The Cybersecurity Defenders Podcast

Join us for this week's Defender Fridays as Chris Sanders, Founder at Applied Network Defense and the Rural Technology Fund, breaks down how analysts actually think through investigations and what separates high performers from the rest.
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.
What We'll Discuss
In this episode, Chris Sanders draws on his background in security operations and cognitive psychology to explore how metacognition shapes investigative performance, and why understanding how you think is one of the most underleveraged skills in the SOC.
Key Topics:
Why high-performing analysts ask better questions instead of starting with large chunks of data
How diagnostic inquiry (DINQ) was developed by studying senior analysts in action
What separates one year of experience repeated twenty times from genuinely diverse experience
Why tacit knowledge makes it hard to train new analysts and what to do about it
How AI fits into the investigative process and where humans still need to be in the loop
Why cybersecurity education has a transfer problem and what other fields like medicine get right
What good SOCs have in common and why it comes down to metacognitive awareness
About Our Guest
Chris Sanders is the Founder of Applied Network Defense, a training company focused on analyst and investigative roles, and the Rural Technology Fund, an organization that supports technology education in rural and underserved communities. He holds a doctorate in education and has spent his career at the intersection of cybersecurity and cognitive psychology, including time at school districts, the federal government, and Mandiant.
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: Chris Sanders - Founder at Applied Network Defense & Rural Technology Fund

In this episode of The Cybersecurity Defenders Podcast, we discuss some intel being shared in the LimaCharlie community.
Researchers have disclosed a new Linux local privilege escalation technique called “Dirty Frag,” which chains together two kernel vulnerabilities: CVE-2026-43284 in xfrm-ESP handling and CVE-2026-43500 in RxRPC.
The breach affecting educational technology provider Instructure has raised broader concerns about the security dependencies schools have on third-party cloud platforms.
Security researchers at Aikido are tracking a major expansion of the “Mini Shai-Hulud” malware campaign targeting the npm ecosystem.
Google Threat Intelligence Group says threat actors are moving from experimental AI usage toward large-scale operational integration of generative models across the cyberattack lifecycle.
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.

Join us for this week's Defender Fridays as Shane Warden, Principal Architect at ActiveState, shares what it's actually like to be on the receiving end of AI-assisted vulnerability reporting and what open source maintainers are already dealing with that the rest of the industry will face soon.
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.
What We'll Discuss
In this episode, Shane Warden draws on his experience supporting security for well-known open source projects to explore how AI-assisted vulnerability reporting is changing the threat landscape, and why what's happening in open source today is a preview of what every organization will face.
Key Topics:
Why open source projects are the early warning system for what's coming to enterprise security
How a flood of 95 AI-generated vulnerability reports turned into a six-figure extortion attempt
Why even a three percent legitimate hit rate still creates a real and unignorable workload for maintainers
How teams are using AI to respond to AI-generated reports, and where humans still need to be in the loop
What projects like curl, the Linux kernel, and Zig are doing differently in response to AI contributions
Why understanding your open source dependencies and their versions is more urgent than ever
The reputational risk of AI-generated vulnerability claims, even when those claims are false
About Our Guest
Shane Warden is Principal Architect at ActiveState and has been involved in open source since the late 1990s. Behind the scenes, he supports security for several well-known free software projects and has been navigating the growing wave of AI-assisted vulnerability submissions firsthand.
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: Shane Warden - Principal Architect at ActiveState

Dr. Adeel Shaikh Muhammad, a cybersecurity strategist and global speaker with over 16 years of experience across information security, networks, and systems. Adeel brings a practical perspective on how organizations can adapt to evolving cyber threats and the growing role of AI in cybersecurity.
Adeel, with an extraordinary portfolio of 40+ industry certifications, including CISSP, CISM, CISA, CCISO, PMP, CEH, ISO 27001 Lead Implementer & Auditor, and a robust suite of advanced Cisco, Microsoft, Fortinet, Barracuda, ITIL, PRINCE2, and AI-related credentials, he is a benchmark of technical mastery and visionary execution. His academic excellence includes a Master’s in Cybersecurity and a current Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) focused on the impact of AI in Security Operations Centers (SOCs) in the Gulf region.
Adeel is the author of two acclaimed books—“AI-Driven Transformation of Security Operations Center (SOC)” and “AI and Us: The Ethical Choices”—bridging the critical intersection of AI innovation and ethical leadership.
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.
The cyber threat environment in the Middle East has intensified sharply following military operations involving Israel, the United States, and Iran.
An intrusion campaign attributed with moderate confidence to the Iranian state-linked group MuddyWater was disguised as a Chaos ransomware attack, according to research from Rapid7.
Palo Alto Networks has warned customers that a critical remote code execution vulnerability in PAN-OS is being actively exploited in the wild.
Attackers are abusing Microsoft’s Phone Link application in a campaign that Cisco Talos says has been active since January. Report here.
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.