Episode 109 Show Notes – Information Security @ Home

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This is Episode 109, and we’re continuing our Information Security @ Home series.

We’re smack dab in the middle of the holiday season. Lots of people are going to receive neat, new electronic gadgets as Christmas gifts. Who doesn’t like cool new gadgets?! Your refrigerator can order milk before you’re out of milk, your dishwasher can send you messages when the dishes are done, your television can remind you it’s time to veg out on the couch for the latest episode of The Undoing, and your doorbell can show you who’s at the door while you’re away. We LOVE gadgets! (even if they end up killing us)

But wait! What about information security? What about privacy? What about safety?

Herein lies some problems. Problems that we (infosec folks) want to help you avoid.

Information security is an afterthought, if it’s ever a thought at all! We continue to connect more devices, install more apps, and stream more things. Home networks become more complex, and most people don’t even know what they’re trying to protect. This is your home network, and it’s your responsibility to use it responsibly. Nobody cares about the protection of you and your family more than you. It’s time to step up and learn some basics before this gets any more out of hand. (it’s already out of hand, but it’s not too late)

So…

In case you didn’t know, we’re less than 16 days from Christmas!

…and less than 23 days left in 2020!

I’m not sure what I’m more excited for at this point, Christmas or 2021. 2020 can suck it. Well, I guess it already has. Here’s to an awesome end to an ______ year!

I’ll (Evan) be leading the discussion this week, and these are my notes.

SHOW NOTES – Episode 109

Date: Wednesday December 9th, 2020

Episode 109 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up
  • Information Security @ Home
    • Picking up where we left off in episode 108
    • Demonstration – The router/firewall
      • Finding your router.
      • Logging into your router.
      • Changing the default password.
      • Poking around a little bit.
    • What’s on your network anyway? You can’t possibly protect the things you don’t know you have.
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Hey oh! Welcome to episode 109 of the UNSECURITY Podcast. We’re glad you’ve joined us. The date is December 9th, 2020 and I’m your host Evan Francen. Joining me is my pal and co-worker, Brad Nigh. Good morning Brad!

[Brad] Cue Brad.

[Evan] It’s nice to come up for air this morning, and it’s nice to hang out with you man. How you doing?

Quick Catchup

It’s 4th quarter, I’m now a week and a half behind and it’s only getting busier. Hopefully Evan is in a better mood than episode 106.

We’ll discuss a thing or two…

Topics:

Transition

Information Security @ Home

[Evan] Last week, we got into some of the important things we should be doing at home. When I say “we” I mean everybody, security people and non-security people alike. We mentioned that step #1 should be to change the default password on your home router. We talked about it, gave some advice, and pointed people in the right direction. Today, I’d like for you and I to demonstrate how to change a router password and talk about it while we’re doing it. After this, we’ll poke around a little inside the router’s configuration. Once we’re done with that, we can move on to the next task; finding out what’s on your network.

Sound good?

[Brad] Cue Brad.

Begin discussion

Information Security @ Home Discussion

  • Picking up where we left off in episode 108
  • Demonstration – The router/firewall
    • Finding your router.
    • Logging into your router.
    • Changing the default password.
    • Poking around a little bit.
  • What’s on your network anyway?
    • Why is this important?
    • What you should do next…

Transition

[Evan] Alright. Good stuff. Hopefully our listeners learned a thing or two. For those who already knew this stuff, hopefully they’ll share with others.

That’s that. On to some news…

News

[Evan] Crazy stuff going on in this industry. What’s new? Well, here’s a few things that caught our eye this week:

[Evan] That’s a lot of news for one day, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] That’s it for episode 109. Thank you to all our listeners. We dig you. Also, thank you Brad! Who you got a shoutout for today?

[Brad] We’ll see.

[Evan] Next week, we’ll continue the Information Security @ Home discussion. We’ll dig in a little more on identifying system on your home network and talk about patching. In the meantime, send things to us by email at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you’re the social type, socialize with us on Twitter, I’m @evanfrancen and this other guy is on Twitter at @BradNigh. Lastly, be sure to follow SecurityStudio (@studiosecurity) and FRSecure (@FRSecure) for more things we do when we do what we do.

That’s it! Talk to you all again next week!

Episode 108 Show Notes – Information Security @ Home

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NOTE: We’ll be a day late this week, recording on Wednesday. Work stuff and personal stuff, you probably know what it’s like.

It’s time for episode 108 of the UNSECURITY Podcast!

