Ep. 260 How Akamai can make the Internet work better by preventing ransomware.
Release Date: 07/24/2025
Ep. 282 the Hidden Cyber Gaps Threatening America’s Digital Infrastructure
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness
Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn Want to listen to other episodes? In a recent report from Microsoft, they share that foreign adversaries are increasing attacks on American infrastructure. One variation is that they will not penetrate systems and attack, but they will steal credentials and install code to act in stealth mode. This code can hide for years and be deployed when the antagonist wants. Today, we sat down with Travis Roseik from Rubrik to try to find some options for defending against this hidden attack. Let us say an agency has improved its resistance to foreign...
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Ep. 283 Smarter, Scalable Threat Hunting to Protect Federal Data
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness
Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn Want to listen to other episodes? The federal government recognizes that threats are multiplying at an exponential level. In fact, in October 2025, CISA released a free vulnerability scanner, and 10,000 organizations have signed up. Today, CISA is at its current capacity. Today, we examine solutions from a successful startup called CrunchAtlas. One of the co-founders, Ben Fabrelle, will share with the audience his experience in threat hunting in the federal government and why he combined with another veteran to form a company that can assist...
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Ep. 280 How Zero Trust Automation Helps Federal Agencies do More with Less
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness
Ep. 281 How Zero Trust Automation Helps Federal Agencies do More with Less Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn Want to listen to other episodes? As this interview was recorded, the federal government was in the middle of a shutdown. Hundreds of pundits have given interviews about the politics of the situation; very few have looked at the impact on cybersecurity during a phase of workforce reduction. Today, we sat down with Gary Barlet, the Public Sector CTO at Illumio, to see whether Zero Trust can help the federal government bridge this short personnel gap. Barlet begins by...
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Ep. 281 AI-Powered Application Risk Management
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness
Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn Want to listen to other episodes? Today, we sat down with Chris Wysopal from Veracode to talk about how to leverage the power of AI to increase productivity in federal systems. It seems like every headline you read talks about AI speeding up the process of writing code. However, there may be mixed messages here. Wysopan read some academic reports that talked about vulnerabilities being introduced in human code as well as AI code. Because this has been a concern for a while, He initiated the Gen AI Code Security report. They examined a wide...
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Ep. 279 Avoiding Agentic AI Pitfalls in Federal Digital Transformation
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness
A recent study from Carnegie Mellon University is titled "AI Agents Fail at Office Tasks Nearly 70% of the Time." Federal agencies are adopting Agentic AI for the efficiency it can deliver. Unfortunately, many do not realize that Agentic AI is prone to operational risks, ranging from technical glitches to legal complications to accidental database deletion. When Agentic AI causes problems at a federal agency, there can be lives at stake. Today, we sat down with Travis Rosiek, Rubrik's Public Sector Chief Technology Officer. During the interview, he explores the federal challenges of...
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Ep. 277 How Elastic Helps Federal Agencies Navigate Federal Procurement Modernization
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness
Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn Want to listen to other episodes? Elastic has been around since 2012 and has been gradually gaining traction in the commercial world. In fact, Elastic has recently signed agreements with Nvidia and Google to improve integration with its distributed search analysis. All this assists with AI search and observability. Today, we sat down with Chris Thompson from Elastic to highlight how commercial success can be applied to the federal world. Looking back at his decades of work with federal agencies, he sees one of the problems in acquisition....
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Ep. 278 How to deliver Secure, Compliant, and Scalable Cloud Databases for Federal Missions
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness
Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn Want to listen to other episodes? MongoDB has spent years earning a formidable reputation in the developer world; today, we will unpack some of its capabilities for project managers and federal leaders so they can understand where MongoDB may fit in their stack. Conventional wisdom is that MongoDB is a flexible open-source database. Although that is true, this does not do justice to some characteristics that will appeal to the federal audience. ONE: An agency may have restrictions on where the cloud is not suitable for storage. Because...
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Ep. 276 Model Context Protocol, Agentic AI, and the Future of Federal Software Integration
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness
Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn Want to listen to other episodes? Many listeners have become so familiar with AI that they may have assumed it has been around for decades. Today, we sat down with Will Angel from Excella to explore the application of AI to federal technology from a more nuanced perspective. We dive into three main aspects of AI: challenges of integrating AI services, Model Context Protocol, and security considerations with agentic systems. Challenges: No company has grown as fast as ChatGPT; in fact, it is the fastest-adopted consumer application...
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Ep. 275 Securing Federal Data: The Evolution from Zero Trust to Least Permissive Trust
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness
Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn Want to listen to other episodes? Sometimes, the plow must go deeper. Current approaches to Zeer Trust implementation can leave gaps in security. Today, we sat down with Akamai’s Mike Colson to discuss the concept of combining Identity Credential Access Management with Least Permissive Trust. Setting the stage, Mike Colson details some of the challenges in the varying kinds of Zero Trust that are being applied in the Federal Government. The standard way of implementing ICM can result in assigning more resources than necessary, leading to...
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Ep. 274 AI-Driven DevSecOps: Accelerating Security and Modernization in Federal IT
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness
Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn Want to listen to other episodes? The impact of AI in software development in the federal government is so pervasive that, in July of 2025, the President of the United States released a White House AI Action Plan. Today, we sat down with Bob Stevens from GitLab to put this development into perspective, examine some use cases, and suggest methods that federal agencies can use to prepare for this technological shift. What precipitated the initiative is the recognition that change is occurring so rapidly in the world of software development...
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In 2018, ransomware was a quaint little cyberattack. Suddenly, the first half of 2024 saw $459 million paid in ransomware. Everyone is being targeted: retailers in the UK, resellers in LA, and even the federal government can be included in the target for ransomware attackers.
Today, we sit down with Douglas Holland to see what role Akamai plays in preventing these rapidly proliferating attacks.
One of the strengths of Akamai is its ability to handle a wide range of internet activity, as Akamai processes 11 trillion DNS queries daily. This gives them a perfect perspective to identify troublesome sites and apply Domain Name Systems (DNS) to provide robust cybersecurity.
Douglas Holland puts this situation into perspective by noting that during the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people started using VPN technology, making systems vulnerable to phishing attacks.
He notes the rise of ransomware-as-a-service and phishing-as-a-service, emphasizing the importance of employee training and education.
Holland also addresses the challenges of VPNs and remote desktop security, advocating for zero-trust architectures and multi-factor authentication.
The interview ends with discussing the role of AI and machine learning in Akamai's threat protection.