program that you can do incrementally better every single day. We're in the pursuit of perfection, but we understand we'll never get there.” Time stamps 02:46 Meet Philip Keibler: From Sysadmin to Security 04:35 Becoming a CISO 06:20 What CISOs Really Do 08:50 Defining Success and Resilience 10:41 Storytelling to the Board 13:29 Semperis' Midnight in the War Room 17:47 Team Care and Crisis Leadership 21:47 Advice for CISOs 24:24 The Case for Mastering the Fundamentals 31:02 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Sponsor The HIP Podcast is brought to you by Semperis, the leader in identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise. Trusted by the world’s leading businesses, Semperis protects critical Active Directory and Entra ID environments from cyberattacks, ensuring rapid recovery and business continuity when every second counts. Visit semperis.com to learn more. Links Connect with Phil on LinkedIn Connect with Sean on LinkedIn Don't miss future episodes Learn more about Semperis HIP Conference 26 is coming to Nashville, September 8–10, 2026. Join us to explore this year's theme, Redefining Resilience, at the world's premier practitioner-led conference focused on securing hybrid identity environments. If you love the conversations on the HIP Podcast, this is where the community comes together in person. Learn more and register at https://www.hipconf.com/.

    Inside a Veteran CISO's Playbook for Crisis and Communication with Philip Keibler, VP and CISO at Meijer

  4. 21 Jul

    Why AI Makes Your Legacy Systems the Biggest Target with Andre Priebe, CTO at iC Consult Group

    This episode features Andre Priebe, Chief Technology Officer at iC Consult Group, the world's largest independent provider of identity security services. Andre has spent more than two decades leading IAM projects for large-scale enterprises across workforce, customer, and device identity domains. As CTO, he steers iC Consult's Centers of Excellence, service portfolio, and vendor strategy, and advises strategic customers on shaping their identity programs. In this episode, Andre explains why the gap between identity security awareness and actual maturity is growing every day, and how AI is making it faster and easier for attackers to find the weaknesses organizations already know they have. He breaks down why recovery is the most underestimated phase of the NIST cybersecurity framework and what it really costs when organizations haven't prepared for it. This episode is a candid look at the state of identity security from someone who sees it across hundreds of organizations every year. Guest Bio Andre Priebe serves as the Chief Technology Officer at iC Consult Group, a vendor-independent system integrator specializing in Identity & Access Management and Identity Security with a global team of over 850 employees. Boasting more than two decades of experience managing IAM projects focused on workforce, customer, and device identities within large-scale enterprises, Andre steers the Centers of Excellence, the service portfolio, and vendor strategy at iC Consult. Andre's role involves a deep focus on emerging approaches, trends, and technologies within the IAM sector, assessing their business value for iC Consult's clientele. He is an innovator with a patent in DevOps-related IAM methodologies, and he holds a B.Sc. and an MBA. Guest Quote  “Threat actors, for them, it's easier than ever before, faster, more efficient to identify that kind of technical debt, the weaknesses. They are not going for your latest Entra ID, conditional access, configuration with all the fancy stuff in place to really make sure that nobody else accessing that resource. No. They're going for the old systems, for old protocols, for areas that might be out of control, out of visibility. Third parties, contractors, unmanaged devices.” Time stamps 0:40 Meet Andre Priebe: Veteran IAM Expert 2:43 The State of Identity Security Awareness 4:51 The Reality of Technical Debt 6:16 How AI Is Changing the Attack Landscape 10:37 Zero Trust Is Mandatory but Almost Nobody Has Achieved It 15:06 What Customers Are Actually Asking About Now 19:19 Planning for Identity Recovery 26:08 The Most Underestimated Part of Recovery 29:56 Return to Trustworthiness vs Return to Operations 39:42 AI Agents and Non-Human Identities 44:02 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Sponsor The HIP Podcast is brought to you by Semperis, the leader in identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise. Trusted by the world’s leading businesses, Semperis protects critical Active Directory and Entra ID environments from cyberattacks, ensuring rapid recovery and business continuity when every second counts. Visit semperis.com to learn more. Links Connect with Andre on LinkedIn Connect with Sean on LinkedIn Don't miss future episodes Learn more about Semperis HIP Conference 26 is coming to Nashville, September 8–10, 2026. Join us to explore this year's theme, Redefining Resilience, at the world's premier practitioner-led conference focused on securing hybrid identity environments. If you love the conversations on the HIP Podcast, this is where the community comes together in person. Learn more and register at https://www.hipconf.com/.

