Hacker Valley Studio

What happens when the adversary moves at machine speed, and your SOC is still responding at human speed? Why does nearly every security team say AI should handle L1 work, while 64% of organizations still have zero agents in production? And how long until the "coworker" resolving your ticket in Slack turns out not to be human at all?

Tim Leehealey, VP of Strategy and Operations at Strike 48, joins us this week to talk about what it actually takes to get AI agents out of the demo and into production. Tim agenticized his own company's IT, watched it blow up, and came out the other side with lessons from Fortune 100 SOCs running agents at serious scale. 

He shares where AI actually belongs in the alert pipeline, the objections holding teams back, and a blunt warning for any leader still waiting on the sidelines in 2027. If AI in the SOC is on your roadmap before the end of this year, start here.

 

Impactful Moments

00:00 - Introduction
01:55 - Busting a myth: AI will replace analysts
04:45 - Introducing Tim Leehealey 
05:30 - The Strike48 survey: 84% say hand L1 to AI
08:00 - Fear the low-and-slow attacker, not the loud one
13:00 - Getting breached without agents in 2027
15:00 - When Tim's own rollout blew up
19:00 - Micro agents inside deterministic workflows
21:25 - Skills advice for L1 analysts
26:00 - The next 18 months of agentic adoption
28:00 - Jim Bob in your Slack is an agent
21:30 - Ron's take: transparency is the trust unlock

Links
Connect with Tim Leehealey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-leehealey-b8b04321 

Learn more about Strike48: https://strike48.com

Check out the 2026 State of Agentic Security report here: https://hubs.ly/Q04p49S20

Go deeper on Strike 48's technology: https://labs.strike48.com

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Think about everything you could accomplish if you don’t have to be the one driving your browser. In this solo episode, Ron Eddings introduces Interceptor, Hacker Valley Media's first piece of software. 

Interceptor is an open-source Chrome extension that lets an AI agent drive your real browser, logged-in sessions and all, with no vendor lock-in. Ron shares how it works and describes the use cases that matter most to security practitioners: OSINT and recon, bug bounty operations, prompt-injection testing, and threat-intelligence automation.

Ron also puts himself in the hot seat, answering the hardest questions he's gotten about the tool, including why anyone should trust an open-source tool from a podcast company over a polished product from a billion-dollar AI lab. The delegation is coming, and we would rather the security community be the ones who understand it.

Impactful Moments: 
00:00 - Introduction
02:35 - The Rewind: Same Origin Policy and the Web's Foundation
04:40 - Rapid-fire facts: AI agents got hands, and attacks followed
07:00 - What is Interceptor and why was it built? 
10:20 - How Interceptor works: stealth, network visibility, teach and replay
13:10 - Live use-case: dynamic dashboard without writing code
17:05 - Cybersecurity use-cases: OSINT, bug bounty, prompt injection testing
21:50 - Ron answers the hard questions about Interceptor
24:10 - Why trust an open source tool from a podcast company? 
25:20 - What a practitioner can do tomorrow 
27:30 - Closing reflection: knocking down the vendor lock-in wall

 

Links 

Download Interceptor on GitHub: https://github.com/hackervalleymedia/interceptor

Connect with Ron on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronaldeddings/ 

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Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams

Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com

Become a sponsor of the show: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/

What if the same psychology that threat actors use to manipulate their targets is the same psychology that marketers use to earn your trust? 

In this episode, Ron sits down with Antu Buck, Senior Director of Customer Marketing & Community at Gigamon, who spent two decades building trust between vendors and the practitioners who use their tools. 

Antu walks us through the three pillars she's built her career around, and makes the case that advocacy shouldn't be an afterthought, but the very first marketing move a company invests in. The conversation lands on something the community doesn't talk about enough: customer marketing is hard to put a number on, so it consistently loses the budget fight to demand gen. 

