Code and Country

In this episode of Code and Country, Ian L. Paterson speaks with Matt Holland, founder and CEO of Field Effect, about protecting small to medium businesses from cyber threats at scale. Matt shares his journey from Canada's Communication Security Establishment to founding Field Effect, and challenges the biggest misconception: that small businesses aren't targets. He explains how AI enables attackers to scale customized phishing and reconnaissance campaigns, while Field Effect's federated architecture achieves 11-minute mean time to detect (versus 30+ minutes industry average) by running real-time analytics at the edge rather than in the cloud. The discussion covers data sovereignty, why cloud-first architectures create latency penalties, and Matt's key advice: outsource cybersecurity like you would physical security. This episode gives business leaders and security decision-makers a roadmap for protecting organizations in an AI-driven threat environment.

In our inaugural episode of Season 2, Ian L. Paterson sits down with Carey Frey, Chief Security Officer at TELUS, who leads security for one of Canada's largest telecommunications providers. Drawing on nearly two decades at the Communications Security Establishment—including roles as Director General of Cyber Defense and Director General of Cybersecurity Partnerships—Frey brings a rare dual perspective on critical infrastructure protection from both sides of the public-private divide.
He unpacks why collective cyber defense remains largely aspirational, how legal and fiduciary obligations pit corporate interests against national security, and why safe harbor provisions are essential to meaningful threat intelligence sharing. The conversation also tackles Canada's exposure to nation-state pre-positioning campaigns like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, and what it would take to apply hard-won emergency management lessons from natural disasters to a national-scale cyber event.
Essential listening for CISOs, infrastructure operators, and security policymakers navigating the realities of defending critical systems in an era of great-power competition.

In this episode of Code and Country, Ian L. Paterson speaks with Craig Newmark, Craigslist founder and philanthropist, about his $200 million commitment to U.S. cybersecurity. Craig outlines his vision for "cyber civil defense"—a World War II-style mobilization where every American helps protect against nation-state threats like China's Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon campaigns targeting critical infrastructure. The discussion covers urgent vulnerabilities in small water systems, the Cyber Resilience Corps, and initiatives like PauseTakeNine.org. This episode offers security leaders and policymakers a roadmap for collective defense against today's cyber threats.

In this episode of Code and Country, Michael Daniel, President and CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance and former White House Cybersecurity Coordinator, shares lessons from the frontlines of national cyber policy. 

From shaping early government cyber budgets to confronting incidents like the Sony hack and OPM breach, Daniel reflects on how U.S. policy thinking matured in real time. 

He outlines the evolution of ransomware, structural flaws in how cybersecurity risk is distributed, and why the future of cyber resilience depends on smarter collaboration between public and private actors. 

Essential insights for CISOs, systems architects, and IT leaders facing today’s complex threat landscape.

In this episode of Code and Country, Ian Paterson continues his conversation with Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder, Silverado Policy Accelerator executive chairman, and author of World on the Brink. Dmitri explains how China’s Volt Typhoon campaign marks a shift from espionage to battlefield preparation by infiltrating water utilities, small telecom providers, and local power grids. 
The discussion explores why Taiwan has become the central flashpoint in U.S.-China competition, and how cyber could shape the opening moves of a conflict. From disrupting mobilization to targeting sustainment systems like the F-35’s ODIN platform, cyber’s impact on logistics and readiness could prove decisive. 
With candid insights on deterrence, logistics, and overlooked vulnerabilities in small utilities, this episode gives CISOs, IT leaders, and national security executives a front-row seat to the strategies shaping the future of nation-state cyber conflict.