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UNSECURITY Episode 138 Show Notes

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Hope you had a wonderful Independence Day (July 4th)! We’ve gone through a lot together in this country, and I love this place we call home. Lots to do in making the USA better, but this will always be the case. This is the best country in the world, and I’m grateful!

In case you missed it, two big events last week; the Kaseya ransomware attack and Microsoft’s PrintNightmare.

Kaseya Ransomware

So, you might have heard. On Friday (going into July 4th weekend), computers around the world (not all of them, but maybe ~1,000,000 of them) started to lock up. The announcement came around midday that Kaseya’s VSA servers were being used to distribute ransomware, primarily to MSP customers. My first thought was “Oh shit! We might have another SolarWinds.” Thank God, this wasn’t the case.

Facts started to come in, and it became evident that this was an attack directed at VSA servers hosted by MSPs. Some MSPs (about 2,200 of them) installed their VSA servers so that they were accessible from the Internet. I’m not a VSA expert, but this high number implies this as standard practice. A zero day vulnerability (and exploit) was discovered by the REvil ransomware gang (or an affiliate) and was used to infect clients.

Kaseya already knew about the vulnerability thanks to the good work by Wietse Boonstra and his compatriots at NIVD. The vulnerability was reported to Kaseya and the two groups were working on a patch at the time of the ransomware attack. The end result was somewhere between 60-70 MSPs affected and somewhere between 1,200-1,500 companies infected. Kaseya did a good job responding, and so did many MSPs. Lessons learned are TBD after the dust settles.

Links referenced in today’s show are below.

Microsoft PrintNightmare

If it hadn’t been for Kaseya, this would have been top news. In terms of scope, this is much bigger, affecting many millions of servers (and companies). In terms of potential impact, this also exceeds the Kaseya attack. News broke on June 30th about an impressive and potentially very damaging vulnerability in the Microsoft Print Spooler service. On July 1st, Microsoft released additional information about the vulnerability and offered (un)helpful guidance.

There is an exploit in the wild for this vulnerability that allows complete control over a server (and Active Directory).

We’ll talk a little about this too. Links referenced in today’s show are also below.

 

OK. Show notes for episode 138…

SHOW NOTES – Episode 138 – Tuesday July 6th, 2021

Opening

[Evan] Welcome listeners! It’s good to have you join us. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 138, and the date is July 6th, 2021. Joining me is my good friend, Mr. Brad Nigh. Good Morning Brad!

[Evan] Hope you had a wonderful 4th of July. Many people had the day off yesterday, but some people were fighting the fire caused by ransomware deployed through Kaseya’s VSA servers. This is where we’ll start.

Kaseya Ransomware Attack

Here’s a list of links/articles we’re explore in this episode:

All in all, this attack could have been MUCH worse than it was. Incident responders did a great job and communicated well. More to come in time…

Microsoft PrintNightmare

This one is a doozy. Here are the three links/articles we’ll reference in this episode:

Last week’s show was all about Microsoft security debacles, and now this. A patch is not available yet and many IT teams are scrambling right now. I’m become less and less of a Microsoft fan with each passing day.

That’s it for today’s show. Lots of work to do!

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.

UNSECURITY Episode 137 Show Notes

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It’s been a few weeks since I posted show notes, and even then, I’m late!

If you working in the information security industry, you’re probably extremely busy. My busyness is what’s kept me from updating show notes and things.

Episode 137 was a fun one. Brad was back and we talked about all Microsoft’s recent blunders/issues.

John McAfee

Before we get into it, I want to take a moment to remember John McAfee. On June 23, he was found unresponsive in his jail cell at the Brians 2 Penitentiary Center near Barcelona, Spain. Sadly, he passed away at the age of 75 after an apparent suicide by hanging. He had just lost his hearing for extradition to the United States.

John McAfee was a very interesting guy, and some might say he was nuts and a crook. While that might be true (I don’t have evidence to say either way), I remember him before the mid-2000s, when he was an icon in our industry. The guy was smart as hell!

