The Cyber Security Matters Podcast

The Cyber Security Matters Podcast

A series of interview with key leaders through the Cyber Security industry. All brought to you by the Cyber Security team at neuco a specialist global recruitment and executive search firm.

  1. 3d ago

    AI, Patch Management & Endpoint Security: Mike Walters on the Future of Cyber Security – Episode 73

    In this episode of Cyber Security Matters, brought to you by neuco, we speak with Mike Walters, President and Co-Founder of Action1. Mike explores why patch management remains one of the most critical, and often overlooked, areas of cyber security, how AI is transforming vulnerability management, and what organisations need to do to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated threats. Mike reflects on the journey from co-founding Netwrix to launching Action1, sharing lessons on entrepreneurship, leadership, hiring, and building a founder-led business with long-term vision. The conversation also examines the future of autonomous patching and why endpoint security is becoming an even greater priority as AI accelerates both cyber attacks and defence. Key topics covered: How Mike’s first computer at the age of nine sparked a lifelong passion for technology and cyber securityThe entrepreneurial influence of the founders behind Veeam and the belief that building a global success story was possibleBootstrapping Netwrix through determination and execution without outside investmentWhy maintaining focus became the most valuable lesson carried into Action1The advantages of remaining founder-led and making decisions with a long-term perspectiveBuilding high-performing teams by hiring for curiosity, adaptability, and passion over specific domain expertiseWhy endpoints remain one of the most vulnerable attack surfaces for organisationsThe importance of effective patch management and why it is often neglected despite its critical role in reducing cyber riskHow customer demand established patching as Action1’s core use caseThe impact of AI-powered vulnerability discovery and attackers operating at machine speedThe future of autonomous patch testing, with AI dramatically reducing deployment timelinesMike’s advice for cyber security professionals on continuous learning and adapting to an AI-driven landscape Guest Bio: Mike Walters is President and Co-Founder of Action1, an autonomous endpoint management platform trusted by thousands of organisations managing millions of endpoints worldwide. A serial cyber security entrepreneur, he previously co-founded Netwrix, helping grow the business into a global leader before its acquisition by TA Associates. At Action1, Mike leads product strategy and go-to-market initiatives while championing innovation through founder-led leadership. Connect with Mike on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cyberwalters About neuco: neuco is a global executive search and recruitment partner specialising in Cyber Security, Media & Sports Technology, and Satellite, Space & Defence. By combining deep sector expertise with an extensive international network, neuco helps organisations secure exceptional leadership and technical talent while providing market insights through industry-focused content, events, and the Cyber Security Matters podcast.

    31 min

  2. Jun 10

    AI Agent Authentication & the Future of Identity Security – Ep. 72 – Brian Bell, FusionAuth

    In this episode of Cyber Security Matters, brought to you by neuco, hosts Harry Baldwin and Matt Rose sit down with Brian Bell, CEO of FusionAuth, to explore why customer identity has evolved from a back-office IT function into mission-critical infrastructure, and what the rise of AI agents means for the future of authentication and access management. Key Topics Covered How Brian's career across Japan, BCG, and consumer products shaped his approach to leadership and customer-centricityWhy identity sits at the unique intersection of security, user experience, and revenue growthThe evolution of CIAM from back-office IT utility to critical digital infrastructureLessons from leading Split Software through its acquisition by Harness - balancing customers, employees, and investorsWhat Brian looks for when hiring at growth-stage companies: the "say, do, say" framework and the Japanese concept of Shoshin (beginner's mind)How the talent landscape has shifted toward mission, culture, and leadership quality over compensationWhat drew Brian to FusionAuth: real business problem, massive market, developer-first architecture, and strong unit economicsFusionAuth's European expansion and traction in regulated industries including US government agenciesThe next frontier: non-human identity, AI agent authentication, and why CIAM is the critical infrastructure layer for agentic AIWhy businesses should own and control their identity infrastructure rather than being locked into multi-tenant SaaS platformsAbout Brian Bell Brian Bell is CEO of FusionAuth, the developer-first Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) platform and the only enterprise-grade hybrid deployment solution in the market. With over 20 years of experience scaling enterprise software companies through IPOs, PE deals, and strategic acquisitions, Brian previously led Split Software through its acquisition by Harness, and served as CMO at Ping Identity and Zuora. Connect with Brian on LinkedIn. About neuco This podcast is brought to you by neuco, the specialist recruitment and executive search firm for the cyber security industry. With deep sector expertise and a global network spanning 60+ countries, neuco connects the world's leading cyber security businesses with the talent they need to grow — from specialist hires to C-suite leaders. Whether you're scaling a security product company or building out a new market, neuco's dedicated cyber security recruitment team understands your world. Explore neuco's cyber security recruitment services.

