Tech Updates

Andres Sarmiento
  • 5.0 (3)
  • TECH NEWS

Tech Updates is your quick-hit source for the latest in enterprise technology—all in 10 minutes or less. From cybersecurity and network connectivity to data center innovation, cloud advancements, and the rise of AI, we cover the updates that matter. Each episode delivers vendor announcements, industry trends, and agnostic insights to keep you informed and ahead of the curve. Whether you’re a tech professional or just tech-curious, this podcast is designed to fit into your busy schedule and fuel your knowledge.

  1. Non-Human Identity Security Explained — The 45:1 NHI Crisis in 2026

    6D AGO

    Non-Human Identity Security Explained — The 45:1 NHI Crisis in 2026

    45 to 1. In the average enterprise, for every human user there are 45 machine identities. Every API key. Every service account. Every agent token. Every secret in every config file. Your IAM platform probably tracks about 2% of them. That's where the breaches are coming from now — Snowflake, GitHub PATs, Azure IMDS. This episode unpacks the NHI crisis, the vendor landscape, and the three control patterns that actually work this quarter. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ What counts as a non-human identity (it's more than service accounts) ✅ The 45:1 ratio — and why it's 200:1 in agentic shops ✅ Why "service account" is doing too much work (meet Dave) ✅ How Snowflake, GitHub PAT theft, and Azure IMDS all trace to NHIs ✅ Why your PAM solution doesn't cover any of this ✅ The NHI vendor landscape — Astrix, Oasis, Clutch, Teleport, Natoma ✅ The 3 control patterns that work (inventory, rotate, scope down) ✅ Why agents make this 10× worse by 2027 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Intro — the 45:1 ratio 0:49 What is an NHI? (it's not just service accounts) 2:05 Dave is your problem 2:48 The breach file — Snowflake, GitHub PAT, Azure IMDS 4:20 Why PAM doesn't cover this 5:24 The NHI vendor landscape (still a 2-year-old category) 6:30 The 3 control patterns that work 7:46 Agents are NHIs — the 500:1 future ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎯 THE MEMORABLE LINES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • "A service account was created by Dave in 2017, has god-mode permissions, no rotation policy, is used by 42 systems nobody audited, and Dave left in 2020." • "Snowflake did what Snowflake was told to do. The instructions were 'trust this credential.' Guess what didn't have MFA." • "We are about to go from 45-to-1 to 500-to-1." • "Stop hardcoding secrets in your Git repos. Every scanner finds them in the first five minutes." ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🛠 THE 3 FREE CONTROL PATTERNS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Inventory — you can't secure what you can't see • Rotate — replace long-lived creds with short-lived alternatives • Scope down — every NHI has more perms than it needs ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📡 TECH UPDATES · THE PODCAST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 techupdates.it-learn.io Previous → EP20 · Typhoon Season, One Year Later End of the EP17–21 arc. Thanks for listening. #TechUpdates #NHI #NonHumanIdentity #IAM #Snowflake #GitHub #PAM #Astrix #Oasis #Teleport #IdentitySecurity #CyberSecurity

    9 min
  2. Special · S04: The OT/ICS Defender — Why Volt Typhoon Should Worry You

    MAY 20

    Special · S04: The OT/ICS Defender — Why Volt Typhoon Should Worry You

    $140K. When you mess up, the lights go out for real. Final episode of TechUpdates Special Series. The most consequential security job almost nobody talks about — defending the systems that keep the country running. Power grids. Water utilities. Petrochemical plants. Pipelines. What you'll hear: • What OT/ICS defenders actually do — segmentation, SCADA patching, PLC defense, plant-engineer coordination • Comp reality — why OT pays 40–60% less than cloud security at the same companies, and the "purpose tax" • The real stakes: Ukraine 2015 grid attack · Triton 2017 (Saudi Arabia) · Oldsmar 2021 · Aliquippa 2023 · Volt Typhoon pre-positioning across U.S. critical infrastructure • A real day — substations at 6 AM, vendors that still ship Windows 7 SCADA, plant managers explaining why your last predecessor retired in 2015 • The two paths in — plant engineer to security, or IT security to OT — and why CISSP doesn't help but GICSP does • LinkedIn's "critical infrastructure defender" vs. the actual day (30% travel to plants, 20% talking plant engineers into caring) When you mess up here, there's a body count. When you do it right, nobody notices the lights stayed on. That's the whole job description. And it matters more every year as adversaries pre-position inside the operational networks of utilities they intend to disrupt on a date of their choosing. Sources: CISA joint advisory on Volt Typhoon (early 2024) · Ukrainian power grid attack (Dec 2015) · Triton/TRISIS analysis (Saudi Arabia, 2017) · Oldsmar water treatment incident (Florida, 2021) · Aliquippa Municipal Water Authority compromise (Pennsylvania, 2023, attributed to CyberAv3ngers). That wraps the Special Series. Pick the role that fits you. The field is wide. — Andrés Sarmiento #OTSecurity #ICSSecurity #CriticalInfrastructure #VoltTyphoon #cybersecurity #TechUpdates

