Title: From Sesame Street to Cyber Resilience: Craig Newmark’s Call to Action
Track 1: Critical Mass
Thursday, June 18, 2026
Cyber attacks on water systems, hospitals, and rural utilities aren’t theoretical—they’re already impacting real lives.
In the opening session for #CriticalEffectDC26 Day 2 on Thursday, June 18, Bryson Bort (Co-founder, ICS Village) and Josh Corman (Executive in Residence, Institute for Security and Technology) frame the stakes: a lack of public awareness, a shift from federal to state responsibility, and human lives at risk.
In a keynote address, Craig Newmark (Fou...
What Craig Newmark said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Craig Newmark, founder of Craig Newmark Philanthropies, opened his keynote by acknowledging his long history of fighting online scams for 25 years, using humor with the Count from Sesame Street to promote the 'count to nine' anti-scam message. He emphasized the need for broad public participation in cybersecurity, but focused on state-by-state efforts for critical infrastructure. He highlighted his support for the UnDisruptable 27 effort, the Cyber Resilience Corps operated by the Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cyber, and the newly started Consortium of Cyber Clinics. The mission is to protect water supplies and hospital systems. He stressed the importance of volunteers, storytelling, and financial support from wealthy individuals. He committed personally to this cause, noting his decades of scam-fighting experience. The host acknowledged Newmark's funding, including a second wave of $3.2 million pledged to see the effort through the 2027 elevated threat context, and highlighted the impact from Sesame Street to Congress.
Key takeaways
Newmark pledged a second wave of $3.2 million to support the Cyber Resilience Corps through the 2027 elevated threat context.
Newmark is supporting the UnDisruptable 27 effort, the Cyber Resilience Corps, and the Consortium of Cyber Clinics to protect water and hospital systems.
Newmark has been fighting online scams for 25 years and is committed to engaging everyone in the country in the solution.
Newmark uses the Count from Sesame Street to promote the 'count to nine' anti-scam message, acknowledging his own social awkwardness.
Folks, thanks. It might be clear to you that in my attempt to get the word out better, I've completely abandoned any attempts at dignity. And in general, I've outsourced the practice of any social skills to the Count. And this allows me to focus on my core branding, which is primarily about social awkwardness. He also reminds me that I should leave comedy to the professionals. Everyone here understands the problem. I'm not going to try to tell you about it. That would be a bad use of your time. Where I'm focusing is on trying to get everyone, ultimately everyone in the country, to participate and to be part of the solution. But when it comes to critical infrastructure, I'm trying to focus on the groups who can actually do something on a state-by-state basis. That is, the solution requires smart people of goodwill to work together. I'm not the right guy to do this, considering that my celebrity spokesperson puppet has considerably more charisma and personality than I do. But what I'm doing is supporting the UnDisruptable 27 effort. And in relation to that, the Cyber Resilience Corps, which is operated by the Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cyber along with their efforts, just starting the Consortium of Cyber Clinics. The mission today here is about protecting the health and safety of Americans everywhere by protecting water supplies, particularly in connection with hospital systems. So, the deal is to build a Cyber Resilience Corps along with other organizations so that we get people who can do serious, useful volunteering to work together to make things happen. Further along, we need people to tell the stories of what's working and what's not working in terms of protecting what happens locally. We need help, sometimes financial help, from the kind of people who have too much money, and I'm working on that, but so far the Count hasn't been all that helpful. I do take this personally. I'm committed. From one perspective or another, I've been doing this for over 25 years. That's the scam fighting part. Since everyone understands scams, everyone's being approached by scammers. So, that's a good way to get started, hence this effort on engaging the celebrity spokesperson puppet to speak where I can't. Again, I realize I'm not really the guy to do this. That really does require social skills beyond mine. The only thing I've learned for sure is to know when to stop talking. Thank you.
Newmark, C. (2026, July 2). From Sesame Street to Cyber Resilience: Craig Newmark’s Call to Action at #CriticalEffectDC [Interview transcript]. Institute for Security and Technology (IST). CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1055600/
MLA
Craig Newmark. "From Sesame Street to Cyber Resilience: Craig Newmark’s Call to Action at #CriticalEffectDC." Institute for Security and Technology (IST), 2 Jul. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1055600/.
BibTeX
@misc{newmark2026_1055600,
author = {Craig Newmark},
title = {From Sesame Street to Cyber Resilience: Craig Newmark’s Call to Action at #CriticalEffectDC},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Institute for Security and Technology (IST). CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {jul},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1055600/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
