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UNSECURITY Episode 134 Show Notes

Alright, welcome back! We had a great run of guests over the past 7 or 8 weeks, and now it’s back to Brad and I for a bit.

If you missed any of the guest episode, here’s a recap:

Memorial Day

Monday, May 31st was Memorial Day. It’s a day of remembrance and gratitude. Here’s the text from one of my Twitter posts:

  • A small table set for one, symbolizing the isolation of our absent service member.
  • The table is round to represent the everlasting concern the survivors have for the missing.
  • The white tablecloth symbolizes the pure motives of our lost service members who responded to our country’s call to arms.
  • A single rose in the vase represents the blood our service members have shed in sacrifice to ensure the freedom of the United States of America.
  • The rose also represents family and friends who keep the faith while awaiting the return of the missing service members.
  • The red ribbon represents our service members’ love of country that inspired them to serve our country.
  • A slice of lemon on the bread plate represents the bitter fate of the missing.
  • Salt sprinkled on the bread plate represents the tears shed by waiting families.
  • The inverted glass represents the fact that the missing and fallen cannot partake.
  • A Bible represents the spiritual strength and faith to sustain the lost.
  • A lit candle symbolizes a light of hope that lives in hearts to illuminate the missing’s way home.
  • An empty chair represents the absence of our beloved missing and fallen. service members.

We are grateful for all our men and women who serve in uniform and we hold those who sacrificed all in the highest esteem.

The Show Must Go On

Visiting with our guests the past couple months has been a lot of fun and we hope it’s been educational and entertaining for our listeners. We hope listeners enjoyed listening as much as we enjoyed hosting!

This week (episode 134), Brad and I are going to take a look at some of the recent news. Lord knows, there’s plenty to cover!

Let’s get to the episode 134 show notes, shall we?


SHOW NOTES – Episode 134 – Wednesday June 2nd, 2021

Opening

[Evan] Welcome listeners! Thanks for tuning into this episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 134, and the date is June 2nd, 2021. Joining me is my good friend, Mr. Brad Nigh. Good Morning Brad!

[Evan] Welcome back from Memorial Day weekend. It was a beautiful weekend to pay our respects.

What’s going on in the world of “cybersecurity”?

Today, we’re going to change things up a little. There’s so much going on in the world around us, I thought it would be good for us to focus on six news articles and discuss them. Here they are:

That’s a lot to unpack! Hopefully you caught all that.

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 109 Show Notes – Information Security @ Home

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

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 – Episode 98 Show Notes

Here we are again, another Tuesday, and another episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast!

Tons going on, as usual.

Last week we released a couple new FREE things at SecurityStudio:

  • Work From Home Security Policy Template – Located at the bottom of our S2Team page. If you don’t know what S2Team is, you should definitely take a look. If you just want the template and don’t care, here it is.
  • Ransomware Recovery Contract – A simple contract between executive management and IT to ensure accountability for ransomware recovery. Executive management likes it because they finally know what to ask for, and IT likes it because they can use it to show they’re doing what they should/can to prevent a prolonged ransomware outage. I’ve uploaded the contract to my site here.

ADDED: Brad reminded me on the show that FRSecure made a free Incident Response Plan Template available last week. Take a look. It’s really, really good (and free)!

Other goings on include developing and improvement of new services (including the release of SecurityStudio v3.9 and an incident response capability assessment), continued collaboration with great partners, a few speaking engagements, episode 19 of the Security Shit Show, deployment of S2Team, and other things.

Alright, enough about that. Let’s get to the show notes, shall we? These are my (Evan) notes.


SHOW NOTES – Episode 98

Date: Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020

Episode 98 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up
  • Accountability
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Good morning everyone. Thanks for tuning in to episode 98 of the UNSECURITY Podcast. Today is September 22nd, 2020 and joining me is my co-host and friend Brad Nigh.

Good morning Brad.

[Brad] Cue Brad.

[Evan] I think we have a good show planned for listeners this week. This episode is all about accountability. I’d like to discuss how accountability works in information security, who should be accountable for what, and give some tips for improving accountability where we work and in the world around us.

Lots to cover on the topic of accountability. Before we jump in, quick catchup with Brad.

Catching Up

[Evan] Brad, how you doing? What’s new?

[Brad] Cue Brad.

[Evan] Cue Evan.

Transition

Accountability

[Evan] Alright, let’s talk about accountability, or maybe the lack of accountability, in information security. This has been a topic that’s been dominating my thoughts again for the past couple weeks. I say “again” because this isn’t the first time we’ve talked about it.

During an episode of the Security Shit Show a couple weeks ago, I think it was episode 18, we were talking about ransomware. The talk was great, but the frustration we all felt was apparent. Why do we keep doing the same things over and over again? Why don’t people do the basics? My take was the lack of accountability. So, I drafted a Ransomware Recovery Contract to help.

