When AI Pretends to Be Your CEO: How Companies Stay Secure

If your business relies on video calls, messaging apps, or mobile devices, you are at risk for a new kind of attack. In this episode of IT Visionaries, host Chris Brandt sits down with Christine Gadsby, Chief Security Officer at BlackBerry, to explore how AI, deepfakes, and weakened telecom infrastructure are reshaping the modern threat landscape. Christine explains why enterprises can no longer trust what they see or hear, how metadata has become one of the most valuable intelligence sources for attackers, and why encryption alone is no longer enough to protect high-risk communications. She also breaks down how nation-state groups like Salt Typhoon infiltrate global telco networks, exploit unpatchable 2G and 3G protocols, and use AI to refine attacks in real time. Key Moments: 00:00 – Where Organizations Are Underestimating Communication Risk 04:05 – Can You Still Trust What You See and Hear on a Call? 08:11 – How Internal Messaging Quietly Became an Attack Surface 12:18 – Why Encryption Alone Does Not Secure Communications 16:24 – What BlackBerry Is Today and Why It Still Matters 20:31 – Why Governments and Enterprises Face a Different Threat Model 24:37 – How AI Deepfakes Changed Executive and Enterprise Risk 28:44 – Which Conversations Inside Your Company Matter Most? 32:50 – The Trust Assumptions Most Companies Don’t Realize They’re Making 36:56 – Why Attackers Wait for Moments of Urgency 41:03 – Is Cyber Extortion Sometimes a Cover for Espionage? 45:09 – Who Salt Typhoon Is and Why Telecom Networks Were Targeted 49:15 – Why Telecom Infrastructure Became an Intelligence Goldmine 53:22 – Why 2G and 3G Networks Still Put Modern Systems at Risk 57:28 – What Secure Communications Actually Require Today -- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to. That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo. --- IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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When AI Pretends to Be Your CEO: How Companies Stay Secure is an episode from IT Visionaries by Mission.

This episode is 01:00:42 long.

This episode was published on Dec 18, 2025.

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