    Why AI Makes Your Legacy Systems the Biggest Target with Andre Priebe, CTO at iC Consult Group

  5. 7 Jul

    The Entra ID Recovery Gap with Tim Wolf and Tim Springston, Semperis

    This episode features Tim Wolf, Senior Solutions Architect at Semperis, and Tim Springston, Principal Product Manager for Recovery Solutions at Semperis. Tim Wolf spent years as a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer helping enterprise customers architect identity solutions at scale. Tim Springston brings 25 years in identity and security and served as Microsoft's product manager for Azure AD recoverability, including direct involvement in building the Entra ID shared responsibility model documentation. In this episode, they walk through what the shared responsibility model actually means for Entra tenant data, how token-based attacks sidestep phishing-resistant authentication, and what happens when a threat actor hard-deletes objects and locks you out. They examine where Microsoft's new Entra ID Identity Resilience Recovery feature stops short, and why planning your recovery before anything goes wrong is the only call to action that matters. Guest Bios Tim Wolf Tim Wolf is a Senior Solution Architect at Semperis. Tim's mission is protecting identities. Currently at Semperis, Tim ensures the resilience of Active Directory and Entra ID. Their background includes years as a Microsoft PFE, implementing Zero Trust and modern Authentication like Fido at an enterprise scale. Tim is an active speaker at multiple conferences, advocating for secure and automated identity architectures. Tim Springston Tim Springston is Principal Product Manager for recovery solutions at Semperis. He has over 25 years' identity and security experience with education, government, and Fortune 500 organizations from around the world. In his 25 years at Microsoft, he led services and support for Active Directory and later for Microsoft's cloud identity platform as it evolved from Windows Azure AD to Azure AD. At Microsoft, he was a recurring speaker at internal TechReady conferences and external events. Prior to Semperis, Tim was Microsoft's product manager for Azure AD (now Entra ID) recoverability and Sophos' IAM product manager for the Sophos Central cybersecurity platform. Guest Quotes  “The first step in resiliency is not just having a backup plan or a backup tool or capabilities to put things back. You need to know what's important to your organization. If you know what's important, you know what to put back, you know when it's broken.” - Tim Springston  “If Entra ID is going down... This is business critical today. You're not available to sign in to Teams, to SharePoint, to Salesforce, to your business critical application.  So to really understand Entra ID is business critical.” - Tim Wolf Time stamps 0:40 Meet Tim Wolf and Tim Springston 2:32 The Microsoft Shared Responsibility Model for Entra ID 6:22 How Entra ID Tenants Are Being Attacked 8:45 Token-Based Attacks Explained 12:26 What Happens When a Threat Actor Takes Over Your Tenant 19:05 Microsoft's New Entra ID Recovery Solution 25:24 The Difference Between Accidents and Adversaries 28:54 Semperis’ Disaster Recovery for Entra Tenant 39:27 Hard Delete and Tenant Cloning Limits 45:30 Resiliency Playbooks and Testing 49:58 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Sponsor The HIP Podcast is brought to you by Semperis, the leader in identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise. Trusted by the world’s leading businesses, Semperis protects critical Active Directory and Entra ID environments from cyberattacks, ensuring rapid recovery and business continuity when every second counts. Visit semperis.com to learn more. Links Connect with Tim Wolf on LinkedIn Connect with Tim Springston on LinkedIn Connect with Sean on LinkedIn Don't miss future episodes Learn more about Semperis

    The Entra ID Recovery Gap with Tim Wolf and Tim Springston, Semperis

  6. 23 Jun

    Practice Makes Progress in Cyber Resilience with Jim Bowie, VP and CISO at Tampa General Hospital

