0:00:01 Max Havey: Hello and welcome to another edition of Security Visionaries, a podcast that's usually about the world of cyber data and tech infrastructure, bringing together experts from around the world and across domains. But instead of a guest today we're doing something a little bit different. Today you have all three hosts and we're going to kick off 2026 by reintroducing ourselves. So first up, we've got Emily Wearmouth, say hi, Emily.
0:00:25 Emily Wearmouth: Hi everybody.
0:00:28 Max Havey: Next up we have Bailey Popp. Say hi, Bailey.
0:00:31 Bailey Popp: Hey everyone.
0:00:32 Max Havey: And finally, you've got me. My name is Max Havey, and so the premise of today's episode is really for listeners and viewers to get to know us a little bit better as the year is sort of getting rolling here. And so I don't think there's a better place to start than to dig into what are some of the topics that you guys like to focus on for episodes here. Emily, do you want to start us off with that?
0:00:53 Emily Wearmouth: Yes. And can I just say how lovely it is to be on an episode with both of you, because we never do this. It's always one of us running off with some guests and it's delightful. So thank you. Thank you for hosting us, Max. So what do I want to bring to the podcast this year? I was having a good think about this and trying to find a quiet corner away from the world's news, and I just realized that's kind of the gist of where I want to go this year, that the world's news is quite loud and we're not going to be getting into the political side of that. There's other places you can go to hear thoughts on it, and I think a lot of our guests would be uncomfortable getting too into the political side. But where I think it gets interesting is when the rubber hits the road for organizations, how in that changing world do you build a security strategy that can stay ahead of not just fast moving tech changes, which are very fast moving and very changeable, but also the wider political landscape supply chains, what your workforce is grappling with, where your workforce is located. So that's something I'm looking to unpick a lot more this year with our guests.
0:01:53 Bailey Popp: Oh, Emily, I love that too. Especially critical infrastructure. I think that's such an emerging piece of what's going on right now too, and the grid and all of that. I'm biased because my brother works for a critical infrastructure company, but it's all I've heard for the past couple weeks and I think it's really cool.
0:02:10 Emily Wearmouth: Yeah, no, actually we've got some critical infrastructure in this house too, and I hear a lot about it. Yeah, the new challenges and things that people are thinking about that they haven't had to think about before.
0:02:20 Max Havey: No doubt. Well, and Bailey, what are some of the outside of critical infrastructure as is now evidenced, but what are some of the topics that you like to focus on as you're picking out guests and thinking about episodes to come here?
0:02:31 Bailey Popp: Yeah, I really like to find people that have stories about things that are broken. And what I mean by that is people who had environments where they inherited a lot of legacy infrastructure or tons of tools or tons of problems or muddled teams and brought them together under one roof. You bring in guests like that and it looks like it happened overnight, but then you start to interview them and you start to ask the why and the how and you realize it's been this huge transformation that's happened and that makes me really excited. It's kind of when the old stuff stops working and the new stuff comes in at its core, that's what really excites me and that's what I would like to explore. We were doing it and then something happened. Those are my favorite.
0:03:21 Max Havey: I feel like there's a sense of if you're not breaking something, you're not really learning. If you're not trying new things, if you're not doing these sorts of things that sort of question the systems that you have already in your organization, you're not doing it right, especially when it comes to security because changing every single day,
0:03:37 Emily Wearmouth: Exactly question everything. As the stakes are getting higher, how do you get the mandate to take those risks and build what needs to be built and perhaps dismantle things that have been relied on for a long time? I think that risk conundrum becomes quite interesting. What about you, max? What are you going to be bringing us this year?
0:03:58 Max Havey: I've always thought of myself as sort of the kitchen sink person. I sort of cover whatever we need to cover, but what I'm really often drawn to is kind of the odd side of cybersecurity. People that are new to this role, some of the most interesting conversations have come from people who kind of me come from a background where they're maybe not as familiar with cybersecurity, and it's interesting to dig into those sorts of conversations and use that as a springboard, talking about how we can all be better about that sort of stuff. Also looking at things like where cybersecurity intersects with pop culture, where our broad kind of cultural understanding of cybersecurity comes from, as well as just strange stories that people have. I have a real pen for finding out what's an odd story that you love to pull from when it comes to cybersecurity and using that as sort of a teaching moment, things like that. That's the sort of stuff that really drives me.
