AI Resilience as CISOs Can Balance Internal AI Risk and Productivity Concerns – Bill O’Connell, Ryan Grant – BSW #469
Businesses face severe challenges when balancing short-term efficiency with long-term adaptability against unforeseen cyber events. And Artificial Intelligence has only added to those challenges. How should organizations prepare?
Bill O'Connell, Chief Security Officer (CSO) at Commvault, joins Business Security Weekly to discuss why CISOs must think like resilient boxers, not fortresses. Bill will discuss why the CISO is becoming the Chief Resilience Officer and why they need to focus on Availability and Recovery. Bill's four areas of focus include:
- AI Governance and Controls
- Configuration Management
- Backup and Recovery, and
- Testing
Balancing artificial intelligence risk with productivity gains requires organizations to manage the tension between speed, security, and human oversight. The business wants to move fast, but security has concerns and employees fear for their jobs. How can organization adopt AI while eliminating friction points?
In this CyberRisk TV interview, Matt Alderman speaks with Ryan Grant, Country Manager for the US and Canada at ESET, about building cyber resilience in the AI era. They discuss findings from ESET’s 2026 S&P Cyber Readiness Index, including the continued challenges organizations face with basic cyber hygiene, the growing sophistication of phishing attacks, and the impact AI is having on traditional threats.
Grant explains why organizations should focus on foundational security practices before layering AI-specific defenses on top, including multifactor authentication, access controls, endpoint detection and response, vulnerability and patch management, and incident response planning. He also addresses the rise of shadow AI and AI agents, emphasizing the need for clear policies, governance, access controls, employee training, and continuous monitoring.
The conversation also explores the challenges facing SMBs with limited cybersecurity resources and how managed service providers and security-as-a-service offerings can help close the gap. Grant discusses ESET’s newly redesigned Protect offering, which combines security technology, 24/7 monitoring, vulnerability and patch management, multifactor authentication, premium support, and a cyber warranty into a simplified package designed to help organizations strengthen their security posture and focus on prevention.
Segment Resources:
ESET free AI Skills Checker: ESET AI Skills Checker: https://www.eset.com/us/home/ai-skills-checker/ WeLiveSecurity Blog: Learn more about Guardbreaker, AI skills in the ESET H1 Threat Report, and more: www.welivesecurity.com SMB 2026 Cyber Readiness Index: https://www.eset.com/us/about/newsroom/research/eset-2026-smb-cyber-readiness-index/
This segment is sponsored by ESET. Visit https://securityweekly.com/eset to learn more about them!
As Chief Security Officer, Bill O’Connell is responsible for Commvault’s cyber defense, product security and customer assurance, further strengthening the company’s presence as a trusted innovator and partner for today’s evolving threat landscape.
Bill comes to Commvault with 20 years of expertise in cybersecurity and data privacy. As Head of Product Security at Roche, Bill led a team of cybersecurity experts delivering secure medical technology and digital health and solutions on-premises and in the cloud across care settings. In his 12 years at ADP, Bill led a variety of business risk, privacy and security operations, including five years as Chief Business Security Officer. Prior to joining ADP, Bill worked for Deloitte, building and executing strategic information security roadmaps for global Fortune 500 firms.
Bill holds BA and MBA degrees from the University of Maryland. He previously served as Chair of the National Cyber Security Alliance Board of Directors and remains actively involved in various industry working groups focused on threat intelligence and privacy.
For over 25 years, Ryan Grant has led teams and scaled businesses within the technology sector, with specialized expertise in cybersecurity, virtualization, datacenter, and cloud. At ESET, Grant leads go-to-market teams that support Consumer, SMB, MSP, and Enterprise segments. With extensive experience managing large channel teams, Grant is recognized for fostering a high-performance culture – building dynamic teams that collaborate closely across sales, marketing, and customer success. Grant joined ESET from Ingram Micro, where he spent more than two decades in leadership roles, including vice president of advanced solutions.
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Jackie McGuire
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JPMorgan’s CEO told Bloomberg TV that AI cyber risk went up tenfold after Anthropic’s Mythos model. Meanwhile, cyber insurance rates have fallen for 12 straight quarters worldwide. On Oct 8, Anthropic launched a “Cyber Mission” with CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Accenture and others to defend critical infrastructure. (Disclosure: Anthropic makes me.)
- Ransomware middlemen face charges
Prosecutors say Zohar Pinhasi, CEO of the recovery firm MonsterCloud, sold “proprietary decryption” while secretly paying the hackers. They allege the firm passed on $8M+ in ransoms and billed clients more than $19M. He pleaded not guilty. Separately, Edward Dubrovsky, a former managing director at the Canadian incident-response firm Cypfer, was arrested Oct 8 in Philadelphia, where he was attending a cyber-risk conference. He faces extortion charges tied to the FBI’s investigation of the hacking group ShinyHunters. Krebs reports that more charges against negotiation firms may follow.
- A hack wipes up to 13% off Asos shares (Oct 6–8)
The UK fashion retailer’s app users got a push notification from the attackers saying they had “fully compromised” Asos’s Snowflake data platform. Asos shares fell as much as 13% in London, and Snowflake dipped about 3% before the US market opened. Asos later confirmed that an employee was tricked into giving up login details and that customer names, addresses and phone numbers were taken. Payment data wasn’t.
- Japan declares its first “cyberspace emergency”
This followed a wave of attacks on more than 20 major companies. One was a ransomware attack on IDC Frontier, a SoftBank cloud subsidiary, which spread to its clients, including the JR East and JR Kyushu rail companies. The financial regulator told banks to stop accepting a driver’s license as the only proof of identity after the car-sharing company Times Car leaked license images.
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CISA 2015 protects companies from liability, including antitrust claims, when they share threat information. It survives only through short-term extensions because Sen. Rand Paul is blocking a long-term renewal over an unrelated amendment.
- Healthcare: a breach total jumps, and the Senate passes a bill
The 2025 breach of Oracle Health’s Cerner unit may have hit about 20M people, based on a Texas attorney general filing. That would be one of the largest US healthcare breaches, though Oracle hasn’t confirmed the number. The same week, the Senate unanimously passed the Health Care Cybersecurity and Resilience Act, which now goes to the House.
