CISO Podcasts: The Shows That Interview Sitting Security Leaders

TL;DR: Four active feeds interview sitting chief information security officers (CISOs): the CISO Series Podcast, Defense in Depth, The New CISO and Risky Business Features. Defense in Depth updates weekly and The New CISO semimonthly. Exabeam's chief security strategist hosts The New CISO, and the two CISO Series shows carry sponsor reads and label sponsored guests. The Cyber Ranch Podcast and CISO Stories have ended, though their archives remain online.

Which podcasts interview sitting CISOs?

Four active feeds name sitting chief information security officers (CISOs) as hosts or guests in their own show notes. They appear below in no particular order, with the facts each feed gives about itself. For what the role covers, see our CISO glossary entry.

What sits around the CISO interviews

The two CISO Series shows share a producer, and the network also publishes a shorter format. Super Cyber Friday Express is a 20-minute highlight version of a live one-hour show held on Fridays.

The New CISO mixes operational leaders with vendor-side ones. One recent guest, Sean Murphy, is field CISO for North America at F5 after two decades as an operational CISO. In our reading, the guest bio is the place to check which side of the table a speaker sits on today.

Reading the guest line

Defense in Depth labels paid appearances in its episode notes. One recent note reads: "Joining them is their sponsored guest, Snehal Antani, CEO, Horizon3.ai." We think that label is the quickest way to tell a practitioner conversation from a sponsored one before you press play.

A short routine works for any show. Read the host line, then the guest's current title, then any sponsor note. Our podcast directory and people pages track who holds which seat now.

What formats do security leadership shows use?

Security leadership shows tend to follow a few repeatable formats. Each one sets a different balance between what a listener hears from a practitioner and what comes from a host or a sponsor. The examples below are recent episodes. The wider directory is at /voices/podcasts.

Debate built on a community thread

Defense in Depth starts each episode from someone else's post. One episode drew on a post by Allan Alford of NTT Global Data Centers, with David Spark and Geoff Belknap co-hosting and Howard Holton of Phronia Counsel as guest.

In our reading, the thread sets the agenda, so the hosts respond to a live practitioner argument rather than a prepared talk track.

Host and co-host, with one guest

The CISO Series Podcast pairs its producer with a rotating co-host and a single guest.

Recurring segments give the show its frame. That episode credited Joshua Carpenter of Alliance InfoSystems for providing its "What's Worse" scenario.

One-on-one interviews

The New CISO runs long conversations with a single chief information security officer (CISO) or former CISO. His institution was hit by LockBit in April 2023.

The format leaves room for pushback. In another episode, Moore put a hot take to Sean Murphy about field CISO roles, and the conversation ended on the show's standing closing question.

News bulletins and feature interviews

Risky Business Media spreads its formats across separate feeds. The Risky Bulletin feed carries three short news bulletins every week, with an average of six podcasts published each week. The main feed has run continuously since its launch in February 2007. The Features feed, covered in the previous section, is where the CISO interviews sit.

What each format gives a listener

We think the format matters as much as the guest list when choosing what to follow. A bulletin keeps a leader current. A long interview shows how a peer handled a hard week.

How often do the main shows publish?

In our reading, publishing rhythm matters more than format for a busy reader. A weekly show fits a commute habit. A monthly one is easier to treat as an occasional deep listen. The cadences below come from each show's own feed listing as of late October 2026.

Defense in Depth

Apple Podcasts lists the show as Updated Weekly. The recent episodes bear that out. Bonus episodes from sister shows sometimes appear in the same feed, so the count in a given week can run above one.

The New CISO

Steve Moore's show is listed as Updated Semimonthly. In our reading, its episodes run long, so two a month is still a meaningful time commitment.

Risky Business

The main feed publishes an average of 1.5 podcasts a week.

The Risky Bulletin feed, described in the previous section, runs at a much higher pace. In our reading, a leader who wants only the long-form discussion should subscribe to the main feed and treat Risky Bulletin as optional daily news.

The Virtual CISO Podcast

This year's episodes appeared on April 3, April 27, June 10, July 8 and September 9. The listing shows no episode in May or August. We think this works better as a show to check on occasion than as a weekly habit.

How to use cadence when choosing

• Pick one weekly show as an anchor and add one slower show for depth.
• Look at the last five dates on the feed before you subscribe. A stated cadence and the actual one can drift apart.
• For guest-led shows, scan the episode titles for names you track on /people. That helps more than following every release.