    8 min
  3. Salt Typhoon Explained — The Chinese Telecom Breach, One Year Later (2026)

    MAY 14

    Salt Typhoon Explained — The Chinese Telecom Breach, One Year Later (2026)

    In late 2024, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all admitted the same thing: their lawful-intercept systems — the ones they build for law enforcement — had been compromised by a Chinese state actor called Salt Typhoon. Years of dwell time. Wiretap infrastructure for politicians, including a presidential campaign. Sixteen months later, what have we actually fixed? Plus — why Volt Typhoon is the warning shot nobody's responding to, and why OT networks are still flat. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ The Salt / Volt / Flax Typhoon lineup — who they are, what they do ✅ How Salt Typhoon abused CALEA — the FBI's own backdoor ✅ Why Volt Typhoon is military pre-positioning, not espionage ✅ CISA's Feb 2026 lessons-learned report — wins and ugly parts ✅ Why OT networks remain "largely unchanged" from pre-2023 posture ✅ The defensive playbook that ties to Network+ Obj 3.5 (out-of-band mgmt, jump servers) ✅ Why this can't be fixed with a product purchase — it needs policy ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Intro — 3 telecoms, same breach, same actor 0:49 The Typhoon lineup — Salt, Volt, Flax 2:07 CALEA — the 1994 law that became an attack surface 3:42 CISA's 2026 report — wins and ugly parts 5:06 OT is still flat — the uncomfortable truth 6:51 The defensive playbook — segmentation, zero-trust OT, OOB mgmt 8:45 The real lesson — this is policy, not a product ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎯 THE MEMORABLE LINES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • "The FBI's backdoor is also the PRC's backdoor." • "Predicted — by everyone. Dismissed — by everyone in government. Here we are." • "You don't get promoted for the attack that doesn't happen." • "Volt Typhoon is what happens when nobody replaces the kit." ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📡 TECH UPDATES · THE PODCAST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 techupdates.it-learn.io Previous → EP19 · AI Is Eating the Grid Up next → EP21 · Non-Human Identities Are Eating Your Network #TechUpdates #SaltTyphoon #VoltTyphoon #CALEA #CriticalInfrastructure #OTSecurity #Telecoms #CISA #CyberPolicy #ChinaCybersecurity

    8 min
  4. Special · S03: The AI Security Engineer — The Job Nobody Knew Existed

    MAY 13

    Special · S03: The AI Security Engineer — The Job Nobody Knew Existed

    $450K. The job didn't exist 24 months ago. Every Fortune 500 is hiring. Episode three of TechUpdates Special Series. AI bug bounties have crossed six figures for a single prompt injection. Frontier labs run model evaluation contests with prize pools in the hundreds of thousands. Two years ago the title "AI Security Engineer" was on zero org charts. Today it's on most of them. What you'll hear: • What an AI security engineer actually does — red-team LLMs, secure RAG pipelines, defend training data and weights, write guardrails • Compensation in price discovery — Fortune 500 $180–250K, big tech $350–500K, frontier labs $700K–$1M+ • The full attack surface: prompt injection, indirect prompt injection, embedding exfiltration, training data poisoning, weight theft, agentic misalignment • A real day — jailbreak harness, code review of an agent, adversarial eval, MCP review, post-mortem on the attack that almost worked • The two paths in — security to AI, or AI to security — and why path three doesn't exist yet • LinkedIn's "responsible AI leader" vs. the actual day (30% red-teaming models, 30% shipping guardrails to production) This is the most leveraged role in security right now. The hype is loud. The opportunity is real. Don't let one stop you from seeing the other. Sources: public AI bug bounty programs at Anthropic / OpenAI / Google · OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications · industry comp data at frontier labs. Next in the series: The OT/ICS Defender. — Andrés Sarmiento #AISecurity #LLMSecurity #PromptInjection #infosec #cybersecurity #TechUpdates

