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UNSECURITY Episode 132 Show Notes

Hey Listeners!

Spring is in full bloom (finally) in Minnesota, and life is good. The weather is great, and last week, our Governor (Tim Walz) lifted the mask mandate for people who are vaccinated and maintain some semblance of social distancing. It’s good to see people’s faces again, especially when they’re smiling. 🙂

We’re grateful for the guests who have joined our show the past four weeks! We’ve learned a ton from these conversations.

If you missed any of these shows, you can find them here:

NOTE: We’re looking for people from other walks of life to share their perspectives too, especially men and women of color. Let us know at unsecurity@protonmail.com if you have suggestions.

This week, we’re not planning to have a guest, so you’ll have to put up with Brad and I.

Next week (episode 133) we’re hoping to have Gabriel Friedlander from Wizer on the show!

Let’s get to the episode 132 show notes, shall we?


SHOW NOTES – Episode 132 – Tuesday May 18th, 2021

Opening

[Evan] Welcome listeners! Thanks for tuning into this episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 132, and the date is May 18th, 2021. Joining me is my good friend, highly-skilled information security expert, and all around great guy, Brad Nigh.

Good morning Brad!

There are so many things happening in our world, it’s hard to keep track. One interesting event from the last week (other than the Colonial Pipeline attack) was the announcement of President Biden’s Executive Order (EO) 14028 titled “Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity”. In today’s episode, Brad and I are going to break this down.

Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity

  • The EO was announced by the Administration on 5/12/21.
  • There’s a lot of information to unpack here, including:
  • Section 1. Policy, containing:
    • Policy statement.
    • Scope.
  • Section 2. Removing Barriers to Sharing Threat Information, containing:
    • Review existing reporting requirements and procedures.
    • Recommend updates to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).
    • Update the FAR.
    • Enforce IT/OT provider compliance.
    • Centralize reporting.
    • Provide budget for this section.
  • Section 3. Modernizing Federal Government Cybersecurity
    • Adopt security best practices.
    • Advance toward Zero Trust Architecture.
    • Accelerate movement to secure cloud services.
    • Adopt multi-factor authentication.
    • Encrypt data at rest and in transit.
    • Centralize and streamline access to cybersecurity data.
    • Invest in both technology and personnel to match the modernization goals.
  • Section 4. Enhancing Software Supply Chain Security
    • Develop standards, tools, and best practices for secure software development.
    • Enforce secure software development practices.
    • Define and enforce a “Software Bill of Materials (SBOM)”.
    • Define “critical software” and its protection requirements.
    • Consumer labeling programs for IoT and software.
  • Section 5. Establishing a Cyber Safety Review Board
    • Requirements for a new “Cyber Safety Review Board”.
    • All requirements are for the Secretary of Homeland Security and the (yet to be established) Cyber Safety Review Board (“board”).
  • Section 6. Standardizing the Federal Government’s Playbook for Responding to Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities and Incidents; the playbook:
    • Will Incorporate all appropriate NIST standards.
    • Be used by all Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) Agencies.
    • Will articulate progress and completion through all phases of an incident response.
    • Will allow flexibility so it may be used in support of various response activities.
    • Establishes a requirement that the Director of CISA reviews and validates FCEB Agencies’ incident response and remediation results upon an agency’s completion of its incident response.
    • Defines key terms and use such terms consistently with any statutory definitions.
  • Section 7. Improving Detection of Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities and Incidents on Federal Government Networks
    • The adoption of a Federal Government-wide Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) initiative.
    • CISA threat hunting on FCEB networks and systems without agency authorization.
    • Information sharing between the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security
  • Section 8. Improving the Federal Government’s Investigative and Remediation Capabilities
    • Types of logs to be maintained.
    • Time periods to retain the logs and other relevant data.
    • Time periods for agencies to enable recommended logging and security requirements.
    • How to protect logs (logs shall be protected by cryptographic methods to ensure integrity once collected and periodically verified against the hashes throughout their retention)
    • Data shall be retained in a manner consistent with all applicable privacy laws and regulations.
    • Ensure that, upon request, agencies provide logs to the Secretary of Homeland Security through the Director of CISA and to the FBI, consistent with applicable law.
    • Permit agencies to share log information, as needed and appropriate, with other Federal agencies for cyber risks or incidents.
  • Section 9. National Security Systems
  • Section 10. Definitions
  • Section 11. General Provisions

This will be a great conversation as Brad and I share our summary, thoughts and opinions on all this!

