Kill Chain: A Platform Cybersecurity Podcast

Terry sits down with Cesile Johnson, CTO of Core Bank, for a conversation about what it actually takes to modernize a bank from the inside — the legacy systems nobody wants to touch, the guardrails that have to exist before AI gets anywhere near customer data, and the reality of building a career in a room where she was often the only woman in it.

Cesile walks through how her team took delivery velocity on one initiative from 5% to 85%, what real AI governance looks like inside a regulated bank versus the "vibe coding" hype, and why the trades conversation (welders and electricians, not just four-year degrees) matters as much to the future workforce as anything happening in tech. She's also direct about fraud, budget reality, crisis leadership, and what people consistently get wrong about what a CTO actually does.

In this episode:

• What "modernizing a legacy system" really means when you can't just rip and replace
• How Core Bank built AI guardrails before deploying AI, not after
• Taking one team's delivery velocity from 5% to 85%, and what actually changed
• Why the trades — not just four-year degrees — are part of the talent pipeline conversation
• Crisis leadership and what accountability looks like when something breaks
• The real budget math behind fighting fraud, including the scale of elder fraud losses nationally
• Being the only woman in the room, and what it took to get to CTO
• What people misunderstand about the CTO role, and how it's evolved
• Advice for the next generation of leaders coming up in banking and tech

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:22 Technology Is the Bank
14:11 Legacy Systems and Real Modernization
23:38 Guardrails for AI in Banking
30:55 From 5% to 85%: AI, Velocity, and Vibe Coding
39:42 Trades, Degrees, and Vanishing Entry Jobs
48:14 Crisis Leadership and Accountability
1:01:25 AI in Banking: Fraud and the Budget Reality
1:10:51 The Only Woman in the Room
1:20:16 What People Get Wrong About the CTO Role
1:28:58 Legacy, Team Culture, and Advice for the Next Gen

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Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

On this episode of Kill Chain, we go straight to the source with someone who spends his career trying to break into cars, trucks, and the chargers that power them. Kamel Ghali is an automotive cybersecurity researcher, penetration tester, and educator, and VP of International Operations for DEF CON's Car Hacking Village — the group that's been teaching the world to hack vehicles safely since 2017.

Kamel walks us through a real exploit chain that hands over root access to an aftermarket infotainment system with nothing but a USB stick and a few taps on a touchscreen, the 2015 Jeep hack that changed the industry's culture overnight, and a wireless attack called Brokenwire that can knock a charging session offline from a passing car in about five seconds. If your fleet has a single electric vehicle charging overnight, this is the episode that explains exactly what's at stake.

In this episode:

• What actually happens inside DEF CON's official car hacking masterclass
• A live walkthrough of rooting an aftermarket infotainment system with a USB stick
• Why Tesla's from-scratch build gives it a security edge the legacy OEMs can't match
• The origin story of Car Hacking Village, and how it went global
• The SDR attack that let a researcher mess with a semi-truck's trailer brakes for a couple hundred dollars in hardware
• Why EV chargers are full computers, and most are running insecure protocols
• The wireless "Brokenwire" attack that can disrupt EV charging without touching the vehicle
• A real car theft that used CAN injection through a headlight, no key required
• What ISO 21434 and UN R155 actually require of automakers now

Chapters: 0:00 Cold Open 2:24 Inside the Car Hacking Masterclass 8:19 Root, No Password 12:25 Pwn2Own & Why Tesla Leads 16:42 The Car Hacking Village Origin Story 23:47 Village Sponsors 26:25 Why Villages Matter 31:16 Ground Zero 36:20 The Weak Link 37:54 What to Expect at Car Hacking Village 41:11 What Kamel's Working On Now 43:39 Plugged In, Wide Open 47:36 The Tesla Wall Connector Hack 49:18 Broken Wire 51:39 Why This Matters 59:09 Ransomware & Cybercrime Motives 1:01:56 Real-World Car Theft: The RAV4 Case 1:04:03 Hollywood vs. Reality 1:05:35 Final Thoughts: The Next Ten Years 1:09:46 Outro / Car Hacking Village Plug

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Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

This week, Kill Chain takes a step back from cybersecurity for a different kind of conversation. Aaron Cerrone — a 28-year military veteran and former chief of operations at U.S. Strategic Command, longtime entrepreneur, and former University of Nebraska Omaha business instructor — joins the show to talk about what it actually takes to build a business and a life that last.

