7 Minute Security

Hey friends, it has been a  long time since we talked about eating our own security dog food .  However, I couldn't be more excited about some  big ways we've moved the 7MinSec security program forward, including the release of our shiny new trust center .  Enjoy!

Hey friends! I've got some personal and work travel this week, so I'm skipping the tangents (mostly) and jumping straight into something I'm nerdily excited about: Baby's First n8n . If you're not familiar, n8n is a platform for chaining together and automating just about anything your heart desires – and naturally, my heart desires automating away the boring parts of pentesting. In this episode I...

Hey friends! Today's tale of pentest pwnage is brought to you by four hours of sleep, a large mint hot cocoa, and unhealthy levels of giggity. There's a very good reason for all three, but you'll have to hang out to the end of the episode to hear it. First, let's talk about an escalation path I've never walked before: A really tight network is a beautiful and terrible thing — this client went from...

Hey friends! We've been on a bit of a Tales of Pentest Pwnage bender lately, so let's keep it rolling with Part 90. (And Mom, relax — this is not one pentest story chopped into 90 parts.) Today is less of an A-to-Z story and more a pile of tips and tricks pulled from a recent string of SCCM-flavored internals — plus a tangent about a video game and a little robot Claude and I built to get my life...

Hey friends! Today is a tale of pentest pwnage episode, and this one features a path to escalation I have  never  seen before – one I could only find few references on the entire Internet. It happened completely by accident, but during the report readout I'm absolutely going to say it was intentional and that I totally meant to do that. Here's what we cover: A client that's actually doing the thin...

Hey friends! Today I'm talking about Baby's First Neo — and to be crystal clear, I don't mean Keanu, and I don't mean the R&B guy with the hat. I mean the AI-powered pentest assistant from our pals at  ProjectDiscovery . Also to be crystal clear: this is  not  a sponsorship, ad, partnership or anything of the sort. Just me sharing a thing I like so you can decide if you like it too. Here's what we...

Hello friends! Today's tale of pentest pwnage isn't a start-to-finish march to DA – it's me finally emptying out the backlog of "gosh, I've  got  to share this next time" internal network tips that have been rattling around in my head. Here's what we get into: Don't skip the boring stuff.  Even when I'm testing the same network for the third or fourth time, I've got an ever-growing list of things...

Hey friends! Today's another slice of our  Securing Your Family During and After a Disaster  miniseries, and fair warning — it's a bit of a Friday mood-ruiner. It's been almost two months since my dad passed, and we've moved into a phase nobody prepared me for. Here's what we get into: The paperwork nobody thinks about  — my mom still doesn't know what her monthly income looks like now, and the an...

Hey friends! Today's episode has a new-to-me toy up front and some podcast housekeeping on the back half – all recorded with a raging case of the anxious parent giggidies, because my son Atticus had a big audition and I was minutes away from finding out whether we were doing tears of joy or tears of sadness. Baby's first Cloudflare Tunnel Not a sponsor, not an ad – just a thing I'd heard about for...

Hey friends! Today's episode is a two-parter: some security stuff up front, and then a big ol' personal celebration on the back half. If you're strictly here for the security bits, I love you and you're free to bail after the first half. If you're here for both, God bless you. Part 1: Kicking the tires on Insight Recon What it is:   Insight Recon  is an Active Directory security assessment tool ou...

Hey friends! Today's episode comes to you from a parking lot in the rain, with a mint hot cocoa in hand and your host absolutely dragging his butt (D-R-A-G-G-I-N-G, not D-R-A-G-O-N – I've never seen a dragon's butt and can't speak to how mine compares). I've had a bunch of internals back to back lately and I'm basically a drooling dog who found a frisbee and refuses to put it down. Sleep be darned...

Hey friends! Welcome back to another Tales of Pentest Pwnage — my favorite mini-series where I share the good, the bad, and the "why didn't I check THAT first?!" moments from real-world engagements. Today's story has a little bit of everything: a legit path to domain admin, some late-night rabbit holes, a lesson in humility, and a villain you've definitely met before. (Spoiler: it's DNS.) A couple...

Hey friends! Fair warning: today's episode is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster — we've got a big security win, some honest lab feedback, and a very personal share about my dad's funeral. Buckle up. CARTP  certified, baby!  — I'm officially a  Certified Azure Red Team Professional (CARTP) , courtesy of the folks at  Altered Security . It's been a long time coming (I originally signed up for the...