Brad and I (Evan) hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving (assuming you’re in the U.S.). 2020 is a funky year to say the least. So many things that were “normal” before, aren’t so normal anymore. Despite the craziness of this year, we still found MANY things to be thankful for:

  • Our faith, and knowing that everything is going to be OK (eventually).
  • Our family.
  • Our friends.
  • Our co-workers.
  • Our community (the infosec community and our home community).
  • The people we serve.

While acknowledging that some of us have suffered significant losses this year, there’s always something to be thankful for. If you ever need support in dealing with loss or you’re just struggling, reach out to people around you. Here are some resources you might find helpful:

Love truly heals.

Some of us had a couple days off work last week. Monday we jumped right back in. The emails were still there (and maybe more of them), the projects are still in full swing, reports are still due, etc., etc. Assuming you recovered from the Monday onslaught, here we are! It’s Wednesday, and it’s time for episode 108!

Brad’s back, he’s leading the discussion today, and these are his notes. Welcome back Brad!

SHOW NOTES – Episode 108

Date: Wednesday December 2nd, 2020

Episode 108 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up
    • What’s new?
    • Thanksgiving hangover?
  • Information Security @ Home
    • Picking up where we left off in episode 106
    • Why is this a big deal (personally and for employers)
    • What can we do about it?
    • Intro to what Brad and Evan do.
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Brad] Hey there! Thank you for tuning in to this episode the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 108, the date is December 2nd, 2020, and I’m your host, Brad Nigh. Joining me as usual is my good friend and co-worker, Evan Francen. Good morning Evan.

[Evan] Cue Evan.

[Brad] This will be first time I actually get to talk to you about why yesterday was my first day back since 11/17.  I have no idea what you’ve been up to because I was basically totally offline.

Quick Catchup

It’s 4th quarter, I’m now a week and a half behind and it’s only getting busier. Hopefully Evan is in a better mood than episode 106.

We’ll discuss a thing or two…

Topics:

  • 4th quarter is notoriously busy, like VERY busy, for us. Everyone is running at 100% capacity right now, which is good, but also stressful.
  • What’s going on at work? Any cool developments or announcements? Heck yeah there are!
  • Security Sh*t Show – no show last week. It was Thanksgiving!
  • Back to book writing…

Transition

Information Security @ Home

[Brad] Well, we had planned to do this last week, but 2020 won’t stop 2020’ing.

[Brad] We are going to go into more details about some of the things we do, hopefully without giving away too much, to try and help others. I feel like this could end up just about anywhere, so it should be fun!

Begin discussion

Topic Ideas:

  • Picking up where we left off in episode 106
  • Why is this a big deal (personally and for employers)
  • What can we do about it?
  • Intro to what Brad and Evan do.
  • Maybe we’ll show some examples and stuff while we’re here.

Transition

[Brad] Alright. That’s that. On to some news…

News

[Brad] Always plenty of interesting things going on in our industry. Here’s a few stories that caught my attention recently:

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Brad] That’s it for episode 108. Thank you Evan! Who you got a shoutout for today?

[Evan] We’ll see.

[Brad] Thank you to all our listeners! Send things to us by email at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you’re the social type, socialize with us on Twitter, I’m @BradNigh and Evan can be found at @evanfrancen. Lastly, be sure to follow SecurityStudio (@studiosecurity) and FRSecure (@FRSecure) for more things we do when we do what we do.

That’s it! Talk to you all again next week!

UNSECURITY Podcast – Ep 104 Show Notes – Stigma Against Healthy

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Last week was nuts. Is “nuts” the norm? God, I hope not.

The week started off with what seemed like a run of the mill ransomware attack against a healthcare client. The investigation led us to threat hunting with another client. During the threat hunting exercise, Brian Krebs called. He claimed to have information about 427 healthcare organizations who could be attacked by Wednesday (10/28). This led us down all sorts of paths with a few renowned researchers, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI, Secret Service (don’t ask), and others.

Eventually, CISA issued a joint cybersecurity advisory with the FBI and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). See: Ransomware Activity Targeting the Healthcare and Public Health Sector.

On Friday, FRSecure issued their own statement and hosted a very well-attended webinar. See: Situation Update: RYUK Ransomware in Healthcare.

One thing we learned is that incident response in the United States, in terms of our readiness across the public/private sector is in bad shape. It shouldn’t take 3+ days to legitimize a threat and coordinate a response. Thank God we didn’t witness a coordinated attack against 427 hospitals at once. Had this been a real attack against 427 hospitals, we would have been in a world of hurt!