It's a no-fluff conversation about defining success before you chase it, the myths around "follow your passion," the unglamorous reality of entrepreneurship, why relationships beat the best product, and why your health is the one thing you can't get back.

In this episode:

• Why you should define success first, then reverse-engineer the business
• The fastest way to ruin your passion — and what employers really mean when they want "passionate" people
• The grit it takes (ramen, sleepless nights, and the banker's 30-day ultimatum)
• Bootstrapping vs. chasing the VC, and why the customer is the real win
• Why the smartest person rarely climbs the corporate ladder
• Aaron's two-job recipe for becoming unstoppable in any business
• The hidden cost founders pay with their health

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open
0:20 A different kind of episode
1:24 Meet Aaron: the chameleon
8:56 Define success first
11:14 The passion trap
15:33 Do you have the stomach for it?
20:57 Most people are better off employed
22:47 Bootstrapping vs. chasing the VC
24:15 Everybody sells something
25:15 The two-job recipe for success
33:38 Why the best product doesn't win
46:19 Health is the one thing you can't get back
1:01:30 Do hard things

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In 1994, Daragh Mahon won the green card lottery and moved from Ireland to Atlanta. His first American job was driving an eighteen-wheeler for Schneider. Thirty years later, he runs IT for Werner Enterprises, one of the largest trucking companies in North America, with 12,000 drivers moving freight across the country every day.

In this episode of Kill Chain, host Terry Reinert sits down with Daragh to unpack a career arc most CIOs never take and a perspective on cybersecurity, AI, and the future of transportation that most haven't earned.

What you'll hear:

• Why Daragh asked every autonomous trucking company the same security question and never got an answer
• The 3 critical infrastructure sectors a foreign adversary attacks first (and why transportation is on the list)
• Why he wants the tech industry to "stop talking about AI"
• The AI backlash brewing in colleges that CIOs aren't tracking
• The story of signing a contract he had no authority to sign and getting 12 months to make it work
• Why real innovation only happens at the startup level, and what the big software companies stopped doing
• Building security into corporate DNA instead of bolting it on
• The Werner Accelerator and why every corporation should run one
• Predictions for the next ten years (and why he refuses to make them)

About the guest:

Daragh Mahon is the EVP and CIO of Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ: WERN). Before Werner, he led IT at Vonage and held senior roles at Sage and Peachtree Software. He emigrated from Ireland to the US in 1994 through the Morrison Visa Program.

About the show:

The Kill Chain Podcast is a conversation series about cybersecurity, transportation, and the future of fleet operations, hosted by Terry Reinert, CEO of Fleet Defender. New episodes drop every other week.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

Jorden Gershenson spent 8 years in the Air Force detecting nuclear tests from a basement full of seismometers. Now he's building Aulendur Labs — a startup that wants to forecast everything from freight loads to geopolitical events using the same machine learning powering global weather models.

In this episode we dig into Jorden's path from Air Force technical application specialist to software engineer to startup founder, how he won a DoD SBIR for nuclear plume modeling, why he thinks the government never knows what it actually wants, and how Aulendur Labs just got accepted into the Werner Enterprises accelerator here in Omaha.

Topics include AI forecasting, digital twins, defense vs commercial strategy, the Palantir and Anduril paradigm, and why Omaha could be the next defense tech hub.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

Danny Lilley joins the Kill Chain podcast to talk about his journey from managing hundreds of people at enterprise giants like Swift Transportation and Werner, to building lean and fast at HOPTEK, a startup using AI to transform freight procurement. Danny shares his unfiltered take on agentic AI, why curiosity is now the most valuable professional skill, the real risks of tools like OpenClaw, AI in education, and what zero-day exploits powered by AI mean for the future of cybersecurity. If you think AI is just a chatbot that writes emails, this episode will change your mind.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

What does Android have to do with trucking? More than you'd think.

In this episode of Kill Chain, Terry Reinert sits down with Darrin Demchuk, VP of Strategy at Platform Science, to explore how the smartphone era quietly laid the blueprint for modern fleet technology — and why the lessons learned building apps for skiers on mountains translated directly to building software for truck drivers in blizzards.

Darrin breaks down how AI is reshaping transportation from the inside out — from edge computing models running locally on devices in connectivity dead zones, to agentic workflows that could fundamentally change how drivers interact with their trucks. He also unpacks why the playing field has never been more level for startups, what "going in parallel" means for software development, and why there was one specific day — November 24th — that changed everything for AI-assisted coding.

