About this episode
Farzan Karimi discusses the ethics of offensive security and its implications in cybersecurity.
Farzan Karimi, Deputy CISO at Moderna, joins Amir Bormand for a sharp conversation on one of the most misunderstood areas in cybersecurity, the ethics of offensive security. From red team rules of engagement to nation state deception and the limits of AI in security testing, this episode gets into what happens when the job requires you to think like an attacker without crossing the line. This is a practical conversation for security leaders, engineers, and operators who want a clearer view into how modern security programs actually work under pressure. Farzan shares hard lessons from his own career, explains why red teaming is really about business risk, and makes the case for storytelling over dashboards when security teams need executive buy in. Key Takeaways • Offensive security is not about finding every weakness. It is about simulating what a real attacker would do to reach the business’s worst case scenario. • The gray area is real. Just because you are authorized to test a system does not mean every possible action is justified. • Nation state level threats force teams to think differently. Attackers look across the connective tissue of systems, not just isolated tools or…
People in this episode
Host: Amir Bormand
Guest: Farzan Karimi
Topics covered
- offensive security
- cybersecurity ethics
- red teaming
- business risk
- AI in security
- security testing
Keywords
- offensive security
- red team
- cybersecurity
- AI
- business risk
- nation state threats
- security testing
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Moderna
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