The Cybersecurity Defenders Podcast

In this episode, Ken Westin maps AI adoption onto the hero's journey framework, drawing on two decades of security experience to explore how practitioners can move past early resistance, build real fluency with AI tools, and find a working model where humans and AI operate together.
Key Topics:
Why early AI tools left security teams skeptical and what has genuinely changed since then
How Ken used AI to accelerate detection engineering without sacrificing analyst oversight
Why AI is best understood as an eager, overconfident intern that still needs supervision
The importance of hands-on experimentation over passive observation when learning AI
How collaboration and shared prompting practices are shaping how practitioners learn
Why security analysts who engage with AI now will not be left behind as the field evolves
The case for AI as a tool of empowerment, not replacement
At Defender Fridays, we delve into the dynamic world of information security, exploring its defensive side with seasoned professionals from across the industry. Our aim is simple yet ambitious: to foster a collaborative space where ideas flow freely, experiences are shared, and knowledge expands.
About Our Guest
Ken Westin is a Senior Solutions Engineer at LimaCharlie with nearly two decades in the cybersecurity industry. A former startup founder who built tools to track criminal activity, Ken has worked across SIEM, EDR, and detection engineering throughout his career. He also teaches at the college level, where AI and cybersecurity are increasingly intertwined disciplines.
Register for Live Sessions
Join us every Friday at 10:30am PT for live, interactive discussions with industry experts. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just curious about the field, these sessions offer an engaging dialogue between our guests, hosts, and you, our audience.
Register here: https://limacharlie.io/defender-fridays
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the notification bell to never miss a live session or catch up on past episodes on our website!
Sponsored by LimaCharlie
This episode is brought to you by LimaCharlie, the Agentic SecOps Workspace (ASW), where AI agents operate security infrastructure using the same controls and authority as human analysts, with every action visible, governed, and auditable.
Why LimaCharlie?
Eliminate vendor sprawl and tool complexity
Deploy and scale effortlessly on native multi-tenant architecture
Reduce costs with intelligent data routing and free 1-year retention
Build custom solutions with 100+ security capabilities on-demand
Accelerate response with agentic AI that acts directly within predefined workflows
Try the Agentic SecOps Workspace free: https://limacharlie.io
Learn more: https://docs.limacharlie.io
Follow LimaCharlie
Sign up for free: https://limacharlie.io
LinkedIn: / limacharlieio
X: https://x.com/limacharlieio
Community Discourse: https://community.limacharlie.com/
Host: Maxime Lamothe-Brassard - Founder at LimaCharlie
Guest: Ken Westin - Senior Solutions Engineer at LimaCharlie

In this episode of The Cybersecurity Defenders Podcast, we discuss some intel being shared in the LimaCharlie community.
Researchers are raising concerns about a new cybersecurity risk emerging from the systems that regulate electrical power inside modern electronics and infrastructure.
Japan’s financial sector is responding to concerns around Anthropic’s new AI model, Claude Mythos, which some officials believe could significantly impact cybersecurity.
Docker and Socket researchers discovered that malicious images were pushed to the official checkmarx/kics Docker Hub repository, indicating a supply chain compromise affecting the KICS infrastructure-as-code scanning tool.
JFrog security researchers identified a malicious npm package published as @bitwarden/cli version 2026.4.0 that impersonates the legitimate Bitwarden command-line client.
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This podcast is brought to you by LimaCharlie, maker of the SecOps Cloud Platform, infrastructure for SecOps where everything is built API first. Scale with confidence as your business grows. Start today for free at limacharlie.io.