Plus: legacy systems running on technology nobody learns anymore, the future of transportation in 2036, and why a giant metal shed almost broke their entire installation process.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

John Grange, Co-Founder of Move Venture Capital and CTO of OpsCompass, joins us from Omaha, Nebraska to unpack what AI is really changing — and what it’s quietly breaking.

From the collapse of digital trust in a world of deepfakes to the hype around AI agents and “GPT wrappers,” John brings the perspective of a technical founder turned investor. We dig into why value creation matters more than ever, why compliance doesn’t equal security, and how AI is lowering the cost of building — and attacking — software systems.

We also explore the harder questions:

• Are we headed toward an era where nobody believes what they see?
• Does AI amplify existing cybersecurity weaknesses?
• Is regulation the solution — or a competitive liability?
• And in a world where technology is commoditized, what’s the real moat left for startups?

This episode connects venture capital, cloud security, AI infrastructure, social media’s psychological impact, and the future of trust into one central theme: AI is accelerating everything — including our mistakes.

If you care about startups, cybersecurity, infrastructure, or the societal consequences of AI, this conversation goes well beyond the buzzwords.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

In this episode of the Kill Chain Podcast hosts Terry Reinert and Marcus Q discuss new technologies aimed at preventing theft of cargo and vehicles.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

In this episode of the Kill Chain Podcast hosts Marcus Q and Terry Reinert discuss the current state of telematics and where the technology is heading. We dive into the different data layers involved in telematics and vehicle technologies including the advantages and disadvantages of more data.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

In this week's episode of the Kill Chain podcast hosts Terry Reinert and Marcus Q discuss the use of AI in creating automotive insurance policies and rates. The evolving field of AI can create more personalized rates and change the way insurance providers look at driving habits.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

In this week's episode of the Kill Chain podcast hosts Terry Reinert and Marcus Q discuss the evolution of vehicle software and how over-the-air updates can be a game-changer for vehicle manufacturers and consumers.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

In this week's episode of the Kill Chain Podcast hosts Terry Reinert and Marcus Q discuss how a breach of an OT system can compromise a business's enterprise network. We discuss the ways in which attackers can compromise a fleet vehicle to deliver a ransomware payload to an IT system.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

In this weeks episode of the Kill Chain podcast hosts Terry Reinert, Marcus Q, and Kendall Bricko answer listener questions. We answer and discuss our most asked listener questions including why someone might hack a car, how a bad actor can hack a truck, and more.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

In this episode of the Kill Chain podcast hosts Marcus Q, Kendall Bricko, and AI expert Daniel Kovach discuss their experience at AutoTech Detroit. Kendall and Daniel discuss the innovations and limitations they saw at the Automotive conference in Detroit Michigan and some of the show-stopping vehicles and innovations displayed.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

In this episode of the Kill Chain Podcast hosts Marcus Q and Kendall Bricko bring on Fleet Defender's Director of Technology and AI expert, Daniel Kovach. Daniel has spent 10+ years working in the artificial intelligence space across many different industries. In this episode we discuss the AI revolution and how it relates to automotive cybersecurity.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

In this episode of the Kill Chain Podcast host Marcus Q discusses the risks and vulnerabilities in construction and heavy equipment with cyber warfare expert Terry Reinert. The discussion includes some of the recent reports on the risks facing the heavy equipment industry including port cranes, bulldozers, long haul logistics, and more.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

In this episode of the Kill Chain Podcast hosts Marcus Q discusses recent research by Dr. Ken Tindell of Canis Automotive Labs with Terry Reinert, offensive cyberwarfare expert and CEO of Fleet Defender. This episode discusses the new evolution of car theft via CAN hacking devices.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

This week the team discusses simple and often free cybersecurity tools for small businesses. We dive into the strategies, methods, and applications that small businesses can use to protect against ransomware and other cybersecurity threats.

Online Resources:
Free Cybersecurity Training: https://www.cdse.edu/Training/
U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services Cybersecurity Training: https://www.hhs.gov/about/agencies/asa/ocio/cybersecurity/security-awareness-training/index.html

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.

The Stuxnet computer worm is infamous for its infiltration of the Iranian nuclear program. Stuxnet targeted air-gapped systems to affect physical equipment and cause destruction well beyond destroying data. This worm was an ingenious piece of technology brought into the facility through a simple thumb drive.

Want to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at https://fleetdefender.com/.