Building a Black Belt Purple Team: AI, Shadow IT & Cyber Resilience

In this episode, Sam sits down with Kev Marriott, a seasoned security professional who spent nearly two decades at British Telecom before finding his passion in incident management and cyber security. Kev shares his journey from handling customer escalations to managing major security crises and playbooks for critical national infrastructure.

The conversation dives deep into the concept of "Purple Teaming" — breaking down the walls between offensive Red Teams and defensive Blue Teams. Kev explains why this collaborative approach is no longer optional, but essential for elevating an organization's baseline security posture, reducing response friction, and truly understanding the why behind an attacker's movements.

They also tackle the unique challenges brought on by the AI era, including the rise of "Shadow AI" and the rapidly shrinking timelines from compromise to exfiltration. Kev offers a grounded perspective on AI, discussing how organizations can safely govern its use, secure their supply chains, and leverage AI to automate manual tasks so security teams can focus on proactive threat hunting.

Topics covered: transitioning into cyber security, the fundamentals of Purple Teaming, Red vs. Blue team dynamics, shadow AI and governance, supply chain security, the evolution of vulnerability management, and why building cyber muscle memory is a lot like training for an MMA black belt.