Late August was a wild stretch for frontier AI and cybersecurity, capped by more than 100 companies, led by OpenAI, warning of "a limited window to strengthen cyber defenses." In this special hosts-only episode, Ciaran and James take stock. Ciaran walks through how we got here, James asks who is actually going to do all this defending, and Ciaran calls a 4,000-year-old witness on who should answer for the actions of AI agents. They close on the harder question: is trust between the AI labs and the security community fraying, and can it be repaired? #CyberLeadersPodcast #SecurityLeadership Highlights: Frontier AI and cybersecurity • The recent developments around frontier AI and its implications for cybersecurity • The letter: https://openai.com/collective-cyberdefense/ • James’ Dark Reading article: https://www.darkreading.com/cyberattacks-data-breaches/ai-warning-letter-missed-people • Ciaran’s Weekly One-Off Substack: https://ciaranmartin.substack.com/p/fud-tier-ai • RUSI | Beyond the Hype: https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/beyond-hype-ai-ransomware-and-business-models Hugging Face • The incident, the reports that followed and some of the different reactions to what happened. • What We Still Don’t Know About OpenAI’s Hugging Face Hack: https://www.wired.com/story/openais-hugging-face-hack-debrief-raises-more-questions-than-it-answers/ • OpenAi’s report: https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/ • METR’s report: https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/?incomplete=1&lh=agents-were-motivated-to-increase-the-generic-capabilities-of-the-collective-and-help-peers&hn=47&dbs=229376 • Dwarkesh Patel’s The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/openai-huggingface • Yann Lecunn’s comment: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/yann-lecun_zack-korman-zackkorman-on-x-activity-7500906335970992130-tmQz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAEMJZKUBY2YaDQaPvnJj5NwUhzFv97Fqn9s • Anthropic’s announcement: https://www.anthropic.com/news/improving-alignment-security-efforts Accountability for frontier AI • A case for greater accountability drawing on an ancient principle from Hammurabi’s Code. • The Code of Hammurabi: https://fs.blog/hammurabis-code/ • Daniel Miessler’s take: https://danielmiessler.com/blog/what-the-code-of-hammurabi-can-teach-us-about-hardware-and-software-liability • Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s op-ed: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/opinion/end-bonuses-for-bankers.html • Jovan Kurbalija’s article: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/02/12/from-hammurabi-to-chatgpt-why-ancient-legal-principles-apply-to-ai-as-well/ • Anthropic’s Advanced AI Framework: https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/files/4zrzovbb/website/0a58d567024a8b448ff15158ebc3625328dfcc1f.pdf Subscribe & Follow: • Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform: https://www.youtube.com/@SANSInstitute, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cyber-leaders/id1771446058, https://open.spotify.com/show/6ag1Lo9QHB8rCy4DuCTWqN • Follow us: https://x.com/SANSInstitute, https://www.linkedin.com/company/sans-institute/, https://www.facebook.com/sansinstitute/, https://www.tiktok.com/@sansinstituteofficial World-Class, Expert-Led Cybersecurity Training • Learn more about SANS Institute here: sans.org • Learn more about SANS Cyber Leaders Network here: https://go.sans.org/cyber-leaders Contact: Have questions or comments? Email us at cyberleadersnetwork@sans.org