Podcasts about Prasanna

Nepal is home to one of the richest traditions of handicraft art, yet the industry faces significant challenges in the modern era. In this episode of the Kayo Podcast, entrepreneurs Prasanna Shakya and Sajan Joshi dive deep into the reality of Nepal's handicraft industry, discussing its cultural importance, business potential, declining demand, shortage of skilled workers, and the future of traditional craftsmanship. The conversation explores what handicraft truly means, why Nepal's handmade products and traditional art are globally admired, and how international audiences perceive Nepali handicraft art. Prasanna and Sajan share insights into the current state of the handicraft business in Nepal, the gap between cultural value and commercial success, and why many young people are not entering the artisan industry. They also discuss whether handicraft demand in Nepal is decreasing, the challenges faced by skilled craftsmen, copyright issues surrounding handcrafted art, policy gaps, and practical solutions that could revive the industry. The episode highlights the importance of preserving Nepal's cultural heritage while creating sustainable business opportunities for future generations. If you're interested in Nepal handicraft, traditional art Nepal, handmade products Nepal, Nepal entrepreneurship, artisan industry Nepal, creative industry Nepal, cultural heritage Nepal, handicraft demand Nepal, Nepal exports, traditional craftsmanship, or the future of Nepal's handmade art business, this episode offers valuable insights from industry leaders. GET CONNECTED WITH: Kayo Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kayo_studio/?hl=en Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kayo_corporate/?hl=en Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/kayostudio/ Website - https://www.kayostudio.com/ Prasanna Shakya (Entrepreneur) Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/prasannashakiya/?g=5 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/prasanna-shakya-2943316b/ Sajan Joshi (Entrepreneur) Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sajan.joshi.kayo/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sajan-joshi-147a82160/  

Phishing-resistant MFA could have stopped a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor from spending over a year inside North American academic and medical research networks — and we're going to tell you exactly how it happened and what you need to do about it.A group called UNC5608, tracked by Google's Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG), exploited a vulnerability unique to REDCap — a research data platform that allows multiple software versions to run simultaneously. They got in via stolen admin credentials, planted custom malware called Infinite.red directly into REDCap's upgrade process, harvested credentials for over a year, then used those credentials to log into Google Workspace as a domain admin and create fake compliance rules to silently forward sensitive research emails — military strategy, geostrategic policy, advanced tech, specific pathogens — straight to Gmail accounts they controlled. And nobody noticed for a very long time.Prasanna and I break down the full attack chain, then walk through every prevention layer that could have stopped it: inventory management, patching, password hygiene, SSO, phishing-resistant MFA, passkeys, DBSC, context-aware access, compliance rule monitoring, credential separation across security domains, and logging. We also get into what backups can and can't do for you in a long-dwell-time attack like this — and why infrastructure-as-code and truly immutable golden images matter more than you might think.If you're running any kind of research platform, academic institution, or medical network — or honestly any organization that uses Google Workspace — this one's for you.Chapters:00:00 — Intro: The attack that phishing-resistant MFA could have stopped01:03 — Show intro & woodworking banter03:26 — What is a living-off-the-land attack?04:02 — Who is UNC5608 and who did they target?05:08 — How REDCap's multi-version design was exploited06:11 — Infinite.red malware and credential harvesting09:01 — Google Workspace infiltration via fake compliance rules10:18 — The keywords they were stealing: pathogens, military strategy, and more11:50 — What could the victims have done differently?12:42 — Inventory management, patching, and legacy version removal14:00 — Why you can't trust application-level authentication alone — use SSO15:18 — Phishing-resistant MFA and why it matters16:00 — Passkeys, FIDO, and why there are zero known attacks against them17:57 — Device-bound session credentials (DBSC) and context-aware access19:38 — Monitor your compliance rules — have a compliance rule for the compliance rule20:40 — Credential separation across security domains23:00 — Get some logging — XDR, SIEM, and catching exfiltration in progress24:00 — What can backups actually do in a long-dwell-time attack?27:00 — Infrastructure-as-code and the right cyber recovery approach28:58 — Protecting your golden images with immutable storage31:59 — Wrap-up

Conversations about accessibility are often framed around legislation and accommodations, but the stories we tell about disability can be equally powerful in shaping how accessibility is perceived and lived.Human rights lawyer and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Belonging (DEIAB) consultant Prasanna Ranganathan argues that accessibility requires more than policy change—it demands new narratives that allow us to imagine the inclusive world we seek to build.Ranganathan spoke at The Walrus Talks AccessAbility in Toronto on May 26, 2026.To register for upcoming events happening online or in a city near you, and to catch up on our archive of The Walrus Talks, visit thewalrus.ca/events.And subscribe to The Walrus Events newsletter for updates and announcements, at thewalrus.ca/newsletters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kelly and Rob sit down and chat with Prasanna Paul & Gavin Downes while at the Blood in the Snow Film Festival 2025. The discussion involves their project Sanctorum that played in the festival.

BREAKING: Kore.ai launches Artemis — a new generation Agent Platform for enterprise AII just sat down with Prasanna Arikala at their San Francisco office right after this launch.And here's what stood out.For years, most enterprises have been stuck in the same loop:-- Build AI pilots-- Struggle to productionize-- Lose control over governance-- Start overArtemis is Kore.ai's answer to that problem.This is not just another AI platform.It is a ground-up rebuild focused on one idea:AI should not just assist. It should build, govern, and optimize itself.Prasanna shared something interesting during the conversation.They didn't evolve the platform.They rebuilt it from scratch around what enterprise AI actually needs in 2026:-- AI building AI-- Built-in governance, not bolted on-- Optimization as a continuous loop, not an afterthought-- Designed for regulated industries from Day 1And this is where it gets real.Most enterprises today already have Amazon Web Services or Microsoft.But the gap is not infrastructure.The gap is:How do you go from AI experiments to reliable, governed, production systems at scale?That's the layer Kore.ai is going after.Also, one insight from Prasanna that stayed with me:The biggest mistake is thinking AI is a model problem. It is actually a systems problem.This launch is a signal.We are moving from:“Let's try AI”To:“Let's run the business on AI systems we can trust”I'll be dropping the full interview soon on The Ravit Show where we go deeper into:-- Why they rebuilt everything-- What “AI building AI” actually means-- Where enterprise AI is headed in the next 18 monthsThis one is worth paying attention to.#data #ai #koreai #agents #theravitshow

Claude deletes a company — and the internet immediately blamed the AI. But this story is really about backup design, credential management, and least privilege. An AI coding agent running Claude via Cursor deleted PocketOS's entire production database and all its backups in nine seconds. One bad design decision at a time, a startup built itself a disaster waiting to happen. Claude just happened to be the thing that set it off.Here's what you need to understand: the AI violated the principles it was given, and that's on Claude. But Claude never should have had access to do what it did. Credentials were sitting in a plain text YAML file. The production database and its backups lived on the same volume. No least privilege. No expiration on elevated permissions. And almost certainly, no backup recovery test — ever.In this episode, Curtis and Prasanna break down what actually went wrong with PocketOS, what Railway did to help recover the data, and what you need to do to make sure this never happens to you. Topics covered include backup isolation, the 3-2-1 rule, secrets management tools like AWS Secrets Manager and HashiCorp Vault, least privilege access, permission expiration, and credential scanning tools like TruffleHog.Chapters:0:00 — Intro: Meet the villain1:50 — Welcome and introducing "the French friend"3:48 — What Claude actually did to PocketOS7:20 — This is a backup story, not an AI story9:27 — The recovery: Railway, a weekend of chaos, and a lucky Twitter post12:31 — Your data is your responsibility — not your vendor's17:48 — Rule #1: Never store backups inside production20:37 — The real problem: credential management23:38 — Secrets management tools explained25:21 — Least privilege and why permissions need expiration dates34:59 — Finding exposed credentials with TruffleHog37:24 — Summary and takeaways

