From Slide Rules to GenAI - Musings of a Graybeard Public Servant on What's Changing, What's Not, and What Should

Explore the evolution of cybersecurity and digital infrastructure through the lens of a seasoned public servant in this 44-minute keynote presentation from Black Hat USA 2025. Delivered by Chris Inglis, Former US National Cyber Director and MITRE Trustee, this talk examines how global reliance on distributed digital infrastructure has created both unprecedented opportunities and dangerous vulnerabilities. Discover how traditional stabilizing forces are losing their beneficial inertia while transformative technologies, nationalism, and fragmented regulation reshape the cybersecurity landscape. Learn about the fragile nature of modern supply chains and how they heighten systemic risks, with threats from cyberattacks, climate disruptions, and technological dislocations now propagating faster and hitting harder than ever before. Understand why traditional risk management approaches are being overwhelmed and how defense responsibilities are shifting toward private actors. Gain insights into the critical need for integrating resilience with innovation, fostering unified coalitions, and adopting systems-level thinking that aligns technical, strategic, and human factors. Examine the positioning required for organizations and individuals to thrive amid ongoing instability and accelerating technological change, with particular focus on leadership in resilience as a key differentiator in the modern threat landscape.