Impactful Moments
00:00 - Introduction
02:15 - Myth Buster: "I don't fall for marketing tactics"
04:15 - Meet Antu Buck, Senior Director of Customer Marketing & Community at Gigamon
06:45 - From cold-calling BDR to customer marketing leader
09:40 - Antu’s three pillars: advocacy, community, lifecycle management
13:05 - Why customer advocacy is the most underrated pillar
14:40 - The problem with chasing the CISO
16:40 - From transactional selling to relationship building
17:20 - The cold call that became a lifelong champion
20:20 - Are threat actors borrowing tactics from sales and marketing?
23:00 - Why AI tools are off-limits with customer data
27:50 - Why customer marketing loses the budget fight

Links

Antu Buck on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antu-buck/

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Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams

Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com

Become a sponsor of the show: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/

In 2025, out of all 70+ guests we had on our show, not one of them said they’d trust AI to run their SOC. Now in 2026, that mindset is shifting. In this episode, Ron sits down with Aqsa Taylor, Chief Security Evangelist at Exaforce, to find out what changed, and what's still standing in the way of security teams being able to trust AI agents with response. 

The conversation covers what's really behind the agentic SOC hype, why "vibe hunting" might be the most fun phrase in cybersecurity right now, and how teams can build enough confidence to hand over the keys to detection, investigation, and response. 

Aqsa also gets into the one thing she believes has to come before any of it works: the data. Without the right context feeding your AI you’re just getting confident guesses dressed up as answers. Listen to find out if your team is ready to take the leap into an agentic SOC. 

Impactful Moments
00:00 - Introduction 
02:05 - Hack the headlines, June top trends in cybersecurity 
05:30 - Welcoming Aqsa Taylor from Exaforce
06:15 - Inside Exaforce's $125M raise 
08:50 - Redefining what AI SOC should mean 
09:30 - The evolution from manual playbooks to AI-driven autonomy 
13:40 - Where Exaforce fits in an existing stack 
18:10 - What vibe hunting looks like in practice 
19:40 - The challenges of securing sensitive data in a world dominated by SaaS platforms
22:00 - How to build your trust ladder for AI in the SOC 
24:40 - Best use case to get started with AI SOC 
28:50 - Ron's takeaway: the data has to be there first

Links

Connect with Aqsa Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aqsa-taylor 

Learn more about Exaforce: https://www.exaforce.com

Join Exaforce’s Force Multiplier Substack community: https://theforcemultiplier.substack.com 

– 

Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams 

Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com 

Become a sponsor of the show: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/

Is AI really coming for your red teaming job? What does it actually take to build a team that thinks like the adversary, and what happens when that team stops caring? And what do you do when you've been in this field long enough that the job that once fired you up has started to feel hollow?

In this episode, Ron catches up with Johnny Xmas, Head of Offensive Security at a Fortune 150 Global Food Manufacturer, and one of the most candid voices in offensive security, for a conversation that covers a lot of ground fast. 

They go deep on where AI actually fits into offensive security workflows, what Johnny really looks for when building elite teams, and why the career advice everyone gives early practitioners might be setting them up for burnout down the road. The conversation takes a turn that doesn't come up enough in this industry, and it's the part you won't want to miss. If you've ever felt your tank running low, this episode was made for you.

Impactful Moments
00:00 - Introduction
02:10 - Busting the myth: AI is not replacing red teamers
04:30 - Guest introduction: Johnny Xmas
06:15 - How the offensive security job has changed with AI 
09:35 - The SEC 8-K IoC parser tool Johnny just published
11:40 - Building elite teams: what skills Johnny actually hires for
12:45 - Soft skills over technical gaps, and why the fire has to come with you
15:40 - Why "where do you see yourself in five years?" is a garbage question
17:30 - Has Johnny ever crossed the line when it comes to hacking? 
20:20 - What to do when you've stopped caring about the job
26:25 - Outro: The AI myth, revisited

Links
Johnny Christmas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnnyxmas/

Johnny's SEC 8-K IoC parser tool: https://github.com/johnnyxmas/its-over-8k 

—

Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams 

Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com 

Become a sponsor of the show: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/