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Episode 108 Show Notes – Information Security @ Home

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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!

Episode 107 Show Notes – Happy Thanksgiving

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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!

Episode 106 Show Notes – Infosec @ Home

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Hey there, it’s time for episode 106 of the UNSECURITY Podcast!

Short introduction today. Too much going on to get too wordy for now.

We’ll just jump right in to the show notes, if you don’t mind. This is Evan, I’m leading the discussion today, and these are my notes…

SHOW NOTES – Episode 106

Date: Tuesday November 17th, 2020

Episode 106 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up
  •  Information Security @ Home
    • So, what’s the big deal?
    • Taking inventory (what do you got?)
    • What do we (Brad and I) do?
    • S2Me – Today and a sneak peek in v3
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Hey there! Thank you for tuning in to this episode the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 106, the date is November 17th 2020, and I’m your host, Evan Francen. Joining me as usual is my good friend and co-worker, Brad Nigh. Good morning Mr. Nigh.

[Brad] Cue Brad.

[Evan] Man, I haven’t talked to you since last week on the podcast. What’s up, what’s new?

[Brad] Cue Brad.

Quick Catchup

It’s 4th quarter, so I’m guessing we’re both running pretty low on fuel. Personally, I have a cruddy attitude this morning, so this’ll be fun.

Topics:

  • Brad’s stuff. What’s he been up to, what’s he working on, and what’s a day in the life of Brad look like?
  • Great talk with Oscar Minks (last week’s guest) yesterday morning; U.S. incident response capabilities, cyberinsurance brokenness, etc.
  • Security Sh*t Show – what’s new here.
  • The book (UNSECURITY) is now in the Cybersecurity Cannon!
  • Maybe another thing or two.

Transition

Information Security @ Home

[Evan] So, this weekend, I figured I go grab another Raspberry Pi to play with. I want to build a plug and play home information security device. First thing, figure out how to compile a good inventory of everything on my home network.

This is where the story begins…

Topics:

  • So, what’s the big deal?
  • Taking inventory (what do you got?)
  • What do we (Brad and I) do?
  • Tools, devices, etc. that could help
  • S2Me – Today and a sneak peek in v3

Begin Discussion

[Evan] Great discussion. Here are some news stories.

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 106. Thank you Brad! Who you got a shoutout for today?

[Brad] We’ll see…

[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!

UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 98 Show Notes

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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!

UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 97 Show Notes

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Good morning! Happy Tuesday!

Thinking Brad is back again this week. I dig that because I dig Brad!

Last week, Brad was out feeling sick. This led to a solo recording of the UNSECURITY Podcast; go check out episode 96 if you want to hear me do my most awkward podcast yet.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We’ve been very busy around here, and it sounds like many of you are too. There are many good signs recently that the economy may be rebounding. The positives:

  • Elections – although the next 50ish days are going to be chaotic, there will be some settling in after the elections are complete. Regardless of which way you swing (blue or red), the completion of an election cycle brings a sense of stability.
  • COVID-19 – there’s been a lot of positive news about medical treatments and possible vaccines. The sooner we can put the pandemic behind us, the better. Once the pandemic is behind us (closer with each passing day), the economy should settle.
  • Markets – the stock and housing markets have held there own through all the chaos of 2020. This is a good sign of good things ahead in our opinion.

Busy is good, and it would take a small book to tell you all the good things going on at SecurityStudio and FRSecure! SecurityStudio is well on it’s way to being a very healthy and profitable SaaS company and FRSecure is exploring expansion (acquisition, merger, and/or geographic expansion).

I sincerely hope you and your family are well!

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Today’s topic is about our divisiveness in world today and what it means to our industry. We’ll be careful to be respectful of other people’s opinions as we navigate these waters, and this may be a good segue into a future series we’ve been thinking about recently; “Politics and Information Security”.

Let’s get on it. The show notes…

SHOW NOTES – Episode 97

Date: Tuesday, September 8st, 2020

Episode 97 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up
  • Why Can’t We All Just Along?
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Good morning everyone. Thanks for tuning in. The date is September 15th, 2020 and this is episode 97 of the UNSECURITY Podcast! I’m your host, Evan Francen, and back with me this week is my good friend, Brad Nigh! Good morning Brad.

[Brad] Good things from this dude.

[Evan] Well, you were out ill last week. How you feeling? What’s new?

Catching Up

[Evan] Regular listeners to our show know that Brad and I normally start off with catching up with each other. Let’s do it.

Topics:

[Evan] Did you get a chance to hear last week’s episode? It was definitely awkward doing the show alone for the first time!

Transition

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

[Evan] It’s crazy how much information security reflects life and vice versa. I’ve been thinking about what our next series should be, and I’m always interested in tackling serious topics. We’re in the middle of an election cycle right now and I can’t remember a time when our country has been more divided than it is today. Me being me, I want to talk about it with you (Brad).

What are your first thoughts about the divisiveness in our country today?

