Weekly Security Sprint EP 172. Alphabet soup month, cyber protections, leadership engagement and more!

On this week's Security Sprint, Dave and Andy covered the following topics: **Opening:** • Celebrating 5 Years of the Tribal-ISAC: Mid-Year Executive Director Update — TribalHub • FB-ISAO Newsletter, v8, Issue 8 — Faith-Based ISAO • AI/Vishing: The Voice Is Not the Control — Crypto ISAC • National Insider Threat Awareness Month: Protect Our Potential **Main Topics:** **Iran hackers: Minnesota ‘warning’ ignored, ‘critical events’ to hit 3 U.S. infrastructure sectors** — Threat Beat — 31 Aug 2026. APT IRAN, which has claimed responsibility alongside CyberAv3ngers for recent attacks affecting U.S. municipal water systems, issued a new threat against multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors as military tensions with Iran continue. The group characterized its earlier Minnesota activity as a warning and has previously claimed the ability to affect electricity, telecommunications, and water infrastructure, although adversary claims regarding access and capabilities should not be accepted without independent verification. **A Tale of Two SOCs: Insights From Two Red Team Assessments** — CISA — 25 Aug 2026. CISA released findings from simultaneous red-team assessments of organizations in the Government Services and Facilities Sector and the Water and Wastewater Systems Sector. Both organizations experienced successful initial compromise, but the government organization failed to detect or effectively contain subsequent activity while water-sector defenders quickly identified compromised systems and isolated them. CISA attributed the differing outcomes in part to alert noise, organizational silos, cloud-security weaknesses, and differences in how defenders were empowered to respond. **Institutional Wilful Blindness, NCSC Cyber Series** — NCSC Cyber Series — 2026. The first installment of a two-part discussion examines why organizations can understand that cyber risks exist yet still fail to take meaningful action before incidents occur. Leadership expert Margaret Heffernan, Professor Genevieve Liveley of the Research Institute for Sociotechnical Cyber Security, and an NCSC social sciences leader discuss how organizational culture, leadership behavior, communication, and the narratives used to describe cybersecurity can create a gap between awareness and action. The discussion emphasizes that resilience depends on more than technical controls and requires leaders to challenge complacency, communicate uncertainty effectively, and create environments where uncomfortable risk information can influence decisions. **Quick Hits:** • Insights into Suspected DPRK Workers: Red Flags to Look Out For — Huntress • The Who and How of Ten Years of Russian Disinformation — NewsGuard