Listen to Talos security experts as they bring their hot takes on current security topics and Talos research to the table. Along the way Lurene, Matt, and Mitch and a rotating chair of special guests will talk about anything (and we mean anything) that's on their minds, from the latest YouTube trends to Olympic curling etiquette. New episodes every other Thursday.
More hijinks and silliness ensue in the second episode of the BWT B Team podcast. Joe shares his frustration with being involuntarily removed from a social media platform, Hazel conducts a live experiment, Dave talks about his newfound addiction to crossword puzzles and its parallels to cybersecurity, and Bill recommends the game "Nine Lives" and shares his top books of the year.
Joe also briefly chats about his work customizing a tabletop cybersecurity game for humanitarian organizations. And we do a shoutout to Talos’ research on vulnerable Windows drivers and proxy chain abuse.
Find the latest research at https://blog.talosintelligence.com
With Mitch, Matt and Lurene currently stuck in the void, the Beers with Talos B team duly elect themselves to reopen the sacred BWT airwaves with their own brand of nonsense.
Hazel, Joe, Bill and Dave each share the security rabbit hole they went down this week - from analyst in-jokes about AI, oligarchs and bad actors refusing to learn good op sec, the songs you'd play to send a message mid-hack, and the long awaited return of Turkey Lurkey Man, TM. Dave's insane creation is back with an exciting new take on Thanksgiving.
For all the latest and greatest Talos research not featuring six degrees of Ally McBeal, head to https://blog.talosintelligence.com
Power grid security expert Joe Marshall joins the crew today to talk all things, well, power grid security. But not before he gets an impromptu pop quiz from Matt in the roundtable.
Joe then tells some stories from his days working in electric utility, deploying new systems and his experiences with pentesting teams ("Wow, y'all need to stop!"). Plus, the team ask Joe about the risks with both aging infrastructure versus newer, smarter based infrastructure. And what happens when threat actors target critical infrastructure?
Matt, Mitch and Lurene discuss if the internet is better or worse today than it was 20 years ago. This leads them to discuss their various career paths, with Lurene talking about how she got into vulnerability exploitation and how Matt got into threat intelligence. And why neither of those paths would be recommended today. Lurene and Matt then clash about threat research and and the importance of approaching things from a "how do I be a problem" perspective.
You will no doubt have seen the advisories published over the last few weeks concerning Volt Typhoon's malicious activities. In this episode, JJ Cummings joins the crew to discuss the background to this threat actor, their impact on the threat landscape, and the covertly strategic (and specific) nature of their operations. The team also discusses their recommendations for defenders, particularly for critical infrastructure organizations.
The CISA statement on Volt Typhoon can be found here https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa24-038a
Matt, Mitch and Lurene sit down to discuss “random stuff from Reddit” (don’t be put off – they’re all genuinely interesting security questions!). Topics range from password managers and how password security guidance has become outdated, how to ‘self-learn’ in cybersecurity, and thoughtful approaches towards security incidents.
Before that, the team comes up with a prank to pull on their co-workers and bring some joy and chaos to Webex meetings. And Lurene reflects on what advice she would give high schoolers today.
As Matt says at the end of the episode, we want to hear from you! Get in touch at beerswithtalos@cisco.com
Here's the video 'Hi Ren' that Matt mentions at the outset https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_nc1IVoMxc
Mitch, Matt and Lurene were almost about to be in the same physical space at the same time to record an episode, and then Lurene couldn't make it...so we made this instead! Mitch is joined by Azim Khodjibaev from the Talos Threat Intelligence and Interdiction team to rapid-fire interview a bunch of Talos employees who happened to be around the Maryland office. Hear from teammates from all walks of life and areas of expertise about what they've loved working on in 2023 and how they feel their work has changed the broader security landscape.
We recorded this episode AFTER Thanksgiving, so you'll need to forgive us for the amount of Thanksgiving talk that doesn't actually apply until Thanksgiving 2024. It all evens out in the end because the annual "Ranksgiving" from special guest David Liebenberg results in the creation of TurkeyLurkey Man. Then, TurkeyLurkey Man helps the rest of the gang recap the top malware and attacker trends from 2023. If you'd like to read more, download the full Talos Year in Review report here. We also discussed the recent CNN article and Talos blog post on our work to protect Ukraine's power grid.
It's that time of the quarter again when we sit down to look at what we learned over the past three months. Caitlin Huey from the Talos Threat Interdiction Team joins the show for this special look at the latest Talos Incident Response Quarterly Trends report. Caitlin's team helps compile these reports and digs through mountains of data to find out what defenders can learn from what Talos IR is seeing live in the field. If you want to learn more about this report, you can read it on our blog, or watch the Talos IR On Air video here.