In this edition of Cyber Frontlines, meet Brenden Glynn, Global Lead for X‑Force Executive Advisement (Cyber Range) at IBM X-Force. With two decades of military and enterprise cybersecurity experience, Brenden specializes in helping organizations prepare for and respond to inevitable crises. As Global Lead for X‑Force Executive Advisement, he designs and delivers high‑impact crisis simulations that elevate executive decision‑making and strengthen resilience against emerging threats. His motto is simple: “It’s not a matter of if, but when,” a lesson he learned the hard way the first day he bought his first motorcycle.
Stay up-to-date on Brenden’s work on LinkedIn.
Three awesome years and counting. I’m the Global Lead for X-Force Executive Advisement within the Cyber Range, where I lead our worldwide crew of facilitators in crafting immersive crisis simulations for leadership teams. These experiences push executive decision‑making, strengthen organizational resilience and teach clients what it really feels like when the wheels come off during a cyber crisis.
Before joining the X-Force Cyber Range in late 2022, I came to IBM through the acquisition of Resilient (Co3 Systems) in 2016, where I worked as an Incident Response Business Consultant helping organizations streamline their processes, tighten their playbooks and actually operationalize incident response.
Like most kids of my generation, I grew up idolizing the heroes who used their brains and intuition as superpowers. MacGyver taught me to lean into creativity under pressure, using every tool at your disposal, even if it’s a paperclip and some duct tape.
My first real dive into hacking culture came in the Army. As an Information Technology Specialist and later an All-Source Intelligence Officer, I learned that understanding a system often starts by dismantling it, sometimes literally. I’ve always been a hands‑on learner, even if I tend to finish with more parts than I started with. I call it “streamlining operations.”
Now, as a Cyber Warfare Officer, my work shifted from tactical to strategic. The Army taught me one thing very clearly: security isn’t theoretical. It’s mission success or mission failure.
My primary focus areas include organizational crisis management, incident response, intelligence integration and space-based vulnerabilities.
At the Cyber Range, I get a front‑row seat to how leaders respond under pressure, not the rehearsed, polished version they wish they had, but the authentic human one. The purposeful stress we create turns technical failures into operational and strategic consequences, giving executives a realistic sense of how fast chaos can snowball and what aligned, cross-functional decision‑making really looks like in practice.
My background in military intelligence and cyber operations fuels my interest in space assets. Satellites, ground stations and space-based communications are increasingly intertwined with terrestrial networks. As space becomes the next contested frontier, understanding these vulnerabilities matters, not just for mission assurance, but for global stability.
Space hooked me early. I grew up on a steady diet of Star Trek and Mystery Science Theater 3000, courtesy of my mom. Space, humanity’s final frontier, is the ultimate uncharted attack surface.
Humans, meanwhile, are reliably unpredictable. Even the worst zero-day can’t compete with how a CEO reacts under pressure in a breach simulation. These exercises don’t expose new flaws; they expose the ones leadership has been avoiding.
Because both are about impact:
- Space [communications]: When it breaks, entire nations feel it.
- Humans: When they break, entire organizations feel it.
Benn Jordan, while not a traditional security expert or hacker, is a staunch advocate for security and privacy and tickles my fancy as a fellow (chucker) tinkerer.
xkcd or SwiftOnSecurity, just do it. Thank me later.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Cyber Technology for National Security (CTNS).
CTNS speaks to the intersection of everything I care about: national defense, cyber operations, multi-domain warfare and emerging threats in land, sea, air, space and cyber. It’s where cutting‑edge research meets real‑world mission requirements. It’s also one of the few conferences where conversations about satellites, missiles and malware happen side‑by‑side.
Know your environment. Understand your risks. Communicate early and often. And drill the hell out of your response. It’s not a matter of if something goes wrong, but when, so make sure your team knows how to run toward the fire, not away from it.
Start with the fundamentals; incident response teaches you how real failures happen. Explore everything. Break things, fix them, repeat. Then find a niche that excites you enough to dedicate your time to lifelong learning.
Critical supply chains, especially chip manufacturing and space‑based communications. Each represents a single point of global dependency. A disrupted chip supply chain can kneecap every sector simultaneously. Compromising satellite communications could disrupt militaries, industries and global infrastructure with one well‑placed attack. They’re high‑impact, high‑value and increasingly high‑risk.
