How to Strengthen Cyber Resilience in an AI Era with Chris Cochran from SANS Institute [#296]

On this episode of The Cybersecurity Defenders Podcast, we speak with Chris Cochran, Field CISO & Vice President of AI Security at SANS Institute, about how to navigate the future of AI risk and security strategy

Chris works at the intersection of cyber defense, AI safety, and emerging risk, where the threats are converging and the playbooks are still being written. His career has taken him from the Marine Corps to NSA, U.S. Cyber Command, the U.S. House of Representatives, Mandiant, and Netflix. Across every role, one throughline: understanding adversaries, building high-trust teams, and translating complex problems into strategies leaders can act on.

Today, Chris advises organizations, governments, and research institutions on AI governance, agentic threat preparedness, and unifying safety and security into a single discipline. He contributes to global standards efforts including the EU AI Act (via OWASP AI) and leads executive education on cybersecurity and AI strategy at SANS.

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