Network segmentation to prevent ransomware isn't just a nice-to-have — the UCSF ransomware attack proves it's what separates a contained incident from a catastrophe. UCSF got hit. Their segmented network kept the damage from spreading across their entire operation. That's the difference we're talking about in this episode.Dr. Mike Saylor — my co-author on Learning Ransomware Response and Recovery — joins me and Prasanna to break down exactly how network segmentation works, why it matters for ransomware defense, and how to start doing it without breaking everything in the process. (Not that I've ever done that. Much.)We cover what segmentation actually is, how VLANs make it manageable, the "need to talk" principle, and where microsegmentation fits in — and when it becomes overkill. We also get into the complexity trap: more rules and more layers don't automatically mean more protection. Sometimes they mean nobody can troubleshoot anything when the house is on fire.If you're an IT admin trying to make the case for better network architecture, or you just want to understand what would actually stop ransomware from ripping through your environment, this is the episode.Chapters:00:00:00 — Intro00:01:40 — Welcome & Guest Introductions00:05:17 — Case Study: UCSF Ransomware Attack00:08:13 — What Is Network Segmentation?00:12:32 — VLANs Explained00:19:50 — The Need to Talk Principle00:30:54 — Complexity vs. Security00:31:09 — Microsegmentation00:38:55 — Action Items: Where to Start00:42:05 — Monitoring VLAN Traffic

Eighteen months ago, Hyrox did not exist in India. Last month, 8,200 people paid Rs 9,000 each to do a sled push at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre. Attendees described the event as a “carnival”, and for several weeks, everyone was talking and proudly sharing their Hyrox timings.If you're wondering what on earth is going on, well, this episode is for you.Fitness as an event isn't new in India. Every wave of participative fitness in India solved something the previous one couldn't. Marathons gave the urban professional class a finish line and an identity. Crossfit gave them a tribe and a daily ritual. Both peaked, both retreated, both ended up circling the same thin, affluent cohort in Bengaluru and Mumbai. Now Hyrox has arrived, and in one season blown past anything either of those formats built in India. The question is whether Hyrox is the next iteration of the same product, or something fundamentally different.Then there's the business side of it. Hyrox is a premium commercial format, with revenue lines through event tickets, a global licensing model, a PUMA deal, and a middleman at every layer between the participant and the finish line. That commercial stack sits on top of a culture that markets itself on community and participation. Does that accelerate the fitness ecosystem or does it extract from it?And to find out that answer, Praveen Gopal Krishnan sits with two guests:Prasanna Akela is the cofounder of Belong, a personal training studio in Bengaluru. Before Belong, Prasanna was an early growth leader at companies like CRED, Apple, and Uber India. He's also competed at the national level in ultimate frisbee and has trained extensively in endurance and strength. He brings the operator's view: what does someone building a fitness business in India actually see when a global format like Hyrox walks in?“I've not seen this culture of people at scale wanting to get better. Everybody does their first Hyrox. Nobody's like, how do I do my second Hyrox better than my first one.”Dilip Kumar leads investments at Rainmatter*, Zerodha's health and fitness fund, which has deployed over Rs 250 crore across dozens of investments in health and fitness—including Hyrox India, Ironman, and Devil Circuit. He's also a serious endurance athlete with a 2:55 marathon personal best and a finisher at the Boston Marathon. He has publicly called Hyrox as India's “2008 IPL moment” for fitness. He came to this conversation with a declared interest and a clear conviction.“99% of the people are not intrinsically motivated. The invention of all these events kind of expanded that category — and that's where we started investing.”Prasanna is building inside the wave and Dilip is investing and betting on it. Both of them are also participants. They competed in last month's Hyrox event at Bengaluru. The episode tries to find out how long the wave is going to last—and what might happen after that.*Zerodha's perennial fund Rainmatter Capital is an investor in The Ken.This episode was hosted and produced by Praveen Gopal Krishnan. Rajiv C N, our resident technical producer did the audio production.

Ransomware sanctions are something most companies never think about — until they're staring down a ransom demand from a group the US government has already put on a sanctions list. In this episode, Dr. Mike Saylor walks us through a real incident involving a construction company, hundreds of millions in active contracts, and the Lazarus Group — a North Korean state-sponsored threat actor. Before that company could pay a single dollar in ransom, they had to figure out whether doing so would trigger federal penalties that dwarfed the ransom itself. We're talking fines of 10x to 100x the payment amount, and in some jurisdictions, jail time.This is one of those episodes where the story alone is worth your time. Mike was in the room for this incident, negotiating directly with the Lazarus Group over a weekend — and yes, it turns out North Korean cybercriminals have a surprisingly functional help desk. But beyond the story, there's real actionable information here about OFAC (the Office of Foreign Asset Control), how the US Treasury tracks Bitcoin wallets to identify sanctioned actors, and what you actually need to do the moment ransomware hits your organization.We also get into why paying a ransom paints a target on your back — 70% of companies that pay get hit again within six months — and why immutable backups are the only thing that truly keeps you out of this situation.Chapters:0:00 Intro1:31 Meet the Guests: Curtis, Prasanna, and Dr. Mike Saylor4:10 Case Study: A Construction Company and the Lazarus Group6:34 Are These Bad Guys Sanctioned? Introducing OFAC8:05 Why Ransomware Funds Terrorism, Drug Trafficking, and Worse11:00 Sanctions Penalties: Fines That Can Put You Out of Business12:24 Colonial Pipeline and Exceptions for Critical Infrastructure13:26 How the Government Tracks Bitcoin Wallets16:27 Global Sanctions: UK and Australia Have Their Own Rules18:31 Pay Once, Pay Again: The 70% Re-Attack Rate20:43 Proof of Life: Don't Pay Without It23:38 What To Do When You Get Hit: The Right Order of Operations25:17 Immutable Backups: The Only Real Answer27:07 How the Construction Company's Backups Got Wiped33:07 Build Your Team Before the Bad Day: FBI InfraGard and More

Polymorphic malware is the kind of threat that changes its own code — its signature, its behavior, even the command-and-control server it reports to — specifically so your antivirus can't catch it. In this episode, Dr. Mike Saylor of Black Swan Cybersecurity joins Prasanna and me to break down exactly how this works, why signature-based detection keeps losing the race, and what defenders actually need to do differently.Mike walks us through ViraLock, one of the most well-known early examples of polymorphic malware, and explains the gap between infection and detection that attackers exploit. We also get into the difference between polymorphic and metamorphic malware — and metamorphic is a lot scarier. Then we cover waterhole attacks, a red team story that will make you rethink how fast attackers can own a network, and what behavioral detection looks like when it's actually working.If you thought keeping your antivirus updated was enough, this episode is going to change your mind.Chapters:00:00:00 – Intro01:35 – Meet the guests: Prasanna Malaiyandi and Dr. Mike Saylor02:58 – What is polymorphic malware? The ViraLock story05:52 – How polymorphic code changes its own signature10:04 – Disguised executables and the human factor12:23 – Polymorphic vs. static malware: what's the real difference?14:15 – Metamorphic malware: nation-state-level scary16:01 – The Frankenstein virus: a conceptual metamorphic example16:52 – Waterhole attacks: infecting the shared file everyone downloads18:32 – How polymorphic malware stays alive: the red team story21:28 – Behavioral detection and baselining: how you actually fight back26:57 – Risk-based defense: protect what matters most

