The Unfair Fight

Summary:   George Piro is best known for being the lone interrogator of Saddam Hussein who succeeded in getting the dictator to spill his secrets. But there is much more to Piro's extraordinary life and career. From escaping war-torn Lebanon to becoming a decorated FBI special agent and professional jiu-jitsu fighter, George's journey is one of courage, dedication, and purpose. Listen as Jon Murch...

Few can say they've jumped out of an airplane with a nuclear device strapped to their body, or can claim to be one of the first Americans on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11. For Phil Reilly, former CIA senior operations officer, elite missions have been the story of his career. Phil joins Jon to discuss his remarkable 29-year run with the CIA and the Army Special Forces training that led to i...

In this concluding segment of a two-part episode, professional BASE jumper and wingsuit pilot Jeb Corliss delves deeper into his remarkable journey of finding purpose through extreme jumping. In Part Two, Jeb describes miraculously surviving a fatal accident and how it transformed his entire outlook on life, imparting invaluable lessons during the desperate seconds when death seemed imminent. Jeb'...

For this first half of two episodes, Jon welcomes professional skydiver and BASE jumper Jeb Corliss to The Unfair Fight.   During their conversation, Jeb recounts some of his most harrowing and death-defying jumps, how he manages and conquers his fears, and what it means to truly live life on the edge.   Jon and Jeb also discuss memorable passages from Jeb’s book, Memoirs From the Edge, in which J...

For this episode of The Unfair Fight , Jon welcomes Bill Priestap, Former Assistant Director , of the FBI Counterintelligence Division .  Bill discusses his love of sports, his experience as a coach, as director of football operations at the University of Michigan , and then later how he used his experience in athletics to end up at the Bureau.   They discuss staying power, the will to succeed , a...

The Unfair Fight welcomes General David H. Petraeus (U.S. Army, Ret.).  General Petraeus talks with Jon about his experience fighting the unfair fight in combat overseas, his journey ascending the ranks of the U.S. Army, and eventually becoming the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. His dedication to effective and strategic leadership has made him successful in the military, in business,...

The Unfair Fight welcomes Matt Solomon, Chief Business Development Officer, Co-Founder of the Channel Program. A leading authority on sales and business development, Matt talks with Jon about his professional journey from the world of start-up, his position as Channel Chief for a multi-billion dollar organization, and now a business owner.  Matt gives expert advice on how vendors and MSPs can bett...

This week, The Unfair Fight welcomes Admiral James “Sandy” Winnefeld. Admiral Winnefeld is a retired United States Navy admiral, now serving as the chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board since May of this year. He shares stories with Blackpoint CEO, Jon Murchison, about his time at the Navy Fight Weapons School while a student, then instructor during the filming of the 1986 blockbust...

The day after Exchange’s zero-day, The Unfair Fight took to LinkedIn Live to record its latest podcast episode. Robel Campbell, Blackpoint’s Reverse Engineer, joined Jon Murchison, Xavier Salinas, and David Rushmer for the first time to discuss the zero-day, as well as Uber’s recent hack, and the use of ISO files in malware. Impacted by tradecraft that surpasses AV, as well as MFA fatigue, these f...

This week, The Unfair Fight welcomes Michael Morell, former Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). During his 33-year career at the CIA, Michael served as Deputy Director for four years, where he managed the Agency’s day-to-day operations, represented the Agency at the White House and Congress, and maintained the Agency’s relationships with intelligence servi...

Xavier Salinas, CTO, and David Rushmer, Director of Threat Research, join Jon Murchison, founder and CEO, to discuss new tactics and techniques they have recently seen from malicious actors. They provide an overview on how these breaches typically occur, how administrative privileges can be used to maliciously access documentation management platforms, as well as some lessons learned on MSP docume...

Jon Murchison with The Unfair Fight welcomes Matt Lee, one of the leading voices in cybersecurity for the MSP channel. Now the Senior Director of Security & Compliance at Pax8, they first dive into how Matt got into cybersecurity and became the industry unicorn he is—truly enjoying traveling and being on camera. The conversation then turns to current cybersecurity challenges and how curious people...

