Humans of Talos - Cisco Talos Blog Blog A video interview series that shines a spotlight on team members across Talos, featuring their personal stories, career journeys and unique perspectives. May 13, 2026 06:00 Breaking things to keep them safe with Philippe Laulheret Philippe shares his unique journey from French engineering school to the front lines of cybersecurity, explaining how his lifelong love for solving puzzles helps him uncover critical security flaws before they can be exploited.
Amy Ciminnisi Humans of Talos April 16, 2026 06:00 More than pretty pictures: Wendy Bishop on visual storytelling in tech Wendy shares the unique challenges and rewards of bridging the gap between artistic expression and highly technical research. March 11, 2026 06:00 Spinning complex ideas into clear docs with Kri Dontje The episode features Kri Dontje discussing her role in translating complex technical cybersecurity topics into clear, accessible documentation, emphasizing the importance of consistency, accuracy, and collaboration with subject matter experts.
February 12, 2026 06:00 Ryan Liles, master of technical diplomacy Ryan Liles reveals how he bridges the gap between Cisco’s product teams and third-party testing labs, mastering the art of technical diplomacy while driving industry standards forward and keeping the internet’s defenders ahead of the game. January 14, 2026 06:00 Brushstrokes and breaches with Terryn Valikodath Terryn’s path to cybersecurity started with a fascination for criminal forensics and a knack for jailbreaking his family's tech — interests that eventually steered him toward the fast-paced world of digital investigations.
December 17, 2025 06:00 Lexi DiScola’s guide to global teamwork and overflowing TBRs Lexi DiScola shares how her unconventional path led her to global cyber threat analysis and highlights the power of diverse backgrounds on an international team November 18, 2025 06:00 Bill Largent: On epic reads, lifelong learning, and empathy Join Bill Largent as he shares his passion for learning, the connection between reading and empathy, and offers fresh insights for the next generation of security professionals.
October 16, 2025 06:00 Laura Faria: Empathy on the front lines Laura opens up about her journey through various cybersecurity roles, her leap into incident response, and what it feels like to support customers during their toughest moments — including high-stakes situations impacting critical infrastructure. September 18, 2025 06:00 Alex Ryan: From zero chill to quiet confidence Discover how a Cisco Talos Incident Response expert transitioned from philosophy to the high-stakes world of incident command, offering candid insights into managing burnout and finding a supportive team.
August 19, 2025 06:00 JJ Cummings: The art of controlling information Get an inside look at how JJ Cummings helped build and lead one of Cisco Talos’ most impactful security teams, and discover what drives him to stay at the forefront of threat intelligence. July 23, 2025 06:00 Meet Hazel Burton In the first Humans of Talos, Amy sits with Hazel Burton — storyteller, security advocate, and all-around Talos legend.
Hazel shares her journey from small business entrepreneurship to leading content programs at Talos. August 5, 2024 08:00 Ryan Pentney reflects on 10 years of Talos and his many roles from the Sourcefire days Pentney and his team are threat hunters and researchers who contribute to Talos’ research and reports shared with government and private sector partners. Jonathan Munshaw Researcher Spotlight Talos 10 April 29, 2024 08:00 James Nutland studies what makes threat actors tick, growing our understanding of the current APT landscape Nutland says he goes into every engagement or new project with a completely open mind and a blank slate — using his background investigating terror operations to find out as much as he can about a particular adversary’s operation.
March 4, 2024 08:00 Heather Couk is here to keep your spirits up during a cyber emergency, even if it takes the “Rocky” music . The bulk of her career was with a manufacturing company working as a security and email administrator, but she uses her criminal justice degree daily now with Talos IR helping to track down bad actors or helping customers understand adversaries’ motivation and tactics. October 9, 2023 08:00 How looking at decades of spam led Jaeson Schultz from Y2K to the metaverse and cryptocurrency “I’m completely interested in the creative ways computers can break down,” Schultz jokes.
Features September 11, 2023 08:00 You can try to hide your firmware from Kelly Patterson, but she’ll find it (and break it) Patterson and her teammates are responsible for helping to disclose and patch more than 200 security vulnerabilities a year, some of which affect devices used in thousands of households around the world. July 10, 2023 08:00 Gergana Karadzhova-Dangela wants to send the ladder back down to the next generation of incident responders Karadzhova-Dangela's family put her on a plane to Massachusetts without a return ticket and it wasn't until the IT job gave her enough disposable income to afford plane tickets back and forth to Bulgaria that she could see her family.
June 5, 2023 07:00 How Joe Marshall helps defend everything from electrical grids to grain co-ops across multiple continents Marshall is a senior security strategist for Talos’ Strategic Communications team, specifically focusing on industrial control systems. May 8, 2023 08:00 Researcher Spotlight: Jacob Finn creates his own public-private partnership at Talos Today, Finn combs through Talos’ various intelligence sources, open-source research, partner resources, and Cisco product telemetry to track major attacker trends and emerging threats.
April 10, 2023 07:00 Researcher Spotlight: Giannis Tziakouris first learned how to fix his family’s PC, and now he’s fixing networks all over the globe As a senior incident responder, Giannis helps Cisco Talos Incident Response customers secure and respond to security incidents across the world. Cisco Talos Incident Response March 13, 2023 08:00 Researcher Spotlight: How David Liebenberg went from never having opened Terminal to hunting international APTs When Dave Liebenberg started his first day at Talos, he had never even opened Terminal on a Mac before — let alone written a Snort rule or infiltrated a dark web forum.
October 31, 2022 14:59 Researcher Spotlight: How Azim Khodjibaev went from hunting real-world threats to threats on the dark web Most of the time, Khodjibaev is combing through various dark web forums, ransomware group chats, Russian-speaking websites and other sources trying to learn of attackers’ next moves. October 3, 2022 10:00 Researcher Spotlight: Globetrotting with Yuri Kramarz “You have completely different angles in preparing different customers for defense during major global events depending on their role, technology and function,” Kramarz said.
September 6, 2022 08:00 Researcher Spotlight: How Asheer Malhotra looks for ‘instant gratification’ in threat hunting The India native has transitioned from a reverse-engineer hobbyist to a public speaker in just a few years. August 1, 2022 08:00 Researcher Spotlight: You should have been listening to Lurene Grenier years ago The exploit researcher recently rejoined Talos after starting her career with the company’s predecessor Lurene Grenier says state-sponsored threat actors keep her up at night, even after years of studying and following them.
She’s spent her security career warning people why th July 5, 2022 09:20 Researcher Spotlight: Around the security world and back again with Nick Biasini Nick Biasini’s seen it all. Going on a nearly 20-year security career, he’s been a part of some of Cisco Talos’ largest undertakings in the company’s history. From an attack on the global Olympic Games, to a wireless router malware that affected hundreds of thousands of devices May 31, 2022 09:00 Researcher Spotlight: Martin Lee, EMEAR lead, Talos Strategic Communications Who knew you could connect Moses to threat intelligence?
When the security community usually thinks about the origins of cybersecurity and threat intelligence, the conversation may quickly center around the codebreakers in World War II or the Creeper software developed in the 19