  • 1968 – 1970, programmer for NASA working on the Apollo Program
  • Software designed for Univac
  • Operating system architect for Xerox
  • Software consultant for Computer Sciences Corporation
  • Consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton
  • Software engineer for Lockheed (where he first learned about computer viruses and came up with the idea to remove them programmatically)
  • 1987, founded McAfee Associates Inc which sold the world’s first anti-virus software
  • 1990, sold millions of copies of McAfee anti-virus software leading to John’s $5M/year salary
  • 1992, McAfee’s initial public offering (IPO)
  • August 1993, steps down as CEO.
  • 1994, sold all his remaining stake in McAfee Associates Inc.

In January 2014, after Intel (who’d acquired McAfee in August 2010) announced that McAfee products would be marketed as “Intel Security”:

“I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet.” – John McAfee

Soon afterwards, the business was de-merged from Intel and re-acquired the McAfee name.

John McAfee was all over the place after divesting from the company with his name. He invested in many ventures, travelled, dabbled in politics (two U.S. presidential candidacies), was a person of interest in a Belize homicide investigation, charged with tax evasion, posted hundreds of public remarks and videos on social media, before it all eventually ended on June 23rd. He was a very interesting person who was influential in our industry.

I will miss him.

OK, now the show notes. Here’s the notes (with relevant links). Episode 137…

SHOW NOTES – Episode 137 – Tuesday June 29th, 2021

Opening

[Evan] Welcome listeners! It’s good to have you join us. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 137, and the date is June 29th, 2021. Joining me is my good friend, Mr. Brad Nigh. Good Morning Brad!

[Evan] Welcome back sir. Happy that you’re back in the saddle again. Microsoft was front and center in the information security news this week. Let’s dissect some of this.

Microsoft in the (Information Security) News

Here’s a list of articles that we talk about in this episode:

Obviously, Microsoft has its hands full. Don’t we all? One issue with Microsoft is how much control they have over our industry and how much data they hold. Significant information security events at Microsoft have a significant impact for millions of organizations.

Just one other news article of interest this week: One billion dollars lost by over-60s through online fraud in 2020, says FBI – https://hotforsecurity.bitdefender.com/blog/one-billion-dollars-lost-by-over-60s-through-online-fraud-in-2020-says-fbi-26049.html

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.

UNSECURITY Episode 123 Show Notes

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day! For those of you who aren’t into this holiday (for whatever reason), Happy (everyday) Day!

This has been a week full of great experiences and awesome conversations with wonderful people. It’s the people we serve who inspire us to work as hard as we do. Here’s a small sampling:

  • Daytona Bike Week (last week) – if you’ve never been to a bike rally before, I recommend you try it out someday (even if you don’t ride). There are interesting people from all walks of life and the diversity (backgrounds, race, preferences, thought, etc.) would probably surprise you.
  • Co-workers – discussions about everything from mental health (many of us did the Mental Health First Aid certification course together last week), to life challenges (relationships, family, health, etc.), to work challenges, and everything in between. It’s a blessing (to them and to me) when I stop, listen, and invest in others.
  • Customers/peers – had some check-ins this week with a few enterprise CISOs I call friends. Life as a CISO can be extremely DIFFICULT. It’s encouraging to know people care about me, and I them. CISOs are human beings who need love just like all of us do!
  • Everyday people – we’re all beautifully unique. We are similar in some respects, but there are wonderful things that make me me and you you. We’re a hodge podge of emotions, biases, beliefs, perspectives, and experiences. Rather than fight because you think differently than I do, why don’t I embrace the uniqueness and differences? Why not try to understand them and you better?

We’re not doing this enough in society and we’re not doing this enough in our industry either.

    • Why?
    • Have we lost our respect for other human beings?
    • Have we lost our ability to reason?
    • Are we afraid to share who we really are out of fear? Fear of being marginalized, silenced, and attacked (physically and online)?

I believe people are AMAZING! I believe people are worthy of respect (even if it’s only a little). I believe people should be heard and understood. I believe information security isn’t about information or security as much as it is about people. I believe people are who we serve. I believe we must invest in people more. I believe in understanding people (better). I believe loving people gives us our best chance at doing our (information security) jobs effectively, and I believe loving people gives us our only chance of saving society.

Now on to show notes for episode 123…

SHOW NOTES – Episode 123 – Wednesday March 17th, 2021

Opening

[Evan] Welcome listeners! Thanks for tuning into this episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 123, and the date is March 17th, 2021. Filling in for Brad again this week if my good friend and co-worker Ryan Cloutier. Welcome Ryan, glad to have you back!

  • We’ve got a great show planned today. We’ll start with the importance of reason and logic in information security, our jobs, and in life. There are many parallels between information security (or “cybersecurity” as some people call it) and life.
  • Then, if we have time, we’ll talk about passwords. Everybody hates passwords.
  • We’ll close the show with a few mentions; about the FRSecure CISSP Mentor Program and SecurityStudio’s free S2Me (very quickly growing in popularity).
  • Oh yeah, we’ve got a couple news stories too, but whatever.

Reason

  • Have we lost our ability to reason?
  • What is reason anyway?
  • Why is reason (and logic) critical to information security?
  • Why is reason (and logic) critical to risk (all risk)?
  • Why is reason (and logic) critical to life?
  • There are parallels here, like:
    • Information security is risk management.
    • There’s no such thing as risk elimination or infinite risk; they are two different ends of the spectrum.
    • There’s no such think as 100% reason/logic without emotion or vice versa; two different ends of the spectrum.
    • The goal is management.
  • If we’ve lost our ability to reason, how can we get it back? Or, if we never had the ability to reason, how do we learn it?
    • Ask “Why?” often, almost incessantly, like a three year-old.
    • Ask yourself “Why”.
      • Not in a way that beats yourself up, but in a way that you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing and/or why you believe what you believe.
      • Notice the difference between emotional response and logical response.
      • Learn to use logic and emotion where they are and how they are appropriate. Seems mechanical and awkward at first, but it should become natural/habitual over time.
    • Ask others “Why”.
      • Respectfully out of a desire to understand, and not in a confrontational manner.
      • Learn how to ask without offense. If the person your asking takes offense despite your best efforts, that’s on them.
      • Maybe they need help understanding logic versus emotion? Interesting tells about people who are unable or unwilling to use reason or logic to defend a position (or make a point):
        • They change the subject. You asked a question about one thing, and quickly find yourself in a discussion about something different.
        • They attack your character. This is a classic emotional response where the person you’re questioning probably isn’t sure why he/she believes what they do. Don’t take offense, but recognize this tactic for what it is.
    • Encourage others (especially people you trust) to question you.
      • Be prepared to defend why you believe what you believe. If you can’t (with reason), then maybe you should question what you believe.
      • When other people ask you “why”, view it as an opportunity to state your case.
      • When other people ask you “why”, it’s a great opportunity for you to learn (about perspective and reason).

NOTE: We could talk for a long time about Reason, so we might not get to the topic of “Passwords”. If we don’t get to Passwords in this episode, we’ll get to it in episode 124.

Passwords

  • Why do we need them?
  • What makes a password good versus bad?
  • What do we (Ryan and I) do to practice good password behavior? BTW, neither of us is perfect!

NOTE: Regardless of timing, we will discuss “Mentions” in this episode.

Mentions

  • FRSecure CISSP Mentor Program – We’re less than one month away from the start! I think there are more than 4,000 students signed up, so this is going to be AWESOME!
  • S2Me – the FREE SecurityStudio personal risk management tool has been growing very fast (in terms of popularity). Big news happening here, and we’re making a difference!

News

Wrapping Up – Shout Outs

Good talk. Thank you Ryan, and thank you listeners!

…and we’re done.

UNSECURITY Episode 121 Show Notes

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Happy Tuesday! It’s time to get ready for another episode (#121) of the UNSECURITY Podcast!

