AI-Powered Attacks: Why Backups Alone Aren’t Enough

AI is changing how cyberattacks are built, how they spread, and how long they can hide. Is your cyber resilience strategy keeping up? Recorded at VMware Explore 2026, Pete Flecha and Jad El-Zein welcome Belu back to the Virtually Speaking Podcast to discuss why perimeter security, immutable backups, and more security tools alone aren’t enough. We explore how AI enables adaptive attacks, accelerates vulnerability chaining, and lowers the barrier for attackers. Belu explains the importance of detecting and containing lateral movement, addressing fileless threats, and bringing security, compliance, and recovery together through VMware Cloud Foundation. The conversation also covers an often-overlooked challenge: recovering from a known-good backup so you can restore operations without reintroducing the threat.