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The CISO Signal: True Cybercrime Podcast

The CISO Signal: True Cybercrime Podcast

By: Jeremy Ladner
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The CISO Signal is a true cybercrime podcast investigating the most consequential breaches, insider threats, takedowns, and nation-state hacks shaping today’s digital world. Each episode combines gripping, cinematic storytelling with exclusive interviews from top CISOs and cybersecurity leaders. Together, we break down how the world’s most dangerous cyberattacks unfolded and what today’s security professionals must learn from them. Whether you’re a Chief Information Security Officer, a security team member, or a fan of true crime and high-stakes digital espionage, this show pulls you behind the curtain of real-world cyber warfare. 🎧 Educational. Entertaining. Essential. The CISO Signal delivers expert insights and battlefield-tested lessons that every security leader and true cybercrime fan should hear.© 2026 Jeremy Ladner True Crime
Episodes
  • The Panama Papers | The Business of Hiding Wealth - The CISO Signal Episode 17

    The Panama Papers | The Business of Hiding Wealth - The CISO Signal Episode 17
    Jun 30 2026
    The Panama Papers | The Business of Hiding Wealth - The CISO Signal Episode 17 🎙 With Jeremy Ladner and guest co-host Michael Darling, CEO of Solstice SecurityFor decades, the offshore financial system operated in near-total obscurity.Behind shell corporations, nominee directors, and offshore entities, fortunes moved quietly across borders through legal structures designed to conceal ownership, preserve privacy, and in some cases, avoid scrutiny altogether.Most people never saw the machinery.That was the point.Inside a law firm in Panama City called Mossack Fonseca, more than 200,000 offshore entities were managed on behalf of presidents, billionaires, celebrities, oligarchs, business leaders, and clients whose names rarely appeared on any public document.The system was built on one fundamental assumption:That secrecy would hold.Then someone broke in.Or perhaps someone on the inside decided the world needed to know.To this day, no one knows for certain.What is known is that 11.5 million confidential documents began flowing into the hands of journalists.Emails.Passports.Bank records.Corporate filings.Decades of hidden financial relationships suddenly exposed to public scrutiny.Prime Ministers resigned.Governments launched investigations.The world's most powerful people found themselves reading their own names in newspaper headlines.And a question still lingers years later:Was this one of the most important acts of whistleblowing in modern history?Or one of the most consequential data breaches ever recorded?In this episode of The CISO Signal | True Cybercrime Podcast, host Jeremy Ladner is joined by Michael Darling, CEO of Solstice Security and former Marine Corps cyber leader, to examine the mysterious leak that became known as the Panama Papers.Together they explore:• How the offshore financial system actually works• Why secrecy became one of the world's most valuable legal services• The cybersecurity failures that may have enabled the leak• Whether "John Doe" was a whistleblower, insider threat, or something else entirely• Why legality and ethics often occupy very different territory• What modern CISOs can learn from one of history's most consequential data exposuresBecause sometimes the most devastating cyber attacks don't lock your systems.They expose your secrets.🎙 Guest CISO Co-HostMichael DarlingCEO, Solstice SecurityFormer Marine Corps Cyber Leadersolsticellc.ioSolstice Security helps organizations strengthen security programs, manage cyber risk, and build resilient security cultures capable of defending today's most complex digital environments.🔎 Episode Topics• The Panama Papers• Mossack Fonseca• Offshore entities and shell companies• Insider threats vs whistleblowers• Data breaches and investigative journalism• Cybersecurity lessons from the world's largest financial leak• Legal secrecy, ethics, and accountability• How hidden systems become visible🧩 About The CISO SignalTrue cybercrime storytelling with real CISO lessons.▶️ / @thecisosignal 💼 / the-ciso-signal 🌐 https://www.thecisosignal.com👥 Join the ConversationIf an employee leaks confidential data because they believe they're exposing wrongdoing...Are they a whistleblower?Or an insider threat?Let us know in the comments.#CISOSignal #PanamaPapers #MossackFonseca#CyberSecurity #DataBreach #Whistleblower#InsiderThreat #OffshoreFinance#CISO #TrueCybercrime
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    42 mins
  • The Change Healthcare Breach | Healthcare Hijacked

    The Change Healthcare Breach | Healthcare Hijacked
    Apr 27 2026

    The Change Healthcare Breach | Healthcare Hijacked

    🎙 With guest co-hosts Thomas Schwab and Scott Kisser

    For most people, healthcare feels immediate.

    A doctor.

    A prescription.

    A moment of care.

    What they don’t see…

    is everything that has to happen before any of that is allowed to move.

    Claims must be approved.

    Payments must clear.

    Authorizations must pass through systems no patient has ever heard of.

    At the center of that system sat Change Healthcare.

    When it worked, no one noticed.

    In February 2024, it stopped.

    No zero-day.

    No advanced exploit.

    Just stolen credentials…

    and a remote access portal without multi-factor authentication.

    Attackers linked to ALPHV/BlackCat logged in.

    And from there, everything followed.

    They moved laterally.

    Exfiltrated sensitive data.

    And deployed ransomware inside one of the most critical financial pipelines in American healthcare.

    Pharmacies could not process prescriptions.

    Providers could not submit claims.