News

Just time for one news story this week. This one is from Brian Krebs, “Try This One Weird Trick Russian Hackers Hate“.

Wrapping Up – Shout Outs

Who’s getting shout outs this week?

Thank you to all our listeners! Thank you Brad for a great conversation! If you have something you’d like to tell us, feel free to email the show at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you’re the social type, socialize with us on Twitter, I’m @evanfrancen, and Brad’s @BradNigh.

Other Twitter handles where you can find some of the stuff we do, UNSECURITY is @unsecurityP, SecurityStudio is @studiosecurity, and FRSecure is @FRSecure.

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

…and we’re done.

Episode 107 Show Notes – Happy Thanksgiving

Hey there, it’s time for episode 107 of the UNSECURITY Podcast!

Just when you think you can’t get any busier…

You get busier.

Maybe if I learned to say “no” a little more often. My dilemma is 1) mostly brought on by myself and 2) is a blessing. It’s better to be busy than to have nothing to do, especially when you’re helping people. I’m grateful.

Short introduction today. Too much going on to elaborate much (for now).

On to the show notes…

This is Evan, I’ll lead the discussion today, and these are my notes…


SHOW NOTES – Episode 107

Date: Tuesday November 24th, 2020

Episode 107 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up
    • What’s new?
    • “Information Security @ Home”
  • Happy Thanksgiving
    • What are your grateful for?
    • What’s different this year?
    • What’s the same?
    • Holiday shopping tips for EVERYONE
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Hey there! Thank you for tuning in to this episode the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 107, the date is November 24th 2020, and I’m your host, Evan Francen. Sadly, Brad won’t be joining me today. He’s out of commission fighting a bout of labyrinthitis. The prognosis is good, so we expect him to be back soon!

So, this means you’re all stuck with me. I’ll do my best to provide some value for your ears and brain.

Quick Catchup

[Evan] The catchup time is a little different without Brad, so I’ll just give you a quick recap of what I’ve been up to.

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.
  • Security Sh*t Show – this is live on YouTube every week; Thursday nights at 10pm CST.
    • Last week Chris Roberts and I did the Paqui One Chip Challenge online with a couple fans.
    • We also unveiled a new sticker (see below). If you’d like one, just subscribe to the Sh*t Show YouTube channel and let us know.

  • Information security hobbies – I’ve been working on a Raspberry Pi home network security device, including Kismet, pfsense, and Pi-hole. More to come on this next week.
  • Maybe another thing or two.

Transition

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Evan] Originally, Brad and I were going to continue our discussion about information security at home, then I realized that this is Thanksgiving week! Instead of talking about our original topic, I’m going to talk about protecting yourself (and your family) from holiday shopping scams. For many Americans, Friday marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and it’s important for all of us to be careful! Lots of things have changed this year, it is 2020, but some things haven’t. The scammers are still scamming, and a most of the scams are the same this year as they’ve been in years past.

Some interesting stats/information:

  • 61% of Americans have already started holiday shopping (before Thanksgiving)
  • 22% of Americans start their holiday shopping on (or after) Thanksgiving
  • 15% of Americans start their holiday shopping in December
  • 2% of Americans start their holiday shopping in January (hopefully for next year)
  • Last year:
    • $730 billion was spent on holiday shopping
    • $135.5 billion was spent holiday shopping online
    • $71.3 billion was spent holiday shopping using a mobile device
  • Online holiday shopping (in terms of dollars spent) is expected to increase by 35.8%

More online shopping coupled with the fact that most of us are more distracted (than ever), means attackers could have a heyday.

Opportunity + Distraction = Success (for scammers)

Tips to protect yourself and your loved ones (we will make this into a checklist soon):

Most important – situational awareness. It’s the umbrella for all other protection activities/behaviors.

  1. Ship to a secure location – avoid shipping to places where merchandise could sit unattended and insecure for long periods.
  2. If you decide to use a mobile app for shopping, use official retailer apps only.
  3. Don’t save payment card (debit or credit) information in any shopping accounts
  4. Using Apple Pay or Google Pay for payments wherever it’s available.
  5. If you’re unfamiliar with a retailer, do your research before buying. Make sure the site and retailer are legitimate.
  6. Don’t rush to purchase at the lowest price. Slow down and think about security risks first.
  7. Never make purchases on public Wi-Fi – Never.
  8. Use a VPN when shopping (or doing anything sensitive) online.
  9. Always use strong passwords and a password manager.
  10. Check security and/or privacy policies, especially for retailers you’re unfamiliar with.
  11. A legitimate retailers will NEVER ask for your Social Security number, so don’t give it out.
  12. Make purchases with credit cards over debit cards.
  13. Make purchases with prepaid debit cards over credit cards or regular debit cards.
  14. Review all your accounts and bank statements regularly. You should be doing this all year.