    8 min
  5. AI Data Center Power Crisis 2026 — Microsoft, Amazon, Meta Go Nuclear

    MAY 7

    AI Data Center Power Crisis 2026 — Microsoft, Amazon, Meta Go Nuclear

    In 2024, Microsoft signed a 20-year power purchase agreement to restart Three Mile Island. The nuclear plant. The one from the disaster. In 2025, Amazon bought a small modular reactor. In 2026, Meta locked up 20 years of natural gas at a cost nobody will put on record. We are watching hyperscalers become utilities. This episode covers the numbers, the deals, the grid bottleneck, the green accounting scandal, and the policy fight coming to your electric bill. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ The 2020 → 2030 data center power trajectory (spoiler: vertical) ✅ Training energy costs for GPT-4 class vs GPT-5 class models ✅ The PPA deals board — Microsoft/TMI, Amazon/SMR, Google/geo, Meta/gas ✅ Why the US grid can't take it — 5-to-7-year interconnect queues ✅ The Loudoun County story — one Virginia county, 35% of global cloud ✅ The Scope 3 carbon accounting scandal ✅ Who actually pays for this (hint: your electric bill) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Intro — Microsoft reopens Three Mile Island 0:44 The data center power trajectory (2020 → 2030) 2:00 The deals board — who bought what 3:38 The grid breaks — PJM, ERCOT, interconnect queues 5:10 Loudoun County, Virginia — the canary 6:29 The green accounting scandal 7:53 Who pays — your electric bill 9:09 Watch list — the 2027 indicators ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎯 THE MEMORABLE LINES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • "The thing about nuclear is, everyone's pro-nuclear until it shows up next to their data." • "You cannot offset training a frontier model with forest credits. The carbon is burning. The trees are optional." • "By 2030, data centers will consume the electricity of an always-on Japan that does nothing but run AI." • "Most creative accounting since WeWork." ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📡 TECH UPDATES · THE PODCAST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 techupdates.it-learn.io Previous → EP18 · The Supply Chain Attack Nobody's Talking About Up next → EP20 · Typhoon Season, One Year Later #TechUpdates #AIPower #DataCenters #ThreeMileIsland #SMR #Hyperscalers #GridInfrastructure #Microsoft #AWS #Meta #Google #Sustainability

    8 min
  6. Special · S02: The Detection Engineer — How $240K Roles Replaced the SOC

    MAY 6

    Special · S02: The Detection Engineer — How $240K Roles Replaced the SOC

    $240K. No degree required. The SOC analyst is dead. Episode two of TechUpdates Special Series. The SOC industry quietly restructured itself in the last 18 months — tier-one analyst headcount shrinking, SIEM vendors pivoting their pitch — and one role pulled away with software-engineer-grade compensation. The Detection Engineer. What you'll hear: • What detection engineers actually do (write detections, tune false positives, hunt, partner with the red team) • The pay reality — tier-1 SOC $80K vs. principal detection engineer $350K+ at top tech • Detection-as-code: why "80 alert categories become 800 detections" with the same headcount • A real day — standup, tuning, hunt, purple team, coffee. No on-call rotation at well-run shops. • The 6-year path in (vs. the 15-year CISO ladder) — and why zero certifications matter for this role • LinkedIn's "cyber sherlock" branding vs. the YAML-wrangling reality If you're a SOC analyst right now, this episode is your map. The role that's replacing yours pays more, ships actual code, and treats security as a software-engineering discipline — not a queue you acknowledge. Sources: public Splunk and Elastic detection-as-code case studies · industry compensation surveys at Fortune 500 / FAANG / streaming companies. Next in the series: The AI Security Engineer. — Andrés Sarmiento #cybersecurity #DetectionEngineering #ThreatHunting #SOC #SIEM #TechUpdates

    8 min
  7. npm Supply Chain Attack Hit 47K Apps — What Happened and How to Defend

