Voices of the Vigilant podcast: humanizing cybersecurity
with candid tales from cyberspace and beyond
About the Voices of the Vigilant podcast
Voices of the Vigilant is a cybersecurity podcast about the humans behind the work — their stories, their pivots, their hard-earned lessons. Each episode is a candid conversation with practitioners, leaders, and thinkers doing meaningful things in the field.
New episodes drop monthly. Find the full catalog below or on all major podcast platforms and YouTube.
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Voices of the Vigilant reaches a targeted audience of cybersecurity professionals, career changers, and security leaders. If your product or service belongs in that conversation, let’s talk about a sponsorship.
Voices of the Vigilant episode catalog
Voices of the Vigilant EP10 | The Groundbreaker: Lessons from the Many Layers of Cyber
This episode features Andreae Pohlman, Cybersecurity strategist and former member of Microsoft’s Corporate Incident Response and Compromise Recovery team.
Careers in cybersecurity rarely follow a straight line—and that’s where the real strength is built. In this episode, we sit down with Andreae Pohlman—Air Force veteran, former Microsoft incident responder, and enterprise security advisor—to chart a journey from the identity trenches to global ransomware recovery and the architectural backbone that holds it all together.
Andreae shares hard-won lessons from Pass-the-Hash defenses, ESAE bastion forests, and privileged access workstations, connecting them to today’s Entra ID and the Defender suite. She breaks down how identity-first practices evolved into full-stack defense, why compromise recovery deserves equal footing with incident response, and how AI can sharpen—but not replace—discipline and process.
Threaded through it all is community: from Scholarship for Service to Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu, where Andreae now helps others build both skill and confidence. Her closing message? Kill the password. Passkeys and passwordless authentication aren’t just convenience—they’re liberation from whole categories of attack.
If you’re navigating your cyber career, maturing your IR program, or seeking a community that runs on grit, this episode delivers clarity, connection, and a call to evolve.
Voices of the Vigilant EP09 | The Mentor’s Map: Empowering Pathways to Cyber
This episode features Chris Lemmon, Director of Security Engineering at Secure Yeti and educator at City Colleges of Chicago.
Chris shares how her unconventional journey—from nanny to cybersecurity leader, gives her a fresh perspective on problem-solving and people management. She believes diversity is essential to strong security teams: “What we need is that Swiss cheese model—different lived experiences covering security from all angles.”
Her grant-funded Cybersecurity Career Accelerator removes barriers for students, blending technical training with hands-on competitions. Beyond the classroom, her “Backpacks for Good” initiative turns unused conference swag into care packages for Chicago’s homeless—showing how tech can drive change both in careers and communities.
The human side of tech
As a gifted speaker and connector, Jess is super excited to share this project with you! Each episode features a candid conversation with folks in the infosec space on a specific topic and is designed to educate and inspire you to take action on your own terms.
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Apply to be a guest
Know someone, or are someone, with a story worth hearing? We’re always looking for practitioners, leaders, and unconventional voices from across the security landscape.