Other things that happened last week include:

  • Episode 103 of the UNSECURITY Podcast, Part Two with Neal O’Farrell of the PsyberResilience Project was awesome! If you missed it, you should go check it out.
  • FRSecure is rocking it! We’re running on all cylinders and making a positive difference in our industry. I’m very proud and humbled at the same time.
  • SecurityStudio finished another incredible month! People are buying into the concept of focusing on the fundamentals and simplification. In case you didn’t know, complexity is the worst enemy of information security.
  • The Security Shit Show was awesome on Thursday night! Personally, I needed the time to talk shit with my peers, Ryan Cloutier and Chris Roberts. It’s like therapy. The title for our discussion was “Kiss and Make Up?” and we talked about what life might look like after the election.

There was probably other important stuff sprinkled in last week too, but the brain can only handle so much!

On to the show!

Episode 104 Topic and Special Guest

A few important things about this episode:

  • This is episode 104, the two-year anniversary of the UNSECURITY Podcast! Holy crap, where did the time go?! It’s been an incredible ride so far, and we’ve met 100s of amazing people along the way.
  • Our topic (or, I guess title) is “The security industry’s stigma against healthy stuff“. Is there a stigma against healthy stuff in our industry? Maybe. We’ll look into it in this episode.
  • We have another special guest, and he’s a good one! We call him Richie Breathe, and he’s a great guy with interesting perspectives on wellness. He’s the perfect guest to wrap up what turned into another semi-series about us and our health.
  • Next week, we’re going to dive back in to incident response. We’ve seen some very interesting (and alarming) trends, and it’ll be good to share with you.

Let’s get on to the notes…

Oh yeah, one more thing before we forget.

GO VOTE!

SHOW NOTES – Episode 104

Date: Tuesday November 3rd, 2020

Episode 104 Topics

  • Opening
  • Happy Anniversary (to us)
    • What’s been your favorite thing about the UNSECURITY Podcast?
    • What’s been your favorite moment or episode?
  •  Special Guest Richie Breathe and the security industry’s stigma against healthy stuff
    • Who’s Richie Breathe?
    • Is there a stigma? If so, how bad do we think it is?
    • Ideas for improving wellness in our industry.
    • Where to go next.
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Hi again everyone. Welcome to another episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast! This is episode 104, the date is November 3rd, 2020, and I’m Evan Francen, your host. Joining me is my good friend and co-worker, Brad Nigh. Good morning Brad.

[Brad] Cue Brad.

[Evan] Also joining us, is a good friend Richie Breathe. Good morning Richie.

[Richie] Cue Richie.

[Evan] First things first. Today is election day. Did you guys vote?

[Brad & Richie] Well, did they?

Happy Anniversary (to us)

[Evan] This is our 104th episode in a row, meaning 104 weeks in a row, meaning two years! I can hardly believe it. Seems like yesterday we did our first episode together Brad. Happy anniversary!

[Brad] Cue Brad

[Evan] I gotta tell you man. I’ve loved every minute of this with you. Sincere gratitude for being my pal in this journey.

[Brad] Cue Brad

[Evan] Now, Richie. You’ve been listening for a while, and we actually met through the podcast, didn’t we?

[Richie] Cue Richie

[Evan] I’ve met 100s of amazing people over the past two years from this show. So many incredible memories. Brad, what’s your favorite thing about the UNSECURITY Podcast?

[Brad] Cue Brad

[Evan] How about you Richie?

[Richie] Cue Richie

[Evan] My favorite thing.

I couldn’t have imagined so much and I’m VERY grateful. How about a favorite moment or episode? Brad?

[Brad] Cue Brad

[Evan] Richie?

[Richie] Cue Richie

[Evan] My favorite moment/episode.

Like I said, it’s been an amazing ride. Here’s to many more episodes and lots more memories!

Transition

Special Guest –  Richie Breathe and the security industry’s stigma against healthy stuff

[Evan] Richie, thanks for being here man. I know we talked about this a while back, and the time has finally come. You first learned about me and Brad through the UNSECURITY Podcast, then started coming to the Daily inSANITY Checkin, right?

[Richie] Cue Richie.

[Evan] The Daily inSANITY Checkin is another HUGE blessing for me. I’ve met some incredible people there and I love sharing life with them. Shout out to you guys!

For people who want to know more, the Daily inSANITY Checkin is just what it says. It’s a daily informal meeting with people who care about each other. It’s a safe place to come, share thoughts, share ideas, or share whatever else comes to mind. The only real rules are to show respect and be yourself. Simple.