Password manager vulnerabilities aren't just about bad code — and a new research paper out of Zurich just proved it. Researchers analyzed three of the most popular password managers and found fundamental design flaws baked into the very architecture that's supposed to keep your credentials safe. Curtis and Prasanna break it all down and tell you what to do about it.If you've ever been that person who asks "but what if the password manager gets hacked?" — this episode is for you. And if you haven't been asking that question, you probably should start. A research team looked at LastPass, Bitwarden, and Dashlane — products with a combined 60 million users representing roughly 23% of the password manager market — and what they found wasn't sloppy programming. It was something harder to fix: architectural problems at the core of how encrypted vaults work.Curtis walks through how the zero-knowledge encryption model works, why the vault recovery process creates an inherent trust problem, and why the researchers were able to exploit that trust by impersonating the server during vault recovery. Prasanna adds another layer — the field-level encryption issues inside the vaults themselves, where there's no strong verification that data hasn't been manipulated. It's not theoretical. It's a real attack surface.The good news? Curtis still believes password managers are the right tool for today — better than sticky notes on a monitor (yes, he saw that in real life) and better than reusing passwords. But he's also clear that passkeys are the right direction for the future, even if the current implementation is still a little rough around the edges.https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/058.pdfhttps://www.theregister.com/2026/02/16/password_managers/https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2026/01/23/lastpass-issues-critical-warning-for-users---password-attacks-underway/

Protect Your Brain: Sleep, Stress, Cholesterol & Stroke Risk. In this powerful brain health podcast, Dr. Prasanna Karki, Neurosurgeon, Neurointerventionist, and Biohacker, explains everything you need to know about stroke prevention, brain aneurysm, and long-term brain health. We break down what is stroke, aneurysm symptoms, and how early stroke diagnosis can save lives. Dr. Karki discusses smoking effects on brain health, vaping vs cigarettes health risks, alcohol brain damage, and whether brain damage recovery is possible. He reveals the truth about coffee brain health, stress and brain health, sleep and brain function, and how cholesterol levels like LDL vs HDL cholesterol affect blood pressure and stroke risk. We also explore fish oil brain benefits, healthy habits for brain longevity, and practical ways to prevent brain stroke before it happens. If you want to protect your brain, understand aneurysm symptoms, and reduce your stroke risk, this episode is a must-watch. Whether you're concerned about blood pressure and stroke, want clarity on biohacking brain health, or simply want to build better daily habits for your brain, this conversation delivers science-backed insights you can apply immediately. GET CONNECTED WITH Dr. Prasanna Karki: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/prasanna-karki-138bb8153 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556672974094# Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/prassuk/ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@prassuka  

In this episode of Born in Silicon Valley, host Jake Aaron Villarreal sits down with Prasanna Venkatesan, the Founder and CEO of Petavue, to discuss the structural inefficiencies currently crippling enterprise data teams. Prasanna reveals why traditional BI tools like Tableau and Snowflake are being replaced by agentic native architectures that prioritize 100% accuracy over non-deterministic AI fluff. Previously, Prasanna sold his company to ZoomInfo, where he scaled operations from 15 to 500 people. Now, he is on a mission to deliver breakthrough productivity gains for data teams by bridging the gap between business context and technical execution. We dive deep into the spiritual nature of startups, the "business of giving hope," and why the future of software relies on forward-deployed engineers to ensure AI truly delivers on its promises. Key Topics Covered: • The transition from startup founder to VP of a public company. • Why "piecemeal AI" in legacy tools is failing the enterprise. • The Petavue origin story: Solving the 10X productivity gap in data analytics. • The critical role of Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) in AI adoption. • Prasanna's journey from a family of priests to Silicon Valley innovator. • Predicting the data stack of 2030: Consolidation vs. Deconsolidation. Chapters 02:39 From India to Silicon Valley Founder 05:29 Faith, Hope, and the Psychology of Building Startups 09:52 What Startup Acquisitions Actually Feel Like 14:56 The Shock of Becoming a VP at a Public Company 18:55 Why Data Teams Are Failing Inside Enterprises 23:30 The Broken Data Stack No One Talks About 28:44 Why Tableau, Looker, and BI Tools Are Losing 36:58 Why AI Must Be 100% Accurate in Enterprise 38:05 The Truth About Forward Deployed Engineers Host: Jake Aaron Villarreal leads the top AI recruitment firm in Silicon Valley, www.matchrelevant.com, uncovering stories of funded startups and going behind the scenes to tell their founders' journeys. If you are growing an AI startup or have a great story to tell, email us at: jake.villarreal@matchrelevant.com

Disk backup security is the weak link that ransomware attackers exploit every day—and most backup admins don't even realize it. In this episode, Curtis and Prasanna examine how the move from tape to disk-based backups created an unintended security gap that threat actors now target as their first priority.The transition to disk brought real benefits: deduplication made storage affordable, replication eliminated the "man in a van" for offsite copies, and backup verification became practical. But disk backup security wasn't part of the original architecture. When backups lived on tape, physical access was required to destroy them. Disk backups sitting in E:backups can be wiped out with a single command.Threat actors figured this out fast. After gaining initial access, the first thing they do is identify and eliminate your backups. No backups means no recovery—which means you pay the ransom.Curtis and Prasanna discuss the history of how we got here, why backups are now the number one target, and practical solutions including obfuscation, getting backups out of user space, and implementing truly immutable storage. The standard is simple: if you can't delete the backups, they can't delete the backups.TIMESTAMPS:0:00 - Episode intro1:24 - Welcome & introductions4:04 - Tape explained for the modern audience9:07 - Why tape got faster (and problematic)10:54 - The shoe-shining problem12:27 - Deduplication changes everything15:35 - Benefits of disk-based backup20:29 - THE PROBLEM: RM -r / DEL .23:43 - Backups are the #1 ransomware target26:26 - Immutability as the solution27:32 - Book: Learning Ransomware Response & Recovery

Send us a textE165 | Change Makers Series - Ft. Vishal TalrejaStart with a quiet truth: change that lasts rarely shouts. It begins with seeing what we've trained ourselves to ignore—poverty on the commute, a child shut down in class, a system running fast but leaving people behind. In this conversation, we sit with Vishal from Dream a Dream to unpack how life skills, empathy, and systems thinking can shift the odds for young people growing up with adversity.We go deep on why social-emotional learning matters as much as literacy and numeracy, especially when trauma has delayed key developmental milestones. Vishal shares the surprising lever that scaled their impact: not more programs, but more caring adults. That insight led to training tens of thousands of teachers and partnering with state governments to embed a daily happiness and wellbeing curriculum across public schools. The work stretches from classrooms to policy, from personal agency to public systems, and it's grounded in a simple promise—every child deserves dignity, safety, and the chance to thrive.The stories bring it to life. Pallavi, once a shy teen mocked for playing football, returns as a life skills coach and then organizes her neighborhood to convert a garbage mound into a public play space. Prasanna, raised around violence, learns to channel anger into sport, mentorship, and photography, later finding hard-won empathy for his father's past. We also examine the limits of resilience when structural barriers—caste, class, gender, and access to devices and data—block progress, a lesson sharpened by the pandemic. That's why this journey includes inner work: confronting identity and power, building trust with bureaucrats, and co-creating context-first solutions rather than pushing one-size-fits-all fixes.If you're drawn to education reform, leadership, or social change, you'll find practical takeaways: how to scale without losing soul, how to avoid burnout by designing for rest and celebration, and how small actions—like asking teachers about kindness or meeting a stranger's eyes—can shift culture. Listen, reflect, and share with someone who needs a dose of grounded hope. If it resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what small shift will you try this week?Reference Website/shttps://dreamadream.org/Book - When We Thrive, Our World Thrives - https://amzn.in/d/4e5u9ABwww.inspiresomeonetoday.inHave you purchased the copy of Inspire Someone Today, yet - Give it a go geni.us/istbook Available on all podcast platforms, including, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify

What's your real backup TCO? Most organizations focus on software licenses, hardware, and cloud storage when budgeting for backup infrastructure. But those are just the visible costs. The true backup TCO includes something far more expensive: the humans managing it all.In this episode, Curtis and Prasanna break down the complete picture of backup costs. They explore why soft costs—the labor, the troubleshooting, the daily monitoring—often exceed what you're paying for technology. With studies showing over half of environments spend more than 10 hours weekly on backup management, those labor dollars add up fast.The discussion covers cloud storage pitfalls (especially with object lock and retention policies), why automation is your best friend, and whether SaaS-based backup might actually save you money. Curtis shares his infamous 1993 story about losing a production database – the origin story of Mr. Backup himself. If you're looking to get a handle on your backup TCO, this is the episode for you.