Hey friends! Still your grieving pal over here, but also your swarming friend and Protecting My Network Edge host — because this week I've been tinkering with something called  Project Swarm  and I've got my diapers on regarding it, but I really, really like what I see so far. Then, fair warning, I flip on the tangent light and verbally barf up some personal stuff at the end. I'll make the hand-of...

Hey friends! Still your grieving pal over here, but also your happy hacking host — because today we're diving into baby's first  Dracarys ! (Yes, I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. Yes, I'm going to keep saying it anyway.) Quick housekeeping: A few days ago I published a mini-series episode from our  How to Secure Your Family During and After a Disaster  series, where I shared the news that my d...

Hey friends! This is a tough one to write. My dad passed away on Friday, and instead of the hacker-y tech episode I had planned, I pivoted to something more personal — another installment of our "Securing Your Family During and After a Disaster" series. I talk pretty raw and transparently today about loss, grief, and the practical stuff that makes a hard situation just a little less hard. Fair war...

Hello friends! It's been over a year since we did a dedicated mental health episode, so today I'm doing a big catch-up and running through my 7-point plan for being a more mentally secure me. None of this is professional medical advice (I am most definitely not a doctor or therapist — well, actually, I  am  in therapy, but that's tip #5), so take what's useful and leave what isn't. Terms and condi...

Hello friends! I've been on a bit of an AI agent journey lately, and today I'm sharing my experience ditching OpenClaw and going all-in on  Hermes  — a self-hosted AI agent built by  Nous Research . A  Network Chuck video  sold me on it, I wiped my Mac Mini (again), and baby's first Hermes adventure began! Here's what we get into today: Why I left OpenClaw  — After getting the Mac Mini set up, Ope...

Hey friends! Backups are not as cool as pentesting, but boy do they matter when things go sideways. This week I'm sharing how a Proxmox backup disk space meltdown led me to a completely overhauled — and honestly pretty bulletproof — backup setup for both home and work. Claude played a big role in helping me sort it all out. Here's what we get into: The backup history tour  — I've been through Cras...

Hey friends! Today we're going deep on external network pentesting — something I realize we've barely touched in however many episodes we've done. I'm currently in a long stretch of back-to-back external assessments, so it felt like a good time to talk about it. Here's what we get into: Scoping headaches  — why the old "count your public IPs and multiply by a big hourly rate" approach drives me cr...

Hello friends! Today's a hybrid episode — some security content up top about a new certification I've kicked off, followed by an aggressively quick trip to Tangent Town. Feel free to bail after the security stuff if tangents aren't your thing! The security part: starting CARTP I've started the  Certified Azure Red Team Professional  course from Altered Security ( enterprisesecurity.io ). It's the...

Hey friends! Quasi-vacation week over here, so today's episode is lighter and more personal: just a story about how I turned my phone into a " brick " (kind of) and what that's done for my mental health over the past week. The product is called  Brick  ( getbrick.com ). Not sponsored, no discount code — just something I've genuinely been enjoying. It's a $50 NFC dongle + app that lets you "brick"...

Hello friends! Picking up the AI-automation series from a couple weeks back — here's another batch of scripts and integrations that have been giving me precious minutes (and sanity) back. Yes, I had to upgrade to Claude Max. No, I'm not trying to automate myself out of a job — just freeing up bandwidth for the more interesting parts of work/life. QuickBooks invoice automation:  Got tired of the ei...

Hey friends! Today's another Tales of Pentest Pwnage! Quick tangent first on a couple side projects: I've got a music thing at  quack.house  (like the duck noise, not the drug) and a podcast with my dancer son Atticus at  DadOfADancer.com . Speaking of Atticus — he just landed a spot in Master Ballet Academy's summer program in Phoenix, and I am a very proud dance dad over here. OK, on to the pent...

Hey friends! This week's episode is "Baby's First  OpenClaw " – basically me shouting into the void hoping a smart listener will DM me and explain why this thing is supposed to be life-changing. Because right now? I'm a little underwhelmed. Here's the journey so far: The Mac mini quest:  After seeing OpenClaw all over my feeds (people curing diseases! solving crimes!), I caved and impulse-bought a...