We started the Daily inSANITY Checkin immediately after the COVID-19 lockdowns started in March and we’ve been going strong ever since. It’s been incredible. So, Richie. You’re there almost every day, and I’m grateful to have gotten to know you. I know you, but tell the listeners a little about yourself.

[Richie] Cue Richie.

Begin Discussion

The security industry’s stigma against healthy stuff

  • Who’s Richie Breathe?
  • Is there a stigma? If so, how bad do we think it is?
  • Ideas for improving wellness in our industry.
  • Where to go next.

[Evan] Awesome! Great discussion. Thanks again Richie!

Now, we’re at the part of the show where we review a few news items that caught our eye this past week. Richie, please feel free to comment anytime too!

News

[Evan] Always plenty of interesting things going on in our industry. Here’s a few stories that caught my attention recently:

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] Great! Episode 104 is just about complete. Thanks guys! Next week we’re going to tackle some incident response stuff. Things like what’s going on, what people are doing wrong, and how to do things better. Episode 105 will be great, and maybe we’ll invite a guest to boot!

Richie, loved having you join us this week. Thank you!

Any shout outs for either of you?

[Brad and/or Richie] We’ll see.

[Evan] Always grateful for our listeners! Send things to us by email at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you’re the social type, socialize with us on Twitter, I’m @evanfrancen and Brad’s @BradNigh.

Richie, how can listeners find you?

[Richie] Cue Richie.

Lastly, be sure to follow SecurityStudio (@studiosecurity) and FRSecure (@FRSecure) for more things we do when we do what we do.

That’s it! Talk to you all again next week!

The UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 80 Show Notes – Zero Trust

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We write our show notes either at the end of the week (Friday) or at the very beginning of the next (Sunday). It’s easier to remember the things that happened during the week on Friday than Sunday, that’s for sure! Only one day away (Saturday), and it’s easy to forget all that we did.

Most weeks are crazy, for us at FRSecure and SecurityStudio, and for people in general.

Normal(ish)

Are you feeling like things are slowly returning to normal? I am, and it’s great news! Personally, I don’t like the term “new normal”. I think I don’t like it because I feel like people have twisted it to serve their own desires and/or opinions without any factual basis. Normal is normal, and the greatest abnormality (in my opinion) has been our lack of in-person contact. We’ve been built, or wired, for analog personal interaction. Digital, online interaction will never substitute for it, and the longer we go without it, the more mentally unhealthy we become.

Four Things

Last week was a great week! Four cool things stand out in particular:

  1. Last week’s podcast was awesome! I love every opportunity to chat with Brad, and it’s a blessing to hang out every Monday morning. Recording episode 79 was a great way to kick things off last week. If you missed it, we talked about information security in K12, and you should go catch it.
  2. We made great progress in helping state governments last week! Had a great conversation with Minnesota’s CISO, Rohit Tandon, on Wednesday as we discussed third-party information security risk management. This was followed by the scheduling of a similar meeting with the State of New Mexico and joining the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) Cybersecurity Committee on Thursday.
  3. Chris Roberts, Ryan Cloutier, and I did Episode #1 of The Security Shit Show on Thursday night. It was a ton of fun hanging out with these guys! We’re planning to do our episodes/shows live every Thursday night at 10pm CDT, record them for future playback, and use he audio for our podcast. It’s definitely entertaining for our viewers/listeners and therapeutic for us. Be sure to tune in if you can!
  4. The Daily inSANITY Check-ins are still going strong, and this past week was great! People supporting each other and helping where we can is what it’s all about. Come join us when you can.

There were many great things about last week, but these were the four that came to mind when I sat down to write these show notes.

Speaking of show notes, let’s get to it! Today we’re going to talk about Zero Trust; what it is, why it’s a hot topic today, and what you should be doing about it.

SHOW NOTES – Episode 80

Date: Monday, May 18th, 2020

Episode 80 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up (as per usual)
  • Zero Trust
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Hey everyone! Welcome to the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 80, the date is May 18th, 2020, and I’m Evan Francen. With me today is my co-host, Brad Nigh. Good morning Brad!

[Brad] We’ll see what sort of mood Brad is in this morning…

[Evan] We’ve got a good show planned today! There’s this thing called “zero trust” that people are talking about, and I thought it’d be good for you and I to discuss it. Personally, I’ve received a lot of questions about it, and I’m sure you have too Brad. Like always, before we dig in, let’s catch up. What were some highlights for you from last week and how was your weekend?