Ransomware attacks on backups have reached epidemic levels, with 96% of attacks now targeting backup infrastructure. In this episode of The Backup Wrap-up, Curtis Preston and Prasanna Malaiyandi break down the alarming statistics and explain why cybercriminals have made your recovery systems their primary target.The math is simple: if attackers destroy your backups, you're far more likely to pay the ransom. And with only 25% of organizations feeling prepared for ransomware attacks on backups, the gap between threat and readiness is massive.Curtis and Prasanna discuss two studies revealing these numbers, explore why less than 7% of companies recover within a day, and outline practical defenses including true immutability, separate identity management systems, and MFA. If you're not protecting your backup infrastructure from ransomware attacks on backups, you're leaving yourself wide open.

Building a cyber security team isn't optional anymore; it's the difference between recovering from ransomware and going out of business. In this episode, Curtis and Prasanna explain why hardening your backup infrastructure is only half the battle. You need professionals who know how to configure XDR systems without drowning you in false positives, blue teams to defend your environment, and red teams to test whether your defenses actually work. They cover the role of MSSPs, incident response planning, cyber insurance requirements, and why attempting ransomware response on your own is like those old TV warnings: "Don't try this at home." If you've been following their series on backup basics and system hardening, this episode ties it all together with the human element that makes or breaks your recovery plan.

As usual in the final episode of the year, we hand out three awards for what we think are some of the finest pieces of information systems scholarship produced this year. Except that this time, we are live at the International Conference on Information Systems in Nashville, Tennessee, in a room packed with our listeners. While this means the quality of the audio of our recording is not so great, the quality of the papers we honor this year is. And with a room full of laughter celebrating great information systems scholarship, we end the year on a high note. Congratulations to Stefan, Christoph, and Jan for winning the Trailblazing Research Award, John and Prasanna for winning the Elegant Scholarship Award, and Yanzhen, Huaxia and Andrew for winning the Innovative Method Award 2025. References Lowry, M. R. L., Vance, A., & Vance, M. D. (2025). Inexpert Supervision: Field Evidence on Boards' Oversight of Cybersecurity. Management Science, https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.04147. Porra, J., Hirschheim, R., Land, F., & Lyytinen, K. (2025). Seventy Years of Information Systems Development Methodologies from Early Business Computing to the Agile Era: A Two-part History. Part 1: From Pre to Early ISD Methodology Era: The Emergence of ISD Methodologies and Their Golden Era (1880–1980). Journal of Information Technology, 40(4), 441-469. Porra, J., Hirschheim, R., Land, F., & Lyytinen, K. (2025). Seventy Years of Information Systems Development Methodologies from Early Business Computing to the Agile Era: A Two-part History. Part 2: Later ISD to Early Post ISD Methodology Era: Adapting to Accelerated Context Expansion (1980–today). Journal of Information Technology, 40(4), 470-498. Abbasi, A., Somanchi, S., & Kelley, K. (2025). The Critical Challenge of using Large-scale Digital Experiment Platforms for Scientific Discovery. MIS Quarterly, 49(1), 1-28. Storey, V. C., Baskerville, R. L., & Kaul, M. (2025). Reliability in Design Science Research. Information Systems Journal, 35(3), 984-1014. Larsen, K. R., Lukyanenko, R., Mueller, R. M., Storey, V. C., Parsons, J., VanderMeer, D. E., & Hovorka, D. S. (2025). Validity in Design Science. MIS Quarterly, 49(4), 1267-1294. Vance, A., Eargle, D., Kirwan, C. B., Anderson, B. B., & Jenkins, J. L. (2025). The Fog of Warnings: How Non-Security-Related Notifications Diminish the Efficacy of Security Warnings. MIS Quarterly, 49(4), 1357–1384. Baiyere, A., Bauer, J. M., Constantiou, I., & Hardt, D. (2025). Fake News and True News Assessment: The Persuasive Effect of Discursive Evidence in Judging Veracity. MIS Quarterly, 49(3), 823-860. Seidel, S., Frick, C. J., & vom Brocke, J. (2025). Regulating Emerging Technologies: Prospective Sensemaking through Abstraction and Elaboration. MIS Quarterly, 49(1), 179-204. Burton-Jones, A., Boh, W., Oborn, E., & Padmanabhan, B. (2021). Advancing Research Transparency at MIS Quarterly: A Pluralistic Approach. MIS Quarterly, 45(2), iii-xviii. Horton, J. J., & Tambe, P. (2025). The Death of a Technical Skill. Information Systems Research, 36(3), 1799-1820. Chen, Y., Rui, H., & Whinston, A. B. (2025). Conversation Analytics: Can Machines Read Between the Lines in Real-Time Strategic Conversations? Information Systems Research, 36(1), 440-455. Grisold, T., Berente, N., & Seidel, S. (2025). Guardrails for Human-AI Ecologies: A Design Theory for Managing Norm-Based Coordination. MIS Quarterly, 49(4), 1239-1266. Clark, A. (2015). Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind. Oxford University Press. Recker, J. (2021). Scientific Research in Information Systems: A Beginner's Guide (2nd ed.). Springer. Hirschheim, R., & Klein, H. K. (2012). A Glorious and Not-So-Short History of the Information Systems Field. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 13(4), 188-235.

Want to know how to build an immutable backup system protected from ransomware attacks? In this episode, Curtis and Prasanna go beyond the basics to discuss four critical security features every modern backup system needs. Building on feedback from their previous episode about backup fundamentals, they cover multi-factor authentication (and why SMS doesn't cut it anymore), secure remote access methods, role-based access control, and when to bring in managed security service providers. The hosts explain why the person with full backup system access is literally the most powerful person in your company from a data destruction standpoint. If ransomware is your number one recovery scenario—and it is—then these security hardening techniques aren't optional. They're survival skills for your backup infrastructure.

