N2K Networks today announced that Authorized Intelligence, the new premier podcast from Rubrik, will join the N2K CyberWire podcast network. Hosted by AI risk management expert Cal Al-Dhubaib, the podcast features conversations with leading voices across the AI ecosystem on how organizations can embrace frontier AI opportunities while navigating an increasingly complex security landscape.

Heather Ceylan, CISO at Box, joins Dave Bittner on the CyberWire Daily podcast for a sponsored Industry Voices to reflect on what security leaders have learned about enterprise AI adoption in 2026. Heather explains why trustworthy AI depends on a strong information foundation, including governed content, access controls, and auditability, and how organizations can build governance and resilience into their AI strategies from the start. She also explores how the CISO's role is shifting toward enabling responsible innovation as AI governance becomes a growing board-level priority.

Alex Weinert, Chief Product Officer at Semperis, joins Dave Bittner on the CyberWire Daily podcast for a sponsored Industry Voices conversation about how agentic AI is expanding the identity attack surface. Alex discusses the risks introduced by rapidly growing non-human identities, how AI agents can expose and exploit weaknesses in identity infrastructure, and the practical steps organizations can take to harden their environments, detect threats at machine speed, and strengthen identity resilience without sacrificing the productivity benefits of AI.

In the 1950s, Lyman Kirkpatrick had just been promoted to Chief of Operations in the CIA’s clandestine service. He was 36, with a bright future ahead. Then what he thought was a cold turned out to be polio. Suddenly, he saw his career trajectory derailed, not because of health issues but because of restrictions the agency was imposing on him for being in a wheelchair. He was determined to prove them wrong. Earning the nickname “Hell on Wheels,” Lyman ended up landing top jobs, becoming No.3 at the agency, and receiving prestigious awards for his service. To mark National Disability Employment Awareness Month in October, author David Taylor joined SpyCast host Sasha Ingber to talk about Lyman’s work and life.

Yonald Chery, CTO at the Technology Advancement Center (TAC), joins Dave Bittner on the CyberWire Daily podcast for a sponsored Industry Voices. Yonald explains why securing operational technology (OT) in critical infrastructure requires specialized skills beyond traditional IT cybersecurity, particularly when protecting systems that must remain operational around the clock. He discusses how TAC is bridging the skills gap through hands-on training, simulated industrial environments, and partnerships that connect emerging technologies with national security needs.

Amy Blackshaw joins Dave Bittner on the CyberWire Daily podcast for a sponsored Industry Voices to discuss how frontier AI is accelerating attacks and reshaping identity security. She explains why organizations must shift their focus from preventing initial access to limiting how long compromised identities remain useful to attackers. Amy explores how zero standing privileges, just-in-time access, and automated identity containment can help organizations reduce their exposure as threats move at machine speed.

Winter is coming, and that means Ukraine has to gear up for another brutal season of strikes on its energy infrastructure - Russia’s bid to cut off power and heat, making life harder for all Ukrainians. Earlier this year, Ukrainian forces reversed the enemy’s territorial gains, and now Vladimir Putin appears to be stepping up long-range strikes targeting not just Ukraine’s energy system but also its water, railways, and bridges. The Ukrainians have responded with their own long-range attacks on Russian energy sites. Since the full-scale invasion began, former CIA director and retired four-star general David Petraeus has made numerous trips to Ukraine. He sits down with SpyCast host Sasha Ingber to discuss not just major developments on the battlefield but also the quieter side of the war: the covert maneuvering behind closed doors and the threats of sabotage troubling the European continent.

Roman Arutyunov, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Xage Security, joins Dave Bittner on the CyberWire Daily podcast for a sponsored Industry Voices. Roman discusses why Zero Trust must evolve beyond controlling access to governing what identities, workloads, and AI agents can actually do once connected. He explores how real-time authorization, least-privilege enforcement, and just-in-time permissions can help organizations secure increasingly autonomous environments.

The Kremlin is not a fan of Alex Goldfarb. He left the Soviet Union as a scientist, becoming a prominent author and human rights activist. In 2006, he was in the room with ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, reading his dying words, which accused Vladimir Putin of assassination by radioactive polonium. Today, Alex's memoir, Refusenik's Son, traces a complicated family history made clear only decades later. His father, David, was a Jewish scientist denied permission to leave the Soviet Union - one of the so-called "refuseniks." David had been a prominent microbiologist in the 1970s and '80s, when Moscow's secret bioweapons program was under development. But only after an exiled KGB officer contacted Alex in 2010 did the full reason for his father's confinement become clear. It's a winding story involving an anthrax accident and a media leak, a Soviet scientist and a U.S. journalist trying to help him. Two men pulled unknowingly into a tide of suspicion.

The trial of a former Ukrainian special forces officer, identified as Serhii K., is set to begin October 14th in Hamburg. German investigators have been unrelenting in their pursuit of justice since the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, which carried Russian gas to Germany. It was about seven months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Scandinavian seismologists detected what appeared to be an undersea earthquake near a Danish island, on the floor of the Baltic Sea. Denmark, Germany, and Sweden opened investigations, but only Germany pushed forward. Since then, The Wall Street Journal’s chief European political correspondent, Bojan Pancevski, has uncovered what happened in his book, The Nord Stream Conspiracy. We sat down with him to talk about the operation and the fallout, part of which is set to unfold in a German courtroom.

