Data Security in the Age of AI: Proactive Strategies to Protect Your Most Valuable Assets
The webcast, led by Peter Sleven, senior information‑security manager at Bank of Ireland, examined how enterprises can safeguard data as AI adoption accelerates. Sleven framed data security as a prerequisite for successful AI projects and outlined a roadmap that spans challenges, trends, technology pillars and a NIS‑CSF‑aligned blueprint. He identified five core challenges: data sprawl across hybrid clouds, limited visibility into sensitive assets, pressure to deploy AI without foundational controls, tightening regulatory scrutiny such as DORA, and entrenched point‑solution silos. Current trends countering these issues include a surge in insider threats, rapid uptake of data‑security‑posture‑management (DSPM) tools—used or evaluated by 94 % of firms—and a market shift toward consolidated platforms that blend CSPM, DLP and UEBA capabilities. Sleven cited Zcaler’s 2025 “Data at Risk” report, which logged more than 4.2 million data‑loss incidents tied to generative‑AI tools. He illustrated a realistic breach: a finance analyst attempts to bulk‑export customer records to a personal OneDrive, triggering DSPM discovery, DLP blocking and UEBA‑generated risk scores. A parallel DLP example showed an email containing a password database being automatically blocked after content inspection and policy evaluation. The takeaway is clear: a layered “security triangle” of DSPM, DLP and UEBA provides the visibility, control and behavioral analytics needed to lock down AI‑driven workflows. Organizations that adopt unified, cross‑functional platforms can reduce integration overhead, satisfy regulators and turn data‑security investments into a competitive advantage for AI initiatives.
Cybersecurity Standards Scorecard (2025 Edition)
The webcast, hosted by veteran SANS instructor James Troll, introduces the 2025 edition of the Cybersecurity Standards Scorecard – an annual research effort that catalogues and evaluates the growing universe of cyber‑security frameworks. Troll notes that the SANS database now...
Blue Team | Intelligence-Driven Defense for the Real World
The video outlines an intelligence‑driven approach to blue‑team operations, arguing that modern cyber‑threat intelligence (CTI) must evolve from static reports into an operational pipeline that turns external threat feeds and internal telemetry into concrete defensive actions. The speaker, who credits...
Red Team | Weaponizing LLM Fine-Tuning for Stealthy C2
Researchers from Palo Alto Networks' Cortex team demonstrated how attackers can weaponize fine-tuning of large language models to build stealthy command-and-control channels that live inside popular AI models. They show attackers already using LLMs for reconnaissance, social engineering and coding,...
Blue Team | From Exploit to Risk: Scaling Purple Team Insights
Anthony Switzer argues for “first-principle purple teaming,” a methodology that converts red-team and pentest findings into actionable business risk and mission impact. He stresses translating technical detections (e.g., Active Directory exploits, MITRE mappings) into language executives and auditors understand, and...
Blue Team | Hunting Cloud Persistence Without Malware
The talk explains how modern attackers achieve long-term cloud persistence without malware by abusing legitimate cloud-native features—OAuth app consent, stolen or replayed tokens, mismanaged service principal credentials, long-lived API keys, mailbox rules and automated connectors. These malicious activities blend into...