Decibel Partners

Security teams spend a lot of time thinking about what attackers are trying to get in. But there's a growing problem with what employees are doing inside of normal workflows. Moving information between apps. Pasting company data into ChatGPT. Uploading files somewhere they shouldn't. Usually it's not malicious. It's just someone trying to do their job, and wanting to be more efficient by using new tools. That's the problem Ent Security is going after. Instead of sending everything to the cloud for analysis, their AI runs locally on the device and looks at what the user is doing in real time. Basically: can you catch accidental exposure WHILE it's happening, instead of after the data has already left? It's an interesting approach to a problem that's only getting bigger as AI changes how we work. If you want to learn more, you can check out the link below: https://ent.ai/contact P.S. How much of your risk right now is coming from accidental exposure vs. actual attackers? #Ad #DecibelPartner Decibel Partners

Still on a high. Still exhausted. Still digging out of my inbox. But, God.. That was fun. Shoutout to my incredible partners Lisa Hayashi and Nina Korfias for helping me bring together ~150 all star women in security last week at Black Hat. My first Black Hat (just 3 years ago), I remember looking around and feeling so out of place. I was the only person in the room in heels (I've since learned... boots are the move s/o Jéssica Leão). We have created such a special community where we too now have familiar faces that we can take on these conferences with in confidence :,) Counting down the days until I can see these ladies at RSA and a few events TBA in between. 🥰 Tanya Dargel Decibel Partners Stacey Ernest (Hume), CPA, MBA Stacey Wueste

We hosted over 600 founders and early adopters in Vegas last week for Decibel GameDay. Thank you to everyone for bringing great vibes to Vegas at Black Hat - can't wait to see you all soon! * Decibel Game Day at Black Hat * Elite Defenders * Richard Sherman, NFL All-Pro and Super Bowl Champion * Rob Joyce, Former Cybersecurity Director, NSA and Security Advisor, OpenAI * Elias Manousos, Founder of Risk IQ (acquired by Microsoft) and Ent Security  * Kevin Mandia, Founder of Mandiant (acquired by Google) and Armadin * HD Moore, Founder of Metasploit and RunZero   The Endpoint Battleground - The Super Bowl of Cyber * Brandon Dixon 🇺🇸, Co-Founder of Ent Security  * Josh Kamdjou, Founder of Sublime Security  * Daniel Miessler, Unsupervised Learning SIEM Under Siege - Who Will Survive?  * Jack Naglieri, Founder of Panther Labs (acquired by Databricks)  * Damien Lewke, Founder of Nebulock  * Zack Allen, Datadog and Detection Engineering Weekly Zero Day Countdown - The Myths of Mythos * Zakir Durumeric, Founder of Censys  * Jonathan Cran, Founder of Mallory  * Casey Ellis, Founder of Disclose IO The Frontier LLM Arena - Offense vs. Defense * Edward Wu, Founder of DropZone  * David McGuire, Founder of SpecterOps  * Andrew Peterson, Founder of Signal Sciences AI Engineering Security * Nick Reva, Global Director, Engineering Security, DoorDash * Ashish Rajan 🤴🏾🧔🏾♂️, CISO and Founder, Cloud Security and AI Security Podcast Special Guests * Chris Hughes (Resilient Cyber) * Mike Privette (Return on Security) * Jasmine Wong (Cyber Bytes) See you all next year!

One of the highlights of Black Hat for me was attending GameDay on Day 1. I randomly stopped by and stayed for more than 3 hours. It was a really unique mix of cybersecurity, AI, big ideas and some debate (but not too much!). The lineup brought together some impressive founders, security leaders and builders to “tackle” (you’ll understand “tackle” if you read this entire post) a few of the biggest questions facing cyber right now: 🔹 The Endpoint Battleground — The Super Bowl of Cyber Brandon Dixon — Ent Security Josh Kamdjou — Sublime Security Hosted by Daniel Miessler — Unsupervised Learning 🔹 SIEM Under Siege — Who Will Survive? Jack Naglieri — Panther Labs / Databricks Damien Lewke — Nebulock Hosted by Zack Allen — Datadog & Detection Engineering Weekly 🔹 The Frontier LLM Arena — Offense vs. Defense Edward Wu — Dropzone David McGuire — SpecterOps Hosted by Andrew Peterson — Signal Sciences And a great finish with Elite Defenders, hosted by Richard Sherman, NFL Super Bowl Champion and Thursday Night Football analyst, talking about what separates good, great and elite defensive teams. This translated very well into cybersecurity as preparation and anticipation are crucial in both professions. From endpoint security and SIEM to zero-days, LLMs and the rapidly changing role of AI, there was plenty to think about and plenty of different perspectives in the room. Thanks to Jon Sakoda for leading the panels and Decibel Partners for bringing together such an interesting group and creating one of the more unique events I attended during Black Hat. #decibelpartners #blackhat #datadog Jon Sakoda

Finally escaping the sandbox (pun most certainly intended) and wrapping up another Black Hat. What an incredible week. Huge thank you to the 600+ folks who came out to Decibel Partners GameDay - our biggest one yet, and the thoughtfulness of the discussions and caliber of the crowd proved it. There is lots to unpack from all the AI x security learnings from this week. But honestly, the best part was just getting the security community together in one room - showing up, sharing, and connecting is what makes this week special every year. Grateful for all of you. And the week ended with a bang: Backstreet Boys at the Sphere. It was my first time there and that venue is truly unreal. 🎤 Can't wait to see everyone next year.

