Security Visionaries

 On the latest Security Visionaries podcast, host Emily Wearmouth invites Steve Riley back to demystify another key acronym in the AI world: MCP, or model context protocol.  They break down what MCP actually is, how it functions, and why it is critical to understanding AI interactions. From there, they pivot into a discussion about the critical security implications of MCP, covering the risks of unauthenticated servers and the necessity of building both an authorization layer and an external policy layer to ensure granular access, data security, and compliance as AI agents proliferate. As always, this conversation with Steve offers illuminating context and perspective on one of the key security terms going into 2026. You won’t want to miss it.

In this episode, host Emily Wearmouth welcomes back Steve Riley, VP and Field CTO at Netskope, to demystify CSMA: Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture. They dive into what CSMA is, how it's being evangelized by analysts, and its vital role in moving beyond a simple zero trust model to achieve continuous adaptive trust. Steve explains the industry friction holding back standardization and issues a call to action for technology buyers to demand CSMA-ready products from their vendors, prioritizing interoperability to improve security posture and reduce risk.

Host Max Havey digs into the world of agentic AI-enabled threats and cyber espionage with guests Neil Thacker, Global Privacy and Data Protection Officer at Netskope, and Ray Canzanese, Head of Netskope Threat Labs. Together they discuss a recent report from Anthropic about the first-ever reported agentic AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign, exploring why this report lacked key technical evidence and the potential motivations behind them. They also dissect the notion that AI is making existing attack techniques—like phishing and social engineering—more accessible and faster, and debate the likelihood of another agentic AI-driven data breach in 2026.

Host Emily Wearmouth is joined by Netskope's Chief Digital and Information Officer, Mike Anderson, and Chief Information Security Officer, James Robinson, to discuss the evolving, and often conflicting, mandates of CIOs and CISOs concerning AI adoption. They dive into how to identify high-impact AI projects, the security challenge of shadow AI, and the need for new security models, like Model Context Protocol (MCP), to manage agent-to-agent communication. Additionally, learn about the internal initiatives Mike and James help to drive, such as the "Promptathon" and "AI Ambassador" program, designed to bridge the gap between innovation and security, and get their top tips for both disrupting and defending your organization in the age of generative AI.

In this episode host Max Havey dives deep into the world of unified security with guests Sinead O’Donovan, VP of Product Management, Identity and Network Access at Microsoft, and Eliot Sun, VP of Product Management at Netskope. Eliot and Sinead offer their perspectives on how an ideal unified strategy brings together data, network access, and identity. Additionally, they dig into the topline benefits, key metrics, and how organizations need to evolve to make a unified strategy a reality.