Our full directory of shows sits at /voices/podcasts.

Who hosts these shows and who pays for them

Every show in this guide is free to the listener, and someone pays for the production. The feeds say who in plain text, in the episode notes rather than the titles. In our reading, knowing the funder does not cancel what a guest says. It tells you where to listen more carefully.

Vendor-run: The New CISO

The New CISO is hosted by Exabeam Chief Security Strategist, Steve Moore. Exabeam lists him as Vice President and Chief Security Strategist, advising customers on security programs and breach response. Before Exabeam he served as Staff VP of Cybersecurity Analytics at Elevance Health.

The company link also shows up in the episode notes. In our reading, the show is the vendor's own content, so no single guest is marked as paid.

Sponsor reads and sponsored guests: CISO Series

The CISO Series Podcast lists David Spark, Mike Johnson, and Andy Ellis as hosts. Spark is credited as producer of CISO Series. Each episode's notes end with a thanks to one sponsor. Recent episodes named Vanta, ThreatLocker and Arctic Wolf. One went further: Ryan Lloyd of Guardsquare appeared as "our sponsored guest" on an episode Guardsquare also sponsored.

Defense in Depth comes from the same producer and is hosted by David Spark, Steve Zalewski, Geoff Belknap, and Edward Contreras. It uses the same label. Snehal Antani of Horizon3.ai joined as a sponsored guest on an episode that Horizon3.ai sponsored. Mark Stockley of ThreatDown and Abby Kearns of ActiveState were credited the same way.

The label is not on every episode. Ryan Barrett of Intermedia Cloud Communications appeared without it, on an episode ThreatLocker sponsored.

How to weigh what you hear

• Read the episode notes before you press play. Hosts, guests and sponsors are all named there.
• Treat "sponsored guest" as a disclosure. It means the guest's company paid for the slot. It does not mean the advice is wrong.
• Listen for a split between the sponsor read and the discussion. On these feeds, the read sits at the end of the notes, apart from the topic list.
• Give practitioner guests and vendor guests separate weight, even on the same show. The guest's employer appears in the notes.

For the wider set of shows, see our podcast index. For the companies behind the sponsor reads, see vendors.

How the shows compare on host, cadence and format

The table sets the shows side by side on six attributes. It describes what each listing or episode note says and does not rank them. Risky Business and The Virtual CISO Podcast appear in the cadence section above, so they are left out here.

A chief information security officer (CISO) skimming this table should read the status column first. It is our reading as of today, not a label the shows apply to themselves.

What the table shows

The CISO Series network runs three of the five shows, and its notes point listeners to a single subscription page for all of them. In our reading, that makes it the easiest place to sample several formats from one producer.

In our reading, the New CISO runs longer, story-led interviews. One recent guest was Zach Lewis, CIO and CISO at University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy, who also leads IT there as chief information officer.

CISO Stories closed its feed. Its last episode carried a farewell that thanked creator and host Todd Fitzgerald along with its current host. The back catalog stays useful as an archive.

Before you subscribe, compare a listing's cadence label with the dates on its last few episodes. The label and the release pattern do not always match, and the gap tells you how much a show will ask of your week.

Which CISO shows have stopped publishing?

Two shows that interviewed sitting security leaders have closed. Their archives are still online. For a reader tracking who said what, and in what role, that makes them a dated record rather than lost material.

The Cyber Ranch Podcast

The Cyber Ranch billed itself as a ride on the cyber trails with two CISOs (Allan Alford and Drew Simonis), meaning two chief information security officers. Simonis joined late in the run. By the start of 2025 he had been co-hosting the show now for 21 episodes, after several earlier guest spots.

The last episode, "That's All, Folks, and THANK YOU!", ran on Jan 8, 2025.

CISO Stories

CISO Stories, the SC Media and Tenable program covered earlier in this guide, has also published its final episode. That last show dealt with exposure management. In it, the guest discussed how exposure management is changing the way organizations prioritize and report cyber risk. The closing notes point listeners to the full back catalog: Visit https://cisostoriespodcast.com for all episodes!