    37 min

  3. Jun 3

    Fix It, Don't Just Find It: How AI Is Finally Solving Vulnerability Management – Episode 71 – Dominik Richter, Mondoo

    In Episode 71 of Cyber Security Matters, hosts HarryBaldwin and Matt Rose sit down with Dominik Richter, Co-Founder and CPO of Mondoo, the agentic vulnerability management platform that doesn't just findsecurity flaws, it actually fixes them. Dom's journey into cybersecurity started with the 1995 film Hackers (and yes, Angelina Jolie may have played a part), which sent him down a path of learning to break into computers, reading Phrack magazine, and exploring bulletin boards. From there, he built a career spanning Deutsche Telekom, Chef Software, and Google before founding Mondoo. About the Guest Dominik Richter is a founder, coder, and hacker who hashelped shape the DevOps and security space through projects like Chef InSpec and dev-sec.io. He co-founded VulcanoSec (acquired by Chef Software in 2015),headed security for Deutsche Telekom's first OpenStack Cloud, and worked at Google Cloud before co-founding Mondoo in 2021. At Mondoo, he leads product asCPO, building an AI-native platform that helps organisations prioritise and remediate vulnerabilities across cloud, on-prem, SaaS, endpoints, and the SDLC. Key Topics Covered ●     How the 1995 film Hackers sparked Dom'scybersecurity career ●     Lessons from building at Deutsche Telekom, ChefSoftware, and Google and the moments that inspired him to go the startup route(twice) ●     The qualities Dom looks for when hiring in startups: noego, comfort with ambiguity, willingness to be wrong and learn ●     How the hiring process has evolved at Mondoo especiallyfor engineers in the AI era, where interviews now include coding with andwithout AI agents ●     The biggest learning curve: hiring salespeople ●     The origin of the Mondoo name (German for"moon" tied to their extensible security graph concept) ●     How AI is accelerating both attack and defence morecode, more vulnerabilities, more automation on both sides ●     Where AI falls short: companies rushing to adoptwithout considering security, particularly around AI agent skills and supplychain risks ●     Why coding skills changed "overnight" but theneed for people who understand customer problems is greater than ever ●     What Mondoo does: agentic vulnerability managementfocused on prioritisation and remediation, not just scanning and reporting ●     How Mondoo uses AI agents for prioritisation (businesscriticality, blast radius, exploitability) and remediation (producingautomation code for tools like Terraform, Chef, Ansible) ●     Dom's advice: don't be afraid jump into AI, explore,and learn how to solve real problems with modern tools   About neuco: neuco Group is a global specialist recruitment and executive search firm focused on the Cyber Security, Media & Sports Technology, and Satellite, Space & Defence industries. We help organisations hire niche specialist talent at mid-to-senior and executive levels, connecting businesses with professionals who possess the expertise needed to drive growth and innovation in highly competitive markets. Whether you're hiring now, planning future growth, or simply looking for expert talent market advice, we'd be delighted to help. Get in touch: hello@neuco-group.com

    38 min

  4. May 14

    Securing the Agentic Endpoint: How Manifold Is Building AI Detection & Response - Episode 70 - Mike McKenna, Manifold Security

    Mike McKenna, Co-Founder and CRO of Manifold Security, to dig into why the jump from LLMs to autonomous agents is the biggest inflexion point in cybersecurity and why most existing security tools aren't built for it.  Mike's path into cyber started with a stroke of luck: his then-girlfriend (now wife) fielded a cold recruiting call for Coalfire and pointed them his way. What followed was eight years watching Coalfire scale from 100 people and $30M in revenue to a compliance powerhouse, with Mike's average deal size growing from $30–40K to $300K. A formative stint at Protect AI under three-time founder Ian Swanson showed him what elite decision-making looks like at startup speed. When Protect AI sold to Palo Alto Networks, Mike and his co-founders, Neal Swaelens and Oleksandr Yaremchuk saw the next big gap: first-generation AI security was built for chatbots, not for agents that act autonomously across enterprise systems.  Key Topics Covered:  How a cold call and a quick-thinking girlfriend launched a 15-year cybersecurity career  The mentors who shaped Mike's sales philosophy from craft improvement to enterprise rigour  Why the jump from LLMs to agents is more impactful than most people realise  Hiring sales talent for a category that barely exists yet prioritising plasticity over pedigree  When to transition from founder-led sales to a dedicated team  How AI is changing outbound sales and the second-order consequences of flooded inboxes  First-gen vs. second-gen AI security: why classifying natural language isn't enough  What Manifold actually does: runtime visibility into agent behaviour on the endpoint  The AI bubble debate and why the demand curve looks different from late-90s dark fibre  Mike's advice for anyone considering a career in cybersecurity  Mike McKenna is Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Manifold Security, an AI Detection & Response platform securing autonomous AI agents on enterprise endpoints. Before founding Manifold, Mike spent eight years at Coalfire and served as part of the early go-to-market team at Protect AI (later acquired by Palo Alto Networks). Mike and his co-founders launched Manifold out of stealth in March 2026 with an $8M seed round led by Costanoa Ventures. He holds a degree from Johns Hopkins University and is based in San Diego.  Find Mike on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mikemckenna9 Learn more about Manifold: manifold.security  This episode of Cyber Security Matters is brought to you by neuco.