Catching Up

Quick discussion about last week, last weekend, COVID-19, life, and other stuff.

Zero Trust

[Evan] A simple Google search of Zero Trust turns up “About 691,000,000 results”. A Google search of “Zero Trust” (with quotes) turns up “About 1,940,000 results“. So, clearly there are a lot of people who know what it means, right? Here’s some returns from the first page of search results:

The fact that there are so many “what is zero trust?” search returns might be a hint that people are confused. Let’s tackle this!

Zero Trust Discussion

Let’s try to clear some of the confusion:

  • What is Zero Trust?
  • Is it really new?
  • Is Zero Trust possible?
  • If I want Zero Trust, what do I need to do?
  • What common mistakes should I look out for?

[Evan] Alright. Good talk Brad. Thanks for sharing your insight! I think our listeners have a clearer picture of Zero Trust and what it means to them. If they have additional questions or comments, they can always contact us for more!

News

[Evan] News stuff! What the heck happened in the world last week? Let’s see…

I found four articles that caught my attention. Let’s talk about them!

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] Never a shortage of things to talk about in this industry is there? Well, episode 80 of the UNSECURITY Podcast is just about a wrap. Brad, you have any shoutouts?

[Brad] Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t…

[Evan] Here’s mine…

[Evan] Can’t say enough thanks to our listeners! Crazy how we run into you in all sorts of places. Stay safe and let us know how we can help you. Send things to us by email at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you’re the social type, socialize with us on Twitter, I’m @evanfrancen and Brad’s @BradNigh. Thinking about coming to hang out at the Daily inSANITY Check-in? You can follow this on Twitter too at @InSanityIn.

There you go, have a great week!

Daily inSANITY Check-in

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If you want to join us in our Daily inSANITY Check-ins, you are welcome to! Join us by going here.

Compassion Wins

As you know too well, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have changed everything. Nothing is the same. We don’t work the same, we don’t shop the same, we don’t entertain the same, and some of us don’t even defecate the same (without toilet paper). No doubt, we’ve endured massive changes to our lives. Compounding the resulting chaos is the uncertainty about our future.

One thing hasn’t changed, and that’s our human compassion.

Through human compassion we will endure together. By our endurance we will prevail together too.

The Start of the Daily inSANITY Check-in

We knew early on, from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, that we’d struggle with mental health. The truth is, some of us have always struggled with mental health. Sanity is precious and need to do all we can to protect it. Rather than sit idly by, and let ourselves blow in the wind, we decided to do something. On March 23rd, six days after FRSecure and SecurityStudio closed our physical offices, we started this thing called the Daily inSANITY Check-In.

Here’s what the Daily inSANITY Check-In is all about:

If you need a break from the chaos, or just want to talk about things, we’re hosting the Daily inSANITY Check-in for these reasons (among others).

Never has the world changed so significantly and affected so many in such a short period. These times are historic, and the effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) are not fully known. What we do know is we’ll never be the same. The prominent changes to our lives can force many of us to lose focus and even affect our mental health. Noise generated by the unrelenting media coverage, marketing, and scams only exacerbates our problems.

The purpose of the Daily inSANITY Check-in is to provide a safe place for people to discuss current events, information security things, challenges we’re facing, or whatever else comes to mind. The check-ins are short (30- to- 60-minute) daily meetings with discussion. People are always free to come and go as they please.

This is a joint effort from FRSecure and SecurityStudio, and the host is FRSecure and SecurityStudio CEO, Evan Francen. Joining Evan as co-hosts are Ryan Cloutier, SecurityStudio Principal Security Consultant and Brad Nigh. FRSecure Director of Professional Services & Innovation.

We hope you’ll come join the conversation aimed at restoring and/or maintaining our sanity!

Rules for the Daily inSANITY Check-in are:

  • Be yourself.
  • Respect everyone.
  • Respect opinions.
  • Be kind.

Anyone not playing by the rules is not welcome. Sorry.

Still Going Strong

Today is May 11th, 2020 and we still meet every day. Altogether, we’ve had seventy-nine (79) people visit, and there are many of us who’ve been here since the start. The relationships we’ve built here are real and they’re strong. These solid friendships around our “virtual water cooler” (as it’s been called by some) are incredible, and you’re invited too!

Everyone is welcome to join us. If you need some support or you’ve got some to give, come say “hi”! If you want to share your audio or video, you can. If you don’t, don’t. We’ll welcome you when you come and we’ll be here when you need us!

Sign up here.