0:04:48 Emily Wearmouth: So we have done this podcast, Max and I, we've been working on this for a couple of years now, and although our catalog on YouTube is a little smaller, we are new on that platform. There's a lot sitting on the Spotify Apple podcast over the years and just recently, max, you hit a highlight, a career highlight. I think when you brought us the Hackers episode, Which you'd been going on about for a very long time, wanting to do that episode, and suddenly it was the anniversary and you made it happen. I sense there might be more like that brewing. Is that what you're going to be bringing us this year?
0:05:20 Max Havey: I'm really hoping so. I've got a couple ideas brewing, but we'll see what the feed brings us as the year progresses here.
0:05:28 Emily Wearmouth: Watchers and listeners keep an eye on the calendars, what major movies are celebrating big anniversaries this year. Max might have a plan.
0:05:36 Max Havey: Oh yeah. And see how can I shoehorn cybersecurity into talking about them.
0:05:39 Max Havey: My favorite though, was when you came to me and said, it's the You've Got Mail anniversary. Let's do something about you've got mail. I mean, there's not a movie's anniversary that you'll let go by.
0:05:51 Max Havey: Certainly not. Certainly not. Well, and so I guess moving from here, what is one topic that as we're looking at the year to come that you're really excited to be taking on? Bailey, do you want to lead us off with that?
0:06:05 Bailey Popp: Yeah, obviously the big topic right now is ai, gen, ai, agentic ai, but the thing that comes next in my opinion is quantum and I should even say comes next. It's already here and I truthfully don't know enough about it. So I would love to have someone on the podcast and really unpack that. And I think I would also layer it on with, I really love industry focused conversations, so getting into the weeds of what is healthcare doing? What is financial services doing? What is retail doing? So I would like to have a couple of industry focused guests come on, talk about this era of quantum as it specifically relates to their industry. And I know that that's a bit niche, but there's all the compliance standards that are out there for healthcare and how are you protecting patient records from data loss when it comes to these new tools like agentic, ai, like quantum, and then in financial services ahead of tax season. We've talked about this, having phishing attacks and social engineering and poisoning LLM models. That stuff obviously really excites me because I'm talking with my hands now. So it's not the one topic, it's multiple topics, but that's what I'd really like to dig into this year.
0:07:20 Emily Wearmouth: I love the idea of quantum and healthcare. It hadn't occurred to me that hack now crack later healthcare records or something that just doesn't age. It doesn't lose its value as it ages. If we wanted it private now we want it private in 20 years. So that one, yeah, get a good guest. I'm looking forward to that one.
0:07:37 Bailey Popp: Exactly. I thought about that. Looking at my own health records the other day, I was like, okay, what are people doing to protect my data? Yeah, yeah. Hopefully a lot.
0:07:47 Max Havey: Fingers crossed
0:07:50 Bailey Popp: Max, what about you?
0:07:51 Max Havey: Oh yeah. Well, so mine is not something new and exciting. It's just something that is always, it continues to be such an interesting part of cybersecurity. I want to dig further into social engineering in the way that that's evolving, especially as we're seeing more with AI and generative AI and agentic ai and how that sort of threat landscape is evolving. I mean, social engineering is not new. It's been around since basically the beginning of time. Anytime someone's been tricked by something. I think that's an interesting avenue. I want to explore with an episode or two this year because I think there is endless, endless possibilities for what we can talk about and how to best protect folks from that sort of stuff.
0:08:29 Emily Wearmouth: Insider threat, definitely.
0:08:31 Max Havey: Yes. The insider threats, your outsider threats. Threats from everywhere. And now I'm talking with my hands and bumping my microphone, so you could tell I'm excited as well. Emily, let's turn the mic over to you and see what you're excited about.
0:08:47 Emily Wearmouth: I'm sitting on my hands so my mic is safe, but the thing I wanted to focus on this year is not a topic to answer your question, it's a way of doing it. So we've always prided ourselves on the diversity of our guests, and I'm going to keep a laser focus on that this year. We try and hit certain targets in some quarters. It's been really difficult. We know that certain episodes won't have full diversity across every individual episode, so we keep track of things over a longer period of time. But we want to make sure that the voices that we are hearing from aren't the same voices that we always hear from and that people can find people like them on our podcast, both those who perhaps early on in career and can find some role models on our podcast. But also just it's refreshing to not always hear the same accents from around the world and the same gender. So that's something I'm going to be really focused on this year, is maintaining our diversity targets.
0:09:41 Bailey Popp: I echo that. I'm absolutely going to strive to do the same thing. It's not fun. It's not okay to just have the same people on the show every single time. We've got to switch it up and embrace all that's out there.
0:09:53 Emily Wearmouth: Yeah, I tell you what, this feels a little bit like a dating app now that we are putting things out there and we're hoping people come and pitch us. Hey, do you have an interesting guest who wants to talk about quantum in healthcare? Bailey is your lady. She's wait for your email.
0:10:09 Max Havey: Could be cool. Could be fun.
0:10:13 Bailey Popp: It's a match. It's a match. You're getting somewhere. You're getting somewhere.
0:10:22 Max Havey: Well, so to continue this, to keep things rolling here, what's one security tip that you all have learned or piece of advice that you've learned from doing the show here that you want to impart to folks that's really stuck with you as you've been doing security visionaries? Emily, do you want to start us on that one?
0:10:40 Emily Wearmouth: I had a life-changing moment recording a security visionary podcast episode, and it's one in the back catalog and it was all about cookies and it was the EU and Google having a little spat about how cookies needed to be handled in Europe and we had a cookie expert on, and it made me realize I'm in the zone where I get all the pop-ups endlessly, and so I just hit yes because I want to go about my day. And I came away from that episode thinking I'm never going to hit yes. And I would estimate I've probably wasted about 24 hours since then saying no, because it's not easy to say no to cookies. They expand out and you have to say, no, no, no, no, no. And now some websites I just don't bother because I haven't got time to say no and I'm not prepared to say yes. So that is a complete behavior change just because of a security visionaries episode. So that was my learning from our back catalog
0:11:32 Max Havey: Certainly. Well, I was going to say Emily. Mine is very similar to that as well where I feel like something that's come up many times we've been talking to threat experts and things of that sort. It's just, it's the real cyber hygiene baseline of think before you click. It takes that extra half second to make sure that you don't fall for something that you're being careful because it just takes one click to accidentally expose a lot of stuff that you don't want to get exposed. So be really careful with that. And that applies to cookies too, and it was following that episode, I started being a bit more vigilant about that myself and stopped just clicking allow blindly and looking at what in fact they are taking when I click those buttons.
0:12:12 Emily Wearmouth: It's phenomenal the amount that they're taking. It's insane.
0:12:16 Max Havey: Certainly. Bailey, what about you?
0:12:20 Bailey Popp: I learned what is MCP? So that was a highlight for me. In all honesty outside of that, I think I was surprised. I knew it, but it was more of a tip and more of a surprise at the same time that everyone's environment is, you have to assume that there's something wrong from the get-go. Even if you come into, and obviously I've had a lot of guests who have talked about their experiences of coming into an environment and having to deal with what that current state is. And even if you come into something that on the surface looks like it's okay, as you peel back those layers, you find that to your point Max, it's basic cybersecurity hygiene. People are going to find new apps. People want to use these new AI tools. How are you enabling that innovation without stifling the productivity or where they're trying to go? And I think I learned that the ones that think ahead and have the most visibility are the ones that are able to pivot and able to adapt. And it sounds really basic, but I guess I just don't think when you come into something that's perfect, you still have to take all of those different precautions. It's a good life lesson too.
0:13:36 Max Havey: Certainly. I think there's a lot of cybersecurity experts would say it's a when not an if. There's always going to be something there and I think staying vigilant about that and having that level of visibility is key to a healthy functioning security strategy or organization at large.
0:13:56 Emily Wearmouth: Yeah, I like the idea security vision is life lessons.
0:14:01 Max Havey: That's another episode down the line here.
0:14:03 Emily Wearmouth: Yeah,
0:14:05 Max Havey: Well kind of routing things out here. We wanted to do something a bit fun here, so we're going to do two truths and a lie with the three of us here. Emily, this was your idea, so let's have you lead us off here.
