The terrifying AI cyber threat no one is ready for

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

July 16, 2026

Duration

54m

Channel

On with Kara Swisher

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

AI is putting nation-state hacking tools in the hands of cybercriminals. Cybersecurity expert Nicole Perlroth joins to explain why she believes we're entering an "everything, everywhere, all at once" era of cyberattacks—and why the next wave of hacks could be faster, cheaper and far more dangerous than ever before. Perlroth also reveals what she uncovered while reporting the latest season of her podcast, To Catch a Thief: North Korea on Our Payroll. She explains how North Korean operatives are using stolen identities, AI and American "laptop farms" to land remote jobs at major U.S. companies, funneling millions of dollars back to Kim Jong Un's regime and its nuclear weapons program. They also discuss China's growing cyber capabilities, the race to build more powerful AI models, why Anthropic's Mythos model has cybersecurity experts alarmed, and how cuts to U.S. cybersecurity and election security programs could leave the country more vulnerable ahead of the midterms. — Subscribe: https://goo.gl/FRleYo Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-with-kara-swisher/id1643307527 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/42ntT7XnfdbbYetUQu0vu5?si=ddbc94321e3948af FOLLOW US Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onwithkaraswisher/?hl=en TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@onwithkaraswisher?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kara-swisher-b7213 Threads: https://www.threads.com/@onwithkaraswisher Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/onwithkaraswisher.bsky.social

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Nicole Perlroth

  guest

  Cybersecurity journalist and author of "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends," formerly at The New York Times and an advisor to CISA.

• Kara Swisher

  host

  Journalist and podcast host of "On with Kara Swisher."

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of On with Kara Swisher, featuring Nicole Perlroth and Kara Swisher, The terrifying AI cyber threat no one is ready for explores AI is lowering the barrier to catastrophic cyberattacks at scale Nicole Perlroth argues that AI models like Anthropic’s Mythos can discover and chain software vulnerabilities, pushing advanced cyber exploitation toward broad availability.

🔗 RELATED EPISODES

The AI job disaster Congress refuses to fix

One man’s bold plan to defeat Trumpism—once and for all

The new Democratic Party is leaving the Old Guard behind

The Pope’s AI advisor has a warning for Silicon Valley

Kara Swisher puts NYT and Vox Media CEOs in the hot seat

Quit your job! And other career advice from Kara Swisher.