    This episode features Jim Bowie, VP and CISO at Tampa General Hospital, joined by co-host Courtney Guss, Director of Crisis Management at Semperis. Jim began his career in EMS and law enforcement before moving into cybersecurity, giving him a grounded understanding of how operational continuity and human outcomes intersect during a crisis. At Tampa General, he leads teams spanning network security, operations, IAM, and GRC, and has built a training culture centered on adversarial simulation, monthly range of exercises, and regular DR drills. In this episode, Jim argues that rehearsal is the highest-leverage move for resource-constrained security teams and explains why an outage is an outage regardless of cause. He covers why identity is consistently the weak point in every simulation and why the relationships you build before an incident are the ones that matter most. If your organization is still treating recovery as an afterthought, this episode will change how you think about it. Guest Bios Jim Bowie Jim Bowie is the Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Tampa General Hospital (TGH). Jim is an accomplished leader with decades of cybersecurity experience and leadership in threat hunting, incident response, threat intelligence, and security operations. He is a strategist with demonstrated ability to bridge between security, infrastructure, and business needs and has experience leading multiple areas in information technology, including cloud infrastructure and security, with exceptional results in employee engagement and productivity. Courtney Guss Courtney Guss is the Director of Crisis Management at Semperis, with over 20 years of experience spanning cybersecurity, risk management, and crisis response. She specializes in helping organizations navigate high-impact incidents—from ransomware attacks to regulatory reporting—by orchestrating clear, business-aligned response strategies. Courtney is passionate about transforming crisis chaos into operational clarity. Guest Quote "You absolutely need a technology component to your program. But at the end of the day, that tech is surfaced to a person in the chair. And if that person's not up to speed, there's no amount of tech that's going to help them and help you get through a crisis." Time stamps 01:45 Meet Jim Bowie: Veteran Cybersecurity Leader 02:38 Healthcare Crisis Management Challenges 04:18 Training Beats Budget 06:46 Clinician Buy-In 07:00 Community Ripple Effects 10:23 Mutual Aid Agreements 12:45 Hurricane Drills as Cyber Drills 14:39 Adversarial Practice Culture 17:30 Making Training Time Non-Negotiable 20:14 Recovery Focus and Identity 26:35 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Sponsor The HIP Podcast is brought to you by Semperis, the leader in identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise. Trusted by the world’s leading businesses, Semperis protects critical Active Directory and Entra ID environments from cyberattacks, ensuring rapid recovery and business continuity when every second counts. Visit semperis.com to learn more. Links Connect with Jim on LinkedIn Connect with Courtney on LinkedIn Connect with Sean on LinkedIn Don't miss future episodes Learn more about Semperis

    Practice Makes Progress in Cyber Resilience with Jim Bowie, VP and CISO at Tampa General Hospital

  7. 9 Jun

    Agentic AI and the Authorization Gap No One Closed with Geoffrey Mattson, CEO of SecureAuth

    This episode features Geoffrey Mattson, CEO of SecureAuth, joined by co-host Sarah Cicchetti, Director of Product Management at Semperis. Geoffrey has spent decades building and leading companies at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity, including MistNet.ai, an AI-native threat detection platform acquired by LogRhythm, and Xage Security, where he drove zero trust adoption across the U.S. military, global energy firms, and Fortune 500 enterprises. At SecureAuth, he leads a platform built around continuous, real-time identity authority across workforces, APIs, and AI agents. In this episode, Geoffrey argues that agents combine the speed of automation with the unpredictability of humans, making real-time per-action authorization the only viable control model. He discusses why “friendly fire” from well-meaning employees is the biggest threat vector right now, how MCP vendors are ignoring their own OAuth spec, and what a practical agent rollout with real guardrails actually looks like. This episode reframes authorization as the problem the identity industry has been deferring for years and can no longer avoid. Guest Bio Geoffrey Mattson is a serial entrepreneur and globally recognized cybersecurity and AI executive with decades of experience building market-defining companies and technologies that protect the world’s most critical systems. He is currently CEO of SecureAuth, a leader in AI-driven identity and access management with its Continuous Authority, ensuring ongoing verification across workforces, customers, APIs, and AI agents. This is enabled through its Private Authority Platform, which puts authentication and authorization under your control through any deployment model (cloud, on prem, hybrid, air-gapped). Prior to SecureAuth, Mattson served as CEO of Xage Security, where he led the company in Zero Trust for critical environments from energy to agentic AI. Under his leadership, Xage achieved rapid adoption across the U.S. military, global energy firms, and Fortune 500 enterprises. Previously, Geoffrey Mattson was co-founder and CEO of MistNet.ai, an AI-native threat detection platform acquired by LogRhythm. He pioneered decentralized analytics and machine learning approaches for real-time cyber defense, and later served as SVP of Product at LogRhythm, driving global expansion and shaping the next generation of SIEM/SOAR solutions. Earlier, he held senior executive roles at Juniper Networks, overseeing a $2B product portfolio and leading major M&A efforts, and at Huawei Technologies as SVP and CTO for networking and data center platforms. His engineering leadership at Corona Networks, Caspian, and Bay Networks helped build foundational technologies in network and security architecture. Guest Quote “With agents, you have the power and the speed of an automated process with the unpredictability of a human. And in fact, we are seeing their behavior and their psychology makes them even perhaps less predictable than a human.” Time stamps 01:45 Meet Geoffrey Mattson: Serial Entrepreneur and Cybersecurity Executive 02:40 Why Identity Is Having a Moment 08:40 Defining Agent Identity 12:15 Behavioral Guardrails for Agents 14:37 Agent Identity Lifecycle 17:36 Just-in-Time vs. Standing Privilege 18:02 C-Suite Pressure and Friendly Fires 21:00 When Agents Live Off the Land 26:12 MCP, OAuth, and Token Pitfalls 28:04 Threat Models and Rollout Strategy 30:13 LLMs and Policy Authoring 31:23 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Sponsor The HIP Podcast is brought to you by Semperis, the leader in identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise. Trusted by the world’s leading businesses, Semperis protects critical Active Directory and Entra ID environments from cyberattacks, ensuring rapid recovery and business continuity when every second counts. Visit semperis.com to learn more. Links Connect with Geoffrey on LinkedIn Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn Connect with Sean on LinkedIn Don't miss future episodes Learn more about Semperis

