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The UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 76 Show Notes – Tough Times

Keeping the show notes short this week. We have a special guest, a great friend of mine, Serge Suponitskiy!

There are many, many things going on around here (@FRSecure and @SecurityStudio). I can’t recap everything for you, to do so would be very time consuming. There was one highlight from last week that stood out from the rest though…

2020 FRSecure CISSP Mentor Program

The 2020 FRSecure CISSP Mentor Program kicked off last week with Class #1 on Monday (4/13) and Class #2 on Wednesday (4/15)! It’s crazy, this is the 11th consecutive year of our free training program. With 1,444 students registered in 2020, we have now helped more than 2,825 students over the years!

We’ve had many people try to convince us to charge for this, even if only a small sum, but the answer is always “NO”. This is one of the ways we try to give back to our community, and we’ll continue to do this well into the future. We have done this since 2010, well before COVID-19 showed up at our front door.

Since COVID-19, we moved class to 100% online, with live streaming to YouTube. We archive the videos so anyone can watch any time (even those who never registered). The archives are here:

We’ve also setup an online study group. The study group, as of this morning, has 470 active members.

Here’s to a great 2020 program, and here’s to much success for the students!

On to the episode 76 show notes now.


SHOW NOTES – Episode 76

Date: Monday, April 20th, 2020

Episode 76 Topics

Opening

[Evan] Good morning everyone! This is the 76th episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast. The date is April 20th, 2020 and I’m Evan Francen. Joining me is my co-host Brad Nigh.

Good morning Brad.

[Brad] Brad says “hi”.

[Evan] We have a special guest! Let me give you a little background about this guy.

He’s a global business and technology leader with more than 20 years experience building enterprise innovative solutions. He’s guided many organizations through successful transformations, but arguably none more difficult than the one he’s currently facing with COVID-19. He’s currently working at Fight Centre, a global travel company, and as you know, the travel industry has been decimated by the pandemic.

His name is Serge Suponitskiy, and he’s the CTO, CISO, and now interim CIO at Flight Centre, Americas Region.

Welcome Serge!

[Serge] Serge does Serge.

Catching Up

[Evan] As is customary for us, before we jump in to the meat of the show, let’s catch up. If you’re a new listener, you might not know the first motivator for starting the UNSECURITY Podcast. It was to spend an hour shootin’ the breeze with Brad. So what’s up guys? How’s things?

Catching up. Recent events. Coping with *&#!

Introducing our Special Guest

[Evan] I invited Serge to our show for a couple of reasons, the first is, I really like the guy. He’s somebody I respect. The second reason I invited him was to get his perspective on dealing with COVID-19. Serge works in the travel industry, and everything in the travel industry has been turned upside down. He works for Flight Centre, a really great company, and it’s crazy what’s happening…

Topics for discussion:

  • Welcome Serge!
  • Our history and past together.
  • What’s happened to the travel industry since COVID-19?
  • What’s changed for you and your company?
  • What’s the focus for the next 3-6 months?
  • What do you think Flight Centre looks like on the other side?

[Evan] Thank you Serge. You’re a helluva guy and I’m sure everything will work out OK, even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes.

Middle School Fight

[Evan] Interesting happenings last week between to industry middleweights; Rapid7 and Qualys. I’d like to get your take guys. On Thursday, I get this email…

It goes on…

[Evan] This sort of thing gets under my skin. In our industry, which is about serving and protecting people, we’re supposed to be better than this. So I wrote a short post on LinkedIn and reached out to my friend Chris Roberts for a sanity check.

Here this skinny:

[Evan] What do you guys (Brad and Serge) think about this?

Discussing the middle school playground fight between Rapid7 and Qualys.

News

[Evan] Just one news story this week; IT Services Giant Cognizant Hit by Maze Ransomware Cyber Attack.

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] Alright, good show. Thank you for joining us Serge.

[Serge] May or may not say something.

[Evan] Lots going on this week. We continue our Daily inSANITY Checkins, everyone is welcome to join us. Just register online and you’ll get the invites. We also continue the CISSP Mentor Program with classes on Monday and Wednesday. Brad’s teaching tonight and Ryan (“cola”) Cloutier is teaching on Wednesday. I get the week off!

OK, shout out time. Brad, who you want to give a shout out to?

[Brad] We’ll see if he’s got someone.

[Evan] Serge, how about you? You have someone you want to give a shout out to?

[Serge] Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t.

[Evan] I’d like to give a shout out to __________!

Well, that’s a wrap.