Not sure if you caught it last week, but there was an open U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday (2/23). The hearing was titled “Hearing on the Hack of U.S. Networks by a Foreign Adversary” and lasted about two and a half hours. The hearing was about the events surrounding the SolarWinds Orion Hack, and what we can do to prevent (or at least reduce the likelihood of) similar events in the future. Witnesses included some well-known people in our industry:

  • Kevin Mandia, CEO of FireEye
  • Sudhakar Ramakrishna, CEO of Solarwinds
  • Brad Smith, President of Microsoft
  • George Kurtz, President and CEO of CrowdStrike

This hearing was a big deal because U.S. policymakers are trying to figure out what to do, and how “to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” If policy makers draft policy based solely on what these witnesses said, we might be in some serious trouble!

There were some really interesting things said during the hearing, and we’re going to share our thoughts on today’s show.

So, let’s do this! These are the notes for episode 121 of the UNSECURITY Podcast.

SHOW NOTES – Episode 121 – Tuesday March 1st, 2021

Opening

[Evan] Welcome listeners! Thanks for tuning into this episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 121, the date is March 2nd, 2021, and joining me as usual is my good friend, Brad Nigh. Good morning Brad!

Quick Catching Up

  • What’s new?
    • Working on S2Org r3, IR assessment, and other things.
    • The Gray Matter Society
    • Who would make a good guest next week?
  • Anything else new at FRSecure and/or SecurityStudio?

The Meat

Open Hearing: Hearing on the Hack of U.S. Networks by a Foreign Adversary – https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-hearing-hack-us-networks-foreign-adversary

  • Kevin Mandia’s Opening Statement – https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-kmandia-022321.pdf
  • Sudhakar Ramakrishna’s Opening Statement – https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-sramakrishna-022321.pdf
  • Brad Smith’s Opening Statement – https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-bsmith-022321.pdf
  • George Kurtz’s Opening Statement – https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-gkurtz-022321.pdf
  • The hearing went ~2 1/2 hours, did you make it through it all?
  • So, Amazon Web Services didn’t show up. They haven’t been forthcoming or helpful
  • An interesting Q&A (starting at 1:22:08) from Senator Wyden (D-OR)
    • Senator Wyden: The impression that the American people might get from this hearing is that the hackers are such formidable adversaries that there was nothing that the American government or our biggest tech companies could have done to protect themselves. My view is that message leads to privacy violating laws and billions of more taxpayer funds for cybersecurity. Now it might be embarrassing, but the first order of business has to be identifying where well-know cybersecurity measures could have mitigated the damage caused by the breach. For example, there are concrete ways for the government to improve its ability to identify hackers without resorting to warrantless monitoring of the domestic internet. So, my first question is about properly configured firewalls. Now the initial malware in SolarWinds Orion software was basically harmless. It was only after that malware called home that the hackers took control, and this is consistent with what the Internal Revenue Service told me. Which is while the IRS installed Orion, their server was not connected to the Internet, and so the malware couldn’t communicate with the hackers. So, this raises the question of why other agencies didn’t take steps to stop the malware from calling home. So, my question will be for Mr. Ramakrishna, and I indicated to your folks I was going to ask this. You stated that the back door only worked if Orion had access to the internet, which was not required for Orion to operate. In your view, shouldn’t government agencies using Orion have installed it on servers that were either completely disconnected from the internet, or were behind firewalls that blocked access to the outside world?
    • Mr. Ramakrishna: Thanks for the question Senator Wyden. It is true that the Orion platform software does not need connectivity to the internet for it to perform its regular duties, which could be network monitoring,  system monitoring, application monitoring on premises of our customers.
    • Senator Wyden: Yeah, it just seems to me what I’m asking about is network security 101, and any responsible organization wouldn’t allow software with this level of access to internal systems to connect to the outside world, and you basically said almost the same thing. My question then, for all of you is, the idea that organizations should use firewalls to control what parts of their networks are connected to the outside world  is not exactly brand new. NSA recommends that organizations only allow traffic that is required for operational tasks, all other traffic ought to be denied. And NIST, the standards and technology group recommends that firewall policies should be based on blocking all inbound and outbound traffic with exceptions made for desired traffic. So, I would like to go down the row and ask each one of you for a “yes” or “no” answer whether you agree with the firewall advice that would really offer a measure of protection from the NSA and NIST. Just yes or no, and ah, if I don’t have my glasses on maybe I can’t see all the name tags, but let’s just go down the row.
    • Mr. Mandia: And I’m gonna give you the “it depends”. The bottom line is this, we do over 6oo red teams a year, firewalls have never stopped one of them. A firewall is like having a gate guard outside a New York City apartment building, and they can recognize if you live there or not, and some attackers are perfectly disguised as someone who lives in the building and walks right by the gate guard. It’s ah, in theory, it’s a sound thing, but it’s academic. In practice it is operationally cumbersome.
    • Senator Wyden: I don’t want to use up all my time. We’ll say that your response to NSA and the National Institute of Standards is “it depends”. Let’s just go down the row.
    • Mr. Ramakrishna: So my answer Senator is “yes”. Do standards such as NIST 800-53 and others that define specific guidelines and rules.
    • Senator Wyden: Very good.
    • Mr. Smith: I’m squarely in the “it depends” camp.
    • Senator Wyden: OK.
    • Mr. Smith: For the same reasons that Kevin said.
    • Senator Wyden: OK, I think we have one other person, don’t we?
    • Mr. Kurtz: Yes, and I would say firewalls help, but are insufficient, and as Kevin said, and I would agree with him. There isn’t a breach that we’ve investigated that the company didn’t have a firewall or even legacy antivirus. So, when you look at the capabilities of a firewall, they’re needed, but certainly they’re not be all end goal, and generally they’re a speed bump on the information super highway for the bad guys.
    • Senator Wyden: I’m going to close, and uh, my colleagues are all waiting. Bottom line for me is that multiple agencies were still breached under your watch by hackers exploiting techniques that experts had warned about for years. So, in the days ahead it’s gonna be critical that you give this committee assurances that spending billions of dollars more after there weren’t steps to prevent disastrous attacks that experts had been warning about was a good investment. So, that discussion is something we’ll have to continue, thank you Mr. Chairman.
  • Other thoughts and discussion about the hearing.
  • There was general consensus amongst the witnesses that there’s a strong need for mandatory reporting of cyber attacks

