AI-driven attacks are becoming startlingly cheap, but enterprise defenses still struggle with exposed credentials, persistent access and the limits of automated patching. ServiceNow’s Michael Freeman joins the show to explain how attackers exploit business processes—and why a software fix may not close the door.
Then Mistral researcher Sagar Vaze walks through the mid-training rescue of Large 4, a sparse trillion-parameter model, and the customer demand that pushed satellite imagery higher on the team’s agenda. The conversation also examines open weights, Europe’s compute ambitions and the safety trade-offs surrounding model access and copyright guardrails.
Show Notes
ServiceNow threat researcher Michael Freeman describes AI-driven compromises costing 5–10 cents, credential theft through support tickets, and why autonomous patching is not ready for critical infrastructure. Mistral researcher Sagar Vaze explains the rescue of Large 4 during training, its sparse trillion-parameter design, the push for stronger multimodal skills, and the case for open weights amid limited compute.
Chapters
(0:00) Open models and cheap cyberattacks
(1:22) Why a $6B crypto heist can’t stay hidden
(2:32) Meet Michael Freeman from ServiceNow
(4:27) AI attackers now compromise companies for cents
(6:26) Cheap footholds are becoming persistent access
(7:26) Cyber models and harnesses were built to attack
(10:07) Can defense be separated from offense?
(12:53) Support tickets leak production API keys
(15:15) Is vulnerability zero actually reachable?
(17:38) Four-vendor limits push security startups toward acquisition
(20:16) Critical infrastructure cannot yet trust autonomous patching
(21:55) A lazy password reset defeats every patch
(22:54) Meet Sagar Vaze from Mistral
(24:21) Mistral built its own datacenters for Large 4
(25:28) Closed APIs can leave cyber defenders blocked
(27:22) Why Mistral still bets on open weights
(31:25) Small experiments forecast the flagship run
(32:48) Halfway through training, something went wrong
(33:57) Sparse experts make a trillion parameters affordable
(35:19) Data quality makes scarce compute count
(36:56) Customers wanted satellite imagery more than expected
(38:49) Large 4 saw images from the first step
(41:33) An all-hands patch rescued the run
(42:36) Anthropic’s missing dataset left a safety gap
(43:27) Europe could cushion Mistral’s compute deficit
(45:09) Sovereignty now requires AI, satellites and drones
(45:56) Bio lockdowns could reveal who is distilling
(47:25) Can hyperscalers gate which models get deployed?
(48:25) Claude now refuses popular game mashups
(48:56) Safer open models may need knowledge gaps
(51:05) Copyright guardrails could provoke a safety backlash
Guests
Michael Freeman — Senior Director of Threat Research, ServiceNow
