Show Notes

February 24, 2026: When Zach Lewis, CISO and CIO at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis, received that 3 AM call about system outages, his first thought was tech debt, not threat actors. What followed was a masterclass in ransomware response that he's now captured in his new book "Locked Up." Despite A-minus security scores, board briefings, FBI connections, and all the right frameworks in place, LockBit still found its way in through a configuration gap during a firewall migration. In this raw conversation, Zach reveals why the negotiation process saved them $1.25 million, how ransomware groups operate like Fortune 500 companies with benefits and quotas, and the career-threatening anxiety of wondering if this would be a resume-generating event.

Key Points:

• 00:44 Discussing 'Locked Up'
• 05:37 Initial Response and Realization of Ransomware Attack
• 16:05 Decision-Making and Negotiations with LockBit
• 18:45 Understanding the Ransomware Ecosystem
• 24:01 Lessons Learned and Strengthening Cybersecurity

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