Please be careful this holiday season. DO NOT let scammers steal ANY of your joy or hope!

Transition

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

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] That’s it for episode 107. Gonna give my shout outs…

[Evan] 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 @evanfrancen and Brad’s @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!

The UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 67 Show Notes – Who does what?

Did you even notice that I skipped posting show notes for last week’s podcast? Time got away from us. Sometimes our day job gets in the way. No matter. We recorded a pretty good show for you last week anyway, and you can catch a listen here.

We’re almost back on track this week.

Here we go…


SHOW NOTES – Episode 67

Date: Monday, February 17th, 2020

Show Topics:

Our topics this week:

  • Opening
    • What’s up?
    • One thing.
  • Information Security Roles and Responsibilities (Part 1 of 2)
    • How important are information security roles and responsibilities?
    • Is it important to define them formally, or do people just know?
    • Roles and responsibilities at a macro level.
      • Government(s).
      • Business(es).
        • B2C.
        • Employer(s).
      • School(s).
      • Consumer(s)/citizen(s)
    • Ideas for making things better.
    • Part 2 – Information Security Roles and Responsibilities (micro-level).
  • News
Opening

[Evan] Howdy. Welcome to episode 67 of the UNSECURITY Podcast. Today is February 17th, 2020 and this angelic voice you’re hearing is me, Evan Francen. Joining me in studio today is my security bestie, Brad Nigh. Good morning Brad!

[Brad] Hopefully he got some sleep and he’s ready to impart some of his wisdom!

[Evan] We have a great show planned today. Before we dive in, let’s catch up. As usual, I want to know how you’re doing and what you’re up to. Give it to me.

Catching up

Some back and forth happens here.

[Evan] Let’s see if you prepped for today’s show. I want you to share one information security truth. Pick any one you want.

[Brad] Shares a truth.

[Evan] Boom! Hashtag truth. Here’s one that’s on my mind…

[Evan] This weekend I was doing some work on our book. For those of you who don’t know yet, we are writing a really cool book. There are two purposes for the book. The first is to simplify information security, and the second is to operationalize information security in underserved markets. Underserved markets are state/local government, schools (K-12 and higher ed), small businesses, and individuals. How do we embed information security in such a way that it becomes a normal part of everyday life and a competitive advantage?

This book is being written by me, Brad, and Ryan (aka “cola”).

I’m just about done with my initial outline, which are really just thoughts. Soon, we’ll get going full speed with these guys. We’ll be collaborating big time!

Anyway, here’s why this is relevant to today’s podcast. As I was writing, I had a thought. One of the foundational components of information security is understanding and implementing roles and responsibilities. This leads to an idea of doing a two-part series. In part one (today), I’d like to discuss information security roles and responsibilities at a macro level. In part two (next week), we can discuss information security roles and responsibilities at a micro level. You game?

[Brad] Brad’s almost always game. He’s one of the most collaborative and easy-going security guys I know!

Information Security Roles and Responsibilities (Part 1 of 2) – Macro Level

We’ll share opinions on these things:

  • How important are information security roles and responsibilities?
  • Is it important to define them formally, or do people just know?
  • Roles and responsibilities at a macro level.
    • Government(s).
    • Business(es).
      • B2C.
      • Employer(s).
    • School(s).
    • Consumer(s)/citizen(s)
  • Ideas for making things better.
  • Part 2 – Information Security Roles and Responsibilities (micro-level).

[Evan] Good discussion man! We take so many of these things for granted. Good things for us to keep in mind as we continue down the path of writing our book.

[Brad] Brad is Brad.

[Evan] Let’s cover some news now.

News

[Evan] I’ve got a few goodies today:

Closing

[Evan] There you have it. Episode 67. Always great chatting with you Brad! Got any parting words?

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

[Evan] Thank you to our listeners, we love hearing from you. If you’ve got something to say, email us at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you would rather do the whole social thing, we tweet sometimes. I’m @evanfrancen and Brad’s @BradNigh. If you like company stuff, we work for SecurityStudio (@studiosecurity) and FRSecure (@FRSecure). The company people post good things from time to time too!

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