Hacker Valley Studio26 Jun 2025

Purple Teaming Is the New Job Security with Maril Vernon

Cybersecurity isn’t just red or blue anymore... it’s purple, white, and deeply human. Maril Vernon, award-winning ethical hacker and Senior Solutions Architect at NetSPI, returns to the Hacker Valley Studio to discuss purple teaming as the most future-proof career path in cyber. She opens up about mentorship, burnout, compensation realities, and how we’re still failing the fundamentals.

Together, Ron and Maril dig into what purple teaming really is (and isn’t), why soft skills matter more than ever, and how defenders are the frontline signal source for law enforcement. From guiding her mom into IR to co-founding Mind Over Cyber, Maril embodies what it means to show up for the cyber community and demand more from the culture itself.

Impactful Moments

00:00 - Introduction 01:01 - Maril’s role at NetSPI 03:00 - Why purple skills are future-proof 05:19 - Salary truths in purple teaming 08:30 - Know your value, negotiate wisely 13:07 - How defenders enable law enforcement 16:22 - The real meaning of purple teaming 18:39 - Common misconceptions debunked 24:45 - People are always the soft spot 26:01 - The two security stack must-haves 29:00 - Mom made it to incident response 30:48 - Maril’s mentorship philosophy 34:09 - Why you need to post anyway 36:35 - What Mind Over Cyber is really about 40:00 - CISOs are burning out silently 41:31 - Closing thoughts

Links:

Connect with our guest, Maril Vernon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marilvernon

Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams

Join our creative mastermind and stand out as a cybersecurity professional:

https://www.patreon.com/hackervalleystudio

Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com

Continue the conversation by joining our Discord: https://hackervalley.com/discord

Become a sponsor of the show to amplify your brand: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(447)

PHP2Shell: Governments Unplugged Their Own Websites. Here's What Scared Them

What would make a government switch off its own websites on purpose? And how does a flaw in the software behind most of the web stay hidden for 14 years? In this solo episode, Ron opens the case file ...

6 Nov 25min

Your Cloud Backup Won’t Save You with Jake Bernardes

If someone wiped your cloud environment tomorrow, how long until you’re back in business? Not what the plan says. What would actually happen? Ron sits down with Jake Bernardes, CISO at Gambit Security...

26 Okt 45min

Voice Phishing Is the New Front Door

What would you do if your phone rang and the caller ID showed your own company? Would you pick up? Would you help the person on the other end? This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Ron goes solo to brea...

14 Okt 22min

Securing the Apps Everyone Is Building with Roi Nisimi and Yonatan Levi

What happens when your marketing team, your sales team, and the person down the hall can all ship a full app from a single prompt? And what is that app quietly connected to? In this episode, Ron sits ...

7 Okt 36min

Giving Your AI Agent Its Own Identity with Ashish Rajan

Your newest hire has a Google Workspace account, a Slack login and a laptop. It never sleeps, and it never asks before it acts. So who owns its identity? Ron welcomes back Ashish Rajan, CISO at Techri...

30 Sep 32min

From Read Access to Admin with just an AI Agent

What if someone got full admin access to your company's platform, including your CRM, your payments app, and your private messages, and the only tool they used was an AI chatbot? Can AI models really ...

23 Sep 31min

Do You Know What Your Agent is Doing at 3AM? with Amir Ofek

Every AI agent in your environment inherits someone's permissions, and most teams have no idea what those agents are actually doing with them. Amir Ofek, CEO and co-founder of Aizome, shares how to ma...

16 Sep 38min

Cloud Broke My World Before AI Did with Dr. Jay Abdullah

Cybersecurity has survived cloud, mobile, and a dozen other "biggest disruptions of our lifetime," and each one felt unprecedented in the moment. In this episode, Ron sits down with Alyssa "Dr. Jay" A...

9 Sep 36min