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When we talk about the business of games, most of the conversation lives on the upside: monetization models, player acquisition, live ops, new platforms. But there's a set of risks growing just as fast as the industry itself, and most studios aren't treating them with the same urgency. In this episode, host Lia Ballentine sits down with MK Palmore, CEO and founder of Apogee Global RMS, to explore what security really means in an industry defined by live services, in-game economies, and an ever-expanding web of third-party partners.

MK brings a career that spans the Marine Corps, the FBI, and executive roles at Palo Alto Networks and Google, giving him a rare vantage point on both public and private sector security. He's advised C-suites and boards across some of the most complex threat environments in the world, and now he's turning that lens on gaming, a space where the stakes, he says, are rising fast.

The conversation traces MK's throughline of service across every chapter of his career, then digs into why gaming has become such an attractive target for adversaries. The answer, in a word: interconnectedness. Between player data, live economies, third-party SDKs, payment processors, and the networks games run on, every touchpoint that makes a game feel real is also a potential attack surface, and adversaries have gotten remarkably good at monetizing every step of the chain it takes to exploit one.

MK also makes the case, using a surprising analogy from bank robbery data, for why friction isn't always the enemy of security, and why the real signal of a mature security culture isn't a compliance checklist. It's whether leadership is thinking strategically about tomorrow's threats instead of just reacting to today's.

We dive into:

• MK's path from the Marine Corps to the FBI to the C-suite, and the thread of service that ties it all together
• Why interconnectedness makes gaming platforms an especially attractive target for adversaries
• How attackers monetize every step of the ”cyber kill chain,” not just the final breach
• The bandit barrier: what bank robbery prevention data reveals about the tradeoff between security and friction
• Why risk profiles differ by game type, and why ”less risky” never means ”not targeted”
• The case for external security assessments, and why internal teams struggle to grade themselves honestly
• What separates a company that's merely compliant from one where security is actually cultural
• MK's rapid-fire take on the biggest breach risk facing gaming companies in 2026

Whether you're a studio founder, a security lead, or a business executive who's never thought about your organization's attack surface, this conversation reframes security as a leadership and cultural decision, not just a technical one.

Let's get into it.

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