Alexander Embiricos leads product on Codex, OpenAI's powerful coding agent, which has grown 20x since August and now serves trillions of tokens weekly. Before joining OpenAI, Alexander spent five years building a pair programming product for engineers. He now works at the frontier of AI-led software development, building what he describes as a software engineering teammate—an AI agent designed to participate across the entire development lifecycle.We discuss:1. Why Codex has grown 20x since launch and what product decisions unlocked this growth2. How OpenAI built the Sora Android app in just 18 days using Codex3. Why the real bottleneck to AGI-level productivity isn't model capability—it's human typing speed4. The vision of AI as a proactive teammate, not just a tool you prompt5. The bottleneck shifting from building to reviewing AI-generated work6. Why coding will be a core competency for every AI agent—because writing code is how agents use computers best—Brought to you by:WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lennyFin—The #1 AI agent for customer service: https://fin.ai/lennyJira Product Discovery—Confidence to build the right thing: https://atlassian.com/lenny/?utm_source=lennypodcast&utm_medium=paid-audio&utm_campaign=fy24q1-jpd-imc—Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-humans-are-ais-biggest-bottleneck—My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/180365355/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation—Where to find Alexander Embiricos:• X: https://x.com/embirico• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/embirico—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Alexander Embiricos (05:13) The speed and ambition at OpenAI(11:34) Codex: OpenAI's coding agent(15:43) Codex's explosive growth(24:59) The future of AI and coding agents(33:11) The impact of AI on engineering(44:08) How Codex has impacted the way PMs operate(45:40) Throwaway code and ubiquitous coding(47:10) Shipping the Sora Android app(49:01) Building the Atlas browser(53:34) Codex's impact on productivity(55:35) Measuring progress on Codex(58:09) Why they are building a web browser(01:01:58) Non-engineering use cases for Codex(01:02:53) Codex's capabilities(01:04:49) Tips for getting started with Codex(01:05:37) Skills to lean into in the AI age(01:10:36) How far are we from a human version of AI?(01:13:31) Hiring and team growth at Codex(01:15:47) Lightning round and final thoughts—Referenced:• OpenAI: https://openai.com• Codex: https://openai.com/codex• Inside ChatGPT: The fastest-growing product in history | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-chatgpt-nick-turley• Dropbox: http://dropbox.com• Datadog: https://www.datadoghq.com• Andrej Karpathy on X: https://x.com/karpathy• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can't stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell• Atlas: https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-atlas• How Block is becoming the most AI-native enterprise in the world | Dhanji R. Prasanna: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-block-is-becoming-the-most-ai-native• Goose: https://block.xyz/inside/block-open-source-introduces-codename-goose• Lessons on building product sense, navigating AI, optimizing the first mile, and making it through the messy middle | Scott Belsky (Adobe, Behance): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-on-building-product-sense• Sora Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.openai.sora&hl=en_US&pli=1• The OpenAI Podcast—ChatGPT Atlas and the next era of web browsing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdbgNC80PMw&list=PLOXw6I10VTv9GAOCZjUAAkSVyW2cDXs4u&index=2• How to measure AI developer productivity in 2025 | Nicole Forsgren: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-measure-ai-developer-productivity• Compiling: https://3d.xkcd.com/303• Jujutsu Kaisen on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81278456• Tesla: https://www.tesla.com• Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/radical-candor-from-theory-to-practice• Andreas Embirikos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Embirikos• George Embiricos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Embiricos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Embiricos—Recommended books:• Culture series: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WLZZ9WV• The Lord of the Rings: https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0544003411• A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought series Book 1): https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Upon-Deep-Zones-Thought/dp/1250237750• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Kick-Ass-Without-Humanity/dp/1250103509—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Every backup system needs certain design elements to actually work when disaster strikes. In this episode of The Backup Wrap-up, W. Curtis Preston (Mr. Backup) and Prasanna Malaiyandi break down the 10 non-negotiable components your backup system must have. They cover the 3-2-1 rule, automated scheduling, recovery testing, defined RTOs and RPOs, backup security, SaaS protection, documentation, retention policies, monitoring, and endpoint backup. If your backup system is missing any of these elements, you're taking risks you can't afford. Curtis and Prasanna share war stories from real disasters and explain why no one cares if you can back up - they only care if you can restore. This fast-paced episode gives you the checklist every IT professional needs to evaluate their current backup approach.

The 3-2-1 rule is dead. Long live 3-2-1-1-0. For decades, the 3-2-1 rule has been the gold standard for backup strategies - three copies of your data, on two different media, with one copy somewhere else. But ransomware killed it. Not because the fundamentals were wrong, but because threat actors learned to target backups specifically. In this episode, Curtis and Prasanna explain why the traditional 3-2-1 rule isn't enough anymore and what the evolution to 3-2-1-1-0 means for your backup strategy. The extra "1" stands for one immutable, air-gapped copy that attackers can't delete or encrypt. The "0" means zero failures - your backups must actually work when you need them. You'll learn why SaaS platforms don't meet the 3-2-1 rule, how to think about immutability in the cloud era, and why this upgrade isn't optional if you want to survive a ransomware attack.Our interview with Peter Krogh, the one who coined the term:https://www.backupwrapup.com/peter-krogh-who-coined-the-3-2-1-rule-on-our-podcast/

Want to know how much data you're really willing to lose? We're breaking down recovery point objective RPO - the agreement about how much data loss you can accept, measured in time. Most organizations have RPOs that are pure fantasy, claiming they can only lose an hour of data when they're backing up once a day. Curtis and Prasanna discuss why RPO matters, how ransomware scenarios can force you to accept more data loss than planned, and the difference between your stated RPO and your actual backup frequency. Learn practical strategies for rightsizing your backup schedule, using database transaction logs to minimize data loss, leveraging snapshot-based backup technologies, and protecting your SaaS applications like Microsoft 365 and Salesforce. From incremental backups to continuous data protection, discover how modern backup technology can help you meet your recovery point objective RPO targets without overwhelming your infrastructure.

Brought to you by the Founders Unfiltered podcast by A Junior VC - Unscripted conversations with Indian founders about their story and the process of building a company. Hosted by Aviral and Mazin.Join us as we talk to Prasanna Rao, the Co-founder and CEO of Arya.ag about their story.Prasanna holds a PGDRM in Rural Management from the Institute of Rural Management Anand and is a Chevening Financial Services Fellow from King's College London. He led commodity-based financing at ICICI Bank for nearly eight years and has served as a Strategic Advisor at SecurEyes for over 14 years. He later co-founded Arya Collateral Warehousing Services Pvt. Ltd., where he has spent almost 13 years scaling an agri-supply chain enterprise in India.

Prasanna Tantri is an Associate Professor in the Finance area and Executive Director of the Centre for Analytical Finance at ISB. His research areas include- banking, financial inclusion, financial contagion, regulation, and the relationship between politics and finance. He teaches a course on Indian financial systems.

Most IT teams can't meet their recovery time objective—and they don't even know it. In this episode of The Backup Wrap-up, Curtis and Prasanna explain why your RTO is probably fantasy, who should actually be setting it (hint: not you), and what recovery time actual really means. We cover the critical difference between objectives and reality, why testing is non-negotiable, and how to have honest conversations with business leadership about what's achievable. Learn about DR drills, chaos engineering, tabletop exercises, and why measuring your actual recovery times is the only way to close the gap. Stop feeling like a failure and start building realistic, tested recovery plans that actually work when disaster strikes.

