Circle’s Dane VandenBerg on the future of security copilots and the evolution of threat intel

In this week’s episode of The Future of Security Operations podcast, Thomas is joined by Dane VandenBerg. Dane’s 16-year security career includes product-focused roles with vendors like Qintel and more recently, Microsoft, where he was Principal Technical Specialist supporting the development of their security copilot. He’s also spent a lot of time in fintech, serving as Vice President of Information Security at Prime Trust and, currently, Senior Director of Security Operations at Circle.

In this episode:

[02:05] How Dane went from researching women’s health and animal cloning to public relations to security

[06:25] Why security teams are still fighting the same battles they were 15 years ago

[09:24] How Dane’s vendor-side threat intel work shapes his thinking as a SecOps leader

[12:00] What’s working - and what’s not - about how companies approach threat intelligence today

[12:51] Why threat intel should be an in-house function, not just a reporting feed

[15:30] What motivated Dane to move into the finance and crypto industry

[19:30] How parenthood reshaped the way Dane thinks about risk

[22:50] Tips for encouraging employees to report their security concerns

[26:00] What a great security-vendor customer experience look like - and what too many vendors get wrong

[29:10] The security tools and solutions Dane is most excited about right now

[32:45] Balancing the hype and potential of security copilots

[38:30] What cyberattacks might look like five years from now

[41:30] Connect with Dane

Where to find Dane:

• LinkedIn

• Circle

Where to find Thomas Kinsella:

• LinkedIn

• Tines

Resources mentioned:

• National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance