Introducing Alice & Bob
In case you missed it, earlier this year we launched our cybersecurity podcast with a difference, Adventures of Alice & Bob. The initial reaction from Marc Maiffret, our CTO (and now co-host), when we mentioned launching a podcast was “I am not sure the industry needs another vendor podcast”. He was right of course, but just doing another vendor podcast was never the plan.
Anyone who has worked in or around infosec knows there are some amazing people doing brilliant things, often largely behind the scenes. It was these people and their stories that we wanted to shine a light on. Adventures of Alice & Bob is a podcast that gives voice to, honors, and celebrates the stories of those who work hard in this industry to make cyber safer for everyone. As for Marc, he loved the concept and enjoyed being a guest on our first episode so much that he eventually offered to co-host!
On a more personal note, launching this podcast has been an incredibly humbling journey for me (kudos to all you podcasters out there!). I was flabbergasted at how much goes into podcasting; from concept development to creative, to guest booking, to release schedules…the world and demands of podcasting is a wild ride - and I’ve loved every minute of it. Major props to our remarkable podcast producers, Proseries Media: we most certainly couldn’t have done any of this without your smarts, patience, and passion.
What makes me excited to head into 2023 is knowing that podcasting is not slowing down. The number of podcast listeners is predicted to reach 464.7 million by the end of 2023 and 504.9 million by 2024! There is so much we can continue to do to highlight some of the most interesting people in infosec and develop Adventures of Alice & Bob even further. The beast of cybersecurity never sleeps, and we are grateful to all our guests who have shared their personal stories of cybersecurity disasters, hacker takedowns, breaches, career flops & pivots, successes, mistakes, and laughs.

With that said, there have been some exceptionally standout episodes that I wanted to highlight in this post. If Adventures of Alice & Bob is just now hitting your radar, please bookmark these top episodes as a great starting point. The list is sorted by top performing episode based on number of unique listeners in 2022.
Here are my top 5 episodes you should stream now:
Ep. 01 - Uncovering the Code Red Worm // Marc Maiffret
In our very first episode, our two hosts, James and Karl, are joined by our very own Marc Maiffret to talk about Marc's experience being raided by the FBI as a teenager, the infamous Code Red worm he co-discovered, and how cybersecurity will be different in the future. A great episode to kick off the series with!
Ep. 09 – Social Engineering, Phishing, and Psychic Powers (well, sort of) // Chris Kirsch
Chris Kirsch joins Adventures of Alice & Bob to talk about the ethics and philosophy behind social engineering (and how he got into teaching pickpocketing to red teamers), the amount of research that actually goes into the DEF CON Capture the Flag Competition (Chris won the coveted Black Badge at DEF CON 2017), how to protect yourself from Open Source Intelligence manipulation, and why he may (or may not) have psychic powers. Chris’ stories & social engineering escapades had us on the edge of our seats!
Ep. 12 – Everything is Secure in a Spreadsheet, right? // Javvad Malik
Javvad Malik, a Security Awareness Advocate at KnowBe4 and Co-Founder of Security B-Sides London, talks about his most memorable cybersecurity tales inside some of the largest financial & energy companies, how a single spreadsheet (with a giant security flaw) defiled an entire organization, and the inspiration behind Javvad’s ridiculously hilarious cybersecurity YouTube parody “Accepted the Risk”.
Ep. 02 - Basic Adorable Destruction // Jayson E. Street
Once described as a "paunchy hacker" by Rolling Stone Magazine, Jayson E Street, joins Marc and Karl in our second episode to talk about his unique take on pen testing, how his biggest success story is about him failing, and how everyone is born a hacker. This 62-minute episode flies by as Jayson takes listeners through a very entertaining, and sometimes terrifying, world of hacking.
Ep. 04 – She Hacks Purple // Tanya Janca
Best-selling author of Alice and Bob Learn Application Security (yes, we swoon at the name, too), Tanya Janca, joins Marc and Karl to talk about what it’s like being a woman in cybersecurity, the origin story of We Hack Purple, and how important it is to be integrated in the cybersecurity community. Tanya had a lot to share in this 60-minute episode and left us eager to book another installment with her!
Where to find the Adventures of Alice & Bob
As I wrap up this post, I wanted to say one final thank you to all those on the frontlines of cybersecurity and infosec, we are truly grateful for the things you do daily to keep us and our families safe online.
Listen to all of these plus more amazing stories on The Adventures of Alice and Bob. Listen wherever you stream your podcasts.
Interested in Being a Guest?
If you are an infosec hero (of course you are) and have a personal anecdote from the front lines of a cyberattack that you’d like to share on the podcast, please contact the BeyondTrust podcast production team at podcast@beyondtrust.com.

Sarah Lieber, Director, Marketing Programs
Sarah is a highly dedicated and creative marketing professional with over a decade of experience in proven B2B demand-gen and campaign success in the cybersecurity space. Sarah strategically built and grew from the ground-up BeyondTrust's highly effective and successful world-wide webinar and podcast program. Yearly, the BeyondTrust webinar program involves over 100 cybersecurity experts and generates tens of thousands of attendees across the globe. See what's new with BeyondTrust webinars here: https://www.beyondtrust.com/resources/webcasts