    29 min

  5. May 5

    AI Is Making Social Engineering Unstoppable, Here's What You Need to Know - Episode 69 – Bobby Ford, Doppel

    In this episode of Cyber Security Matters, hosts Harry Baldwin and Matt Rose sit down with Bobby Ford, Chief Strategy & Experience Officer at Doppel, to explore how AI is fundamentally reshaping the social engineering threat landscape. With nearly three decades in cybersecurity, from founding member of the Pentagon's Computer Incident Response Team to CISO roles at Exelis, Abbott, Unilever, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Bobby brings a rare blend of operational depth and strategic vision to one of the industry's most pressing challenges.  Key Topics Covered:  How Bobby accidentally fell into cybersecurity through a military assignment no one wanted  The importance of being "gifted with opportunity" and the mentors who shaped his career  Why Bobby believes there's an experience gap, not a talent gap, in cybersecurity  The evolution of the CISO role, from firewall manager to business partner to two diverging paths  What keeps CISOs up at night: personal liability and regulatory scrutiny  Bobby's three hiring imperatives: appreciation, consistency, and the ability to listen  Where the next generation of security talent will come from  How AI is changing social engineering in four key ways: hyper-personalisation, volume, speed, and multi-channel attacks  Why legacy technologies and awareness training alone can no longer defend against AI-enabled threats  A real-world vishing simulation where help desk staff stayed on the phone with a deep fake agent for over seven minutes  How AI reduces adversary reconnaissance from weeks to seconds  Bobby's career advice: chase the problem, not the title. neuco are a Global Specialist Recruitment and Executive Search company in the Satellite, Space and Defence, Cyber Security and Media & Sports Technology sectors.

    41 min

  6. Apr 13

    Securing the Future of Software: ASPM, AI Code & the New AppSec Frontier | Episode 68 | Liav Caspi, Legit Security

    Application security has always been a balancing act but AI-generated code has tipped the scales entirely. In this episode, Harry and Matt sit down with Liav Caspi, Co-Founder & CTO of Legit Security, to explore how organisations can secure modern software pipelines without slowing development to a crawl. From his early days in Israel's elite cyber intelligence Unit 8200, to co-founding one of the most forward-thinking AppSec companies in the market today, Liav brings a rare blend of deep technical expertise and product-led thinking to one of the most urgent challenges in cybersecurity. They cover the lose-lose dilemma that inspired Legit Security's founding, why ASPM is becoming the cornerstone of enterprise security strategy, how AI is dismantling the technical moats of legacy vendors and what it means to secure software when AI agents are doing most of the building. Key Topics: Why the traditional approach to application security puts both developers and security teams in an impossible positionWhat Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) actually means in practice, and why it's becoming essentialHow AI is disrupting legacy AppSec vendors like Checkmarx and Veracode and lowering barriers to entry for challengersThe rise of "agentic AppSec" and what it means to secure AI-driven development pipelinesWhy AI fluency is now a baseline hiring requirement across every role in cybersecurityLiav's prediction that source code itself will become less relevant as AI takes over the build processThe talent challenge in AppSec: finding people who understand both security and software developmentGuest Bio: Liav Caspi is the Co-Founder and CTO of Legit Security, where he leads the company's technology vision and product strategy. He began his career in Israel's elite cyber intelligence Unit 8200, spending around a decade in various engineering, team lead, and project management roles. He went on to serve as Senior Software Engineer and Project Lead at Argus Cyber Security, before joining Checkmarx one of the pioneers in application security where he led architecture and product management for the SCA solution. In 2021, he co-founded Legit Security, which provides an AI-native Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) platform that helps large enterprises secure their entire software development lifecycle, from code to cloud. Legit Security is purpose-built for the era of AI-powered development, securing CI/CD pipelines, coding agents, and vibe coding environments. Sponsored by neuco. Cyber Security Matters is brought to you by neuco, the specialist recruitment partner for the cybersecurity industry.

