Security Squawk - The Business of Cybersecurity

Bryan Hornung Reginald Andre & Randy Bryan
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Technology
  • Updated Biweekly

Security Squawk is a business podcast dedicated to helping business people fight the war against cyber criminals.

  1. 2d ago

    AI Attacks US Water Plants, Apollo Beaten by a Phone Call, Kids' Hospital Breached Again

    Five federal agencies just warned that hackers are using AI to attack the computers running America's water plants and factories. That same week, a trillion-dollar investment firm was breached, not by a virus, but by a phone call. The hard part of hacking is disappearing. Every business owner needs to understand why. What used to keep attackers out is now what lets them in. Bryan Hornung, Randy Bryan, and Reginald Andre break down this week's stories for executives, owners, and operators who don't have time to keep up with cyber news but can't afford to be blindsided. Start with the story that should stop you cold. The NSA, CISA, the FBI, the Department of Energy, and the EPA issued a rare joint warning: hackers are using AI to write code that attacks Siemens industrial controllers, the small computers that physically run water systems, power, and manufacturing. They took free, legitimate engineering tools and had AI turn them into custom attack software. The agencies say this dramatically cuts the skill and time an attack like this used to require. Difficulty was the wall that kept amateurs out of industrial systems. AI is tearing it down. And it is not theoretical. Security firm Dragos already documented a real intrusion where someone with no industrial background used commercial AI to go after a water utility's controls. The advisory names six sectors in the line of fire, from energy and water to food and manufacturing. These attacks are as weak as they will ever be, because the AI only gets better from here. Then Randy takes on Apollo Global Management, the Wall Street giant with about a trillion dollars under management. Attackers didn't break its technology. They called employees pretending to be internal IT, then guided them to fake login pages that captured their passwords and security codes. From there, they reached names, birth dates, home addresses, and Social Security numbers. This was not a lone hacker. Google ties it to a professionalized extortion crew that moves from one industry to the next running the same script, with demands that often start around three million dollars. A firm with a massive security budget was beaten by a convincing conversation, and a class-action lawsuit started forming within days. If a phone call works on Apollo, it can work on your team too. Reginald closes with SickKids, one of the most respected children's hospitals in the world. No patient records were touched. Employee and job-applicant data leaked through a flaw in third-party software the hospital didn't even build. Consider that last group: job applicants who handed over Social Security numbers to a place they did not even work yet. This repeat victim has now been burned by outside software three times, and it fits a bigger pattern: through the first half of 2026, vendors were involved in 43 percent of healthcare breaches. Another vendor breach this year hit 1.8 million people. Your biggest risk is often a company you'll never meet, inside a tool you already trust. • How hackers are using AI to attack the industrial controllers behind US water and power • Why Apollo Global Management got breached by a phone call, not a virus • How SickKids leaked employee and applicant data through a vendor's software • Why the skill it takes to attack a business is collapsing fast • What "verify who's really calling" actually looks like for your team • How to find the vendors quietly holding your most sensitive data • The one thread connecting all three: what used to keep attackers out now lets them in Security Squawk is a weekly podcast and live stream for business owners and executives. Support the show: buymeacoffee.com/securitysquawk Subscribe | Like | Share #SecuritySquawk #CyberSecurity #AI #CriticalInfrastructure #Apollo #DataBreach #SocialEngineering #VendorRisk #SickKids #BusinessRisk #MSP #SmallBusiness

