Beyond the Alert

Beyond the Alert features security operations leaders and SOC professionals sharing battle-tested insights on scaling security capabilities, managing high-performing teams, and leveraging emerging technologies to transform their operations. Join us as we discuss investigation techniques, leadership strategies, and real-world approaches to delivering effective security outcomes in an increasingly complex environment.

Beyond the Alert is a technology podcast hosted by Dropzone AI, with 25 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Dropzone AI hosts Beyond the Alert, a technology show with 25 episodes published.

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  Beyond the Alert

  AI just handed attackers a hundred-fold army | Jeffrey Bernstein, Critical Defence

  Aug 13, 202637 min

  AI hands attackers a hundred-fold army and drops the skill needed to launch plug-and-play attacks. Jeffrey Bernstein , Founder and Managing Director of Critical Defence , has spent 25 years responding to breaches, and he tells Anne why the same automation speeding up defenders is making attackers faster and harder to trace. He breaks down his investigate, isolate, eradicate approach, why 99% of wire fraud victims he sees skip MFA, and how his team clawed one ransomware victim back to 86% recovery. Topics discussed: Why AI gives attackers a hundred-fold automated army The investigate, isolate, eradicate response framework Three attack buckets dominating incident response investigations Why 99% of wire fraud victims lacked MFA Protecting critical infrastructure owned by the private sector Quantum computing's coming threat to encrypted data Vendor governance and your weakest security partner Separating incident response from your managed service provider

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  Beyond the Alert

  Why phishing still works, and why more tools won't fix it

  Jul 23, 202642 min

  Phishing still works, and Randy Rose argues more tools won't fix it. The VP of Security Operations and Intelligence at the Center for Internet Security brings a forensic anthropology background to cyber, treating attackers as humans with repeatable patterns rather than technical indicators to chase. He walks host Anne through mental malware, the old-brain versus new-brain conflict attackers exploit, why SOC analysts need air traffic control style breaks, and how to make users the first line of defense instead of the weakest link. Topics discussed: Applying forensic anthropology to model attacker behavior Mental malware and the old-brain versus new-brain conflict Cialdini's weapons of influence behind phishing and social engineering Using the Pyramid of Pain to disrupt behaviors Tower and Sortie method built on air traffic control Making users the first line of defense Designing around human cognition instead of changing it Why diversity of thought sharpens security decisions Listen to more episodes: Apple Spotify YouTube

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  Beyond the Alert

  Why every SOC will be agent-first within five years

  Jul 16, 202639 min

  Within five years, every organization defending a network will run an agent-first posture, and analysts who can't operate agents won't have jobs. Jason Rivera , Field CISO and Head of Solution Engineering at SimSpace , explains why intelligent autonomous adversaries turn cybersecurity from a responsive discipline into a preemptive one. Jason walks Anne through building muscle memory for threats that don't exist yet, the DMZ chatbot exercises that expose new vulnerabilities, and the three-part prompting framework he uses to pull expert-level work from any model. Topics discussed: Building an agent-first defense posture within five years Making future attacks exist to build defender muscle memory Exposing DMZ chatbot agents that leak data and executables The context, mission, desired outcome prompting framework Why repetition-based security roles disappear, strategists multiply Phishing volume tripling as AI scales attacks Training your model on your own voice and frameworks Compute as the deciding factor in the AI arms race Listen to more episodes: Apple Spotify YouTube

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  Beyond the Alert

  Will AI replace tier-1 SOC analysts? A fraud hunter's take

  Jul 2, 202636 min

  The least sophisticated fraudsters often teach the sharpest lessons. Blake Butler , who leads financial crime threat intelligence at PayPal, has picked up tradecraft from teenagers who spotted abuse paths that seasoned actors overlooked. He shows Anne how to read an attacker's sophistication, why product abuse outpaces zero-day patching, where human intelligence beats automation, and what stolen biometrics mean for a cashless world. Topics discussed: Reading threat actor sophistication through speed, tradecraft, and OPSEC leaks Why product features get abused faster than zero-days Behavioral analysis after credential stuffing hits payment accounts Balancing threat mitigation against intelligence collection and attribution Where human intelligence outperforms ten automated security tools Why adversaries watch their own logs for investigators Teaching attribution through gamified Intelligence Capture the Flag Biometric theft threats in an increasingly cashless world Listen to more episodes: Apple Spotify YouTube

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  Beyond the Alert

  Why initial access brokers are an intelligence advantage, not just a threat

  Jun 18, 202636 min

  Alex Bovicelli runs cyber threat intelligence across 15,000+ insured organizations at Tokio Marine HCC , and his program sits on something most teams will never have: direct visibility into thousands of ransomware claims and full DFIR engagements. That means he's not theorizing about how breaches happen. He's watching them close out in real time. In this episode, Alex gets into why the threat feeds most SOC teams rely on are a lagging indicator at best, how his team decides what actually gets escalated to customers, and what ransomware groups are really targeting right now and it's not what the news is covering. Topics discussed: Why threat feeds are post-exploitation artifacts and what analysts should be doing instead Using TTPs and MITRE ATT&CK to move left of bang before IOCs ever get published How visibility into insurance claims builds a prioritization model that customers actually trust Why one access broker selling to five ransomware groups makes infrastructure tracking easier, not harder Building narratives that get leadership to act before an incident, not after Where AI genuinely accelerates threat intelligence work and where the intelligence-generation hype breaks down Why groups like Akira have profitably targeted SMBs for years through opportunistic SSL VPN brute forcing, not targeted recon The mission-driven quality that separates elite threat intelligence analysts from technically competent ones Listen to more episodes: Apple Spotify YouTube

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