Cyber Focus: Cybersecurity, National Security, and Critical Infrastructure

Latest Episodes:

Cyber Focus Unplugged: AI Threats, China, and the Next Congress Nov 03, 2026

Show notes

Winning the AI race takes more than building the best model. It demands hardened infrastructure, reliable energy, and the public's confidence. As AI accelerates cyberattacks and China establishes footholds inside American pipelines, ports, and power grids, will policymakers and industry leaders act before a crisis forces their hand?

In this inaugural Cyber Focus: Unplugged roundtable, Frank Cilluffo convenes McCrary Institute senior fellows Bill Evanina, Alison King, Cynthia Kaiser, and Rob Joyce. Drawing inspiration from The McLaughlin Group, the panel debates AI's advantage for attackers, Congress's cyber priorities, how to impose costs on China, and whether CISA has the resources to deliver on its new strategy. The discussion closes with blunt predictions on Taiwan, Russian aggression in Europe, and the future of U.S. cyber policy.

Main topics

Is AI giving attackers the upper hand?
What does winning the AI race require?
Can the U.S. build public support for AI?
What should Congress prioritize on cyber?
Will Congress renew Section 702?
How should the U.S. impose costs on China?
Can CISA deliver on its new strategy?
What comes next for Taiwan, Russia, and U.S. cyber policy?

Key quotes

"Prepositioning, for all the right reasons, is absolutely a terrorism thing. If you look at what they've done to our critical infrastructure, if that was another country... we would be in a war." — Bill Evanina

"You don't establish that credibility through guidance. You establish that credibility by executing the controls and demonstrating that they work." — Alison King

"We're so worried about having the exact attribution, the exact... technical smoking gun, that China's conducting many, many other attacks that are beyond Volt Typhoon... and we have a fear of calling them out unless we absolutely know with 105% certainty that that's happening. And we have to get better at that because they're using us for our process to be able to give themselves the strategic ambiguity they need to conduct more and more activities." — Cynthia Kaiser

"People often pound on the table and say we should cyber them harder. Cyber doesn't deter cyber. I'm sorry, you're not going to cyber them out of our critical infrastructure. We've got to use these other tools. And unfortunately, the biggest hammer we have is economic, and we're unwilling to use that right now." — Rob Joyce

"When we look at frontier models, I have yet to see so much power reside in the hands of so few…to think that they're not intelligence targets for foreign intelligence services is asinine." — Frank Cilluffo

Links

About the Panelists

The panelists participate in their capacity as McCrary Institute senior fellows, rather than as representatives of their respective employers.

Bill Evanina is founder and CEO of the Evanina Group and former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center.

Rob Joyce is founder of Joyce Cyber and former director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency.

Cynthia Kaiser leads Halcyon's Ransomware Research Center as senior vice president and previously served as deputy assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division.

Alison King is vice president of government affairs at Forescout Technologies, with previous roles at CISA, the Department of the Navy, and the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.

How Will CISA's New Cyber Strategy Protect Critical Infrastructure? with Nick Andersen Oct 26, 2026

Show notes

CISA's new cyber strategy puts a difficult question at the center of national cyber defense: How do you decide what to protect first?

Recorded at the New York Stock Exchange, this special episode of Cyber Focus brings together host Frank Cilluffo and CISA Acting Director Nick Andersen to discuss the new cyber strategy, protecting critical infrastructure, and measuring resilience. Andersen explains why the agency must prioritize its highest-consequence work, asks private sector partners to hold CISA accountable, and emphasizes the outcome that matters most to communities: keeping essential services available.

Main topics

CISA 2030's three pillars
CI Fortify: isolation and recovery
Critical infrastructure priorities
Private sector partnerships and accountability
CISA's review of agency activities
Measuring resilience across sectors

Key quotes

"We've got to prioritize. And that means making some tough decisions and making some tough calls." — Nick Andersen

"CISA is an agency that is all carrots, no sticks." — Nick Andersen

"[Communities] care about the essential services that need to be delivered and they care about that persistent availability of the things that they're relying on just to be able to live their lives." — Nick Andersen

Links and resources

CISA unveils new strategy to strengthen national cyber defense and critical infrastructure security

About the Guest:

Nick Andersen is Acting Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), where he leads efforts to reduce risks to America's cyber and physical infrastructure. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he has held senior cybersecurity roles at the Department of Energy, the White House, and in the private sector.