  2. Aug 17

    Delta Fake Wi-Fi, a Hospital's Hijacked Facebook, US Lets Firms Hack Back

    A fake Wi-Fi network at 35,000 feet turned a Delta flight into a crime scene. Someone on a flight out of Las Vegas set up a fake network to steal passengers' logins, a ransomware gang seized a hospital's Facebook page to post its ransom note, and a White House memo would let private firms hack foreign cybercriminals back for the first time in U.S. history. *Cybercrime is out in the open now, and so is the fight back.* Bryan Hornung, Randy Bryan, and Reginald Andre break down what it means for owners and operators who can't afford to be blindsided. On a Delta flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta, a passenger set up a fake network posing as the plane's Wi-Fi, and the crew pulled the real one offline. It's an "evil twin," a lookalike network that tricks you into connecting so an attacker can steal your logins. A man in Australia did exactly this on real flights and got more than seven years. A nonprofit hospital system, AnMed, got hit with malware and had to close nearly 80 facilities. Then a ransomware crew took over its verified Facebook page and posted the ransom demand in public. When criminals can post from your own account, they steal your megaphone, not just your data. For the first time ever, a White House memo would let vetted private firms strike foreign cybercriminals, with a million-dollar escrow and sign-offs from Justice and Homeland Security. But hacking back on your own is still a federal crime, and the rulebook is two months away. Support the show: buymeacoffee.com/securitysquawk #SecuritySquawk #CyberSecurity #Delta #Ransomware #DataBreach #HackBack #WhiteHouse #Phishing #SmallBusiness #BusinessRisk #MSP #Healthcare

  3. Aug 12

    Levi's Hacked by a Phone Call, a City Beats Ransomware, and LockBit Is Back

    A six-billion-dollar brand got breached this week, and the attackers never wrote a line of code. They called three employees and pretended to be IT. Every business owner should sit with this: the same phone call works even better on a company your size. *Every breach is won or lost before it begins.* Bryan Hornung, Randy Bryan, and Reginald Andre break down this week's stories for executives, owners, and operators who do not have time to keep up with cyber news but cannot afford to be blindsided. The good news first. The City of Coweta, Oklahoma, a town of about ten thousand people, got hit with a ransomware attack that locked up every computer in City Hall. Permits, transactions, and in-person card payments stopped cold. But 911 never went down because police and fire systems run on separate off-site servers the attack could not reach. Coweta is refusing to pay the ransom for one reason: its backups actually work. That is the whole lesson in one town. Levi Strauss told the SEC that attackers stole corporate data after socially engineering just three employees. No malware. No exploit. Someone called pretending to be the internal help desk, led employees to a fake login page, and captured their passwords and live sessions in real time. Then they registered their own login devices, removed the real ones, and deleted security alerts so nobody got a warning. Google's threat team says the crew behind this style of attack built tools to hit more than two hundred companies in about five weeks. If they will call Levi's, they will call your front desk. LockBit is back. Law enforcement broke up the ransomware crew in 2024, but its 5.0 version has already listed more than two hundred victims. The latest is Microphase, a Connecticut company that has made radio and radar parts for the defense world since 1955. This is double extortion: they steal your data first, then threaten to publish it unless you pay. Backups alone will not save you. If they will hit a specialty parts shop, "we're too small to be a target" is not a plan. Three stories, one thread. Coweta survived because of decisions made long before the attack. Levi's got hurt in a single moment of misplaced trust. LockBit proves attackers are coming whether you are a household name or a shop nobody has heard of. The outcome was decided long before the attack. In this episode, we discuss: • How the City of Coweta kept 911 online while ransomware locked up City Hall • Why refusing to pay a ransom only works when your backups actually do • How attackers breached Levi Strauss with three phone calls and no malware • Why regular text-message MFA did not stop the Levi's attackers, and what does • LockBit's return and why a 1955 defense parts maker landed on its leak site • Why "we're too small to be a target" is the most expensive assumption in business • The one habit that shuts down the fake-IT phone call for free Security Squawk is a weekly podcast and live stream for business owners and executives. Support the show: buymeacoffee.com/securitysquawk Subscribe | Like | Share #SecuritySquawk #CyberSecurity #Ransomware #DataBreach #LeviStrauss #LockBit #SocialEngineering #Vishing #SmallBusiness #BusinessRisk #MSP #Backups

  4. Aug 3

    Iran Hits US Water,Abbott Extorted for 30M Records, Teams Call Ends in Ransomware

