On the 25th episode of Enterprise AI Defenders, hosts Evan Reiser and Mike Britton, both executives at Abnormal Security, talk with Joshua Brown, former Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at H&R Block. H&R Block is one of the largest tax preparation companies in the United States, with tens of millions of customers relying on its services each year. Managing security for a global tax enterprise requires defending against large-scale fraud, identity theft, and AI-powered social engineering attacks—all while ensuring compliance with strict regulatory requirements. In this conversation, Joshua discusses how AI is accelerating cyber attacks, the challenges of using AI for fraud detection in financial services, and the impact of automation on the next generation of cybersecurity teams.

Quick hits from Joshua:

On the state of fraud in financial services and how AI can help: “If you're talking about a normal year, you might see a thousand potentially fraudulent returns, and then suddenly it jumps up to a million or more. You don’t have enough analysts to look through that. It’s not possible. You have to do something with machine learning or AI to be able to narrow that down and help make faster decisions.”

On balancing the need for efficiency and the need for future talent in cybersecurity: “I think businesses are so hungry for efficiency that they risk gutting their talent pipelines. If we’re not careful, we’re going to end up with a senior workforce and no way to develop new security talent.”

On leadership strategy in security: “How you motivate a team is by connecting them with the why of what they’re doing and letting them figure out the how. That’s why you hire people smarter than you, right? It’s not so that everybody does things the way you do it.”

Book Recommendation: Right Kind of Wrong by Amy Edmondson

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Enterprise AI Defenders is a show where top security executives share how moves to the cloud have created an evolved threat landscape that requires new tools to protect against cybercrime. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise AI Defenders is produced by Josh Meer.