Securing Research Infrastructure and Managing Shadow AI with Kevin Mortimer
Summary
Host Caleb Tolan interviews Kevin Mortimer from the University of Reading about cybersecurity in higher education. They discuss the evolving threat landscape, including supply chain attacks and AI-driven espionage, alongside strategies for data protection and mandatory MFA. The conversation also covers the rise of "vibe coding," AI governance challenges, and the need for vendors to be transparent about their models.
Topics discussed
Intro and guest introduction
Kevin Mortimer's career journey in IT
Community volunteering and its impact
Threat landscape in higher education
Cybersecurity responses during the pandemic
Supply chain attacks and data extraction
AI implementation and autonomous response
Governance of AI tools and MCPs
Vibe coding and democratization of dev
Shadow AI and global guardrails
Actionable steps for security leaders
Inconvenient truths for universities
Inconvenient truths for AI vendors
AI cost models and tokenization
Final message on embracing technology
Outro and credits
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