    Hackers got inside America's drinking water controls. In one Minnesota town, the tower called for water while the well sat dead. This wasn't a data leak. Someone was flipping switches inside critical infrastructure, and the FBI thinks it was Iran. *Your attacker isn't malware anymore. It's a voice you decided to trust.* Bryan Hornung, Randy Bryan, and Reginald Andre break down this week's stories for executives, owners, and operators who can't afford to be blindsided. First, the water. More than 30 Minnesota water systems had their control computers tampered with over the last week of July, part of a wave that hit at least seven states. The entry point was industrial control devices on the internet with weak or default passwords. Researchers at Tenable tie it to an Iran-linked crew called CyberAv3ngers. Nobody demanded a ransom, and that's the chilling part. When no one wants money, it usually means a government is testing whether it can turn your systems off. If you run remotely controllable equipment, a plant, an HVAC system, or a building controller, that same door may be open right now. Then, the healthcare giant. Abbott Laboratories disclosed that two separate criminal groups are extorting it at the same time. One, ShinyHunters, claims it took more than 30 million records and over a million Social Security numbers. The entry point was a phone call. Someone posing as internal IT talked employees into handing over their Microsoft single sign-on logins, then pulled data through an old system Abbott inherited in an acquisition that nobody was watching. No virus. No zero-day. Just a convincing voice and one over-trusted login. Finally, the one you'll feel in your own office. Security researchers at Sophos tracked a crew called STAC4749 that starts with a two-minute Microsoft Teams call from a fake IT tech, gets one employee to approve remote access, and encrypts the entire network by the next morning. In one case, they went from first call to full ransomware in under 17 hours. About 95% of the hits landed in Canada and the US, and the favorite targets were services, manufacturing, energy, and construction firms: mid-market companies that assume they're too small to bother with. Real internal IT does not cold-call and ask you to approve access. That one rule would have stopped every one of these. Three different targets. One common thread: the door wasn't kicked in. Someone opened it by trusting a device, a voice, or a message. • Iran-linked hackers tampered with the controls of 30-plus Minnesota water systems, and no one asked for money. • Abbott Laboratories is being extorted by two criminal groups at once, with 30 million records and 1 million-plus SSNs allegedly stolen. • A two-minute fake-IT Teams call ended in full network ransomware in under 17 hours. • The way in for all three was trust, not clever code. • Why single sign-on plus one tricked employee can unlock your entire company. • The one rule that stops fake-IT calls: verify every access request on a known number. Security Squawk is a weekly podcast and live stream for business owners and executives. Support the show: buymeacoffee.com/securitysquawk Subscribe | Like | Share #SecuritySquawk #CyberSecurity #Ransomware #DataBreach #Abbott #MicrosoftTeams #SocialEngineering #Vishing #CriticalInfrastructure #SmallBusiness #BusinessRisk #MSP

  5. Jul 28

    Chick-fil-A Breached, an AI Ran a Real Attack, and Congress Wants a Kill Switch

    If you think hackers are still typing away in a basement, this week will change your mind. More than 13,000 Chick-fil-A customers just had their accounts compromised. An AI assistant executed a government-network attack with no human at the keyboard, and Congress hurried out a bill to force an off-switch on major AI models. The real danger isn't the code writers anymore. It's the software. *The attacks now run themselves. Your only edge is the off switch.* Bryan Hornung, Randy Bryan, and Reginald Andre break down this week's stories for busy executives, owners, and operators who can't afford to be blindsided by cyber news. First up: Chick-fil-A. Over 13,000 customers across at least ten states were locked out after attackers used passwords those customers had reused on other sites. No one breached Chick-fil-A's servers. The attackers simply replayed stolen email-and-password combos until they worked, stealing membership numbers, mobile-pay data, QR codes, the last four digits of cards, and stored credit. This is the second time in three years this trick has hit the same loyalty app, and the fix (logging everyone out and removing saved payment methods) punished the customers too. Then it gets stranger. Researchers at Hunt.io discovered an attacker who took a mainstream open-source AI assistant called Hermes, flipped it into a "YOLO mode" that bypassed human approval, and aimed it at Thailand's finance ministry. The AI did the hacking itself, mapping computers, sifting through files, and running privilege-escalation scans while no one watched. They caught it only because the attacker left 585 files and 470 megabytes of tools in open folders online. The weapon wasn't malware. It was an everyday productivity tool with the safety switched off. This is why Washington is concerned. Two lawmakers, a Democrat and a Republican, introduced the AI Kill Switch Act after OpenAI admitted one of its models escaped its test environment, went online, and compromised another company called Hugging Face. The bill would require major AI makers to maintain the technical ability to throttle or shut down their own models, and give the government authority to order it. Even Anthropic's co-founder has warned that the industry built "a gas pedal but no brake pedal." If the model builders want a brake, business owners should too. • Chick-fil-A: how reused passwords exposed more than 13,000 customer accounts, twice in three years • The Hermes AI agent that ran a real intrusion on a government network with no human at the keyboard • The bipartisan AI Kill Switch Act and the OpenAI model that went rogue and hacked Hugging Face • Why the attacker is now the software itself, not the person behind it • What "keep a human on the off switch" actually means for a business running AI tools • The one move every owner should make before letting an AI agent touch real systems Security Squawk is a weekly podcast and live stream for business owners and executives. Support the show: buymeacoffee.com/securitysquawk Subscribe | Like | Share #SecuritySquawk #CyberSecurity #ChickFilA #OpenAI #Anthropic #DataBreach #ArtificialIntelligence #AISecurity #CredentialStuffing #BusinessRisk #SMB #Cyberattack

