Techstrong Gang

Private companies now have federal authorization to run offensive cyber operations against foreign criminal networks, under a new national security memo requiring DHS/DOJ oversight and a $1M bond per firm. Meanwhile, a lawsuit from The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation accuses the White House of selling early access to presidential posts for up to $100K a month, drawing Senate calls for an SEC investigation. And after a suspected Iranian campaign hit water utilities in a dozen states, senators introduce the Water Cyber Shield Act with $300M a year in funding on the table.
Host: Mike Vizard. Guests: Jack Poller, Tracy Ragan, Drew Gutstein, Jeff Reich, Jon Swartz.

OpenAI has paused development on its powerful Astra model over concerns about autonomous cyberattack risk, arriving the same week Bernie Sanders called on Silicon Valley to pause AI development in the interest of humanity. The conversation turns to whether the cybersecurity industry itself has grown too big, and closes with a look at organizational behavior — the very human instincts still shaping decisions inside AI-era companies.
Hosted by Alan Shimel and Mike Vizard, with guests Kate Scarcella, Sid Nag, Fred WIlmot and Chris Blask.

A New Mexico judge hit Meta with a $567 million penalty, declaring the platform a “public nuisance.” The panel also covers the fast-moving AI coding space — AWS’s new agentic Kiro workspace, Claude Code’s auto mode going on by default, and a report on the industry’s reduced reliance on manual prompt engineering — before closing on SpaceX and NVIDIA’s orbital AI collaboration, Starmind.
Hosts: Alan Shimel, Mike Vizard. Guests: Stephen Foskett, Mitch Ashley.

A look at three stories reshaping tech policy and infrastructure: a possible US ban on Chinese data center equipment following a router backdoor discovery, the Sam Tunick case testing the boundaries of digital self-defense, and the Linux Foundation’s formal launch of the Tokenomics Foundation.
Host Mike Vizard is joined by guests Jeff Reich, Barbara Roos, and Fred Wilmot.

Apple says it can’t keep up with the volume of AI-generated bug reports, forcing new caps on submissions — a sign of how AI is straining vulnerability disclosure at scale. Red Hat responds to the moment with a new open source AI governance project, while Hims & Hers faces an FTC lawsuit over sharing sensitive health data with third-party advertisers.
Panel: Mike Vizard (host) with guests Stacy Thayer, Jiewen Wang, and Chris Blask.

A fast-moving npm worm called Shai-Hulud has infected open source packages with more than 2 billion monthly downloads, and Amazon has linked a North Korean group to multiple other open-source supply-chain attacks. Researchers also documented the first known case of an AI agent hacking another AI agent, while RapidFort works to extend security protection into runtime environments.
The panel also examines why cyber resilience plans often fail in practice, how Commvault’s new tie-up with Google Threat Intelligence fits the broader trend, and how LinkedIn has become an active counterintelligence battlefield in the “Robin Sage 2.0” era.
Host: Mike Vizard. Guests: Jack Gold (J.Gold Associates), Drew Gutstein (Gutstein Security Works), Robert Reeves.

AI is now both weapon and target. New research shows attackers can exploit AI systems within 48 hours of a vulnerability going public, and a North Korea-linked group is behind multiple open source supply-chain attacks, according to Amazon. The AI Proving Grounds consortium is stress-testing whether autonomous security agents are actually ready to act on their own — and when they go wrong, it’s usually the control plane, not the model, that’s rogue. Meanwhile, the EU has begun enforcing its AI Act, expanding oversight of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Mike Vizard hosts Sid Nag (Tekonyx), Kate Scarcella (Continuous Delivery Foundation), and Chris Blask (QuietWire) to unpack all three stories.

This week: Big Tech’s alleged “Trump Transaction Tax,” the $100 billion federal land AI data center push, SpaceX vs. Amazon’s satellite spectrum war against the telecom giants, and why AI search is forcing media companies to own their audience directly. With Elizabeth Safran and Tom Hollingsworth.

Mike Vizard, Jon Swartz, Fred Wilmot, and Jack Poller break down how Anthropic's own safety testing let Claude models breach three real organizations, a new survey on wasted enterprise AI spending, and IBM's report on the 56% surge in AI-enabled cyberattacks.

Mark Zuckerberg gave four rare interviews this week arguing against concentrating AI power — even as Techstrong.ai's Alan Shimel notes Meta's own new Muse Spark model is closed and now sold commercially. A new Futurum Group survey of 839 IT decision-makers finds 75% of organizations have hit a production issue caused by AI coding tools, with Futurum's Mitch Ashley warning vendors "will lose the renewal conversation" if they can't prove value. And Alan Shimel makes the case that cloud native didn't get replaced by AI — it got inherited by it. Full breakdown on today's Techstrong Gang with hosts Alan Shimel and Mike Vizard, plus Jon Swartz, Mitch Ashley, and Robert Reeves.