Is Critical Infrastructure Ready for AI Attacks? with Booz Allen's Brad Medairy Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

Can cyber defenses built around human attackers keep pace with AI? Brad Medairy, president of Booz Allen's National Cyber Practice and a McCrary Institute senior fellow, joins Frank Cilluffo to discuss what his team's testing reveals about AI's ability to conduct cyber operations and navigate industrial systems.

They examine how these capabilities lower barriers for attackers, why deploying defensive AI requires trust and human accountability, and what executives should do to assess readiness. The conversation also explores active cyber defense and the need to keep essential services running through a compromise.

Main topics

AI-driven cyber operations
Frontier model testing
U.S.–China capability gaps
Industrial systems at risk
AI attack simulations
Human oversight and accountability
Deception and active defense
Operating through compromise
Board oversight and readiness

Key quotes

"Today, with an agentic attack, with an AI-enabled cyber operator that can operate at speed and scale, I think the defender does not have the advantage. It can't move at that pace." — Brad Medairy

The way that we've seen models be able to rip apart these [OT] environments, understand the protocols, understand the control system, it's really phenomenal in terms of the capabilities that they provide… the risk to critical infrastructure is at an all-time high." — Brad Medairy

"I don't think that we're going to defeat the threat of the future that's so transformative by just automating past operating models and approaches." — Brad Medairy

"These adversary capabilities are progressing much faster than cyber defenses. And so you're gonna have to continually assess your environment, continually assess your controls, continually evolve your program." — Brad Medairy

"We're inventing new operating models, we're inventing new technologies for cybersecurity. And I think now is our time to really define the future. It's going to take… really working this problem together." — Brad Medairy

Resources discussed

Booz Allen's Cyber Weapons Index
McCrary Institute–Booz Allen joint paper: "AI-enabled threats demand mission-speed resilience – here's how to build it"
McCrary Institute–Booz Allen joint paper: "Outpacing AI-enabled cyber threats: A playbook for government CISOs"

About the Guest:

Brad Medairy is president of Booz Allen's national cyber business, leading the development of defensive and offensive cyber solutions to address America's toughest cyber challenges. His work spans AI, machine learning, cloud innovation, and intelligence tradecraft.

He leads thousands of cyber operators, security researchers, and software engineers who secure supply chains, protect critical infrastructure, and defend 5G networks, space systems, and advanced weapons platforms. His team counters sophisticated adversaries for customers including the intelligence community, U.S. Cyber Command, FBI, CISA, and the Department of War.

When Seeing Isn't Believing: Combatting Deepfakes with iProov's Dominic Forrest Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

How do you know the person on the other end of a video call is who they claim to be? For Cybersecurity Awareness Month, host Frank Cilluffo welcomes iProov Chief Technology Officer Dominic Forrest to Cyber Focus to discuss how deepfakes are changing fraud, cybersecurity, and digital trust.

Forrest demonstrates how a single photograph can be used to impersonate someone on video and explains why awareness alone isn't enough. The conversation examines how impersonation can give attackers access to organizations, what protections employees and consumers need, and how leaders can evaluate defenses. They also explore the challenge of verifying that AI agents are acting with a person's authorization.

Main Topics

Convincing deepfakes made with free software
Why familiar faces and voices aren't proof of identity
Verifying identity and genuine presence
Fake employees and critical infrastructure access
Securing onboarding and account recovery
Protecting consumers from impersonation scams
Testing and updating deepfake defenses
Verifying human authorization for AI agents

Key Quotes

"I've spent the last 13 years of my life looking at fake faces, and I know today I can't tell the difference between a fake face and a genuine face on a Teams call or on the end of a camera."— Dominic Forrest

"But you cannot put this on the consumer. In the same way as in companies, we do not put phishing entirely on the employee." — Dominic Forrest

"The test I use is if I was in a street and there was a curtain in front of me, would I hand the money through the curtain if I could not see who was on the far side? Because you cannot trust what it is you can see." — Dominic Forrest

"But sometimes at those critical moments, you have to bring it back to the human and say, did this person who I know and I trust authorize this? And is the action that's taking place actually the action that they authorized?" — Dominic Forrest

Resources Mentioned

About the Guest:

Dominic Forrest is responsible for iProov's technology vision, strategy, and roadmap which includes the design and development of its cloud-based infrastructure.

Dominic has more than 25 years of experience in senior roles in telecommunications companies and internet service providers managing the implementation of large-scale projects including the launch of NTL's broadband service to over two million customers.