[Brad] Chimin’ in.

[Evan] Here’s what I’d like to explore with you:

  • General divisiveness (political, social, information security, etc.)
    • Intimidation/bullying for sharing your thoughts, opinions, disagreements, etc.
    • When you find someone being a jerk or speaking/writing nonsense.
  • Outside Influences to Information Security
    • Today’s political climate.
    • Where do we find facts vs. opinions?
  • Within Information Security
    • How do we think our divisiveness affects information security?
    • Putting down others (competition, other professionals, etc.).
    • The divide between us and the business.
  • A couple of podcast reviews.

 

[Evan] I’m thinking about doing a series titled “Politics and Information Security”. We could interview special guests form both sides of the isle and get their opinions on all sorts of things. What would set us apart is respectfulness. We would do this in a way that respects opinions without attacking and bullying. This could be a great opportunity to set an example for others on how to discuss hot topics without beating each other up. What do you think?

[Brad] We’ll see what he thinks…

[Evan] The timing seems right to do a series like this. Alright. More to come on that! Let’s do newsy stuff now.

News

[Evan] Here’s some news I thought was interesting:

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] OK. That’s about it. Episode 97 is almost a wrap. Brad, any shout outs this week?

[Brad] Shout out…

[Evan] It’s nice to have you back man. 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!

WARNING – Foul language

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For those of you who are offended by foul language, please stop reading OR continue reading at your own risk.

The Security Shit Show

You knew about this, right? Well, maybe. In case you didn’t, I’ll tell you a bit about it now.

NOTE: We’ve already done ten shows, I’ll post another article highlighting the shows we’ve done so far.

The Security Shit Show is a live video/podcast that three friends put together; me, Ryan Cloutier, and Chris Roberts. We’re information security veterans (some call us “experts”) with more than 70 years of combined experience who have a lot of shit to get off our chest. The information security industry isn’t all hunky-dory; we’re doing a lot of things wrong and people are suffering because of it.

You can be the “fly on the wall” or you can interact with us live (we keep the chat going).

Here’s the lowdown for our show…

Name

The Security Shit Show

You can take this name two ways; either we’re calling security a shit show, or we’re discussing security shit on the show. The answer is “yes”.

Purpose

Provide people with the real shit going down in our industry, and always discuss ideas about what people can do to make things better.

This is not a commercial podcast, meaning we won’t be hocking product or taking sponsors. We suppose this could change sometime in the future, but probably not.

Format

Three experienced and (a little) crazy information security veterans talking real shit, unfiltered, and raw.

  • This is no holds barred. The show starts fast with a topic, and the three experts get into the shit right away.
  • Nothing but truth and honest opinion, coming from the combined ~70 years of experience.
  • For each show, one of the three of us brings a topic.
    • This rotates each show. For example, Chris brings a topic one show, Evan brings a topic the next show, Ryan brings a topic the show after that, then back to Chris again.
    • First half of the show is raw, honest, hard, discussion about the topic.
    • Second half of the show is cool down time which is probably good for Evan’s blood pressure. 😉 This is where we discuss ideas, solutions and advice for our listeners. If we don’t have any good advice, we’ll say it and ask listeners to give us some to share.
    • Guests maybe occasionally welcomed.
  • This is an adult show. Swearing is permitted, but not required. We’re just going to be who we really are. If we let an occasional “fuck”, “shit”, “asshole”, or “wanker” out, so be it. There are certain swear words that will never be used, but the three of us don’t use those anyway.
  • This show isn’t politically correct, but it’s also not intended to offend anyone (except maybe those who need to be offended).
  • There’s no racism, no religious BS, maybe a teeny-weeny bit of politics, but certainly no discrimination of any kind.
  • The focus is helping people with our raw take on things and a sense of humor.
  • Our information security industry is screwed up and helping to fix it is the ultimate focus.
Length

We plan for a minimum of an hour, but we don’t really care. We’ll keep talking as long as there’s something relevant and (somewhat) valuable to say. When we’re done talking, we’ll be done talking.

Schedule

Weekly. We do the shows live each Thursday night @ 10pm CDT.

If you can’t make the live show, the recording is available immediately afterwards here; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIt8MkGaS-y-BKGJ9wrirFA?.

The podcast is usually published on Monday mornings, and you can find these here; https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-security-shit-show/id1513813641

Topics

Usually, we publish the topic ahead of time on our blog (https://securityshitshow.com) and in our Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/security_shit).

Tech

We’ll be talking to each other from the road or our homes. Chris’ home base is Colorado, and if you know him, he travels often (but not as much now with COVID-19). Ryan does an adequate amount of travel too. Evan, he’s random, so we won’t know where he’s at on any given day.

So, the tech consists of what we can bring around with us.

Other Stuff

We anticipate a lot of activity related to our show, so I’ll try to post these things as they become available.

Follow us on Twitter

Not sure if Twitter is good for our health, but we do some tweeting everyone once in a while anyway.