    Payments froze.

    Care was not denied.

    But it was delayed.

    And delay, in healthcare, carries weight.

    What followed was not just a breach.

    It was a system-wide disruption that exposed a hard truth:

    Modern healthcare does not just depend on technology.

    It depends on a small number of systems working exactly as expected.

    In this episode of The CISO Signal | True Cybercrime Podcast, host Jeremy Ladner is joined by Thomas Schwab of 1st Cyber Operations Group and Scott Kisser to examine how dependency becomes a weapon, why identity failures now carry systemic risk, and what leaders are forced to decide when every option comes with consequence.

    Because in cybersecurity, the most dangerous attacks don’t break systems.

    They use them exactly as designed.

    🎙 Guest CISO Co-Host

    Scott Kisser:

    Chief Information Security Office @ SmithRx

    https://www.smithrx.com

    🤝 Sponsor Expert

    Thomas Schwab:

    Managing Director, 1st Cyber Operations Group

    https://www.1stCyberOpsGroup.com

    1st Cyber Operations Group helps organizations strengthen cyber resilience and incident response readiness, ensuring leaders can make confident decisions under pressure and recover quickly when disruption occurs.

    🔎 Episode Topics

    • How a lack of MFA enabled one of the largest healthcare breaches in history

    • Why attackers target dependency and not endpoints

    • Identity as the true perimeter in modern enterprise environments

    • The operational consequences of ransomware in critical infrastructure

    • How leaders make decisions when every option carries risk

    🧩 About The CISO Signal

    True cybercrime storytelling with real CISO lessons.

    ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@TheCISOSignal

    💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-ciso-signal

    🌐 https://www.thecisosignal.com

    👥 Join the Conversation

    The CISO Signal Cybersecurity Leadership Forum

    https://www.linkedin.com/groups/17974008

    #CISOSignal #ChangeHealthcare #CyberSecurity

    #Ransomware #HealthcareSecurity #CyberResilience

    #CISO #TrueCybercrime
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    47 mins
  • The Equifax Breach | One of the Largest Data Exposures in History

    The Equifax Breach | One of the Largest Data Exposures in History
    Apr 3 2026

    The Equifax Breach | One of the Largest Data Exposures in History

    🎙 With Jeremy Ladner and guest co-hosts Kavitha Mariappan and Mark Dorsi

    For months, the warning was sitting in plain sight.

    A critical vulnerability.

    Publicly disclosed.

    Actively exploited.

    A patch was available.

    Inside one of the largest credit reporting agencies in the world, the system remained exposed.

    No zero-day.

    No advanced exploit chain.

    Just a missed update.

    In May 2017, attackers began exploiting a known flaw in the Apache Struts framework.

    The vulnerability allowed remote code execution.

    Unauthenticated.

    Unrestricted.

    From the outside, it looked like routine traffic.

    Inside the network, it was something else.

    They accessed databases.

    Queried records.

    And began extracting one of the most sensitive datasets imaginable.

    Names.

    Social Security numbers.

    Birth dates.

    Addresses.

    The identity layer of nearly half the United States population.

    For 76 days, the activity continued.

    No alarms.

    No interruption.

    Until it was too late.

    By the time Equifax disclosed the breach in September 2017, approximately 147 million individuals had been affected.

    Executives resigned.

    Investigations launched.

    Congress intervened.

    But the breach itself had already unfolded.

    Because this was not a story about attackers breaking through hardened defenses. It was a story about what happens when a known vulnerability remains unpatched inside a system that holds national-scale data.

    In this episode of The CISO Signal | True Cybercrime Podcast, host Jeremy Ladner is joined by Kavitha Mariappan of Rubrik and Mark Dorsi, CISO at Netlify, to examine how a single missed control can cascade into systemic failure, why patch management must be operationalized not assumed, and what resilience actually means when prevention fails.

    Because in cybersecurity, the most dangerous vulnerabilities are often the ones already documented. And already waiting.

    🎙 Guest CISO Co-Host

    Mark Dorsi

    Chief Information Security Officer

    Netlify

    https://www.netlify.com

    🤝 Sponsor Expert

    Kavitha Mariappan

    Chief Transformation Officer, Rubrik

    https://www.rubrik.com

    Rubrik delivers cyber resilience by securing data across enterprise, cloud, and SaaS environments, enabling organizations to recover quickly from cyber incidents and maintain operational continuity.

    🔎 Episode Topics

    • The Apache Struts vulnerability (CVE-2017-5638) and how it was exploited

    • Why patch management failures still drive catastrophic breaches

    • How attackers operated undetected inside Equifax systems for over two months

    • The difference between prevention failure and resilience failure

    • What security leaders must operationalize to avoid systemic exposure

    🧩 About The CISO Signal

    True cybercrime storytelling with real CISO lessons.

    ▶️ / @thecisosignal

    💼 / the-ciso-signal

    🌐 https://www.thecisosignal.com

    👥 Join the Conversation

    The CISO Signal Cybersecurity Leadership Forum

    / 17974008

    #CISOSignal #EquifaxBreach #CyberSecurity

    #DataBreach #PatchManagement #CyberResilience

    #CISO #TrueCybercrime
    Show More Show Less
    43 mins
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