How to use a closed archive

We think a closed show is more useful as a reference than an open one, because the guest list no longer changes. A few practical checks:

• Treat every title as dated. A guest described as a sitting CISO held that role on the episode date, not today. Check current roles on /people and recent changes on /moves.
• Read the host's own role the same way. Simonis's biography in the archive lists CISO posts that may since have changed.
• Use the topics as a timeline. The late Cyber Ranch episodes and the last CISO Stories run show which subjects these hosts chose to put in front of security leaders at the time.
• Download what you plan to cite. Hosting pages can lapse after a show ends. In our reading, a saved copy with its episode date matters more than a link.

For shows still publishing, see /voices/podcasts. For how long leaders tend to stay in the seat, which affects how quickly archived titles go out of date, see /glossary/ciso-tenure.

How do shows choose guests?

The routes onto these shows show up in the feeds themselves: in episode notes, contributor credits and the contact lines on show pages. Sponsored guest slots and rotating practitioner co-hosts were covered in the sections on hosts and formats. This section picks up the other routes.

A community post can set the topic

Defense in Depth says that once a week it picks one debate and uses the InfoSec community's insights to lead the discussion. The notes name whose post started it.

The author of the post does not have to be on the episode. In our reading, a well-argued public post can bring a security leader's view onto a show without a booking.

Smaller credits count too

The CISO Series Podcast credits listeners who write its "What's Worse" segment. Recent notes thanked Dutch Schwartz of SideChannel and Joshua Carpenter of Alliance InfoSystems for scenarios. It is a low-commitment way to appear in a show's record.

Shows also ask for pitches

The CISO Tradecraft site invites sponsors to share your story with cybersecurity leaders, offering to reach thousands of CISOs and security practitioners through its podcast and community. Each route says something different about who is paying for the slot and why you are being invited.

Before you agree: our view

If an invitation arrived this week, we think these steps are worth doing on Monday, before you reply.

1. Identify the route. Ask the producer whether the slot is sponsored, who the sponsor is and whether a vendor suggested you. A vendor you buy from inviting you onto its sponsored episode reads differently from an editorial booking.
2. Listen to two recent episodes. Note how much of the airtime goes to the sponsor read and whether guests are pressed on their answers.
3. Check your employer's rules. Find your company's policy on external speaking and media. Tell your communications team, and legal if the policy requires it, before you commit.
4. Set off-limits topics in writing. Typical exclusions are open incidents, named suppliers, your security stack and anything tied to a pending disclosure.
5. Ask about format and edits. Find out whether the show is live or recorded, whether you can review the cut and how long the episode stays online.
6. Confirm your listing. Show notes print your title and employer. Send the exact wording you want, and ask for a correction route if your role changes.
7. Write down your one point. Pick the argument you want a peer to remember, and one example you can share safely.

For more on building a public profile, see our guide to security thought leadership and the speaking section of Voices.

Where can I find which CISOs appeared on which show?

The CISO Tribune podcast index is our running record of who appeared on which show. Each entry ties a guest to an episode and to the title they held when it was recorded. Show feeds scroll away quickly, and a guest list is hard to rebuild once older episodes drop off the first page.

The raw material is the episode note. CISO Series shows and Defense in Depth open most notes with a line naming the hosts and the guest, each with a title and an employer. That line is a snapshot. It records the job on the day of recording, not the job today.

Titles also drift between notes for the same person. Defense in Depth listed Howard Holton as founder, Phronia Counsel, while a Super Cyber Friday Express note called him founder and principal analyst at Phronia Counsel LLC. Both describe one role. We keep the wording each note used and file both under one person.

Returning guests show why the date matters. Sean Murphy was a panel guest on The New CISO in 2022. On his return he was field CISO for North America at F5, after two decades in operational CISO seats. Two appearances, two different jobs.

How to check a title

1. Find the episode in the podcast index and note the title and employer recorded with it.
2. Open the guest's entry in people to see their current role.
3. Look in moves for any change between the recording and today.
4. For the wider pattern of changes this year, read the CISO moves report.

In our reading, a podcast title is evidence of a role at a point in time, and it should be quoted that way. If you cite a guest in a board paper or a talk, give the show, the episode and the title as the note had it, then confirm the current role against the people and moves records before you describe them as holding it now.

What this guide does not cover

This guide does not rank, grade or recommend any show or vendor, and it does not assess the accuracy of what guests say on air. It covers a small set of feeds, not every security podcast. The steps on accepting an invitation describe what to check with your employer and are not legal advice. For the rules and the record behind it, see Security Thought Leadership: What It Is, and How to Tell Real Insight From Marketing.