News

News stories to cover this week, include:

Wrapping Up – Shout Outs

Good talk! It will be interesting to see what legislation comes out of Washington in response to SolarWinds.

  • Who’s getting shout outs this week?
  • Closing – 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. 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.

UNSECURITY Episode 119 Show Notes

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OK, we’re back to writing UNSECURITY Podcast show notes. We took eight weeks off from writing show notes because it was a little tedious and we weren’t sure if anyone cared that much anyway. Turns out people care about the show notes, read them, and they want them back!

To make things less tedious and more valuable, we’ll only tell you the topics we plan to talk about. We won’t do the verbatim stuff anymore. If you like the new show notes, let us know (unsecurity@protonmail.com). If you’d like something different, let us know that too!

On to the notes for episode 119 of the UNSECURITY Podcast…

SHOW NOTES – Episode 119 – Wednesday February 17th, 2021

Opening

[Evan] Good morning and welcome to another episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast! This is episode 119, and the date is February 17th, 2021. I’m your host Evan Francen, and joining me is the right side of my brain, Brad Nigh. Good morning Brad.

Quick Catching Up

  • It’s flippin’ cold in MN (and other parts of the country)
  • We need another vacation.

The Meat

News

Wrapping Up – Shout Outs

  • Who’s getting shout outs this week?
  • Closing – 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. Be sure to follow the places we work and do cool things, SecurityStudio (@studiosecurity) and FRSecure (@FRSecure). That’s it. Talk to you all again next week!

…and we’re done.

Episode 110 Show Notes – All Hell Broke Loose

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Welcome! These are the show notes for episode 110 of the UNSECURITY Podcast.

We’re putting the Information Security @ Home series on hold again this week. In case you didn’t know, it seems we have a big problem on our hands. Over the course of this last week (or so), we’ve witnessed events in our industry that we’ve not seen before, in terms of magnitude and impact. It all started (publicly) with FireEye’s announcement of an intrusion and exfiltration of data. FireEye is one of the largest and most respected firms in our industry, so this was big news!