    APR 30

    npm Supply Chain Attack Hit 47K Apps — What Happened and How to Defend

    In February, a maintainer of a widely-used npm package pushed a release that shipped malware to 47,000 downstream applications. The maintainer's GitHub account had been compromised four months earlier. Nobody noticed. It happened again in March. Again in early April. This episode is the supply chain security story the vendors aren't telling you correctly. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ The 4 Q1 2026 supply chain incidents you may have missed ✅ Maintainer takeover — the 5-step playbook attackers actually use ✅ Why SBOM (Software Bill of Materials) doesn't prevent this ✅ SLSA (pronounced "salsa") levels — and why 1% of enterprise hits Level 3 ✅ Sigstore adoption by registry — the ugly numbers ✅ The pragmatic defense playbook for a 50-person shop ✅ What package maintainers need to hear right now ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Intro — the February npm incident 0:49 The Q1 2026 timeline — 4 incidents, 4 vectors 2:01 Maintainer takeover — the 5-step template 3:39 SBOM theater vs reality 4:35 SLSA adoption by level 5:39 Sigstore adoption by registry 6:36 The pragmatic defense — what to do this quarter 8:29 To the maintainers watching — enable MFA. Please. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎯 THE MEMORABLE LINES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • "An SBOM is a receipt. It's proof you bought the groceries. It does not mean you cooked dinner." • "94% of enterprise builds are still at SLSA Level 1." • "If your CI can push to npm, steal crypto wallets, and read your production database — that's not a CI account. That's a supervillain." • "We are collectively running on trust and good luck." ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🛡 THE PRAGMATIC DEFENSE CHECKLIST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Hard-pin every dependency · no floating ranges • Dependabot/Renovate with auto-merge OFF · review every diff • Dependency firewall (JFrog, Cloudsmith, Artifactory) • Minimize your supply chain — every dep is a trust decision • Segregate build credentials · principle of least privilege on CI ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📡 TECH UPDATES · THE PODCAST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 techupdates.it-learn.io 🔔 Subscribe for the full EP17–21 run. Previous → EP17 · The Collapse of SaaS Up next → EP19 · AI Is Eating the Grid #TechUpdates #SupplyChainSecurity #npm #SBOM #SLSA #Sigstore #DevSecOps #OpenSource #MaintainerSecurity

    9 min
  8. Special · S01: The CISO Under Fire — $1.4M Comp, SEC Subpoena, Same Job

    APR 29

    Special · S01: The CISO Under Fire — $1.4M Comp, SEC Subpoena, Same Job

    $1.4M comp. SEC subpoena. Same job. Welcome to TechUpdates Special Series — four episodes on the cybersecurity roles people actually want to hear about. We start with the only C-suite job in tech where doing it right can still get you indicted: the CISO. What you'll hear: • What a CISO actually does (and what they delegate) • The real comp ladder — Series B startup $250K → Fortune 500 $800K → big tech $1.4M+ • The Tim Brown and Joe Sullivan reckoning: why CISOs now face personal SEC and DOJ exposure • A composite 24-hour day, from 7 AM board prep to a 3 AM pager • The 15-year path to the seat — and the 18-month average tenure once you're in • What LinkedIn promises ("strategic visionary") vs. what the calendar actually delivers (60% vendor management) We say it straight: this is the most consequential security job in tech when the company backs you, and the worst job in tech when they don't. Pick the company before you pick the title. Sources referenced: SEC v. SolarWinds & Timothy G. Brown (Oct 2023) · United States v. Joseph Sullivan (Uber, conviction Oct 2022) · public CISO compensation surveys. Next in the series: The Detection Engineer — the role that quietly killed the SOC. — Andrés Sarmiento #cybersecurity #CISO #infosec #SecurityLeadership #SolarWinds #TechUpdates

    7 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Tech Updates is your quick-hit source for the latest in enterprise technology—all in 10 minutes or less. From cybersecurity and network connectivity to data center innovation, cloud advancements, and the rise of AI, we cover the updates that matter. Each episode delivers vendor announcements, industry trends, and agnostic insights to keep you informed and ahead of the curve. Whether you’re a tech professional or just tech-curious, this podcast is designed to fit into your busy schedule and fuel your knowledge.

Information

  • Creator
    Andres Sarmiento
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Andres Sarmiento
  • Show Website
    Tech Updates