At Connections Live 2026, the Industry Leadership session “Smarter Defenses for a Smarter Threat Landscape” brought together Neda Dibai, CIO of PDI Technologies; Mike Pedrick, VP of Cybersecurity Consulting at PDI; and Joshua Dann, Head of Cyber Response at Control Risks. Moderator Daniel Hoban of PDI, a security leader with 22 years in the field, set one goal for the session: Send attendees home with practical steps they could put to work right away.
AI kept coming up, and for good reason
Like most sessions at Connections Live, this one kept coming back to AI, and in a conversation about cybersecurity, it was impossible to ignore. When panelists were asked which trend or technology had changed their thinking most, each one landed on AI.
The common thread was people. As Mike Pedrick pointed out, people are often the easiest way in, which is why attackers target them before technology. AI makes that even easier, especially when excitement about new tools leads people to set common sense aside. Combined with identity, that human factor is where the panel saw the greatest risk.
How AI is shaping threats and defenses
The methods haven’t changed, but the speed has. Research that once took months now takes seconds, and attackers are moving through environments faster than ever. Those same capabilities can also strengthen defenses. The panel described it as a teeter-totter, and the question is whether defenders are leapfrogging ahead or just making changes.
For organizations putting AI to work, Neda Dibai pointed to governance as the balance point. The right guardrails give people the confidence to use AI safely, but if they’re too restrictive, people will find a way around them. Avoiding AI altogether isn’t the answer.
The big takeaway: rehearse, don’t just plan
What separates resilience from suffering? According to the panel, it’s rehearsing your incident response plan, not just having one. Yet when the panelists asked the audience how many had actually tested their plan, only a couple of hands went up.
Rehearsal exposes roadblocks while there’s still time to fix them, such as who has access or purchasing authority at 2 a.m. Preparation also means testing your assumptions. Panelists pointed to a few areas where organizations often fall short:
- Knowing your footprint: Connected devices often hide weak spots that no one is tracking. Building an inventory of what you have and how it all works together is one of the most important things to do now.
- Policy vs. reality: Posture assessments surface issues leadership may not see. An auditor verifies what’s deployed against the policy, and sometimes the policy itself turns out to be part of the problem.
- Secure communication: Without a plan, it’s easy to fall back on everyday tools during an incident, including ones an attacker may already have access to. Setting up secure, approved channels ahead of time keeps your response out of view and helps you stay compliant.
- Emerging threats: Generative AI has quickly become the number one concern for most CISOs. With AI tools spreading across the workforce and AI agents taking on real work, leaders need to understand where those tools touch sensitive data and make that part of their security priorities.
None of this rests on the security team alone. Security is everyone’s job, and it has to be a leadership discipline across the organization. That includes choosing the right partners ahead of time: people you know and trust, who understand your business and can step in quickly when it counts.
Don’t hand off your judgment
Used well, AI amplifies human potential. The caveat is that AI in its current form tends to assume it’s on the right track. Organizations that run their own AI-assisted investigations often reach the wrong conclusion because without someone who knows to question it, AI won’t question itself.
People may be the biggest risk, but they’re also the strongest defense. AI can speed up the work, but it takes human judgment and experience to challenge assumptions, spot what doesn’t add up, and make the right call when it matters most. The strongest defenses will pair AI’s speed with people who know when to question it.
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Connections Live 2027
August 29 – September 1, 2027
Gaylord Rockies Resort
Denver, Colorado
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