Unfortunately, this was only the tip of the iceberg.

Over the weekend, we learned of two more really significant breaches; one at the U.S. Treasury Department and the other at the U.S. Commerce Department. On Monday (12/14), all hell sort of broke loose when we learned that these breaches are all related, and the source is SolarWinds. Attackers compromised SolarWinds defenses and inserted malware into their premier product, the Orion platform. Orion is a network management system (NMS) used by thousands of organizations to manage and monitor their IT infrastructure. SolarWinds has become a single source of possible intrusions into ~18,000 other organizations. These intrusions into the other organizations aren’t run of the mill either, these are intrusions using “trusted” software (often) configured with elevated/privileged access. This and will continue to get worse before it gets better.

Seems 2020 isn’t done 2020ing yet. The end of 2020 countdown at the time of this writing:

Other things? Yes, or course!

There are always many, many things going on around here (SecurityStudio and FRSecure). One very newsworthy event included the announcement from the State of North Dakota. North Dakota has made our S2Me (personal information security risk assessment) available for all state residents and will use it to help their citizens be more secure at home! One down, and 49 left to go!

Alright, on to it. Brad’s leading the discussion this week, and these are his notes. GOOD NEWS, we’ve invited our good friend Oscar Minks to join us as we delve in to the whole SolarWinds debacle.

SHOW NOTES – Episode 110

Date: Tuesday December 15th, 2020

Episode 109 Topics

Opening

[Brad] Hey there! Thank you for tuning in to this episode the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 110, the date is December 15th, 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] Also joining us this morning is another good friend and co-worker, Oscar Minks. Good morning Oscar.

[Oscar] Cue Oscar.

Quick Catchup

[Brad] As if 4th quarter wasn’t crazy enough we had the SolarWinds news break this week.  Before we dig into that let’s catch up and see how we are all doing with just over 2 weeks left in the year. What’s new?

Transition

Information Security @ Home
All Hell Broke Loose

[Brad] Well, we planned to do more security at home stuff, but as I said a couple weeks ago, 2020 won’t stop 2020’ing.

Topics

  • SolarWinds breach (only the beginning)
  • The timeline (FireEye announcement)
  • FireEye, U.S. Government, (possibly) 425 of the Fortune 500, and (probably) 18,000 organizations.
  • What happened?
  • What are the ramifications of all this?
  • What do you need to do?
  • What do we need to do?

Discussion between Brad, Evan, and Oscar

[Brad] 2020 is not going quietly into the night, is it? Alright, moving on for now.

News

[Brad] Amazingly SolarWinds wasn’t the only news in the last week. We probably won’t have time to get to all of these but they are good reads and good to stay on top of.

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Brad] That’s it for episode 110. Thank you Evan and Oscar! Who you got a shoutout for today?

[Evan & Oscar] 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 @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!

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!

UNSECURITY Podcast – Ep 103 Show Notes – PsyberReslience Project Pt. 2

/in /by

Happy Tuesday (again)!

There are always 100s of things to talk about each week, and if you’re ADHD like me, you know how hard it can be to stay focused on one thing for too long!

Here are a few things that are top of mind right now:

  • Security ABCs:
  • Election is next week. Please vote. Regardless of who you vote for, you have a voice. The voice might seem insignificant, but when millions of voices speak together, you have something special. This election season has been crazy, just like 2020 has been crazy. I’m looking forward to it being over, so we can return our focus to serious issues facing all of us.
  • Last week on the Security Shit Show, we talked about election security. The title of the show was “Is My Vote Secure?”. This week it’s Chris Roberts‘ topic, and he hasn’t announced it yet. Stay tuned!
  • Business is good – FRSecure is running at or near full capacity and SecurityStudio is serving people well with simple, fundamental, and effective information security risk tools. Good things! FRSecure is hiring BTW.
  • Incidents and calls for our incident response team continue to roll in. There was an incident that occurred this past weekend. Sadly, the way the incident was handled by the client provided good examples of what NOT to do. I’ll right a separate blog post on this story later, but here’s two things you need to do RIGHT NOW. Drop what you’re doing and make sure you’re squared away on:
    1. Check your incident response plan and be sure you know who to call.
      • Double-check the contact information.
      • Is there 24×7 response? Incidents will inevitably happen at the worst time.
      • Who do you call, and who do you call first? Your incident responders, your insurance provider, your legal team, executive management, law enforcement, or…?
    2. Make sure your preferred 3rd-party incident handler/provider is on your insurance provider’s approved list for reimbursement.
      • You waste precious time, energy, and money when you don’t know.
      • Engaging with a 3rd-party incident responder who isn’t on the list will force you into declined reimbursements and/or changed providers (losing more time).
  •  Not a sales push at all, but here’s what FRSecure provides. At a minimum, it makes sense to register with your incident responder (See: IR Registration Services).

  • Not digging the cold weather, but I do live in Minnesota, so…

Episode 102 Quick Recap

Originally, we weren’t planning on making the discussion with Neal O’Farrell into a series, but the talk in episode 102 was too AWESOME! Brad was out sick for the show, but Neal and I had a great talk about his 40(ish) years in our industry, his background growing up in Ireland, his organization (the PsyberResilience Project), our personal mental health issues (stress, burnout, etc.), and mental health in our industry. This is a serious issue in our industry, and we’re not doing a good enough job in tackling our problems.

I’m VERY excited to welcome Neal back again! We’ll talk about resources people can use to improve their lives. Sure to be another great discussion!

These are my (Evan) notes.

SHOW NOTES – Episode 103

Date: Tuesday October 27th, 2020

Episode 103 Topics

  • Opening
  • Special Guest – Neal O’Farrell from the PsyberReslience Project
    • Recap episode 102 – Where we left off.
    • Mental Health Discussion.
    • Specific self-help approaches, what we’ve learned from trying them.
    • Other resources and what you can do to help.
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast! This is episode 103, the date is October 27th, 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, for the second week in a row is our good friend and founder of the PsyberResilience Project, Neal O’Farrell. Good morning Neal.

[Neal] Cue Neal.

[Evan] How are you guys today? What’s new?

Quick Catch-up

Discussion about any current events, life or otherwise…

Transition

 

Special Guest – Neal O’Farrell from the PsyberReslience Project

[Evan] Neal, thanks for joining us for the podcast again this week. Last week we had a great talk. So great, in fact, we didn’t leave any time for news stuff. No matter though, people can always read news things for themselves.

Anyway, we talked about your background, both of us shared our personal struggles with mental health, and we talked about your organization (the PsyberResilience Project). This week Brad’s joining us, and we’re going to focus on specific self-help approaches that we’ve tried. Before we jump in, Brad, did you get a chance to listen to last week’s podcast?

[Brad] Cue Brad.

[Evan] What did you think about it?

[Brad] Cue Brad.

[Evan] Great! Let’s dig in.

Begin Discussion

Topics to discuss (or ideas):

  • Recap episode 102 – Where we left off.
  • Mental Health Discussion.
  • Specific self-help approaches, what we’ve learned from trying them.
  • Other resources and what you can do to help.

Discuss whatever else comes to mind.

[Evan] Excellent discussion, and I’m sure our listeners found value in it!

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

News

[Evan] Some interesting nation-state stuff caught my attention this week. God knows, there’s always plenty of nation-state stuff going on!

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] Great! Episode 103 is just about complete. Thanks guys! Neal, it was great having you on the show again this week. I’m looking forward to working together to make our industry better. Brad, always happy when you’re here. Glad you’re feeling better this week!

Any shout outs for either of you?

[Brad and/or Neal] 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.

Neal, remind our listeners again how they can get in touch with you.

[Neal] Cue Neal.

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 102 Show Notes – PsyberReslience Project

/in /by

Happy Tuesday (again)!

There are always 100s of things to talk about each week, and if you’re ADHD* like me, you know how hard it can be to stay focused on one thing for too long!

