OPSWAT: Offer at upsidedown · May 20–Jun 10, 2026

This episode is supported by OPSWAT. Joe, here's a question for you. What if the entire cybersecurity industry has been doing it wrong? The entire industry. That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Well, that's the argument Benny Charney makes in his new book, Cybersecurity Upside Down. Benny is the founder and CEO of OPSWAT. He spent more than two decades protecting critical infrastructure, you know, nuclear facilities, defense networks, energy grids, the stuff that quite literally keeps the lights on. Okay. So what's his big idea? Well, he says the industry is obsessed with detecting threats, but detection can never be perfect. One dodgy file slips through and your network is toast. I like toast. So what's the alternative? To toast? No. To detecting threats. Oh, well, how about not even trying to spot the malware? Instead, take files apart, throw away anything that isn't strictly needed, and rebuild a clean version from the safe bits. The user gets a sanitized working document. The malware ends up in the bin. But hang on. Who decides what's safe? That's the clever part. You do. Macros might be allowed for your automation team but stripped out for finance. JavaScript ripped out of every PDF everywhere. Exif data scrubbed from images leaving HR. It's not an on off switch. It's a policy that you can tune to your business. So even a brand new attack no one's ever seen before doesn't survive the rebuild exactly. There's nothing to detect because it's already gone. Whether you're a security pro, an executive or just someone who wants to understand what's already going on in cybersecurity, cybersecurity upside down is technical enough for the experts but also accessible enough for the rest of us. Go and grab your copy right now at smashingsecurity.com/upsidedown. And thanks to OPSWAP for supporting the show.