Dhanji R. Prasanna is the chief technology officer at Block (formerly Square), where he's managed more than 4,000 engineers over the past two years. Under his leadership, Block has become one of the most AI-native large companies in the world. Before becoming CTO, Dhanji wrote an “AI manifesto” to CEO Jack Dorsey that sparked a company-wide transformation (and his promotion to CTO).We discuss:1. How Block's internal open-source agent, called Goose, is saving employees 8 to 10 hours weekly2. How the company measures AI productivity gains across technical and non-technical teams3. Which teams are benefiting most from AI (it's not engineering)4. The boring organizational change that boosted productivity even more than AI tools5. Why code quality has almost nothing to do with product success6. How to drive AI adoption throughout an organization (hint: leadership needs to use the tools daily)7. Lessons from building Google Wave, Google+, and other failed products—Brought to you by:Sinch—Build messaging, email, and calling into your product: https://sinch.com/lennyFigma Make—A prompt-to-code tool for making ideas real: https://www.figma.com/lenny/Persona—A global leader in digital identity verification: https://withpersona.com/lenny—Where to find Dhanji R. Prasanna:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhanji/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Dhanji(05:26) The AI manifesto: convincing Jack Dorsey(07:33) Transforming into a more AI-native company(12:05) How engineering teams work differently today(15:24) Goose: Block's open-source AI agent(20:18) Measuring AI productivity gains across teams(21:38) What Goose is and how it works(32:15) The future of AI in engineering and productivity(37:42) The importance of human taste(40:10) Building vs. buying software(44:08) How AI is changing hiring and team structure(53:45) The importance of using AI tools yourself before deploying them(55:13) How Goose helped solve a personal problem with receipts(58:01) What makes Goose unique(59:57) What Dhanji wishes he knew before becoming CTO(01:01:49) Counterintuitive lessons in product development(01:04:56) Why controlled chaos can be good for engineering teams(01:08:07) Core leadership lessons(01:13:36) Failure corner(01:15:50) Lightning round and final thoughts—Referenced:• Jack Dorsey on X: https://x.com/jack• Block: https://block.xyz/• Square: https://squareup.com/• Cash App: https://cash.app/• What is Conway's Law?: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-life-hacks/organization/what-is-conways-law#• Goose: https://github.com/block/goose• Gosling: https://github.com/block/goose-mobile• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/• Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com/• Claude: https://claude.ai/• Anthropic co-founder on quitting OpenAI, AGI predictions, $100M talent wars, 20% unemployment, and the nightmare scenarios keeping him up at night | Ben Mann: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropic-co-founder-benjamin-mann• OpenAI: https://openai.com/• OpenAI's CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai• Llama: https://www.llama.com/• Cursor: https://cursor.com/• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can't stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell• Top Gun: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092099/• Lenny's vibe-coded Lovable app: https://gdoc-images-grab.lovable.app/• Afterpay: https://github.com/afterpay• Bitkey: https://bitkey.world/• Proto: https://github.com/proto-at-block• Brad Axen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyaxen/• Databricks: https://www.databricks.com/• Carl Sagan's quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/32952-if-you-wish-to-make-an-apple-pie-from-scratch• Google Wave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave• Google Video: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Video• Secret: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_(app)• Alien Earth on FX: https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/alien-earth• Slow Horses on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/slow-horses/umc.cmc.2szz3fdt71tl1ulnbp8utgq5o• Fargo TV series on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Fargo-Season-1/dp/B09QGRGH6M• Steam Deck OLED display: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/oled• Doc Brown: https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Emmett_Brown—Recommended books:• The Master and Margarita: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Margarita-Mikhail-Bulgakov/dp/0802130119• Tennyson Poems: https://www.amazon.com/Tennyson-Poems-Everymans-Library-Pocket/dp/1400041872/Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.My biggest takeaways from this conversation: To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

This episode examines a sophisticated ArcGIS hack that remained undetected for 12 months. The threat group Flax Typhoon compromised an ArcGIS server by exploiting weak credentials and deploying a malicious Java extension that functioned as a web shell. The attack highlights critical failures in traditional security approaches: the malware was backed up along with legitimate data, signature-based detection tools completely missed the custom code, and the lack of multi-factor authentication made the initial breach possible. Curtis and Prasanna discuss why behavioral detection is now mandatory, how password length trumps complexity, and the importance of cyber hygiene practices like regular system audits and extension management. They also cover ReliaQuest's recommendations for preventing similar attacks, including automated response playbooks and monitoring for anomalous behavior. If you're running public-facing applications or managing any IT infrastructure, this episode provides actionable lessons you can't afford to ignore.https://reliaquest.com/blog/threat-spotlight-inside-flax-typhoons-arcgis-compromise

This is the second GeriPal podcast we've recorded live using this format, see this link to our prior podcast at the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) meeting in Philadelphia.  Also look for our upcoming podcast recorded live from the São Paulo Geriatrics & Gerontology Congress, click here to register. Today we join you from beautiful Banff, Alberta, Canada at the National Palliative Care Research Center (NPCRC) annual Kathleen Foley retreat.  This meeting was bittersweet.  I've been fortunate to attend every meeting in one capacity or another since 2006.  The NPCRC made an enormous impact  on the growth and capacity for palliative care research nationally.  Personally, NPCRC funding was essential support as I was a new faculty member and had not yet secured longer term career development funding. More than anything, though, I will miss the NPCRC community.  I treasure those meals, hikes, sing-alongs with others dedicated to improving care of people with serious illness through research. On today's podcast, we invited Dio Kavalieratos, Prasanna Ananth, and Alexi Wright to join us to talk about three articles that spoke to them.  For each I leave you with a teaser of a hard question that was raised that we couldn't really answer. Prasanna chose an article by Abby Rosenberg about being fired in palliative care. We talked about why palliative care clinicians get fired, with Prasanna, a pediatric oncologist, raising the issue that it's more problematic when you're the oncologist providing primary palliative care and you get fired than if the consultant specialty palliative care provider is fired. Dio chose an article about the economic benefits of palliative care internationally, a call to action.  We talked about the needs of palliative care internationally, and Alexi raised the question: should the highest standard of palliative care (e.g. in the US) apply to palliative care in every country, a la the Partners in Health model pioneered by the late Paul Farmer? Or should we “settle” for access to affordable opioids? Alexi chose an article about cancer care in prison. Alexi used it as a springboard to talk about other populations at compounded risk for poorer care in the current political environment. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we did, dear listeners.  We're always trying to improve, and welcome your suggestions for how to improve upon this new “live” format.  So far we've heard we need to be better at summarizing the articles for the audience/listeners, and finding ways to involve our live audience to a greater extent than the occasional question. Please let us know if you have other suggestions! Final note - check out the wonderful video NPCRC created about their impact on the field of palliative care (Eric and I were filmed recording GeriPal). -Alex Smith   This episode of the GeriPal Podcast is sponsored by UCSF's Division of Palliative Medicine, an amazing group doing world class palliative care.  They are looking for physician faculty to join them in the inpatient and outpatient setting.  To learn more about job opportunities, please click here: https://aprecruit.ucsf.edu/apply/JPF05811

As CTO of Block, Dhanji Prasanna has overseen a dramatic enterprise AI transformation, with engineers saving 8-10 hours a week through AI automation. Block's open-source agent goose connects to existing enterprise tools through MCP, enabling everyone from engineers to sales teams to build custom applications without coding. Dhanji shares how Block reorganized from business unit silos to functional teams to accelerate AI adoption, why they chose to open-source their most valuable AI tool and why he believes swarms of smaller AI models will outperform monolithic LLMs. Hosted by: Sonya Huang and Roelof Botha, Sequoia Capital Mentioned in the episode: goose: Block's open-source, general-purpose AI agent used across the company to orchestrate workflows via tools and APIs.  Model Context Protocol (MCP): Open protocol (spearheaded by Anthropic) for connecting AI agents to tools; goose was an early adopter and helped shape. bitchat: Decentralized chat app written by Jack Dorsey Swarm intelligence: Research direction Dhanji highlights for AI's future where many agents (geese) collaborate to build complex software beyond a single-agent copilot. Travelling Salesman Problem: Classic optimization problem cited by Dhanji in the context of a non-technical user of goose solving a practical optimization task. Amara's Law: The idea, originated by futurist Roy Amara in 1978, that we overestimate tech impact short term and underestimate long term. 00:00 Introduction 01:48 AI: Friend or Foe? 03:13 Block's Journey with AI and Technology 04:47 Block's Diverse Product Range 07:04 Driving AI at Block 14:28 The Evolution of Goose 27:45 Integrating Goose with Existing Systems 28:23 Goose's Learning and Recipe Feature 29:41 Tool Use and LLM Providers 31:40 Impact of AI on Developer Productivity 34:37 Block's Commitment to Open Source 39:09 Future of AI and Swarm Intelligence 43:05 Remote Work at Block 45:15 Vibe Coding and AI in Development 48:43 Making Goose More Accessible 51:28 Generative AI in Customer-Facing Products 54:09 Design and Engineering at Block 55:38 Predictions for the Future of AI

