Ollie Whitehouse, CTO of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), joins Code and Country to unpack what it really takes to secure a nation in the age of AI, ransomware, and quantum threats. Drawing from three decades of experience across public and private sectors, Whitehouse offers a candid assessment of the broken cybersecurity market, why the incentives are misaligned, and what meaningful defense should look like. He explores how governments and enterprises can better collaborate, the urgent need to catalog cryptographic dependencies, and why resilience must be built into business, not bolted on. Essential listening for CISOs, IT leaders, and architects navigating the new frontier of national-scale cyber defense.

Katie Moussouris, founder and CEO of Luta Security, joins Code and Country to trace her path from MIT to pioneering vulnerability disclosure and launching “Hack the Pentagon.” She dives deep into the economics of the exploit market, the dangers of vulnerability disclosure laws, and how AI is shifting the dynamics of cybersecurity offense and defense. Katie also shares first-hand stories from her time shaping Microsoft's bug bounty program and working with the Pentagon. A must-listen for CISOs, IT leaders, and architects navigating the geopolitics of cyber risk.

In this episode of Code and Country, host Ian Paterson is joined by Robert Young Pelton, renowned war correspondent and author of Licensed to Kill and The World's Most Dangerous Places. Pelton shares firsthand accounts from his time embedded with the Taliban, Special Forces in Afghanistan, and rebel groups in Chechnya. He discusses the evolution of cyber warfare, the dark intersections of state and non-state actors in financial fraud, and how cyber tactics mirror battlefield strategy.

Pelton also explores the chilling implications of compromised digital hygiene, from sat phone targeting to political hacks. A must-listen for CISOs, IT leaders, and architects concerned about the global cyber threat landscape.