0:14:17 Emily Wearmouth: Okay, well I have written mine down because I'm not necessarily great at lying and I thought if I've written them down they'll all come across in a similar sort of vein. So here we go. These are my three. The first company I ever worked for was Red Hat Linux, so I'm an open sourcer at heart. I have a master's degree in human computer interaction from University College London, and at the moment I'm particularly interested in the development of UX for the older generation of digital services users and I'm a privacy ideologue and so have the least smart and connected house that you can imagine. One of those is a massive fib. Those are so good.
0:14:55 Max Havey: Yeah, I was going to say, I feel like your first one is the lie, just what I know about your home. As we've talked for years, I know that you are the lowest tech among us even though I think I'm probably right there with you. I think the third one is true for sure. I'm going to go with number one being the lie there.
0:15:16 Emily Wearmouth: The red hat Linux?
0:15:17 Max Havey: Yes.
0:15:17 Emily Wearmouth: Bailey, same for you or no?
0:15:22 Bailey Popp: I'm going to go with number two, but I think I'm wrong.
0:15:23 Emily Wearmouth: So you don't think I have a master's degree in HCIA? Max doesn't think I work for Red Hat Linux.
0:15:33 Bailey Popp: Okay. I'm changing my tune. I don't think you worked for Red Hat Linux. You're incredibly smart. So you definitely have a master's degree.
0:15:42 Emily Wearmouth: Well, I need to reveal, I feel guilty now that I've convincingly lied to you both because my first company was Red Hat Linux that I work with and I love open source and yes, I do have a very low tech comb because I don't like the idea that things listening in and I do not have a master's degree at all and certainly not in HCI, but I would love one. I deliberately foiled you by telling you what I'm genuinely interested in. UX is fascinating, so I managed to pull the wall over your eyes. I really pleased
0:16:13 Max Havey: It was the extra detail there that made me think, oh, that's too specific to be a lie. And that's always the case every time. The one that is too specific is always the lie.
0:16:21 Emily Wearmouth: Maybe I'm better at lying than I thought
0:16:24 Max Havey: Perhaps.
0:16:28 Bailey Popp: Oh, that was a good one. I don't know how I'm going to stack up to that. Emily. Okay, Max, you go.
0:16:33 Max Havey: Okay. It's my turn. Okay, so my first one, I have two of these written down and one, one is not written down. I, I've come up with it on the fly here. So I've been involved with every episode of Security Visionaries since it started in some capacity since it started in 2021. I studied for a brief time cybersecurity while I was in college and I have a master's degree in reviewing and reporting on arts and entertainment.
0:17:03 Emily Wearmouth: Oh, he's done it as well, hasn't he? There's little nuggets of truth in those. Yeah, I know that he didn't do a techie degree. So I think the little, I studied a little bit of cybersecurity could be true because you Americans do weird bits to make up your degrees. You, you can do odd subjects. So that one I think is true. What was the first one?
0:17:27 Max Havey: Oh, I've been involved with every episode of security visionaries in some capacity since it launched in 2021
0:17:32 Bailey Popp: In some capacity. Keep in mind. So it could have been behind the scenes stuff that he's talking about too. I think it's either two or three is not true. Bailey, do you have a hunch? I think it's two. I think the cybersecurity education piece is false.
0:17:47 Emily Wearmouth: Okay, I will go with you. And your greater knowledge of the US higher education system. I'm going to say the same.
0:17:55 Max Havey: Okay. You both are correct. I did not. I majored in journalism with a minor in film. I did not study cybersecurity. My first dalliances with it were doing freelance writing shortly after college.
0:18:10 Emily Wearmouth: There we go. That's why The Hackers episodes. Any movie? Any movie you do
0:18:13 Max Havey: Exactly. Well, and so I have in fact been involved with every episode of Security visionaries since it launched in its original iteration in 2021, mostly, mostly on the production side of things and the logistics side. I was writing questions and getting people scheduled and half producing things. And yeah, I do have a master's degree in reviewing and reporting on arts entertainment because I stuck on for an extra year at the University of Missouri and kept writing and in fact wrote about movies for my thesis. So yeah, very fun.
0:18:43 Emily Wearmouth: Nice. You did a good job there, Max. I was lost without Bailey.
