Cybersecurity careers through real technical work.
Cyber Work is an interview-driven cybersecurity show built around jobs, skills, and the messy work behind real security problems. Recent episodes move from red team stories and post-quantum cryptography to medical device transparency, ransomware response, and beginner career advice.
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Cyber Work is built for people who want cybersecurity to feel understandable without being watered down. The show centers on interviews with practitioners and educators, using their career paths as a way into the technical work. It starts human, then gets specific. Recent episodes cover red teaming, post-quantum cryptography, ransomware response, medical device SBOMs, Apple and Windows security, API hacking, beginner career steps, and threat research. The range is broad, but the pattern is steady. A guest explains what the job looks like, then the conversation follows the problem into tools, workflows, and decisions. Red team work is framed through older pen testing stories and the continuing appeal of ethical hacking. Ransomware response is handled as a recovery process involving playbooks, triage, backups, legal, finance, and insurance. API hacking gets unusually concrete, with a shopping app walkthrough showing how changing an ID can expose another user’s basket. Cryptography episodes step into bigger systems, including harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks, Kyber, hybrid encryption, and the pressure those changes put on protocols such as TLS. The show also cares about getting into the field. Beginner episodes and guest interviews return to certifications, training, self-advocacy, and the need to keep learning as the work changes. It is brisk and conversational. The host often restates a technical point in simpler terms, then asks the next practical question. That makes the show approachable for learners, but it still gives working security people enough detail to recognize the realities of the job. Cyber Work’s best moments come when a specialist turns a complicated domain into a clear sequence of actions. It is cybersecurity as practiced by people, not just described by headlines.
Made for: Cyber Work is for cybersecurity learners, career switchers, early-career professionals, and working technologists who want practical context around security roles. It also fits listeners who like technical interviews that explain the path into a specialty.
What sets it apart: The show ties career development directly to operational security work, so episodes rarely stay at the buzzword level. Guests move from background stories into concrete cases, tools, tradeoffs, and job skills.
Learn how to break into cybersecurity, build new skills and move up the career ladder. Each week on the Cyber Work Podcast, host Chris Sienko sits down with thought leaders from Carbon Black, IBM, CompTIA and others to discuss the latest cybersecurity workforce trends.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Cyber Work turns cybersecurity practice into concrete career knowledge, from red-team tradecraft and API testing to ransomware recovery and cryptographic change.
Cyber Work treats cybersecurity as work performed under real constraints, with Chris Sienko asking guests how techniques, tools, and career paths operate beyond the job title.
Changing a six to a one becomes your first API-hacking lesson, with alarming results.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Red teaming comes through here as career craft and people skill, not just tool talk.
Jim Broome frames red teaming as a working career, not just a set of technical tricks. He moves from early pen tests into private sector security work and the kind of break in testing that helped shape the field.
A clear look at why today's encryption is being planned around quantum-era threats.
The episode treats cryptography as a race against time: attackers can store encrypted traffic now and wait for quantum computing to make today's algorithms easier to crack later. David Close then turns to post-quantum migration, and the practical snag is plain enough.
A practical look at how recovery starts after ransomware.
Cyber Work presents John Price of SubRosa as a practical voice on ransomware recovery. He draws on digital forensics, his time with the UK Ministry of Defense in counterintelligence, and the work his team handles after an attack has already landed, the ransom has not been paid,…
A shopping-app API walk-through that shows how one-digit changes can expose a security flaw.
The episode treats APIs as an overlooked weak spot and makes that point concrete through Katie Paxton-Fair's shopping-app walkthrough. A small change to an ID in Repeater is enough to reach another user's basket, and the same trial-and-error logic is pushed at a payment flow…
Technology's mechanisms, power's consequences.
Dave, Joe, and Maria break down phishing kits, deepfakes, and social-engineering scams weekly.
Cyber Work with Chris Senko features Jim Broom of Direct Defense, who has more than 20 years of information security experience and a long red-teaming background.
David Close, Chief Solutions Architect at FutureX and 17-year cryptography veteran, explains to Cyber Work host Chris Senko why nation states and bad actors are already harvesting terabytes of encrypted data today, betting on quantum computers to decrypt it within 10 to 15 years.
John Price, founder of SubRosa Cyber and former UK Ministry of Defence signals/intelligence officer, joins Cyber Work host Chris Senko to discuss ransomware response, digital forensics, and the emerging risks of LLM security.
Trustwave vice president Ed Williams traces his cybersecurity career from a BBC Micro and Unix administration to penetration testing in 2008.
An interview with Ken Zalewski about Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for medical device security and its impact on cybersecurity careers.
Interview with Weldon Dodd about Apple vs Windows security and career advice for cybersecurity professionals.
A cybersecurity expert demonstrates how to exploit API vulnerabilities in a shopping app to access other users' data and make fraudulent purchases.
A live panel episode of Cyber Work where host Chris Sienko introduces guests Confidence Stavely and Akil Phillips to discuss cybersecurity career paths and answer questions from newcomers.
Interview with Itay Maor about Cato Networks' CTRL report on attack patterns and methods, and advice for becoming a threat researcher.
An interview with David Lee, the Identity Jedi, discussing identity access management, diversity in cybersecurity, and career advice.
An interview with a CISO discussing cyber diplomacy and career paths in cybersecurity.
Host Chris Sienko interviews Zarek Magradichian about the Roku hack, data breaches, and cybersecurity career advice.