    35 min

  7. Apr 7

    Stopping Ransomware Before It Starts - Episode 67, Glenn Wilkinson, Agger Labs

    From dial-up curiosity to killing ransomware in milliseconds, Glenn Wilkinson has been inside the attacker's mind his entire career, and now he's using it to defend you.  Hosts Harry Baldwin and Matt Rose sit down with Glenn Wilkinson, CEO and Co-Founder of Agger Labs, for a wide-ranging conversation covering Glenn's journey from self-taught teenage hacker in the 90s to serial founder, and a deep dive into everything ransomware where it came from, how it became a thriving criminal industry, who it's really targeting, and what businesses can actually do about it.  Key topics covered:  How Glenn went from dial-up internet and underground hacker forums to founding multiple cyber security companies  The hard lessons of the hacker-to-founder transition why great engineers often miss the business fundamentals  The origins of ransomware: from the AIDS Trojan in 1989 (distributed on a floppy disk) to CryptoLocker's Bitcoin pivot in 2013  Double and triple extortion why backups alone no longer protect you  How NotPetya (2017) marked the first major nation state supply chain attack, and why cyber is now a precursor to kinetic warfare  Ransomware as a Service: the industrialisation of cybercrime, affiliate models, and initial access brokers  Law enforcement fighting back Operation Kronos, hack-back legislation, and the moped theft analogy  AI's actual (limited) impact on ransomware today and where the real risk lies  Why SMBs are consistently the most vulnerable and the least prepared  What any business can do right now to reduce ransomware risk  The debate around banning ransomware payments  How Agger Labs fits into the modern security stack: one thing, done well  About the guest:  Glenn Wilkinson is an ethical hacker, keynote speaker, and 3x founder. With a computer science background from Oxford and decades of hands-on penetration testing, Glenn has legally hacked 100+ organisations, spoken at Black Hat and DEF CON, and appeared on CNN and BBC. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of Agger Labs, which builds lightweight ransomware protection that detects and kills attacks before encryption begins running from Windows 7 to the latest server editions, no signatures or AI required.  Connect with Glenn: LinkedIn | glenn-wilkinson.com | agger-labs.com  Cyber Security Matters is brought to you by neuco.

    45 min

  8. Mar 10

    People Over Product: What Really Makes Cybersecurity Startups Succeed - Episode 66, Alison Eastaway, Push Security

    In this episode of the Cyber Security Matters podcast, hosts Harry Baldwin and Matt Rose sit down with Alison Eastaway, VP of People and Culture at Push Security. Alison brings a refreshingly pragmatic perspective to the often-overlooked human infrastructure behind high-growth startups and shares why, in cybersecurity especially, the team really is everything.  Alison's career is anything but conventional. Having started working at 14 in Australia and bypassed a traditional university route, she's built her expertise through hands-on experience across telco, hospitality, advertising tech, HR tech, and now cybersecurity, including a formative stint at screen, which was later acquired by Datadog. Throughout the conversation, she shares hard-won insights on hiring for culture fit in remote-first organisations, navigating today's complicated talent market, and why the best thing a great candidate can do in a first interview is simply avoid scoring an own goal.  Key Topics:  How Alison fell into cybersecurity and what drew her to the industry's pragmatic, low-BS culture Why she views her proudest professional achievement not as the Datadog acquisition, but as the Screen team group chat that still pings years later The "culture as a savings account" philosophy and why you need to invest before you need to draw on it The unique challenges of building and maintaining culture in fully remote or distributed teams The state of the talent market right now: why it's a buyer's market for employers, and what candidates can do to stand out amid AI-generated application noise Practical interview advice including why a first interview is really about not scoring an own goal How to handle having multiple offers on the table (and the smart question Alison always asks candidates first) What candidates switching from big companies to startups need to get right and the language mistakes that give them away Career advice for anyone looking to enter cybersecurity or move into a people and talent function Guest Bio:  Alison Eastaway is a senior people and talent leader with extensive global experience across high-growth startups and scale-ups. She has led recruitment, people operations, and organisational development across Europe, the US and beyond, with leadership roles at companies including Poolside and screen the latter acquired by Datadog in 2021. Alison is currently VP of People and Culture at Push Security, where she leads global people strategy in support of long-term business growth.  About neuco: We are a specialist recruitment and executive search firm, working globally in four sectors; Content & Media, Satellite & NewSpace, Connectivity & Cyber Security. If you are hiring for a new role or want to discuss your growth plans. Please do reach out to hello@neuco-group.com

    44 min
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About

A series of interview with key leaders through the Cyber Security industry. All brought to you by the Cyber Security team at neuco a specialist global recruitment and executive search firm.

Information

  • Creator
    The Cyber Security Matters Podcast
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    74
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © The Cyber Security Matters Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Cyber Security Matters Podcast

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