The Audit - Cybersecurity Podcast

What happens when a ransomware attack takes less effort than ordering takeout? In this live news episode of The Audit, Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem sit down with Tabitha Senty of IT Audit Labs to break down the headlines shaping cybersecurity right now. The crew covers how AI is lowering the barrier to entry for ransomware attacks, why identity and access still sit at the center of every breach, and how threat actors...

What if you didn't have to write a single line of code to automate your entire network — or manage AI agents the way you'd manage employees? In this episode of The Audit, Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem sit down with John Capobianco — Head of AI and DevRel at Itential, Google Developer Expert, and creator of NetClaw — alongside in-studio guest Samuel Cala. John draws on nearly a decade as Senior Networ...

An underground forum post breaks down how hackers scan, exploit, and cash out on vulnerabilities — and it reads like a step-by-step guide. Meanwhile, Microsoft is catching heat for stonewalling a researcher who found real zero-days, and a new phishing campaign is hitting small businesses through the platforms they trust most. 

The OG crew — Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem — digs into this week's bi...

What happens when a deepfake video becomes probable cause? Law enforcement agencies are already grappling with AI-generated evidence, doxing attacks on officers, and a training gap that's growing wider every six weeks. If the justice system can't keep up with the AI threat curve, the consequences won't just be policy problems — they'll be people's lives. 

In this episode of The Audit, former firefighter-paramedic turned s...

What would you do if ransomware told you not only that your data was gone — but that it was encrypted with a quantum-safe algorithm and you have 72 hours to pay? That's not a hypothetical anymore. 

In this live news episode of The Audit, co-hosts Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellum are joined by IT Audit Labs member Bill Harris for a rapid-fire breakdown of the week's most important cybersecurity stories — a...

Most organizations think they're protected. They're not. Microsoft Defender sounds solid on paper — but in the real world, it's letting phishing, malware, and business email compromise walk right through the door. In this episode of The Audit, the crew pulls back the curtain on one of the most exploited attack surfaces in any organization: email. 

Co-hosts Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem are joined by IT Audit...

Your organization may have hundreds of AI agents running right now that your security team doesn't know exist. Every single one is an identity. Every identity is an attack surface. 

In this episode of The Audit, co-hosts Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem sit down with Madhav Nakar, security researcher on the Phantom Labs team at BeyondTrust, to break down one of the most underexplored threats in enterprise security to...

What if the tools protecting your organization were the ones compromising it? In this episode of The Audit, co-hosts Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem — joined by IT Audit Labs team member Samuel Cala live in the St. Paul studio — unpack a wave of cybersecurity stories that all converge on one unsettling theme: trust is being exploited at every layer of the stack. 

From an Iranian-linked APT group targetin...

A $25 million wire transfer. A fake CFO. An entire executive team that didn't exist. This is what modern cybercrime looks like — and your firewall won't stop it. 

In this episode of The Audit, co-hosts Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellum sit down with James McDowell — forensic psychology expert, cybercrime researcher, and adjunct professor at American Military University — to explore the chilling inter...

What if the device keeping you alive was also a cybersecurity vulnerability? That's not a hypothetical — it's Victor Barge's reality. 

In this episode of The Audit, IT Audit Labs' Global Delivery Director Victor Barge shares the story of his sudden cardiac event and the life-saving defibrillator now implanted in his chest and the eye-opening security questions that followed. Co-hosts Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick M...

What does it take to go undercover with international cybercriminals — with no backup, no safe house, and no script? In this episode of The Audit, Richard LaTulip, Field CISO at Recorded Future and former U.S. Secret Service agent, pulls back the curtain on three years of undercover operations spanning Thailand, Dubai, Macau, and China. From buying stolen credit card data in bulk to handing cheap government-issued laptops to ...

Microsoft dominates 22% of all phishing attacks, a $800 tool tricks 60% of victims into self-hacking, and Apple's planning a surveillance pin that records everything—welcome to 2025's cybersecurity nightmare. In this episode of The Audit, co-hosts Joshua J Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem are joined by Jen Lotze from IT Audit Labs to dissect three headlines that prove the threat landscape isn't just evolving—it's ac...

In this episode of The Audit, co-hosts Eric Brown and Nick Mellem dive deep into organizational psychology and team dynamics with a refreshingly honest look at how IT Audit Labs is using assessments like CliftonStrengths, Kolbe, and PRINT to decode their team. This isn't fluffy HR talk—it's strategic workforce optimization that directly impacts how security teams respond to threats, collaborate under pressure, and execute on ...

What if the difference between AI mediocrity and breakthrough isn't the tool—it's how you architect your approach? Carter Jensen from The Uncommon Business joins the crew to reveal why most people are stuck "button pushing" while others are unlocking 3X productivity gains. This isn't theory; it's the frontline reality of businesses transforming workflows with the right AI architecture. 

If you're tired of surface-level AI...

In this special year-end episode, Joshua Schmidt revisits the most mind-bending moments from The Audit's 2025 season. From Justin Marciano and Paul Vann demonstrating live deepfakes in real-time (yes, they actually did it on camera) to Bill Harris explaining how Google's quantum experiments suggest parallel universes, to Alex Bratton's urgent warning about the AI adoption crisis happening right now in boardrooms everywhere. 

Wh...

What if you could hire an army of AI security analysts that work 24/7 investigating alerts so your human team can focus on what actually matters? Edward Wu, founder and CEO of DropZone AI, joins The Audit crew to reveal how large language models are transforming security operations—and why the future of cyber defense looks more like a drone war than traditional SOC work. 

From his eight years at AttackIQ generating millio...

When hackers target the systems controlling your water, power, and transportation, the consequences go far beyond data breaches—people can die. Leslie Carhartt, Technical Director of Incident Response at Dragos, pulls back the curtain on one of cybersecurity's most critical blind spots: industrial control systems that keep society running but remain dangerously exposed. 

What You'll Learn: 

• Why industrial control ...

What if your security team is playing defense while hackers play offense 24/7? Foster Davis, former Navy cyber warfare officer and founder of BreachBits, breaks down why traditional penetration tests become obsolete in weeks—and how continuous red teaming changes the game. From hunting pirates in the Indian Ocean to defending critical infrastructure, Foster shares hard-earned lessons about adversarial thinking, operational ri...

What if everything AI tells you about cybersecurity costs is completely wrong? The Audit crew unpacks a shocking data black hole that has infected every major AI model—plus field-tested tech that actually works.

In this laid-back Field Notes episode, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellum return from Gartner's CIO Symposium with insights that'll make you question your AI outputs. From discovering that the "trillions in cybercrime" statis...