Pushing Cyber Planning Beyond Prevention with Stephanie Crowe and Nick Andersen Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

Keeping power, water, and other essential services running requires planning for what happens when cyber defenses fail. On this episode of Cyber Focus, Frank Cilluffo speaks with Stephanie Crowe, head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre, and Nick Andersen, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), about how two close allies are preparing critical infrastructure to operate through compromise.

The conversation examines how governments and industry identify their most critical systems, turn shared intelligence into joint action, and prepare for attacks that cross sectors and borders. Crowe and Andersen also discuss how AI is changing cyber defense and what that means for infrastructure investment, workforce skills, and decisions in the boardroom.

Main Topics

Operating through cyberattacks
Protecting critical assets and dependencies
China's infrastructure prepositioning
CI Fortify and joint industry planning
U.S.-Australia and Five Eyes cooperation
AI defense and aging infrastructure
AI's energy demands
Workforce skills and boardroom decisions

Key Quotes

"You have to be able to fight through compromise now, which is a really different way of thinking about the cyber threat." — Stephanie Crowe

"We've come a long way from thinking about our number one cyber risk being data breaches and theft of information into a world where service disruption is now the thing that we have to really consider and plan in our cyber risk management." — Stephanie Crowe

"And just to be completely honest, Australia really bailed us out when we were in the middle of our shutdown… Australia led from the front." — Nick Andersen

"If the Congress decided that in the next budget that CISA needed to be quintupled in size, we're still not going to have enough resources to be able to meet every single area that we'd like to be able to stray into with our attention." — Nick Andersen

"We know that we're seeing exceedingly aggressive, well-orchestrated campaigns, in particular from entities like China, that are engaged in a significant way to preposition across our critical infrastructure to hold it at risk at a time and place of their choosing." — Nick Andersen

Links and Resources

About the Guests:

Stephanie Crowe is Deputy Director-General of the Australian Signals Directorate and Head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre. She has held senior roles in signals intelligence and cybersecurity, leading efforts to strengthen Australia's cyber defenses, build threat intelligence capabilities, and support industry during major cyber incidents.

CISA, AI, and the Future of the Federal Workforce with Rep. James Walkinshaw Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

As AI expands the capabilities of cyber adversaries, does the federal government have the workforce and tools to keep pace? Rep. James Walkinshaw of Virginia joins Frank Cilluffo to discuss cuts at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), their implications for critical infrastructure, and his push for an independent assessment of the agency's capacity.

They also examine responsible AI adoption in government, the risks of unauthorized AI tools, and the public anxieties driving opposition to data centers. Walkinshaw outlines efforts to strengthen the federal technology workforce, streamline security approvals, and improve accountability for basic cybersecurity practices.

Main Topics

CISA staffing and readiness
Local cybersecurity support
Federal cyber workforce
Responsible AI adoption
Shadow AI risks
Data centers and public trust
FedRAMP reform
CLEAR Act and event logging
Bipartisan cyber leadership

Key Quotes

"At the precise moment when we most needed CISA to be operating at peak efficiency, it was systematically dismantled." — Rep. James Walkinshaw

"When it comes to AI especially, cybersecurity can't be an afterthought. It has to be built in from the very beginning." — Rep. James Walkinshaw

"People are starting to see data centers as the physical embodiment of the anxieties we all have around AI." — Rep. James Walkinshaw

"If you want to bring progress in AI to a screeching halt overnight, that will happen if something goes really, really bad. If you don't get the safety piece right." — Rep. James Walkinshaw

"Federal agencies currently are not even meeting the requirements in terms of event logging. They certainly, for the most part, couldn't answer any of those questions about time to detect or time to mitigate. So our CLEAR Act will require some reporting to Congress around event logging." — Rep. James Walkinshaw

Links and Resources

About the Guest:

Rep. James Walkinshaw represents Virginia's 11th Congressional District and serves on the House Homeland Security and Oversight and Government Reform committees. Before entering Congress, he served on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and spent more than a decade as chief of staff to Rep. Gerry Connolly. He is also founder and co-chair of the Congressional Federal Workforce Caucus.

Who's in Control of the AI Race? with Bill Evanina and Matt Hayden Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

Can the United States compete with China in AI while managing the risks the technology creates? Host Frank Cilluffo welcomes McCrary Institute senior fellows Bill Evanina and Matt Hayden for a discussion of the difficult choices behind that question. Evanina, who previously led U.S. counterintelligence, and Hayden, a former senior CISA official now at GDIT, assess expectations for the Trump–Xi summit, the limits of cyber cooperation, and the trade-offs behind chip export controls.