In this episode, we explored themes that invite us to see life from new angles: Exploring the practice and symbolism of headstands—turning our world upside down Unpacking the concept of prasanna: ease and inner joy Spirituality and joyfulness Reflecting on how our perceptions shape what we truly hear Approaching death from a place of openness rather than fear Join the Happy Jack Yoga community:

Allow Maison Ramblin to cook you up a delectable aural dish with our episode on Lasse Hallström's 2014 foodie comedy-drama THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY, based on Richard C. Morais' book and starring film legends Helen Mirren and Om Puri. This cosy tale of an Indian family trying to make a new life for themselves in the French countryside by opening a restaurant directly across the street from a Michelin-starred high dining establishment holds more to it than meets the eye, which we more than tuck into across our own journey. We're also very happy to be joined in the episode by writer and speaker Prasanna Ranganathan whose own journey with the film has been one that holds many surprising and heartwarming turns.You can follow Prasanna Ranganathan on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/prasran/?hl=en - and can read his Huffington Post piece on film here: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-culinary-cultural-love-letter_b_5672409 You can also discover more about his mother's cookbook here: https://rupikaur.com/products/made-with-prema-cookbook?srsltid=AfmBOoqXhPflBrysPz5MPFL24xGykXJpafVEeiw2ZNes5l66UGSEsul2 and here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/south-indian-vegetarian-cookbook-charity-blindness-1.6391105 And discover the recipe for Beef Bourguignon à la Hassan here: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/what-happens-when-an-indian-chef-makes-beef-bourguignon-85558314606.html?guccounter=1 You can follow the podcast on Twitter, BlueSky and Instagram and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode! Get in touch with us either via socials or email rambinaboutamblin@gmail.com.Ramblin is created and produced by Andrew Gaudion and Joshua Glenn. A special thanks as always to Emily Tatham for the artwork, and Robert J. Hunter & Greg Sheffield for the theme music.

This episode of The Backup Wrap-up examines cybersecurity situational awareness through the lens of Mr. Robot's prison break episode. Curtis and Prasanna analyze the technical accuracy of USB stick attacks, Bluetooth car hacking, and social engineering tactics. The hosts discuss real-world defenses including USB port management, network segmentation, and employee training. They explore WPA2 encryption vulnerabilities and why upgrading to WPA3 matters for wireless security. The conversation covers practical cybersecurity situational awareness lessons, from recognizing physical security threats to monitoring network traffic patterns. Curtis shares war stories about malware-infected conference USB sticks, and both hosts examine how poor cybersecurity situational awareness enabled the fictional attacks. This episode provides actionable insights for IT professionals looking to strengthen their organization's security posture against USB-based threats, Bluetooth exploits, and social engineering campaigns.

Learn the ins and outs of honeypot server deployment and management in this episode of The Backup Wrap-up. We break down the cybersecurity concept using examples from Mr. Robot episodes 1.6 and 1.7, showing how these deceptive systems can catch both external attackers and insider threats.A honeypot server works by creating an enticing target that looks valuable but contains no real business data. The key is making it accessible through common exploits and monitoring every access attempt. Curtis and Prasanna discuss real-world implementation strategies, from naming conventions to network placement, and explain why the honeypot only works if attackers don't know it exists. They also cover the critical importance of remote log storage for forensic analysis and how these systems can reveal attack patterns and entry points during incident response.

Recorded live on the scene in Portugal. Today we go deep on EMF sensitivity, the truth about low-EMF saunas, and why ancestral rituals like BBQing picanha over fire might be some of the most powerful health practices of all. Expect a blend of practical takeaways and philosophy, all set against the backdrop of Portuguese biohacking. This week I'm joined by Gabriel Marques, founder of Prasanna Health in Portugal...  and his personal story is incredible.  Use code TONY for some $$$ off his incredible Prasanna products.  Follow Gabriel Marques on Instagram.   THIS SHOW IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY: BiOptimizers Sleep Breakthrough and Magnesium Breakthrough These are BIOptimizers sleep and magnesium supplements which I take every night.  I have also been using the new Magnesium Breakthrough drink - delicious way to get magnesium. I have been putting a scoop in my protein shake after a workout.  Just go to BIOptimizers.com/tony and use code TONY15 for at least 15% off (often more). Code works worldwide, and on all their products.

This episode examines cybersecurity in the workplace through the lens of Mr. Robot's "Exploits" episode, where social engineering takes center stage. Curtis Preston and Prasanna break down how Elliot infiltrates Steel Mountain data center using badge cloning, psychological manipulation, and fake identities.The hosts analyze real-world implications of these attacks, from coffee shop badge theft to exploiting lonely employees. They discuss critical gaps in physical security protocols and explain why cybersecurity in the workplace fails when organizations rely on single points of security. Key topics include visitor badge systems, tailgating prevention, security camera monitoring, and building a culture where employees feel empowered to challenge unauthorized access. The episode reveals how most workplace breaches happen through human exploitation rather than technical hacking, making employee training and robust security protocols critical for protecting sensitive data and systems.

Social engineering attacks are becoming more sophisticated, and this episode of The Backup Wrap-up explores real-world tactics through our Mr. Robot series analysis. Curtis and Prasanna examine how social engineering works, from Instagram stalking to phone compromise, and discuss actual ransomware groups like Scattered Spider who use social engineering to impersonate employees and reset passwords. We break down the hospital hacking scene, revealing how underfunded IT departments create vulnerabilities that social engineering attacks exploit. The episode also covers email security, backup system risks, and the Sony hack parallels shown in the series. Learn how to protect your organization from social engineering by understanding what information to keep private, how to properly fund cybersecurity, and why your backup systems need protection from social engineering tactics.

Reconnaissance in cyber security isn't just about scanning networks; it's about understanding your entire attack surface, including the human element. In this episode, Curtis and Prasanna analyze Mr. Robot season one, episode two, (AKA ep 1.1) to explore how sophisticated threat actors conduct reconnaissance before major attacks.Learn how F Society mapped Evil Corp's infrastructure, identified backup locations like Steel Mountain, and used human intelligence to target vulnerable employees. We discuss the reality that attackers will spend months researching your organization, mapping your networks, and identifying weaknesses in both your technology and your people.The hosts break down practical reconnaissance techniques, from social engineering tactics (like the CD attack on Angela and Ollie) to digital network mapping. You'll discover why backup systems are prime targets for reconnaissance and how proper network segregation can limit blast radius when - not if - you're compromised.

The insider threat represents one of the most dangerous and overlooked cybersecurity challenges facing organizations today. In this episode of The Backup Wrap-up, W. Curtis Preston and Prasanna explore the three distinct types of insider threats that can devastate your organization from within.From malicious employees seeking revenge to careless workers who fall for social engineering, insider threats come in many forms. The hosts examine real-world cases including the Coinbase breach through compromised contractors, Apple's lawsuit against an employee who stole Vision Pro secrets, and the infamous logic bomb attack that destroyed an entire company's data.Learn practical strategies for implementing least privilege access, immutable backup protection, and multi-person authentication controls. Discover why 83% of companies experienced some form of insider threat attack in 2024, and get actionable advice on security training, vendor management, and incident response planning to protect your organization's most critical assets.