What a week! Thank you to everyone who joined Decibel GameDay at Black Hat this year. We had over 600 people join and it was the most fun we’ve had in Vegas in 110 degree heat 🔥 The energy and vibes in our industry have never been hotter. The frontier LLMs are now elite level on offense and defense. AI agents are surprising us with new capabilities every day. And the world is investing heavily in cybersecurity to get ready for the new normal! It was fun sharing our excitement with you all - special thanks to all of our guests including: Elite Defenders * Richard Sherman, NFL All-Pro and Super Bowl Champion * Rob Joyce, Former Cybersecurity Director, NSA and Security Advisor, OpenAI * Elias Manousos, Founder of Ent Security and Risk IQ (acquired by Microsoft) * Kevin Mandia, Founder of Armadin and Mandiant (acquired by Google) * HD Moore, Founder of Metasploit and RunZero   The Endpoint Battleground - The Super Bowl of Cyber * Brandon Dixon 🇺🇸, Co-Founder of Ent Security  * Josh Kamdjou, Founder of Sublime Security  * Daniel Miessler, Unsupervised Learning SIEM Under Siege - Who Will Survive?  * Jack Naglieri, Founder of Panther Labs (acquired by Databricks)  * Damien Lewke, Founder of Nebulock  * Zack Allen, Datadog and Detection Engineering Weekly Zero Day Countdown - The Myths of Mythos * Zakir Durumeric, Founder of Censys  * Jonathan Cran, Founder of Mallory  * Casey Ellis, Founder of DiscloseIO The Frontier LLM Arena - Offense vs. Defense * Edward Wu, Founder of Dropzone  * David McGuire, Founder of SpecterOps  * Andrew Peterson, Founder of Signal Sciences AI Engineering Security * Nick Reva, Global Director, Engineering Security, DoorDash * Ashish Rajan 🤴🏾🧔🏾♂️, CISO and Founder, Cloud Security and AI Security Podcast …and Chris Hughes (Resilient Cyber), Mike Privette (Return on Security), and Jasmine Wong (Cyber Bytes). Look forward to seeing you all soon!

"Now the past has caught up with us, adversaries are leveraging this, and we're seeing attacks move so quickly." Censys CEO Zakir Durumeric on stage at Decibel Partners GameDay at Black Hat USA 2026. #BHUSA

BlackHat. 2026. Cyber Ecosystem🚀 Highlight: Decibel VC Gameday. AI Defense over Offense. Fantastic 2 days at BlackHat. Super energizing to connect with several ex-colleagues, founders & investors—a big part of my cyber ecosystem. Very refreshing to meet so many new NG-founders taking on the AI-defense frontier. Need more of this fresh perspective. 🚀 Jon Sakoda: Thank you very much for hosting the Gameday special event with super insightful panel sessions. I truly felt that just being at the Gameday, we participated in the latest on the AI security frontier with the founders of companies such as ENT, Panther Labs, Neublock, and Dropzone. I'm particularly inspired by your leadership in building the NG-AI frontier companies. Someday—folks like us—can emulate your playbook: "invest in early-stage technical founders with conviction." 🚀🚀🚀 Having Richard Sherman as our special guest and sharing NFL strategies was a big highlight. Let's hope the Seahawks deliver on that Super Bowl promise next season. 😊🚀 Big Takeaways: 1. Mythos-proof defenses needed. We need amplified rigor and focus on AI-agentic defense vs. AI offense. Ideally, we'd have secure runtimes that can self-protect against any attacks that Mythos-like models can exploit. In a largely "compliance-centric" and "security by obscurity" world where most systems are exposed, Mythos-class models increase the scale and speed of exploits, making the world less safe. We could deploy secure runtimes early with "Mythos-proof" guarantees. Very achievable! 2. AI defense is immature. Discussions still center largely around Mythos, but the bigger frame is: How do we secure an agentic world with "intent vs. intent," "agent vs. agent," and "model vs. model" defense with full lifecycle entitlement to the human actor? 3. This is a national emergency. Cybersecurity in the agentic AI era touches every citizen & city. The “game day” conversations need to happen in city councils, state & federal chambers—not just in Vegas at BlackHat. Most citizens and city councils are unaware of the gravity of unleashed& unfettered models openly exploiting without their knowledge. We are VERY VERY behind. 🙏🚀 Super refreshing catching up with our elite cyber crew: Varun Badhwar, Manoj Apte, Srinivas Mukkamala, Anand Ramanathan, Kumar Saurabh, Amit Sridharan, Alok Nandan, PhD, Ravish Ailinani, Raghuveer Boinapalli, Sriram Krishnan, Yasir Khalid — and gang. Super grateful for the 25+yrs of cyber ecosystem we built together. I'm particularly looking forward to spending more time with new-gen founders carrying the baton forward in the AI age. Super hectic week: USA Yoga@ Penn State and Baltimore Convention over the weekend —and Vegas for BlackHat. My sincere apologies to close friends that I missed at some of the events. Looking forward to catching up and collaborating on our shared mission: "building "collective AI defense" for our corporations, citizens, and communities". 🔥🎉🚀🚀🚀

Have you ever seen so many bad ass women in a room at Black Hat ?!?!!! Come onnnn ! Such a special event with Vision and Voice and Aspiron Influence yesterday 🥹 My heart is FULL. Thank you to our incredible panelists as well for such an intimate and thoughtful conversation. 💜 Decibel Partners Lisa Hayashi Nina Korfias Bezawit S. , May C. Julie Tsai Maggie McDaniel Charlotte Harris Cheri Benedict