Our first episode (“Security Shit Show – Episode #1“) was recorded on May 14th, 2020, and we’ve done another nine episodes since. Go check it out!

One more thing, even though Evan and Chris have badass beards, you don’t need to have a bad ass beard to be one of us. For one, look at Ryan. For two, there are many amazing information security ladies out there too!

The UNSECURITY Podcast – Episode 80 Show Notes – Zero Trust

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We write our show notes either at the end of the week (Friday) or at the very beginning of the next (Sunday). It’s easier to remember the things that happened during the week on Friday than Sunday, that’s for sure! Only one day away (Saturday), and it’s easy to forget all that we did.

Most weeks are crazy, for us at FRSecure and SecurityStudio, and for people in general.

Normal(ish)

Are you feeling like things are slowly returning to normal? I am, and it’s great news! Personally, I don’t like the term “new normal”. I think I don’t like it because I feel like people have twisted it to serve their own desires and/or opinions without any factual basis. Normal is normal, and the greatest abnormality (in my opinion) has been our lack of in-person contact. We’ve been built, or wired, for analog personal interaction. Digital, online interaction will never substitute for it, and the longer we go without it, the more mentally unhealthy we become.

Four Things

Last week was a great week! Four cool things stand out in particular:

  1. Last week’s podcast was awesome! I love every opportunity to chat with Brad, and it’s a blessing to hang out every Monday morning. Recording episode 79 was a great way to kick things off last week. If you missed it, we talked about information security in K12, and you should go catch it.
  2. We made great progress in helping state governments last week! Had a great conversation with Minnesota’s CISO, Rohit Tandon, on Wednesday as we discussed third-party information security risk management. This was followed by the scheduling of a similar meeting with the State of New Mexico and joining the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) Cybersecurity Committee on Thursday.
  3. Chris Roberts, Ryan Cloutier, and I did Episode #1 of The Security Shit Show on Thursday night. It was a ton of fun hanging out with these guys! We’re planning to do our episodes/shows live every Thursday night at 10pm CDT, record them for future playback, and use he audio for our podcast. It’s definitely entertaining for our viewers/listeners and therapeutic for us. Be sure to tune in if you can!
  4. The Daily inSANITY Check-ins are still going strong, and this past week was great! People supporting each other and helping where we can is what it’s all about. Come join us when you can.

There were many great things about last week, but these were the four that came to mind when I sat down to write these show notes.

Speaking of show notes, let’s get to it! Today we’re going to talk about Zero Trust; what it is, why it’s a hot topic today, and what you should be doing about it.

SHOW NOTES – Episode 80

Date: Monday, May 18th, 2020

Episode 80 Topics

  • Opening
  • Catching Up (as per usual)
  • Zero Trust
  • News
  • Wrapping Up – Shout outs
Opening

[Evan] Hey everyone! Welcome to the UNSECURITY Podcast. This is episode 80, the date is May 18th, 2020, and I’m Evan Francen. With me today is my co-host, Brad Nigh. Good morning Brad!

[Brad] We’ll see what sort of mood Brad is in this morning…

[Evan] We’ve got a good show planned today! There’s this thing called “zero trust” that people are talking about, and I thought it’d be good for you and I to discuss it. Personally, I’ve received a lot of questions about it, and I’m sure you have too Brad. Like always, before we dig in, let’s catch up. What were some highlights for you from last week and how was your weekend?

Catching Up

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

Zero Trust

[Evan] A simple Google search of Zero Trust turns up “About 691,000,000 results”. A Google search of “Zero Trust” (with quotes) turns up “About 1,940,000 results“. So, clearly there are a lot of people who know what it means, right? Here’s some returns from the first page of search results:

The fact that there are so many “what is zero trust?” search returns might be a hint that people are confused. Let’s tackle this!

Zero Trust Discussion

Let’s try to clear some of the confusion:

  • What is Zero Trust?
  • Is it really new?
  • Is Zero Trust possible?
  • If I want Zero Trust, what do I need to do?
  • What common mistakes should I look out for?

[Evan] Alright. Good talk Brad. Thanks for sharing your insight! I think our listeners have a clearer picture of Zero Trust and what it means to them. If they have additional questions or comments, they can always contact us for more!

News

[Evan] News stuff! What the heck happened in the world last week? Let’s see…

I found four articles that caught my attention. Let’s talk about them!

Wrapping Up – Shout outs

[Evan] Never a shortage of things to talk about in this industry is there? Well, episode 80 of the UNSECURITY Podcast is just about a wrap. Brad, you have any shoutouts?

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

[Evan] Here’s mine…

[Evan] Can’t say enough thanks to our listeners! Crazy how we run into you in all sorts of places. Stay safe and let us know how we can help you. 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. Thinking about coming to hang out at the Daily inSANITY Check-in? You can follow this on Twitter too at @InSanityIn.

There you go, have a great week!