This episode explores surprising cyber security lessons hidden within Mission: Impossible's latest blockbuster. We analyze how Hollywood's depiction of AI threats, immutable backups, and air-gapped storage actually reflects real-world data protection challenges.Curtis and Prasanna dissect the movie's central premise: an AI entity altering digital reality, making it impossible to distinguish truth from fiction. The solution? An underwater Doomsday Vault containing an immutable, offline backup of the original source code. We discuss how this fictional scenario mirrors actual cybersecurity best practices, from 3-2-1 backup strategies to cryptographic hash verification.Key topics include the spectrum of immutability, why truly offline storage matters for ransomware protection, and how insider threats can compromise even the most secure systems. We also cover practical applications like object storage, SHA-256 hashing, and the human vulnerabilities that often undermine technical security measures. Whether you're a backup professional or just curious about data protection, this episode proves that sometimes the best cyber security lessons come from the most unexpected places.

The EU cloud exit movement is reshaping how European organizations think about data storage and sovereignty. Companies across Europe are moving away from US-based cloud providers like Microsoft 365, AWS, and Google Workspace due to concerns about the Cloud Act and data privacy regulations.In this episode, Curtis and Prasanna explore the backup implications of this major shift. They discuss the challenges of replacing comprehensive platforms like Microsoft 365 with multiple EU-based providers, the complexities of bringing services back in-house, and why the 3-2-1 backup rule becomes even more critical during these transitions.Whether organizations choose local providers or decide to self-host their infrastructure, data protection remains paramount. The hosts share real-world examples of failed backup strategies, including the Rackspace Exchange disaster and OVH's data center fire, to illustrate why third-party backup solutions are necessary regardless of your hosting choice.

Air gap has become one of the most overused and misunderstood terms in backup and recovery. In this episode, W. Curtis Preston and Prasanna explore what air gap really means, tracing its origins from the days when everyone used tape storage to modern virtual implementations. They discuss how true air gap required physical separation - tapes stored offsite at facilities like Iron Mountain - and why this gold standard is nearly impossible to achieve with today's connected backup systems.The conversation covers modern alternatives including immutable storage, IAM-based protection, and simulated air gaps that disconnect network connections when not actively replicating. Curtis and Prasanna explain why ransomware has made air gap more important than ever, and provide practical guidance for evaluating vendor claims about air gap capabilities in cloud and hybrid environments.

This episode breaks down snapshot backup fundamentals, covering the key differences between traditional storage snapshots and cloud-based approaches. Curtis and Prasanna explain copy-on-write versus redirect-on-write methods, performance implications, and why some snapshot systems can degrade performance by up to 50%.Learn about NetApp's redirect-on-write innovation, VMware's unique approach, and how AWS "snapshots" are actually more like traditional backups. The hosts discuss critical concepts like read-only snapshot properties, storage space management, and the importance of copying snapshots to create true backups that follow the 3-2-1 rule.Whether you're managing traditional storage arrays or cloud infrastructure, this episode provides practical guidance on turning snapshots into effective backup strategies. Topics include performance optimization, immutable storage considerations, and real-world implementation challenges that every IT professional faces.

Learn how to extract measurable ROI from your backups beyond traditional disaster recovery. Curtis and Prasanna explore proven strategies for extracting business value from backup infrastructure through test and development environments, security monitoring, compliance checking, and AI-powered analytics. Discover why the shift from tape to disk storage created new opportunities for ROI from backups, including instant restore capabilities and data mining applications. The hosts share real-world examples of organizations using backup data for threat detection, regulatory compliance, and business intelligence. From Veeam's AI integration to copy data management techniques, this episode reveals practical approaches to transform backup systems from cost centers into value generators. Whether you're struggling to justify backup expenses or seeking ways to leverage existing investments, these ROI from backups strategies can help extract maximum value from your stored data.

Tape backup for small business might sound like old tech, but Mag Store's new Thunderbolt-compatible tape drive could change that perception. In this episode, we discuss how this new offering potentially opens tape technology to a wider market of SMBs and content creators looking for ransomware protection and cost-effective long-term storage.Curtis and Prasanna dive into the specifics of when tape backup makes financial sense for small business data protection, particularly for companies generating large amounts of data or concerned about cloud security. They explore the $6,000 upfront investment against the long-term benefits of $90 tape cartridges that hold 45TB compressed. Perfect for SMBs with on-premises data or YouTube creators needing affordable archive solutions that are truly air-gapped from ransomware threats.

Prasanna Dhungel is the co-founder and managing partner at Grow By Data, with nearly two decades of experience leading innovation in marketing, tech, healthcare, and SaaS. A graduate of Cornell, Princeton, and Kellogg School of Management, Prasanna brings deep expertise in digital strategy and search engine evolution. In this episode, he breaks down the future of SEO in an AI-dominated world—covering Google's AI overview, zero-click searches, and how brand visibility is being redefined. You'll learn what's working in 2025, how to adapt your content strategy, and the key metrics top marketers are using to stay ahead. Today we discussed: [00:00] Opening [00:09] Introducing Prasanna Dhungel [00:53] How to Prepare for Changes in Search? [05:06] Is Intent Driven Content the Way Forward? [07:16] What Metrics Should We Be Tracking? [10:39] Best Practices to Show Up in AIO [16:20] Measuring ROI Without Attribution More About Prasanna Dhungel: Check out Prasanna Dhungel's Website: https://growbydata.com/ Connect with Prasanna Dhungel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prasanna-dhungel/ Rate, Review, & Follow If you liked this episode, please rate and review the show. Let us know what you loved most about the episode. Struggling with strategy? Unlock your free AI-powered prompts now and start building a winning strategy today!

In this episode of The Backup Wrap-Up, Curtis and Prasanna explore how forever incremental backup technology revolutionized the data protection industry. They discuss the evolution from traditional backup methods to modern approaches that eliminate the need for regular full backups, dramatically reducing network traffic, storage requirements, and backup windows.The hosts examine the technical foundations of forever incremental backups, from block-level incremental tracking to backend storage innovations that make multiple recovery points possible without redundant data transfers. They compare older approaches like synthetic fulls with true forever incremental implementations, highlighting the critical differences and benefits. Whether you're still using legacy backup tools or evaluating modern solutions, this episode provides essential insights into why forever incremental has become the standard for efficient, reliable backup systems.

In this eye-opening episode of The Backup Wrap-up, W. Curtis Preston and Prasanna Malaiyandi unpack crucial disaster recovery lessons from major events like 9/11. They discuss how companies lost both primary and backup data centers when both World Trade Center towers fell, highlighting why geographic separation is non-negotiable. The hosts break down the technical aspects of disaster recovery, comparing hot sites versus cold sites, and the realities of synchronous versus asynchronous replication across distances.Beyond the technical, Curtis and Prasanna share often-overlooked disaster recovery lessons about human factors—where recovery teams will sleep, eat, and work during extended outages when infrastructure is destroyed. They examine a real case from a hurricane-stricken island where teams converted conference rooms to sleeping quarters and relied on satellite communications. Whether you're planning for natural disasters, power outages, or ransomware attacks, these disaster recovery lessons will help ensure your organization can recover when—not if—disaster strikes.

Send us a textKathy and Mark react to the teaser for Good Bad Ugly, an upcoming Indian Tamil-language action comedy film directed by Adhik Ravichandran and produced by Mythri Movie Makers. The film stars Ajith Kumar in the lead role, alongside Trisha Krishnan, Prabhu, Prasanna, Arjun Das, Sunil, Rahul Dev, Yogi Babu and Shine Tom ChackoSupport the show