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Hacker Valley Studio

Hacker Valley Studio

Written by: Hacker Valley Media
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About this listen

Welcome back to the show! Hacker Valley Studio podcast features Host Ron Eddings, as he explores the world of cybersecurity through the eyes of professionals in the industry. We cover everything from inspirational real-life stories in tech, to highlighting influential cybersecurity companies, and we do so in a fun and enthusiastic way. We’re making cybersecurity accessible, creating a whole new form of entertainment: cybertainment.Copyright 2019 All rights reserved. Self-Help Success
Episodes
  • Turning 30,000 Findings Into 50 That Matter with Dan Pagel and Brad Hibbert
    May 1 2026

    Mythos just found 30,000 new vulnerabilities, and now every security team is asking the same question: what actually matters?

    In this episode, Ron Eddings sits down with Dan Pagel, CEO at Brinqa, and Brad Hibbert COO & CSO at Brinqa, to break down the Anthropic Mythos moment that rattled the security industry. From the panic of millions of new findings dropping overnight to the strategy of narrowing them down to the 50 that actually matter in YOUR environment, this episode is a masterclass in exposure management at machine speed.

    Dan and Brad share how Brinqa helps organizations make sense of massive volumes of findings, correlating data across 260+ connectors, enriching vulnerability context, and delivering clear, explainable actions to IT operations teams.

    They also tackle the bigger question: how do you build enough trust in AI to let it take autonomous action on your behalf? The answer starts with better data, better explainability, and knowing when to keep humans in (or on) the loop.

    Impactful Moments

    00:00 - Introduction

    02:00 - What just happened? Breaking down the Anthropic Mythos moment

    04:10 - Why most new findings don’t apply to your environment

    07:12 - What Mythos means to the broader market

    09:09 - Why AI-driven discovery isn’t slowing down

    11:00 - The gap between security and IT ops: how explainability closes it

    13:38 - How fast you should go through findings

    15:53 - Why MTTR is the wrong metric and what businesses actually care about

    18:03 - Why real-time visibility is replacing scheduled scanning

    19:50 - Human IN the loop vs. human ON the loop

    22:14 - What happens when AI hallucinates?

    27:20 - Why we’re over and under-estimating the impact of AI

    29:54 - The immediate win Brinqa achieves for its customers

    31:50 - What CISOs are really asking now: "What does good look like?"

    Links

    Connect with our guest, Dan Pagel, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpagel/

    Connect with our guest, Brad Hibbert, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradhibbert/

    Learn more about Brinqa: https://www.brinqa.com/

    Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams

    Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com Become a sponsor of the show to amplify your brand: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/

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    35 mins
  • Killing the Playbook with Agentic AI with Allan Alford and Tom Findling
    Apr 24 2026

    SOAR promised to close the loop in the SOC and fell flat. Agentic AI is finally delivering what a decade of playbooks couldn’t.

    In this episode, Ron sits down with Allan Alford, SVP at NTT Global Data Centers, and Tom Findling, co-founder and CEO of Conifers.ai. They cover why static playbooks broke under real-world conditions and how agentic systems are flipping the SOC operating model. They get into hallucination guardrails, human-on-the-loop versus human-in-the-loop, and the QR-code phishing investigation an agent solved on its own without being told how. The conversation closes on trust thresholds, the speed of enterprise adoption, and Allan's blunt warning to any CISO trying to slow this train down… you're already on the tracks.

    Impactful Moments 00:00 - Intro 02:30 - Why the lazy sysadmin always wins 05:15 - Why SOAR fell flat 08:00 - Guardrails, hallucinations, and showing the work 13:00 - The SOC AI holy grail 15:30 - The moment you start saying we 17:30 - QR-code phishing the agent solved alone 19:00 - Why playbooks were never going to scale 28:00 - Earning trust at enterprise scale 33:30 - Stand in front of this revolution and lose 35:40 - Risk quantification on business steroids

    Links Connect with our guest, Tom Findling, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomfindling/

    Learn more about Conifers.ai at https://www.conifers.ai

    Connect with our guest, Allan Alford, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allanalford/

    ___ Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams

    Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com

    Become a sponsor of the show to amplify your brand: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/

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    39 mins
  • The Epidemic of Sameness Is Killing Your Brand with Don Jeter
    Apr 17 2026

    In 2025, Torq brought a monster truck to RSAC. And Don Jeter, Torq's CMO, will be the first to tell you: nobody's buying an AI SOC platform because of a grave digger in the booth.

    In this episode, Ron sits down with Don to discuss what Torq is actually doing in a category packed with 60 near-identical vendors, and why "the epidemic of sameness" is the real threat to every cybersecurity brand right now. Don explains why Torq builds everything in-house, why he starts every strategy by listening instead of pitching the product, and why the only differentiator left in cyber marketing is how much you genuinely care. It's a conversation about brand, but it's really a conversation about trust, community, and what it takes to make a CISO text you back.

    Impactful Moments 00:00 - Introduction 03:50 - How Don landed at Torq 06:09 - What the Torq brand stands for 07:41 - Giving cybersecurity pros their flowers 09:09 - Cookie-cutter booths, cookie-cutter brands 12:00 - Why Torq built everything in-house 15:34 - Start with listening, not the product 18:13 - "We have to out-care the other teams" 21:45 - Nobody buys because of a monster truck 24:06 - Welcome to the experience age 28:30 - Entertain them or lose them

    Links Connect with our guest, Don Jeter, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donjeter/

    Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams

    Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com

    Become a sponsor of the show to amplify your brand: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/

    Show More Show Less
    35 mins
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