The conversation also examines Chinese influence efforts surrounding data centers, the importance of energy to AI competition, the stakes of quantum computing, and whether familiar approaches to accountability can work when an AI agent becomes an insider threat.

Main topics

Trump–Xi summit expectations
Volt Typhoon and cyber deterrence
Chip exports and technology theft
S.–China crisis communications
Chinese influence on data center debates
AI, energy, and the quantum race
AI safeguards and accountability
Taiwan and semiconductor dependence

Key quotes

"We cannot be AI dominant unless we're energy dominant. We can't be. And when you look at AI, it's not AI in its own, it's that it accelerates everything else." — Frank Cilluffo

"And so when we look at AI, it's not a matter of having the most advanced models. That helps. But it is a matter of getting that implementation into every corner of industry so that those efficiencies are known and used." — Matt Hayden

"The big question is AI— should it be considered an insider threat? And the answer was a resounding yes. But what do we do with insider threats? We try to catch them and prosecute them. Are we going to prosecute an AI agent?" —Bill Evanina

"From a pure liability standpoint of who we can blame, there's no AI agent that operates without compute. And so somebody's got to empower this thing at an original sin level." — Matt Hayden

"As a metaphor, AI is a supermarket gas station on the highway to quantum. ... Whoever wins quantum, they say wins the world. I think you have to win AI before you win quantum." — Bill Evanina

Links and resources

CISA: Volt Typhoon and persistent access to U.S. critical infrastructure

About the guests:

Bill Evanina is a McCrary Institute senior fellow and founder and CEO of the Evanina Group. He previously directed the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, leading U.S. government counterintelligence efforts, and held senior roles at the FBI and CIA.

Matt Hayden is a McCrary Institute senior fellow and vice president of cyber and emerging threats at General Dynamics Information Technology. He previously served as assistant secretary for cyber, infrastructure, risk and resilience policy at the Department of Homeland Security and as senior advisor to the director of CISA.

Can the Private Sector Go on Cyber Offense? with Armadin's Stacy O'Mara Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

The federal government wants private companies to play a more active role in cyber operations. A new White House memo would allow vetted firms to support government action against transnational criminal groups. The plan marks a shift from sharing threat data to disrupting threats together. But key questions remain: Who controls the mission? Who carries the risk? Where does private support end and government authority begin?

Stacy O'Mara joins Frank Cilluffo to discuss those questions. They examine oversight, liability, AI and critical infrastructure. O'Mara also draws lessons from SolarWinds and the war in Ukraine. Her bottom line: Trust must exist before a crisis, and new programs must be tested before they are scaled.

Main Topics Covered

New rules for private cyber operations
From information sharing to joint action
Authority, oversight and private-sector risk
AI, critical infrastructure and human judgment
Trust and readiness before a crisis

Key Quotes

"We can put all these partnerships in place, create a 70-page memo on how to do it. But at the end of the day, if there's a significant event, it's going to be the leadership of major ISPs, telecoms, and cybersecurity providers who are picking up the phone and calling each other in the middle of the night." — Stacy O'Mara

"My gut tells me it is going to take a serious incident, and it would probably include loss of life. …But until we actually go through it and suffer some of the consequences, I don't know that we'll actually be able to put everything into place" — Stacy O'Mara

"It can't just be: 'We're going to collaborate, and we're going to do all these things together because we're scared and we don't know what's coming.' But it needs to be: 'What are our desired outcomes?'" — Stacy O'Mara

"You want AI to perform operations—or activities, rather—at speed and scale. But the human aspect should be around judgment and consequences. That should not be left up to AI." — Stacy O'Mara

"Pilot these programs. Get a win. Figure out what works and doesn't work. And then replicate it and scale it. We don't have to do everything all at once." — Stacy O'Mara

Relevant Links and Resources

Guest Bio

Stacy O'Mara leads government affairs at Armadin. She previously held cybersecurity policy and government affairs roles at FireEye, Mandiant and Google. She later advised technology companies at Venable.

25 Years After 9/11: Lessons in Modern Homeland Defense with Michael Chertoff Sep 08, 2026

Show notes

Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff joins Frank Cilluffo for a firsthand account of that day and the national security transformation that followed.

