Andesite CEO Brian Carbaugh and CPO William Macmillan discussed SecOps on CISO Tradecraft

Our CEO Brian Carbaugh and CPO William Macmillan joined Mark Hardy for a great episode of CISO Tradecraft. They discussed the Human-AI SOC and how AI is transforming security operations.

They delved into the efficiency, accuracy, and proactive threat detection that AI systems bring to the SOC, and the critical role of contextual data in modern threat detection. The conversation covered the challenges of legacy SIEMs, the benefits of AI to solve for alert fatigue, and the sea change offered by a new SOC architecture.

Watch the full interview here.

Andesite’s Chief Product Officer William MacMillan talks with Politico

Our Chief Product Officer, William MacMillan, discussed with Politico’s Dana Nickel the importance of the CISA 2015 cybersecurity law and its treatment in the continuing resolution that ended the latest government shutdown. 

MacMillan discussed the importance of retroactive protections for companies and critical infrastructure operators that continued to share cyber threat data during the shutdown. You can learn more about the conversation and the topic on Politico’s cybersecurity newsletter.

 

Our CPO, William MacMillan, on Empowering Cybersecurity with Change Management

Andesite’s Chief Product Officer, William MacMillan, wrote an article for Security Management magazine about the lessons on change management that he learned as the CIA CISO.

“Organizational change management is inherently anxiety provoking. Focus that change management effort on cybersecurity and you’ve made a stressful, complicated task even more fraught…When you avoid the typical traps, build alignment, and act with conviction and consistency, success is possible. That was the situation I found myself in at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the early 2020s. These are the lessons drawn from that daunting but ultimately successful effort. “

“In many organizations, business leaders feel that cybersecurity is a drag on their productivity, and cybersecurity practitioners think that business leaders “don’t get it.” It doesn’t have to be this way. There are principles that can help leaders achieve alignment between cybersecurity and the organizational mission. 

“A fundamental principle that should guide alignment is that cybersecurity risk and operational risk are indivisible. If this principle is violated, alignment is impossible.”

Andesite CPO William MacMillan discusses the SOC burnout crisis at The Pair Program

Our Chief Product Officer, William MacMillan, and Lucas Moody, SVP & CISO at Alteryx, joined the crew at HatchPad’s The Pair Program to discuss a pressing issue: SOC analysts burnout.

The conversation focused on how to reverse the skyrocketing burnout in SOC teams, and how AI can support rather than replace analysts. They emphasized the role of curiosity and creativity in modern cybersecurity and why junior analysts are essential to ensure a sustainable future for cyber defense.

MacMillan shared insights about the shift towards an AI-driven decision-layer built to empower analysts and what is next for Human-AI collaboration in cybersecurity.

 

Human-AI Collaboration is key to secure government systems, Andesite CPO William MacMillan tells GovCast

GovCast interviewed Andesite Chief Product Officer William MacMillan to talk about the role of Human-AI collaboration in national security.

Artificial intelligence powers many cybersecurity applications, and government agencies are increasingly using AI to augment systems in national security and intelligence capacities. The complexities of AI implementation require careful architectural considerations and robust governance frameworks to ensure safe execution.

William MacMillan, former CISO at CIA and current chief product officer at Andesite AI, noted how AI holds tremendous potential to enhance efficiency and accuracy, particularly through “human in the loop” systems that manage vast amounts of data.

MacMillan also talks about the critical role of leadership in establishing international AI standards and the necessity of user training and human-AI collaboration for effective implementation.

 

AI can help the industry finally get SOC automation right

Andesite’s Chief Product Officer William MacMillan writes about how “despite massive investment in tools and technologies, many SOCs still find themselves overwhelmed by the very chaos they aim to control.”

“Analysts are drowning in data, jumping between disconnected tools, and trying to make sense of endless alerts. The result? An epidemic of burnout among the talented security professionals who are critical to keeping organizations safe.

“This has become particularly acute for state and local government security teams that must protect critical infrastructure and sensitive citizen data with typically smaller budgets and staff than their federal or private-sector counterparts.

“Despite this challenge, today we’re seeing states significantly increase cybersecurity investments, with initiatives like the proposed $88 million Cyber Command in Texas and New York’s enhanced cybersecurity funding for its Joint Security Operations Center.

“The root cause lies in a fundamental misconception about security operations. For decades, we’ve tried to impose rigid structure on inherently unstructured problems. Various products promised to bring order through centralization and automation. Instead, they often added layers of complexity, transforming threat hunting from finding a needle in a haystack to finding the right needle in a stack of needles.