    Agentic AI and the Authorization Gap No One Closed with Geoffrey Mattson, CEO of SecureAuth

  8. 26 May

    Where Gartner Sees Identity Security Heading with Mark Diodati, Managing VP of IAM at Gartner

    This episode features Mark Diodati, Managing Vice President for Identity and Access Management at Gartner. Mark has spent two decades shaping how the industry thinks about authentication, privileged access, and cloud identity, working with renowned companies like Ping Identity, CA, RSA, and now, Gartner. Today, he leads Gartner's global IAM for Leaders analyst team and sets its research agenda across the full identity stack. In this episode, Mark explains how Gartner's research model works and what his team is prioritizing across identity verification, authorization, ITDR, and decentralized identity. He also breaks down what AI means for identity right now and why securing AI agents is harder than most teams realize. This episode is a deep dive into where identity is heading from someone whose job is to listen to everyone. Guest Bio Mark Diodati is the Managing Vice President for Identity & Access Management at Gartner. Mark is a longtime identity pioneer who helped shape the way the industry thinks about authentication, privileged access management, and cloud identity. He leads a large team of analysts, sets the global IAM research agenda, and rigorously reviews every document to keep the bar high. Before that, he guided Gartner’s IAM research for technical professionals, chaired major industry conferences like Catalyst Europe and the Cloud Identity Summit, and drove triple-digit growth in attendance and sponsorships. Earlier in his career, he held key leadership roles at CA, RSA, and Ping Identity, influencing product strategy and partnerships that many identity practitioners rely on today. Guest Quote " One thing we're critically aware of at Gartner is that nobody knows everything. It's impossible.” Time stamps (02:11) Meet Mark Diodati: Identity Analyst and IAM Research Leader (06:00) Inside Gartner: Research, Conferences, and Consulting (09:18) Hiring and Training the Gartner Analyst (15:26) How the Inquiry Process Works (24:07) Gartner Research Products for Identity Professionals (28:02) IAM Research Priorities Right Now (32:31) AI and Identity: Opportunity and Risk (39:35) A Musical Moment with Mark (44:26) Conclusion and Final Thoughts Sponsor The HIP Podcast is brought to you by Semperis, the leader in identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise. Trusted by the world’s leading businesses, Semperis protects critical Active Directory and Entra ID environments from cyberattacks, ensuring rapid recovery and business continuity when every second counts. Visit semperis.com to learn more. Links Connect with Mark on LinkedIn Connect with Sean on LinkedIn Don't miss future episodes Learn more about Semperis

    Where Gartner Sees Identity Security Heading with Mark Diodati, Managing VP of IAM at Gartner
See All (102)

About

The HIP Podcast is the premier podcast for cybersecurity pros charged with defending hybrid identity environments. Hosted by 15-time Microsoft MVP and Active Directory security expert, Sean Deuby. Presented by Semperis: the pioneers of identity-driven cyber resilience for the hybrid enterprise.

Information

You Might Also Like