Defending the Railroad: AI Risk, Rigor, and Resilience with CN CISO Vaughn Hazen

On the 29th episode of Enterprise AI Defenders, host Mike Britton, Chief Information Security Officer at Abnormal AI, talks with Vaughn Hazen, Chief Information Security Officer at ​​the Canadian National Railway Company. CN is Canada’s largest rail operator and the only one that spans the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts, running over 20,000 miles across North America. In this conversation, Vaughn shares what it takes to defend one of North America’s largest freight railroads in an era of deepfakes, automated phishing, and machine-speed threats. He discusses why secure processes (not just smart tools) are critical to cyber resilience, how AI is changing the threat landscape and workforce dynamics, and why treating email as a notification system is a foundational shift. Vaughn’s approach blends military discipline, telecom roots, and a strong belief in long-term readiness over reactive fixes.Quick hits from Vaughn:On the fragility of process in an AI-driven threat landscape: “Email should be a notification, not necessarily the process... there's just gotta be a robust process that makes it very, very difficult where you're gonna have to be able to compromise a slew of people in order to really breach that”.On the slow burn of real security preparation: “You can’t plant the seeds and expect to harvest in the same day… a lot of the stuff that we do to prepare for a potential event is stuff that we've got to be doing in advance”.On AI’s false promise of autonomy: “It’s not something that just works on its own... You've got to have people that are knowledgeable... to say, first of all, does this make sense? Are we seeing a hallucination?”.Recent Book Recommendation: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. CoveyLike what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.Enterprise AI Defenders is a show where top security executives share specific ways AI changes the threat landscape and the defenses that hold up in real environments.Find more great insights from technology leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/Enterprise AI Defenders is produced by Abnormal Studios.