Sanjay Jeyakumar, Co-Founder and CTO at Abnormal AI, joins Dave Bittner on the CyberWire Daily podcast for a sponsored Industry Voices conversation about why AI agents are challenging traditional security models. Using a recent OpenAI and Hugging Face incident as an example, Sanjay explains how agents can combine legitimate permissions, stale credentials, and over-privileged identities in unexpected ways. He discusses why securing agentic AI requires organizations to look beyond known threats and focus on whether identities are behaving as expected.

Steve Ryan, Founder and CEO at Trinity Cyber, joins Dave Bittner on the CyberWire Daily podcast for a sponsored Industry Voices. Steve discusses how frontier AI is collapsing the time between vulnerability discovery and exploitation, shifting cyberattacks from human speed to machine speed. He explains why this acceleration challenges traditional detection and response models and what it means for organizations to build defenses capable of surviving first contact with an AI-enabled threat.

In the spring of 1944, three elite commandos parachuted into Hungary. The country was aligned with Nazi Germany, and these men intended to be captured in what was meant to look like a failed operation. Their real mission was to help Hungary switch to the Allied side. But three days later, Germany launched a preemptive invasion. The men were captured by the Nazis, imprisoned, and interrogated. They used their interrogation as a chance to fool Adolf Hitler into thinking an Allied invasion would come from southeastern Europe, drawing German troops away from Normandy ahead of D-Day. Author Jason Bell unravels this daring and untold story in his new book, Operation Sparrow.

Dan Ohlemeier, Principal Solutions Architect at Semperis, joins Dave Bittner on the CyberWire Daily podcast for a sponsored Industry Voices conversation about crisis orchestration and the often-overlooked challenges of executing an incident response plan during a real cyber crisis. Dan explains why organizations need to prepare for communication, coordination, and documentation when normal systems are unavailable or untrusted, how more realistic tabletop exercises can expose gaps before an incident, and why effective cyber resilience depends on aligning people, processes, and technology.

It was preparation for an invasion that might never come, and never did. Across Cold War Europe, stay-behind networks were established on the premise that Soviet forces might successfully invade and occupy sovereign territory. These clandestine organizations consisted of carefully vetted soldiers, intelligence officers, and everyday citizens tasked with remaining behind enemy lines to gather intelligence, conduct sabotage, and support resistance movements if their country were overrun. In neutral Sweden, the prime minister secretly authorized one such covert network in 1949 to mount guerrilla warfare against a potential Red Army occupation. Guest host Dr. Mark Jacobson speaks with Johan Wennström, author of The Stay Behinds: Sweden's Cold War Guardians, about this long-classified operation.

Before he became one of the world's most notorious terrorists in the 1970s and '80s, inspiring movies, books, and future terrorists, Carlos the Jackal was born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez to a privileged family in Venezuela. Over time, his crimes grew bolder, from an attempted assassination to abductions, murder, hijackings, and bombings. Some state leaders tolerated him out of fear he would target their countries, yet his alliances with militants and dictators soured as the years passed. In his new book, The Jackal: The Rise and Fall of Carlos, the World's First Super Terrorist, journalist Joby Warrick profiles the mercenary terrorist and details how American and French intelligence took him down.

It's a dark moment in American history that leads to a lot of what-ifs. By the spring of 1963, eight years into the Vietnam War, two opposing factions across the CIA and the State Department had President John F. Kennedy's ear. One side wanted to keep South Vietnam's first president, Ngô Đình Diệm, in power. The other wanted to see him removed. Then, unrest in Saigon caught the CIA by surprise, and the rift in Washington grew deeper. Author Jack Cheevers spent a decade piecing together and writing Kennedy's Coup, which lays out the grave decision to oust Diem, a move that led to his death and, arguably, escalated the war. The first U.S. combat troops deployed two years later.

Retired Colonel Justin Sapp was a Green Beret detailed to the CIA after the September 11th terrorist attacks. He was part of Team Alpha, the first eight Americans to drop behind enemy lines into the mountains of Afghanistan. At 29, Justin was its youngest member. There was no time to onboard him, and he was told he was leaving the next day, departing from the DC area to a base in Uzbekistan, then touching down in northern Afghanistan on a Black Hawk helicopter. Justin would go on to clear the way for follow-on forces to land, secure alliances with warlords to oust the Taliban, interrogate enemy fighters who had been captured. He would also tragically lose his colleague, Johnny “Mike” Spann. Justin takes us back into that historic mission 25 years later.

Rob Allen, Chief Product Officer at ThreatLocker, joins Dave Bittner on the CyberWire Daily podcast for a sponsored Industry Voices. Rob discusses how the conversation around agentic AI has quickly shifted from whether organizations should allow these tools to how they can use them safely. He explains why built-in guardrails aren't enough and how external controls, visibility, and a Zero Trust approach can help organizations embrace AI without giving agents unrestricted access to sensitive data and systems.

Heather Ceylan, CISO at Box, joins Dave Bittner on the CyberWire Daily podcast for a sponsored Industry Voices to discuss how autonomous AI agents are changing the enterprise risk landscape. She explains why organizations need to govern content, permissions, and agent actions from the start, and how CISOs can create secure pathways for AI adoption that enable innovation rather than stand in its way.