In this episode of Code and Country, Ian Paterson sits down with Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder, Silverado Policy Accelerator executive chairman, and author of World on the Brink.

Dmitri shares his journey from teenage encryption entrepreneur to leading some of the most consequential cyber investigations in history, including Operation Aurora. He discusses the evolution of cyber threats from spam to state-backed espionage, China’s Volt Typhoon campaign, and why Taiwan may be the “new Berlin” in a looming geopolitical standoff.

With candid insights on deterrence, offensive cyber operations, and the role of private companies on the front lines, this conversation offers CISOs, IT leaders, and security architects a front-row seat to the strategies shaping national security in the 21st century.

Ollie Whitehouse, CTO of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), joins Code and Country to unpack what it really takes to secure a nation in the age of AI, ransomware, and quantum threats. Drawing from three decades of experience across public and private sectors, Whitehouse offers a candid assessment of the broken cybersecurity market, why the incentives are misaligned, and what meaningful defense should look like. He explores how governments and enterprises can better collaborate, the urgent need to catalog cryptographic dependencies, and why resilience must be built into business, not bolted on. Essential listening for CISOs, IT leaders, and architects navigating the new frontier of national-scale cyber defense.

Katie Moussouris, founder and CEO of Luta Security, joins Code and Country to trace her path from MIT to pioneering vulnerability disclosure and launching “Hack the Pentagon.” She dives deep into the economics of the exploit market, the dangers of vulnerability disclosure laws, and how AI is shifting the dynamics of cybersecurity offense and defense. Katie also shares first-hand stories from her time shaping Microsoft's bug bounty program and working with the Pentagon. A must-listen for CISOs, IT leaders, and architects navigating the geopolitics of cyber risk.