Here are a few things that are top of mind right now:

  • Security ABCs – I’ve been writing the information security ABCs the last week or two. This is a journey through the basics and fundamentals of information security. The “experts” can use the reminders and the inexperienced can use the direction (I think). The reception has been great so far, and I love the comments I’ve been getting, in my LinkedIn feed and on Twitter! So far, I’m through “D”. Stay tuned for “E” and “F” which are both scheduled for this week.
  • Election is only two weeks away – Have you already voted or are you planning to? If not, shame. Every U.S. citizen should voice their support for who they want leading this country. If you’re like me, I’m not wild about either of the two leading candidates, but it won’t stop me from casting a vote for who I think is best (out of my limited options). Last week, we talked about election security in episode 101. The notes for that episode have some good resources in them.
  • Disinformation is rampant – Last Thursday, Ryan Cloutier, Chris Roberts, and I opened our three-part series about election disinformation on the Security Shit Show. This first episode was titled “Disunited States of America (Election Disinformation)” and despite our share of technical difficulties, it was a great talk!
  • Business is good – FRSecure is running at near full capacity and SecurityStudio is serving people well with simple, fundamental, and effective information security risk tools. Good things! FRSecure is hiring BTW.
  • Cold/Winter

Lot’s of blessings, despite the crazy society we’re living in.

*Speaking of ADHD, mental health is a serious issue in our society and our industry. Helping people with mental health disorders is important for all of us, and it’s a cause that I’m deeply committed to. This is the topic for today’s show.

I’m VERY excited to welcome a special guest this week. He’s the Founder of the PsyberReslience Project, and a long time information security advisor and expert; Neal O’Farrell!

On to the show! Brad is out with a sinus infection (or something), so it’s just me and our guest. These are my notes.

SHOW NOTES – Episode 102

Date: Tuesday October 20th, 2020

Episode 102 Topics

  • Opening
  • Special Guest – Neal O’Farrell from the PsyberReslience Project
    • Introduction to Neal
    • About the PsyberReslience Project
    • Mental Health Discussion
    • What can we do to help?
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the UNSECURITY Podcast! This is episode 102, the date is October 20th, 2020, and I’m Evan Francen, your host.

Unfortunately, Brad Nigh, my good friend and regular co-host, is out with a sinus infection (I think) today. So, it’s me flying solo, but not really.

I’m REALLY excited to introduce you to a great guy and tremendous asset to the information security community; Neal O’Farrell.

Hi Neal.

[Neal] Cue Neal.

Special Guest – Neal O’Farrell from the PsyberReslience Project

[Evan] Neal, thanks for joining us for the podcast. Tell us about you and your journey through the information security industry.

Begin Discussion

Topics to discuss (or ideas):

  • Neal’s background.
  • The PsyberResilience Project
    • Its purpose.
    • Why Neal started it.
    • What makes it different?
    • Current initiatives and goals.
    • How can people find you?
  • Mental Health
    • What’s wrong with our industry, in terms of mental health?
    • Have problems gotten worse, especially with today’s current events?
    • Have we fixed/solved anything?
    • Personal mental health issues.
    • What do we need to do?
  • What we’re doing together (SecurityStudio and the PsyberResilience Project

Discuss whatever else comes to mind.

[Evan] Thank you Neal! Great discussion and I’m thrilled to be doing good things with you.

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

News

[Evan] Just one large news reference for this week. From the Register:

First, Patch Tuesday. Now, Oh Hell, Monday: Microsoft emits bonus fixes for Visual Studio, Windows 10 security bugs – https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/19/security_in_brief/

[Evan] For the most part, I like reading the Register for news. Neal, do you have a favorite news source in our industry?

[Neal] Cue Neal.

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] Great! Episode 102 is just about complete. Thanks Neal! It was great having you join us this week and I’m very happy to have you fighting on the good side. Once again, how can we help?

[Neal] Cue Neal.

[Evan] Always grateful for our listeners! We’re behind on email still, but we’ll get there! 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.

Neal, do you have a way you prefer people get in touch with you?

[Neal] Cue Neal.

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!