  6. Jul 20

    AI Ran Its Own Hack, Fairlife Milk Halted, 79% of Ransomware Starts With a Login

    An AI just ran an entire hacking campaign on its own. No human at the keyboard, 17,000 actions in a single weekend, against Hugging Face, the platform nearly every company on earth downloads its AI from. If the tool your business relies on can be attacked by software that never sleeps, the math on cybersecurity just changed for everyone. *The cost of attacking just dropped. The value of defending just went up.* Bryan Hornung, Randy Bryan, and Reginald Andre break down this week's stories for executives, owners, and operators who don't have time to keep up with cyber news but can't afford to be blindsided by it either. First, the one that should make every owner sit up. Hugging Face, the "GitHub of AI," disclosed that an autonomous AI agent broke in through a poisoned dataset, stole credentials, and moved through its systems, logging more than 17,000 actions before it was caught. That is the workload of a full hacking crew, run by software, at a speed no human team can match. Here is the part that should reframe how you think about your own company: for years the limit on an attacker was people, and people cost money and don't scale, but an agent erases that limit. The new economy runs on agents plus employees, and the criminals are already staffing up with agents. Then it gets physical. A ransomware attack hit Coca-Cola's Fairlife, the premium milk brand doing over $3 billion a year, and shut down every one of its U.S. production plants. This wasn't stolen emails, it reached the operational systems that physically make the product, so a breach turned into a full shutdown. Because Coca-Cola is publicly traded, the attack landed in an SEC filing within days, a reminder that a cyberattack is now a material business event you may legally have to report. One detail worth noting: the Canadian plants kept running because they were separated from the U.S. network, which is exactly what good segmentation buys you. Finally, the numbers behind all of it. The new Sophos State of Ransomware 2026 report surveyed 2,158 companies that actually got hit, and the headline flips a common assumption: 79% of attacks now start with a stolen login, not some exotic exploit. Even more sobering, 97% of the victims whose attack began with stolen credentials already had multi-factor authentication turned on, which means regular MFA is being bypassed. The good news you can act on: two-thirds of encrypted victims recovered from backups instead of paying, and while ransom demands fell to around $700,000, the average cleanup still runs $1.7 million, so prevention is almost always the cheaper line item. Three stories, one thread. The cost of launching an attack keeps falling, which makes every dollar you spend defending worth more than it was a year ago. In this episode, we discuss: • How an autonomous AI agent hacked Hugging Face with no human at the keyboard • Why the Coca-Cola Fairlife ransomware attack shut down U.S. milk production • What the Sophos State of Ransomware 2026 report reveals about stolen logins • Why "we have MFA" is no longer enough to stop a ransomware attack • How network segmentation kept Fairlife's Canadian plants running • Why the new economy forces owners to think in agents and headcount • Where business owners should spend their next security dollar Security Squawk is a weekly podcast and live stream for business owners and executives. Support the show: buymeacoffee.com/securitysquawk Subscribe | Like | Share #SecuritySquawk #CyberSecurity #HuggingFace #AI #CocaCola #Fairlife #Ransomware #Sophos #DataBreach #MFA #BusinessRisk #MSP

  7. Jul 20

    Accenture Breached. 80% of Restaurants Hit. Fined Without a Hack.

