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Panelists Discuss Deepfake, Trust Frameworks, AI Skepticism, Venture Capital Woes
From RSAC Conference 2025 in San Francisco, ISMG editors wrapped up coverage discussing the impact of U.S. government funding cutbacks, growing deepfake threats, trust challenges in AI adoption and venture capital pressures affecting the cybersecurity vendor market.

Ex-National Cyber Director Emphasizes a Unified Approach to Cybersecurity
Public-private partnerships are of grave importance to tackle cyberthreats, given their ability to transcend geographical boundaries and affect individuals regardless of location, says Harry Coker, secretary of the Maryland Department of Commerce and former U.S. national cyber director.

Politecnico di Milano's Zanero on Evolving Malware Detection and Hardware Security
Machine learning excels at identifying repetitive patterns and anomalies, but human insight remains vital for understanding the broader context of cyberattacks - especially in cyber-physical ecosystems, said Stefano Zanero, professor at Politecnico di Milano.

ISC2 CISO Jon France on Why Quantum Resilience Falls Squarely Under the CISO
Quantum computing is at a tipping point, moving from theoretical math to deployable physics, said Jon France, CISO at ISC2. So, security teams need to start addressing the implementation of quantum-safe algorithms now, beginning with the five new safe algorithms released by NIST.

Google Cloud's Hultquist on How State Hackers Exploit Code and Corporate Hiring
John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group, Google Cloud, discussed how China and North Korea are transforming cyberattacks into organized, factory-like operations. Alongside zero-day exploits, North Korean IT operatives are quietly infiltrating Fortune 500 companies under false identities.

Rain Capital's Chenxi Wang Warns About AI's Emerging Role in Coding
AI can significantly accelerate code generation - helping developers go from idea to implementation in minutes - but AI-generated code is frequently based on insecure or flawed examples found in public code repositories, explains Chenxi Wang, founder and general partner at Rain Capital.

NightDragon CEO Dave DeWalt Sees Cautious Optimism With Agentic AI
Advances in scalable AI and agentic technologies are creating a long-awaited shift in the defender-offender dynamic. With autonomy and agentic capabilities entering production, CISOs may soon deploy 100,000 autonomous agents instead of hiring more staff, said Dave DeWalt, CEO of NightDragon.

Anthropic's Jason Clinton Discusses the Benefits and Challenges of AI Agents
AI agents will be crucial in the software development life cycle to eliminate bugs, improving the quality of software, which could significantly reduce security vulnerabilities. Although managing AI agents for identity and access controls will be hard, said Jason Clinton, CISO at Anthropic.

FBI's Sanjay Virmani Discusses Recent FBI Takedowns
Developing strong relationships with private sector and international partner organizations is vital for tackling cybercrime. A proactive approach ensures more efficient incident responses, said Sanjay Vermani, the special agent in charge of the FBI in San Francisco

National Security Council's Bulazel to Reset Cyber Norms With Offensive Strategy
National Security Council's Alexei Bulazel told RSA attendees that offensive cyber tools must play a bigger role in U.S. defense. He called for a streamlined regulatory approach, more robust interagency coordination and a narrower role for CISA focused on critical infrastructure and civilian agencies.

DistributedApps.ai's Ken Huang on Agentic AI Risks and Threat Modeling
As AI agents gain autonomy and access dynamic tools, organizations must adopt new threat modeling approaches like mixture threat modeling, a new method that accounts for AI's unpredictability, said Ken Huang, chief AI officer at DistributedApps.ai.

Blackpoint Cyber's Manoj Srivastava on Orchestration, Context and Unified Cybersecurity
The traditional notion of a fixed security perimeter has become obsolete, and the threat surface has expanded significantly due to remote work, cloud adoption, IoT devices and third-party vendor integrations, said Manoj Srivastava, chief technology and product officer at Blackpoint Cyber.

Administration's Budget Proposals Would Slash Cyber Defense Agency Spending by 16%
President Donald Trump proposed a series of budget cuts Friday that would in part reduce the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's spending for fiscal year 2026 by nearly $500 million - a 16% reduction the administration said was aimed at realigning the agency with its core mission.

Hacker Who Feigned Russian Hacktivist Persona Faces Up to a Decade in Prison
A California man whose theft of a terabyte of company data from Disney led the media and entertainment conglomerate to eschew Slack pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court to two felony charges. Santa Clarita resident Ryan Mitchell Kramer, 25, gained access to a Disney employee's computer.

Fastly CEO Todd Nightingale Makes the Case for Security Without Compromise
Power, speed and security don’t have to be mutually exclusive for organizations aiming to integrate innovative new solutions into their systems and networks. Fastly’s Todd Nightingale outlines how a unified, simplified approach can help organizations fight complex threats - without compromise.

Irish DPC Imposes a Fine for GDPR Violations
TikTok must pay 530 million euros to the Irish data regulator for non-compliance with European privacy law. The nearly $600 million fine stems from TikTok's storage of European user data on servers in China and failure to disclose data transfers to China from July 2020 through November 2022.

Ellis of YL Ventures on How Modern CISOs Must Lead, Not Master Every Discipline
There were never many 'do everything' CISOs. Today there are even fewer. But with a specialist area, strong overview and ability to channel expertise, CISOs can align with business goals, embrace the business enabler role, demonstrate quick wins, and ensure their organization makes better risk decisions.

4 Breaches Appear to Potentially Affect Hundreds of Thousands Across Several States
Catholic hospital chain Ascension Health is notifying hundreds of thousands of individuals across several states of at least four hacking incidents in recent months involving third-parties. Ascension reported one of the breaches this week, another in mid-April and the others in March and February.

CISA Staff Told to Prepare for Cuts and Crowded Work Locations Amid Growing Turmoil
Top officials at the nation's cyber defense agency want to give President Donald Trump's pick to lead the agency time to assess major restructuring plans - a move that is reportedly delaying the timeline for reductions in force while causing growing concerns for job stability among staffers.