0:18:49 Max Havey: Fantastic. I love that. My ability to lie is in fact still intact and working here a little bit. A little bit. Well
0:18:54 Emily Wearmouth: Done. Well done. Come on then. Bailey lie to us.
0:18:57 Bailey Popp: Oh gosh. Okay. I started my career in cybersecurity agency PR, working in mostly our rapid response media relations practice. I also had a concentration in cybersecurity along with my comms degree in college. And I have stolen at least one great idea from Security Visionaries guest and used it immediately.
0:19:29 Emily Wearmouth: Well, I hope that one's true.
0:19:31 Max Havey: Yeah, I feel like that one has to be true.
0:19:34 Emily Wearmouth: Are we allowed to expand? Do we have to just go on this information or can we quiz?
0:19:39 Max Havey: I think we have to just go on this information because Yeah, I don't think we can ask followup Questions.
0:19:43 Bailey Popp: I didn't get to double click on questions, but you can if you want. I'm an open book. Not really. I'm lying for one\!
0:19:48 Emily Wearmouth: I think you've told the same lie as Max. I don't think you had, it's reasonable to assume that you could do some cybersecurity stuff in a comms degree because of all the crisis communications, but I don't think you did because I believe the other two
0:20:04 Max Havey: I'm similarly, that's sort of where I'm leaning on this one just because I do know in fact that you did start, well, maybe you didn't start in agency world. I know that you came from agency world, so I, I'm going to go with number two still and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong and I will take that.
0:20:22 Bailey Popp: You both are right. Yes. I had that one in the back of my mind. And then you gave one about your education, you gave one about your education and I couldn't think fast enough on my feet to do one that wasn't about my education. But I will tell you the one that I had in my mind before you all gave really serious ones, my lie was going to be that I asked my grandfather to join our show so that he can walk our users through how he plans to use an iPhone and respond back. And the catch is he only responds to text messages if you ask him a question.
0:20:55 Emily Wearmouth: I' have believed that one Bailey,
0:20:59 Bailey Popp: But I thought that was a bit silly.
0:21:03 Max Havey: Security visionary is helping the elderly.
0:21:06 Emily Wearmouth: Which guest and which tip did you take and use immediately?
0:21:11 Bailey Popp: Danyel Bischof-Forsyth, who is the CIO, excuse me, at Seven Brew, she gave a wonderful tip about driving empathy across her teams and that's how she brought them together. And she would have them all in a room and she would start really small and she always had people kind of go around the table and talk about what mattered to them most. And then instead of being a leader that would just say, okay, she would individually figure out how do I work with their career? How do I engage them with each other based on what they're most passionate about, they're most interested in? And it just really stuck with me and I thought about that when I was going back to my own team and playing to people's strengths. And yeah, one of the big things that I've learned throughout the show as well is just leadership tips. I'm really excited. Our next guest that I'm going to be interviewing, I can't say his name yet, but is the CIO of a really large financial services company. And he has had a very interesting career path. And when we were prepping for this, he was talking about some of the same, kind of the similar lessons. So the leadership aspect of paths and cybersecurity really excites me as well, and I take that into my daily life.
0:22:20 Emily Wearmouth: Nice. She's trailed her next episode as well. You can tell you two have got journalist backgrounds.
0:22:27 Max Havey: The art of the tease is important, especially for a serial medium like this.
0:22:33 Emily Wearmouth: She's good.
0:22:35 Max Havey: This is so great and this has been such a fun conversation. Thank you both for taking the time. I know our schedules are all kind of funky, we're spread a little bit out, so it's always nice when we can all get together and chat like this.
0:22:47 Emily Wearmouth: You've put this in a perfectly reasonable hour of my day, which means you two had to set your alarms extra early. So thank you from me.
0:22:55 Max Havey: Absolutely. It's okay.
0:22:58 Bailey Popp: Thank you Max. And thank you Emily,
0:23:01 Max Havey: A delight as always. And with that, you've been listening to the Security Visionaries podcast and I've been your host, Max Havey. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend and be sure to subscribe to security visionaries anywhere you get podcasts, whether that's Apple, Spotify, or on our fancy new YouTube page. There you can find our backlog of episodes that publish every other week, hosted either by me or my wonderful co-host, Bailey and Emily. And with that, we'll catch you on the next one.
0:23:27 Emily Wearmouth: See you.
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