How to Ruin an APT's Day, with Sara McBroom

This week, the B-Team gets an upgrade as we’re joined by Sara McBroom from Talos’ nation-state threat intelligence and interdiction team. Sara shares her journey from a liberal arts major to tracking some of the world’s most advanced adversaries. Along the way, she talks about moving from the U.S federal service to Talos, mentoring, leading with empathy, and why making bad actors miserable is a pretty good day’s work. Before diving into Sara’s story, we hit the security headlines (ouch) and also discuss a Dutch hacker camp with flaming badges and port-a-potty internet. But from 17 minutes in, it’s all about Sara — her path, her research ( Static Tundra , anyone?), and how she leads her team without micromanaging. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to ruin an APT’s day for a living, this is the episode. Here's the research that Bill mentioned: "Psychopathia Machinalis: A Nosological Framework for Understanding Pathologies in Advanced Artificial Intelligence"

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How to Ruin an APT's Day, with Sara McBroom is an episode from Beers with Talos Podcast by Cisco Talos.

This episode is 44:31 long.

This episode was published on Sep 11, 2025.

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