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The UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 83 Show Notes – It’s About People

/in /by

Ever have so many things going on that you can’t remember what happened last week? Yeah, that’s where I’m at right now.

Pretty sure Brad’s in the same place I am. So, rather than recapping everything (or trying to), I’ll just get to the show notes.

These are Brad’s show notes this week…

SHOW NOTES – Episode 83

Date: Monday, June 8th, 2020

Episode 83 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up (as per usual)
  • Information Security Isn’t About Information or Security
  • Work, Life, and Mental Health
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Brad] Welcome back! This is episode 83 of the UNSECURITY Podcast, and I’m your host this week, Brad Nigh. Today is June 8th, and joining me this morning as usual is Evan Francen.

[Evan] Regales us with stories from the weekend. Oh God!

[Brad] Before we get going let’s recap our week.

Catching Up

Quick discussion about last week, the weekend, family, safety etc.

[Brad] What would you say you do here Evan?

[Evan] Hmmm. Good question! This outta be interesting.

Information Security Isn’t About Information or Security

Discussion about people, information security, working remote, stress, and overall mental health.

[Brad] Your blog from last Tuesday (Information Security Isn’t About Information or Security) really inspired me for this week’s podcast.  There have been countless articles written about how to secure remote workers so we aren’t going to focus on that, though it will probably come up in the course of this discussion.

Here’s the reality, it’s no secret that InfoSec and IT staff struggle with stress and a healthy work/life balance (Mental Health and Cybersecurity).  There really is no “done for the day”, systems can be attacked or suffer an outage anytime.  Add to that the now nearly 3 months of social distancing and quarantine that add even more stress.  We’ve seen an increase in cyber attacks the last 3 months and if your staff is struggling and has lost focus or is more distracted than usual your risk increases even more. So what can we do about it?  (Disclaimer, neither Evan or I are licensed mental health professionals and this conversation should not be taken as professional advice).

From an information security perspective I think you really captured the increased risks to organizations during this unprecedented time in your blog.

As a leader in an organization the employees’ health is critical, looking at it from a business perspective if they are not able to work we cannot deliver for our customers, but to me that feels cold & cynical.  I really do care for every one of our employees, I have a personal, vested interest in their well-being and want to be aware and in-touch with their status… That has become incredibly difficult during this time when you can’t read them face-to-face.

So what I want to do is talk about how we can be more aware and help reduce these risks.  First is being aware, I found these articles that I thought were really good to help identify and be proactive.

And then some really solid advice for employees, or really anyone feeling additional stress right now.

[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 this week:

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Brad] Alright, that’s it. Episode 83 is a wrap. We got any shout outs this week?

[Evan] We’ll see.

[Brad] Next week is Evan’s show and I think he’s sort of itchin’ to tell us his idea.

[Evan] Yep. Tune in.

[Brad] Thank you to all 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 (B-R-A-D-N-I-G-H) and this other dude is @evanfrancen (just spell his name without a space). Lastly, be sure to follow SecurityStudio (@studiosecurity) and FRSecure (@FRSecure) for goodies and things.

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

The UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 82 Show Notes – World On Fire

/in /by

So, in case you missed it, the world blew up last week. Again.

This time it’s not COVID-19 that takes the headlines, it’s rioting. Rioting that was triggered by (NOT caused by) one of the most disturbing videos I’ve ever watched, that of Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd. As I write this, riots are taking place (or have taken place) in Atlanta, Bakersfield, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas/Fort Worth, Des Moines, Denver, Detroit, District of Columbia, Houston, Los Angeles, Louisville, Memphis, Minneapolis, New York City, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, and San Jose, among many others. The media is reporting riots are even taking place in other countries!

Seems like the world is on fire. While this isn’t the place for us to dig into the debate about racial injustice and inequality, we’ve all got opinions (and I’ll share mine later, in another place/time). The UNSECURITY Podcast is dedicated to information security, so we’ll stay on topic. Today’s current events are hard to process, but a relevant question is, what do current events mean to/for information security? This will be our topic.

I’m not going to recap last week/weekend personal events here either. We might discuss these things a little during the time that Brad and I catch up with each other, but otherwise, we have plenty to discuss in this episode. Let’s get to it!

These are my (Evan) show notes…

SHOW NOTES – Episode 82

Date: Monday, June 1st, 2020

Episode 82 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up (as per usual)
  • World On Fire
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Hey there! Welcome to episode 82 of the UNSECURITY Podcast. Today’s date is June 1st, 2020. Due to a lack of personal hygiene, well mostly a hair cut, I’m your information security chia pet, Evan Francen. Joining me is my good friend and co-host Brad Nigh. Good morning Brad!

[Brad] He wishes all the listeners nothing but the best of mornings!

[Evan] Some serious stuff to talk about in today’s show, but one of the most serious things, for me at least, is checking in with you. How you doing Mr. Nigh?

Catching Up

Quick discussion about last week, the weekend, family, safety etc.

[Brad] Gives us the low down on his haps.

[Evan] I give the low down on my haps. Also, I hit a deer on my motorcycle on Saturday (again). What the?!?! Who does this?

World On Fire

[Evan] It was easy to pick a topic for this week’s show. Just when you think the world couldn’t get any crazier, we encounter the events of last week. There are so many thoughts and emotions running through our heads. Everything from sorrow to anger to frustration and everything in between. We don’t ever want to shy away from tough issues, but we also need to keep things on topic (information security) for the show. What I’d like to do is discuss today’s current events and apply them to what we do. Ultimately, what do all these things mean to information security?

Whatya say Brad, you game?

[Brad] He’s a smart and competitive son of a gun. You know he’s game!

Things to discuss:

  • FRSecure’s Information Security Principle #1; a business is in business to make money.
  • Physical security implications, lessons, ideas, etc.
  • What does this mean for cyber/technical security?
  • Some organizations are targets.
  • Personnel information security implications.
  • If COVID-19 wasn’t enough to motivate better response planning, does this?
  • Whatever other pertinent thoughts come to mind.

[Evan] Great discussion and lots of good advice I think! Let’s do some newsy stuff.

News

[Evan] Even though information security may not be dominating the news, there are still plenty of information security news stories to choose from. Here are three news stories that caught my eye.

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] Alright listeners! That’s episode 82. Brad, who you got a shout out for?

[Brad] Somebody special for sure!

[Evan] Here’s mine…

[Evan] Thank you to all our listeners! You guys are a big deal to us. PLEASE be safe out there; physically, mentally, and electronically. Let us know what you think of this episode or whatever else is on your mind. Send us things (preferably not malware, but whatever) by email at unsecurity@protonmail.com. If you’re the social type, socialize with us on Twitter, I’m @evanfrancen and you can find this Brad guy @BradNigh. If you wanna follow our company’s stuff, you can follow SecurityStudio (@studiosecurity) and FRSecure (@FRSecure) for whatever cool things they’re up to.

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

The UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 81 Show Notes – Hard Truths

/in /by

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!