Chertoff recalls arriving at the FBI command center as the attacks unfolded, hearing the order to shoot down the fourth plane and confronting the urgent question of whether more attacks were coming. He also describes the information-sharing barriers exposed by 9/11 and the effort to bring agencies with different missions and cultures together under the newly created Department of Homeland Security.

The conversation then turns to the threats facing the country today. Chertoff explains why terrorism has become more distributed and difficult to detect, how cyberattacks and artificial intelligence are changing homeland security, and why the United States must remain vigilant without treating every risk as something that can be eliminated entirely.

Main topics

Michael Chertoff's memories of September 11
Building DHS and breaking down information silos
How the terrorist threat has evolved
Cyber, AI and critical infrastructure
Vigilance and managing risk

Key quotes

"Within minutes after I arrived, we heard about the third plane hitting the Pentagon, and then I remember sitting in the command center and hearing the order being relayed to shoot down the fourth plane." — Michael Chertoff

"If you don't coordinate at the federal level, you run the risk of again having another missed opportunity to stop a terrorist attack." — Michael Chertoff

"We've undermined those big terrorist organizations, but now we have very small networks or even individuals who are acting because they're being prompted or even on their own, they're getting radicalized." — Michael Chertoff

"The distributed nature of terrorism now, and the fact that we now have domestic terrorists, indigenous to the U.S., means that the process of detecting is much more difficult." — Michael Chertoff

"The problem has not gone away. It's simply altered and modified and evolved." — Michael Chertoff

"What you have to do is manage the risk by understanding what's a reasonable amount of risk you have to tolerate." — Michael Chertoff

Links and resources

About the Guest

Michael Chertoff served as U.S. secretary of homeland security from 2005 to 2009, following roles as a federal appeals court judge and assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Criminal Division. He previously supervised the Justice Department's investigation into the 9/11 attacks and is the author of Exploding Data: Reclaiming Our Cyber Security in the Digital Age. He is now co-founder and executive chairman of the Chertoff Group, a global security risk management and advisory firm.

How DARPA Is Preparing for the Next Technological Surprise with Patrick Lincoln Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

Cybersecurity has spent decades in a reactive cycle: find a vulnerability, patch it and wait for the next one. Dr. Patrick Lincoln joins Frank Cilluffo to discuss DARPA's effort to break that cycle by building systems that are inherently secure, private and resilient from the start. They explore lessons from the AI Cyber Challenge, the role of mathematical proof in eliminating vulnerabilities and the challenge of making complex systems trustworthy even when individual components fail. The conversation also examines how research can move beyond isolated demonstrations to strengthen the technologies and infrastructure society increasingly depends on.

Main Topics

Preventing and providing technological surprise
IPTO's return to computer science foundations
Inherent security and privacy
AI-enabled vulnerability discovery and patching
Formal methods and mathematical proof
Trust and resilience in megasystems
Moving research into real-world use

Key Quotes

"This back and forth or cat and mouse game has been going on a long time. I'm getting tired of that. And so we're trying to find new foundations to build inherently secure systems and inherently private systems." — Patrick Lincoln

"We need power tools to let people do more, better, faster, with quicker reaction time and higher assurance that what they do actually does lead to really fixing the problem and not creating new problems, not causing harm to the system." — Patrick Lincoln

"Software is difficult. And so how can you get to high assurance for a complex system involving the analog systems, the sensors and actuators, the digital systems and hardware, and the digital systems and software? And there are processes for this, some of those involving mathematical proof and formal methods." — Patrick Lincoln

"If you've got a million subsystems, there will be failures, and perhaps some of them even maliciously so. ... By building these compositional—think internal firewalls—within a complex system, and ways that we can understand the emergent properties of a large collective of systems, ... we can then predict and therefore give assurance about its behavior long term." — Patrick Lincoln

"My favorite answer to this problem, the world's most urgent critical problem, I'll say the DARPA answer is improving our collective ability to solve urgent critical problems." — Patrick Lincoln

Links and Resources

About the Guest:

Patrick Lincoln is director of the Information Processing Techniques Office at DARPA, where he leads work spanning artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and privacy, and resilient complex systems.

Before joining DARPA, Lincoln held senior research leadership roles at SRI, an independent nonprofit research and development institute, where he led multidisciplinary work across computing, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and advanced systems research.

Lincoln holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University and a B.S. in computer science from MIT.