Presented by Booz Allen
Advanced AI is compressing cyberattack timelines and raising the stakes for the operational technology that supports critical infrastructure and federal missions. In Reimagining Cyber: At Velocity, presented by Booz Allen, Francis Rose brings together leaders from Booz Allen, the National Reconnaissance Office, and CISA to examine how agencies can respond. Inspired by Booz Allen’s Velocity magazine, the program explores emerging threats to physical systems, the role of human judgment in cyber defense, and practical approaches to zero trust that strengthen resilience while preserving operations.
Forbes shares findings from eight scenarios tested at Booz Allen’s OT cybersecurity lab in Northern Virginia using frontier and open AI models. He reports that the agents achieved their objectives in every scenario. In one test, an agent reached industrial controls in just over 16 minutes. In another, an agent gained control of a robotic arm and moved it. A separate scenario demonstrated adaptation: when an agent encountered resistance, it changed its approach and developed a new payload.
These demonstrations illustrate the potential for cyber intrusions to produce physical consequences on timelines that leave little room for traditional defensive processes. Forbes argues that assuming a breach and containing the attack path are essential priorities. Limiting lateral movement can help prevent an initial compromise from becoming a broader operational disruption.
The discussion also addresses the realities of protecting equipment that may remain in service for 20 to 30 years. Forbes emphasizes compensating controls, microsegmentation, and zero trust as ways to strengthen protection around legacy systems while preserving operations. He describes an approach that uses advanced AI to challenge and defend attack paths, with attention to minimizing disruption. For government leaders and infrastructure operators, the central issue is how to improve defensive speed without compromising safety, availability, or mission effectiveness. The conversation connects emerging threats to practical decisions about containment, modernization, and the protection of systems whose failure can have consequences far beyond the network.
Three Key Takeaways
Cybersecurity decisions must support the mission, even when systems are compromised or fail. In this conversation, Billy Zientek, Chief Information Security Officer at the National Reconnaissance Office, joins Francis Rose to discuss how automation, AI, and human expertise work together to strengthen defense and sustain operations.
The conversation explores how the workforce must evolve alongside technology. Zientek emphasizes curiosity among analysts: the willingness to question an alert, consider an unexpected attack path, or investigate a possible insider threat or misconfiguration. That mindset helps teams look beyond familiar controls and recognize gaps that established processes may overlook.
Zientek also explains why zero trust should become a part of how an organization operates. Compliance measurements remain necessary, but their greater value comes from informing daily security practices and decisions. Visibility is another foundation, helping leaders understand their environment and determine what can be separated from operations when something goes wrong.
For Zientek, resilience means maintaining the ability to fulfill mission requirements. Recovering a particular technology component may be one option; shifting to another capability may be another. By planning for both breach and failure, agencies can focus their defenses on survivability and continuity. The segment offers a mission-centered perspective on cyber modernization, connecting technical capabilities to the people, oversight, and operational choices that determine whether an agency can keep delivering when its systems are under pressure or its expected safeguards stop working.
Three Key Takeaways
Zero trust becomes meaningful when agencies can see their environment, understand their most important assets, and contain threats without undermining operations. In this conversation, Francis Rose brings together Jay Gazlay, Acting Associate Director for Vulnerability Management at CISA, and Ryan Zacha, Director, Zero Trust Architecture at Booz Allen, to explore how those priorities translate into practice.
The discussion connects zero trust to the practical challenges of operational technology. Many devices were designed for long service lives and limited visibility, making modernization a careful engineering and operational exercise. The speakers describe the importance of segmentation, deliberate network design, and awareness of the connections that equipment requires. Building those controls into an environment from the outset can reduce the difficulty and disruption associated with retrofitting them later.
Gazlay highlights visibility into technology purchases and control of outbound communications as important considerations. Zacha discusses the need to improve visibility within OT environments as AI makes unfamiliar protocols and systems easier for adversaries to analyze. Both perspectives reinforce the importance of knowing what is connected and how it communicates.
Three Key Takeaways
Explore the Ideas Behind the Program
Inspired by Booz Allen’s Velocity magazine, this program brings its technology and mission conversations to the screen. Continue exploring insights on cybersecurity, emerging technology, and federal missions.