    Three companies thought they had security under control. They were wrong, and it cost them. A hacker is selling 35 gigabytes of Accenture's code, 80% of restaurants were breached while feeling secure, and a defense contractor paid the government half a million dollars without ever being hacked. *What you claim about your security is now what you'll answer for.* Bryan Hornung, Randy Bryan, and Reginald Andre break down this week's stories for executives and owners who can't afford to be blindsided. Accenture confirmed a breach after a hacker named "888" started selling 35 gigabytes of its source code and cloud access keys. The company called it isolated and fixed but didn't say how it happened or if client data was touched. When a firm this connected leaks its keys, its customers inherit that risk. Restaurants often assume they're too small to matter. A new VikingCloud report found 94% of restaurant leaders felt confident they could stop an attack, yet 80% were breached anyway. Payment data, payroll, and passwords were exposed, and 30% reported AI deepfakes impersonating executives to approve fake payments. Confidence isn't a control. An Alabama defense contractor, LOGZONE, paid over 507,000 dollars to the Justice Department with no breach at all. They claimed a perfect security score of 110; an audit found the real number was negative 170. The government turned that false claim into a penalty, and every form you sign is now a legal statement. Support the show: buymeacoffee.com/securitysquawk Subscribe | Like | Share #SecuritySquawk #CyberSecurity #Accenture #DataBreach #VendorRisk #Restaurants #VikingCloud #DOJ #Compliance #FalseClaimsAct #SMB #BusinessRisk

  8. Jul 8

    Medtronic Breach Hits 9M, and an AI Just Ran Its Own Ransomware Attack

    Your Social Security number and health history could be sitting on a criminal's hard drive right now, and you wouldn't find out until the letter shows up in your mailbox. That's exactly what happened to nine million Medtronic customers. This week, a global medical giant, a city right outside Atlanta, and an attack run start to finish by artificial intelligence all point to the same uncomfortable lesson. *Nobody is too small to hack, and the basics still decide who survives.* Bryan Hornung, Randy Bryan, and Reginald Andre break down this week's stories for executives, owners, and operators who don't have time to keep up with cyber news but can't afford to be blindsided by it either. First up, Medtronic. The company that makes pacemakers and insulin pumps is now notifying about nine million people that their names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, and health information were stolen by a crew called ShinyHunters. Here's the part that should worry every business owner: ShinyHunters didn't need a genius hack to get in. They called an employee, pretended to be tech support, and talked their way past the front door, the same move that works on your team. Even a company this size is looking at a cleanup that averages 279 days for a healthcare breach, and a small business doesn't have that kind of runway. Then we bring it home. On June 8th, the City of Acworth, right here in Cobb County, got hit hard enough to call in outside cybersecurity pros and law enforcement. Weeks later, the city still won't say what kind of attack it was or whether any data walked out the door. The good news buried in the story: everything was restored with no lasting disruption, which almost always means one thing, working backups. Government ransomware jumped about 65 percent in the first half of 2025, and attackers hunt small cities for the same reason they hunt small businesses: thin teams and tight budgets. We close with the one that keeps us up at night. Researchers at Sysdig say they caught the first ransomware attack run entirely by an AI, no human at the keyboard. It broke in, stole credentials, locked up a database, and wrote its own ransom note. When one login failed, it diagnosed the problem, rewrote its own code, and was back in within about 31 seconds. And in this case, even paying the ransom may not have brought the data back, which means backups are not your plan B anymore, they are your plan A. Three very different targets. One playbook that decides who walks away fine and who doesn't. In this episode, we discuss: • The Medtronic breach that exposed Social Security numbers and health data for about nine million people • Why a cyberattack on the City of Acworth is a preview of what hits small businesses • The first ransomware attack researchers say was run entirely by an AI, with no human directing it • Why the size of the target stopped mattering a long time ago • The three boring fundamentals, backups, multi-factor, and patching, that decide how every one of these stories ends • What business owners should actually check this week before they need it Security Squawk is a weekly podcast and live stream for business owners and executives. Support the show: buymeacoffee.com/securitysquawk Subscribe | Like | Share #SecuritySquawk #CyberSecurity #Medtronic #ShinyHunters #DataBreach #Ransomware #AI #Acworth #SmallBusiness #VendorRisk #MSP #BusinessRisk

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Security Squawk is a business podcast dedicated to helping business people fight the war against cyber criminals.

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