In our latest episode of The Unfair Fight, Jon Murchison, founder and CEO of Blackpoint, welcomes Kevin Lancaster, the CEO of both The Venture Mentor and Channel Program. A leading authority in cybersecurity and technological innovation, Kevin talks about his journey from pool management to entrepreneurship and cybersecurity. He has partnered with massive enterprises, such as HHS and the Departmen...

This week, Jon Murchison is joined by David Rushmer and Xavier Salinas. They kick off the show with the news of Phillip Dragovic and his DFC Course, discussing two proof of concepts. Then, David gives us his perspective on being the eyes and ears of the highest-hitting IPs, password spraying, email impersonation trends, and how to better educate MSPs. They then talk about authority and perceived p...

Jon Murchison, Blackpoint founder and CEO, is back with retired Brigadier General Jonathan George . In this continued conversation from our last episode, he discusses the key to good leadership, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the importance of innovation and creativity. Currently a special advisor for the U.S. Strategic Command’s Strategic Advisory Group, the Science, Technology, and Transformat...

This week, Jon Murchison, Blackpoint’s founder and CEO, welcomes Brigadier General Jonathan George to our podcast . He has had an impressive and extensive career, including roles as pilot-in-command and deputy commanding general, and two assignments to the White House. He is presently the Director of Strategic Capabilities Policy for the National Security Council (NSC) in Washington, D.C.   In thi...

This week, Xavier Salinas, CTO, and David Rushmer , Director of Threat Research, welcome Phyllis Lee, Senior Director of Controls at the Center of Internet Security . Phyllis talks about the Center’s mission to provide best security practices for small, medium, and large organizations and to serve the unde rserved. Phyllis discusses the details of working with small and medium enterprises, and the...

  This week, Jon Murchison , CEO, explores HAFNIUM with Xavier Salinas , CTO, and David Rushmer , Director of Threat Research. They learn a little bit more about this state-sponsored threat identified by Microsoft including some of their tradecraft, tactics, and how they differ from other ransomware groups. David gives them his perspective based on his years of experience in the threat research an...

In this episode, Jon Murchison, founder and CEO, is joined by David Rushmer, Director of Threat Research, Xavier Salinas, Chief Technology Officer, and Wilfredo Santiago, VP of Threat Operations, to discuss a joint security advisory released by the Five Eyes on May 11. The Five Eyes are an alliance comprised of cybersecurity authorities in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The adv...

This week Jon Murchison, Blackpoint CEO, sits down with one of the all-time greatest fighters in Mixed Martial Arts, Georges St-Pierre .  After training from the age of 7, and becoming a 2 nd degree Karate blackbelt by 12, Georges knew that his destiny was to be in the ring and dedicated his life to reaching that goal.  He diversified by adding various disciplines into his training, including boxi...

This week, Jon Murchison, Blackpoint CEO, has a great chat with David Sears , former commander of the U.S. Navy SEALS. Sears has twenty-plus years of tactical and strategic knowledge in how to grow and keep a cohesive and strong team. Listeners may also recognize Dave for frequently appearing on a variety of news programs as a national security commentator. Dave talks about what people can learn f...

In this episode, Jon Murchison, CEO, and Xavier Salinas, CTO, welcome David Rushworth. David is Blackpoint’s new Director of Threat Research for Blackpoint, and the head of their new Adversary Pursuit Group, similar to a skunkworks unit. They talk with David about some of the cool detection techniques coming out and dig into his background coming from large-scale cyber analytics, where he built ou...

This week, I welcome Ambassador Butler, a 40-year career civil servant with the Department of State. Ambassador Butler is a long-time career ambassador and deputy commander of EUCOM. We talk about the unfortunate events we’ve seen with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the intersection of national security, geopolitics, and cyber activities, and the kinds of roles that cyber can play in any sort of...

Welcome to The Unfair Fight podcast!  With each episode, host Jon Murchison, Founder & CEO of Blackpoint Cyber, will explore a number of topics in the cyber, tech, and security world.  In this installment, co-host Xavier Salinas, Chief Technology Officer at Blackpoint Cyber, and guest Brian Dykstra, CEO of Atlantic Data Forensics discuss areas of vulnerability research, cyberwar, and what a tech a...