Ever have so many things going on that you can’t remember what happened last week? Yeah, that’s where I’m at right now.
Pretty sure Brad’s in the same place I am. So, rather than recapping everything (or trying to), I’ll just get to the show notes.
These are Brad’s show notes this week…
SHOW NOTES – Episode 83
Date: Monday, June 8th, 2020
Episode 83 Topics
- Opening
- Catching Up (as per usual)
- Information Security Isn’t About Information or Security
- Work, Life, and Mental Health
- News
- Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening
[Brad] Welcome back! This is episode 83 of the UNSECURITY Podcast, and I’m your host this week, Brad Nigh. Today is June 8th, and joining me this morning as usual is Evan Francen.
[Evan] Regales us with stories from the weekend. Oh God!
[Brad] Before we get going let’s recap our week.
Catching Up
Quick discussion about last week, the weekend, family, safety etc.
[Brad] What would you say you do here Evan?
[Evan] Hmmm. Good question! This outta be interesting.
Information Security Isn’t About Information or Security
Discussion about people, information security, working remote, stress, and overall mental health.
[Brad] Your blog from last Tuesday (Information Security Isn’t About Information or Security) really inspired me for this week’s podcast. There have been countless articles written about how to secure remote workers so we aren’t going to focus on that, though it will probably come up in the course of this discussion.
Here’s the reality, it’s no secret that InfoSec and IT staff struggle with stress and a healthy work/life balance (Mental Health and Cybersecurity). There really is no “done for the day”, systems can be attacked or suffer an outage anytime. Add to that the now nearly 3 months of social distancing and quarantine that add even more stress. We’ve seen an increase in cyber attacks the last 3 months and if your staff is struggling and has lost focus or is more distracted than usual your risk increases even more. So what can we do about it? (Disclaimer, neither Evan or I are licensed mental health professionals and this conversation should not be taken as professional advice).
From an information security perspective I think you really captured the increased risks to organizations during this unprecedented time in your blog.
As a leader in an organization the employees’ health is critical, looking at it from a business perspective if they are not able to work we cannot deliver for our customers, but to me that feels cold & cynical. I really do care for every one of our employees, I have a personal, vested interest in their well-being and want to be aware and in-touch with their status… That has become incredibly difficult during this time when you can’t read them face-to-face.
So what I want to do is talk about how we can be more aware and help reduce these risks. First is being aware, I found these articles that I thought were really good to help identify and be proactive.
- Three Warning Signs That Your Remote Employees Are Starting To Crack Under The Stress Of Working From Home – https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2020/04/23/three-warning-signs-that-your-remote-employees-are-starting-to-crack-under-the-stress-of-working-from-home/#7e2e21672237
- What Managers Can Do to Ease Workplace Stress – https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/how-managers-can-help-stressed-workers-.aspx
And then some really solid advice for employees, or really anyone feeling additional stress right now.
- How To Keep Your Mental Health in Check When You Work From Home – https://weworkremotely.com/how-to-keep-your-mental-health-in-check-when-you-work-from-home
- Stopping the stress of working from home – https://www.heart.org/en/news/2020/03/26/stopping-the-stress-of-working-from-home
- How to Manage Stress When You Work From Home – https://www.thebalancecareers.com/manage-stress-work-from-home-3542361
[Brad] Good conversation. Thank you Evan.
Let’s do some news…
News
[Brad] Always plenty of things to talk about in the news, and here’s a few stories that caught my eye this week:
- North Dakota Contact Tracing App Ends Data Share with Foursquare – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/care19-app-ends-data-share/
- Nuclear missile contractor hacked in Maze ransomware attack – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/06/04/nuclear-missile-contractor-hacked-in-maze-ransomware-attack/
- PonyFinal Ransomware Targets Enterprise Servers Then Bides Its Time – https://threatpost.com/ponyfinal-ransomware-enterprise-servers/156083/
Wrapping Up – Shout outs
[Brad] Alright, that’s it. Episode 83 is a wrap. We got any shout outs this week?
[Evan] We’ll see.
[Brad] Next week is Evan’s show and I think he’s sort of itchin’ to tell us his idea.
[Evan] Yep. Tune in.
[Brad] Thank you to all our listeners! Keep the questions and feedback coming. Send things to us by email at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you’re the social type, socialize with us on Twitter, I’m @BradNigh (B-R-A-D-N-I-G-H) and this other dude is @evanfrancen (just spell his name without a space). Lastly, be sure to follow SecurityStudio (@studiosecurity) and FRSecure (@FRSecure) for goodies and things.
That’s it! Talk to you all again next week!