Today on Defender Fridays, Katherine McNamara, Cybersecurity Technical Solutions Architect at Cisco, joins us to discuss how AI and ML adoption in enterprise infrastructure has expanded the attack surface for AI-driven systems.
She'll walk through the security challenges unique to generative AI and ML-based architectures, and cover the four critical components: Model, Data, Application, and System, that organizations need to secure to maintain integrity.
Katherine works for Cisco as a Cybersecurity Systems Engineer by day and by night, she's labbing and trying new things with the resources she has available. Katherine loves technology and getting her hands into the CLI or trying something new. She holds a Bachelors of Science and Masters of Information Security and Assurance from Western Governors University as well as several industry certifications.
Register for Live Sessions
Join us every Friday at 10:30am PT for live, interactive discussions with industry experts. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just curious about the field, these sessions offer an engaging dialogue between our guests, hosts, and you – our audience.
Register here: https://limacharlie.io/defender-fridays
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the notification bell to never miss a live session or catch up on past episodes!
Sponsored by LimaCharlie
This episode is brought to you by LimaCharlie, a cloud-native SecOps platform where AI agents operate security infrastructure directly. Founded in 2018, LimaCharlie provides complete API coverage across detection, response, automation, and telemetry, with multi-tenant architecture designed for MSSPs and MDR providers managing thousands of unique client environments.
Why LimaCharlie?
Transparency: Complete visibility into every action and decision. No black boxes, no vendor lock-in.
Scalability: Security operations that scale like infrastructure, not like procurement cycles. Move at cloud speed.
Unopinionated Design: Integrate the tools you need, not just those contracts allow. Build security on your terms.
Agentic SecOps Workspace (ASW): AI agents that operate alongside your team with observable, auditable actions through the same APIs human analysts use.
Security Primitives: Composable building blocks that endure as tools come and go. Build once, evolve continuously.
Try the Agentic SecOps Workspace free: https://limacharlie.io
Learn more: https://docs.limacharlie.io/
Follow LimaCharlie
Sign up for free: https://limacharlie.io/
LinkedIn: / limacharlieio
X: https://x.com/limacharlieio
Community Discourse: https://community.limacharlie.com/
Host: Maxime Lamothe-Brassard - CEO / Co-founder at LimaCharlie

Today David Chernitzky, Co-Founder and CEO of Armour Cybersecurity, breaks down the challenges small and mid-sized businesses face in the new blink-and-you-miss-it cybersecurity landscape. Don't be left behind and open yourself to AI-driven attacks from threat actors.
David Chernitzky brings over 25 years of deep cybersecurity and military cyber intelligence experience, with a career rooted in strategic risk management and protecting critical systems against advanced threats. As the driving force behind Armour Cybersecurity, he has guided the company’s growth into a trusted global security partner for enterprises and small-to-midsized organizations. David combines strategic vision with hands-on expertise to deliver practical, high-impact cyber defence solutions. Learn more here: https://armourcyber.io/
Support our show by sharing your favorite episodes with a friend, subscribe, give us a rating or leave a comment on your podcast platform.
This podcast is brought to you by LimaCharlie, maker of the SecOps Cloud Platform, infrastructure for SecOps where everything is built API first. Scale with confidence as your business grows. Start today for free at limacharlie.io

In this episode of The Cybersecurity Defenders Podcast, we discuss some intel being shared in the LimaCharlie community.
North Korea-linked hackers are believed to be responsible for a $290 million cryptocurrency theft targeting the Kelp DAO decentralized finance protocol.
Vercel, the company behind the popular Next.js web framework and a frontend cloud platform for deploying and hosting web applications, has confirmed that it suffered a security breach involving unauthorized access to internal systems.
The decentralized social media platform Mastodon experienced a major distributed denial-of-service attack that caused a significant outage on its flagship server, Mastodon.social.
Two U.S. nationals have been sentenced for helping North Korean remote IT workers fraudulently obtain jobs at more than 100 U.S. companies using stolen American identities.
A former ransomware negotiator has pleaded guilty to conspiring with the BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware group to conduct attacks against U.S. organizations in 2023.
Support our show by sharing your favorite episodes with a friend, subscribe, give us a rating or leave a comment on your podcast platform.
This podcast is brought to you by LimaCharlie, maker of the SecOps Cloud Platform, infrastructure for SecOps where everything is built API first. Scale with confidence as your business grows. Start today for free at limacharlie.io.