Huge thank you to our listeners. Episode 76 is about to go in the can. We love hearing from you, so if you’ve got something to say, email us at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you would rather do the whole social thing, feel free to follow us on Twitter. You can find me @evanfrancen, you can find Brad @BradNigh, and you can find Serge too @SergeSup.

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

The UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 75 Show Notes – Hope

Keeping the show notes short this week. Last week’s show notes post should have been broken into two or three posts!

I’m writing this on Easter Sunday, and I’m wishing everyone a Happy Easter! The meaning behind today is promise and hope. Hope is the key talking point for this episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast.

If you missed last week, we had Jim Nash on the show. Jim is our Minnesota State Representative. He shared his perspectives on things like COVID-19, information security in state government, etc. It was a good talk!

Give episode 74 a listen.

Let’s get right to it! Here are the episode 75 show notes…


NOTE: These are my show notes (Evan), but Brad is leading the show.

SHOW NOTES – Episode 75

Date: Monday, April 13th, 2020

Episode 75 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up 
    • Easter Sunday
    • Another week at home.
    • What’s new?
  • Hope
    • Hope in our (information security) industry.
      • Signs we’ve seen during the pandemic.
      • Signs we hope to see post-pandemic.
    • How information security fits into the hope of economic recovery.
    • What’s FRSecure doing to instill hope?
    • What’s SecurityStudio doing to instill hope?
  • More About Zoom
    • What happened (without the BS)?
    • Is it safe to use Zoom or not?
  • Other Things
    • FRSecure CISSP Mentor Program (we started this 11+ years before the COVID-19 pandemic)
    • Safety and Cybersecurity at Home 101 Webinar Series (Videos here).
    • SecurityStudio Partner Community (Join here).
    • The Daily inSANITY Check-in (Join here).
  • Other News – Just one: Coronavirus-themed attacks April 05 – April 11, 2020
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Brad] Good morning everyone! This is the 75th episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast. The date is April 13th, 2020 and I’m Brad Nigh. Joining me is my co-host Evan Francen.

Good morning Evan.

[Evan] I’ll say good morning too, but the enthusiasm behind my words will depend on how early I got up today.

[Brad] We’re remote still, recording the show on Zoom. Yes, you heard that right. We’re on Zoom right now. We’ll talk more about this later on in the show.

First, as is customary for us. Let’s catch up a little.

Catching Up

[Brad] Yesterday was Easter Sunday. Did you have a good Easter, Evan?

[Evan] Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. Ooooh, the suspense!

Discussion between Evan and Brad

Hope

[Brad] Hope is a beautiful thing. Sometimes it’s all we have to hold on to. Let’s talk about the role that hope is playing these days, in our industry and in our companies.

Discussion about the following:

  • Hope in our (information security) industry.
    • Signs we’ve seen during the pandemic.
    • Signs we hope to see post-pandemic.
  • How information security fits into the hope of economic recovery.
  • What’s FRSecure doing to instill hope?
  • What’s SecurityStudio doing to instill hope?
More About Zoom

[Brad] The news and noise about Zoom and their information security issues didn’t slow much last week. Some of the issues are nothing more than FUD, but there are some legitimate concerns too. I think our listeners could really benefit from a continued discussion about this.

Discussion about Zoom issues.

[Brad] There are always two sides to the story. I can’t remember seeing a company go through such a roller coaster of ups and downs in such a short period of time.

Other Things

[Brad] Lots of other things happening around here, that’s for sure! The pandemic, the lockdown, working remotely, and everything else that comes along with those things has not stopped us for a second! We’re just as busy as always.

Discussion about other things.

  • FRSecure CISSP Mentor Program (we started this 11+ years before the COVID-19 pandemic)
  • Safety and Cybersecurity at Home 101 Webinar Series (Videos here).
  • SecurityStudio Partner Community (Join here).
  • The Daily inSANITY Check-in (Join here).

[Brad] Alright. Lots going on. We’ll see what this week brings!

News

[Brad] Just one news story this week. Let’s look at a recap of Coronavirus-themed attacks from this past week posted on Security Affairs.

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Brad] Alright, good show. Give someone hope and encouragement today and every day this week! Evan, who do you have a shout out for this week?

[Evan] Some people for sure…

[Brad] I’d like to give a shout out to ________.

Thank you for listening to episode 75. We love hearing from you, so if you’ve got something to say, email us at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you would rather do the whole social thing, we tweet like that. I’m @BradNigh, and Evan’s @evanfrancen.

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