Have you seen the Ransomware Recovery Contract?

[Brad] Cue Brad (I’m sort of springing this on him).

[Evan] So, the greater issue of accountability in general. Let’s talk about it here, for our benefit and the benefit of our listeners.

  • The importance of accountability.
    • Repeating the same mistakes over and over.
    • Safe to assume people know?
    • People die now.
  • When to define accountability.
  • Who’s ultimately accountable for what?
    • In tech – buggy software, social media (see the social dilemma), etc.
    • Big organizations.
    • Small organizations.
    • Public organizations.
    • School districts.
  • Examples of accountability disfunction.
  • Examples of good accountability.
  • What to do about it.
    • Get out ahead. Better now than never (or later).
    • Will CEOs be personally liable someday?

[Evan] This is a deep subject with much to be said. Everything moves so fast, and sadly accountability is severely lagging behind.

[Evan] For listeners who are wondering about us doing a series titled “Politics and Information Security”, it’s still being considered. We just have to put it all together.

[Evan] OK, news. Let’s do some quick news stories.

News

[Evan] Three news stories to talk about briefly this week:

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] OK. That’s about it. Episode 98 is almost a wrap. Brad, any shout outs this week?

[Brad] Shout out…

[Evan] We’re very grateful for our listeners and we love hearing from you. Send us messages by email at unsecurity@protonmail.com or check us out on Twitter, @UnsecurityP.

If you wanna socialize with me or Brad directly, we dare you! I’m @evanfrancen, and Brad’s @BradNigh. We work for people and if you want to follow those people, SecurityStudio is @studiosecurity and FRSecure is @FRSecure.

That’s it, talk you all again next week!

The UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 81 Show Notes – Hard Truths

Welcome back! Episode 81 is sure to be a good one, but before I get started, just a few thoughts…

We just went through our first Memorial Day weekend under COVID-19. I don’t know what to say about it, other than the world seems as crazy, or crazier, than ever. Seems like 1/2 the country is out and about like everything’s normal while the other 1/2 of the country stays cooped up as though the apocalypse were upon us. To complicate matters, both halves seem to look upon each other with disdain.

We’re learning more and more each day about this coronavirus we call COVID-19. One thing appears certain, we’ve had crappy data to work with since day one. Crappy data leads to crappy decisions and crappy decisions lead to crappy outcomes. I’ll just leave it at that.

Memorial Day

This is one of my favorite holidays. I wonder how many of us know what it stands for or what it means. I wonder because I was wished a Happy Memorial Day numerous times yesterday, yet there’s nothing “happy” about it. The day is set aside to remember and honor our nation’s war dead from the Civil War onwards. It’s a day to stop what you’re doing, spend (at least) a few moments remembering the sacrifices that were made by our soldiers, and be grateful.

I suppose there are happy parts too, but these are mostly the product of what somebody else gave for you and me.

Not sure if I’m in a pissier mood today or what. No matter, I’ll snap out of it soon. Let’s get to Brad’s show notes!


SHOW NOTES – Episode 81

Date: Tuesday, May 26th, 2020

Episode 81 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up (as per usual)
  • Hard Truths
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Brad] Welcome back! This is episode 81 of the UNSECURITY Podcast, and I’m your host this week, Brad Nigh. Today is May 26th, and joining me this morning as usual is Evan Francen.

[Evan] Has some sort of story for us I’m sure

[Brad] We’ve got a good show planned today! Before we get going though, let’s recap our week.

Catching Up

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

[Evan] Evan talks about the cool things he did.

[Brad] I talk about the cool things I did.

Hard Truths

[Brad] So interestingly, at least to me, this is the first time I struggled with what to cover in our podcast.  Maybe the monotony of quarantine, the tidal wave of news around breaches and new attack vectors, or just plain old writer’s block but even sitting down to write this I don’t know where it ended up.

Because I was stuck I decided to start with news, there have been several really interesting things that have come out lately and that’s when I found this article from CSO Online 6 hard truths security pros must learn to live with and, yeah we can talk about this.

The Hard Truths

Discussion about the hard truths outlined in the CSO Online article:

  1. Hackers are probably inside your network right now
  2. You can do everything right and a careless end user can ruin everything
  3. You face critical staffing and skills shortages
  4. IoT creates new and unforeseen security problems
  5. You sometimes feel misunderstood and underappreciated
  6. Stress, anxiety and burnout come with the territory

[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

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Brad] That’s it, Episode 81 is a wrap. Evan, you have any shout outs?

[Evan] Of course he does!

[Brad] Here’s mine…

[Brad] Huge thank you to 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 and Evan’s @evanfrancen. Lastly, be sure to follow SecurityStudio (@studiosecurity) and FRSecure (@FRSecure) for more goodies.

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