7 Minute Security

Psssst! Wanna come to the first ever 7MS User Group meeting? It's coming up on January 14th. You can join in person or virtually! Head here for more information! Dan DeCloss (a.k.a. wh33lhouse on Slack and @PlexTracFTW aon Twitter) joined me virtually in the studio to talk about his passion project, PlexTrac . Dan also shared his insight on all sorts of great topics, including: How to bleed "purpl...

Matt McCullough (a.k.a. Matty McFly on Slack ) joined me in the studio to talk about his wild and crazy path to security. He started literally with no technical experience, but through a lot of hard work, aggressive networking and taking advantage of educational and career opportunities, Matt now rocks a SOC job. Matt and I sat down to talk about a lot of good stuff: How to start an IT career as "...

Today's episode is brought to you by my friends at safepass.me . Safepass.me is the most efficient and cost-effective solution to prevent Active Directory users from setting a weak or compromised password. It's in compliance with the latest NIST password guidelines, and is the only enterprise solution to protect organizations against credential stuffing and password spraying attacks. Visit safepas...

Last week I had the fun privilege of speaking twice at the Minnesota Goverment IT Symposium on the following topics: Forensics 101 : This was a "reloaded" talk that I started earlier this year (and covered in episode 299 and 300 ). At a high level, the talk covered: Hunting malware with Sysinternals Creating system images with FTKImager Dumping memory with Volatility and ripping icky stuff out of...

On a recent security assessment I was thrown for a loop and given the opportunity to do a two-part physical pentest/SE exercise - with about 5 minutes notice(!). Yes, it had me pooping my pants, but in retrospect it was an amazing experience. This is the mission I was given: See if you can get the front desk staff to plug in a USB drive - I posed as John Strand and armed myself with a fake resume....

Today's episode talks about some SIEMple tests you can run on your SIEM (OMg see what I did there? I took the word simple and made it SIEM ple. Genius stuff, right? And there's no extra charge for it!). And if you're just now starting to shop around for a SIEM, this episode also has an extensive questionnaire you can use to put your vendors' feet to the fire and see what they're made of! Along wit...

Happy Thanksgiving! In this episode I: Share some things I'm thankful for - like you! Talk about a fun episode I'm working on that has some SIEM ple tests you can use to test your SIEM (omg see what I did there? So clever) Announce the 7MS user's group that will start meeting in the south metro area of Minnesota in January of 2019! Tell you a story about a kid that peed his pants in front of me (y...

Welcome to part 6 of our miniseries all about the ups, downs, trials and tribulations of being a small, one-person security start up. In this episode I detail out all the software/services I use to run 7 Minute Security, LLC in hopes it might help you run your company as well! I started a new gist to complement this episode, which you can get by clicking here . Enjoy!

Today I'm excited to brain-dump a bunch of cool stuff I learned at a red team conference called ArcticCon this week. Although this conference observes the Chatham house rule I'm just going to talk about a few things from a general, high level. Specifically, I asked several heavy-hitting red teams these burning questions: When you red team an org, do you usually assume compromise (i.e. plug a Kali...

This week I got to celebrate Halloween with my friends at Netwrix by co-hosting a Webinar called IT Security Horrors That Keep You Up at Night. The content was a modified version of the Blue Team on a Budget talk I've been doing the past year or so, and essentially focuses on things organizations can do to better defend their networks without draining their budgets. The presentation had a Child's...

This week I was in lovely Boise, Idaho doing some security assessment work. While I was there I got to hang out with Paul Wilch and some of the Project7 crew and picked up a lot of cool tools and tips I share in today's episode: The Badger Infosec group did a cool Rubber Ducky demo. Dan from DDSec did a demo of PlexTrac which is "the last cybersecurity reporting tool you will ever need." I'm actua...

In this episode I'm releasing a new document aimed to help organizations eliminate low hanging hacker fruit from the environment. The document contains (relatively) cheap and (relatively) easy things to implement. And my hope is it can be a living/breathing document that will bulk up over time. Got things to add to this list? Then please comment on the gist below!

It's done! It's done!! It's DONE!!! That's right mom, my PacktPub course called Mastering Kali Linux Network Scanning is done! In today's episode I: Recap the course authoring experience Explain my super anal retentive editing process that takes 4 hours for every 10 minutes of produced video Admit some last minute mistakes that about made me quit the whole project With the holidays coming up, this...

In today's episode, I'm excited to be joined in the studio by Nathan Hunstad , Director of Security at Code42 . Nathan and I had a great chat about Code42's new security offering called Code42 Forensic File Search , which helps IT and security teams figure out where files are located across their enterprise - even if the endpoints are offline. This functionality lends itself to a number of interes...

Today's episode is brought to you by my friends at Netwrix. Their amazing Netwrix Auditor tool gives you visibility into what's happening both on your local network and cloud-based IT systems and tells you about critical changes, and when and where people have been accessing data. Give it a spin right in your browser here , and then try it in your environment free for 20 days! www.netwrix.com Welc...

This episode is a cavalcade of fun! Why? First, I've got a big announcement: I've accepted a new position. " What?! " exclaimed my mom. "I thought you were president of 7MS, what the what?" No worries, it's business as usual, and my responsibilities at 7MS aren't changing. But I'm also going to start writing blogs, nurturing a Slack channel and producing a podcast for somebody else each week. Tune...

Today's episode is brought to you by my friends at Netwrix. Their amazing Netwrix Auditor tool gives you visibility into what's happening both on your local network and cloud-based IT systems and tells you about critical changes, and when and where people have been accessing data. Give it a spin right in your browser here , and then try it in your environment free for 20 days! www.netwrix.com Well...

Today's episode is brought to you by my friends at Dashlane, a fantastic password manager for you, your family and your business! Head to www.dashlane.com/7ms and use the code 7MS for 10% off a year of Dashlane Premium! Today I'm super pumped to be joined by Ryan Manship of RedTeam Security and Dave Dobrotka of United HealthGroup . Both these guys lead red teams for a living and had a lot of great...

Today's episode is a follow-up to #304 where we talked about how you can integrate over 500 million weak/breached/leaked passwords form Troy Hunt's Pwned Passwords into your Active Directory . To get started with this in your environment, grab Troy's updated passwords list here , and then you can check out my BPATTY site for step-by-step implementation instructions. The big "gotchas" I discuss in...

It's been a while so I thought I'd update you on how things are going on the business front. Here are the big updates I want to share with you in today's episode: A new 7MS hire that's going to hunt sales opportunities! My approach to finding podcast sponsors (it seems to be working) Some kick-butt interviews that are on the horizon (including the one and only JOHN STRAND !) Lots of goodies to sha...

I'm putting together a general security awareness session aimed at helping individuals and businesses not get hacked. To play off the lucky number 7, I'm trying to broil this list down to 7 key things to focus on. Here's my list thus far: Passwords 2FA/MFA Wifi (put a good password on it, don't use WEP, don't use WPS Sign up for HaveIBeenPwned Update all the things Block malware/mining with browse...

I had an exhilarating and terrifying experience this week doing my first ever live radio interview! As a quick bit of background, this interview was part of the 7MS radio marketing campaign that I've talked about my "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying" series (here's part 1 , 2 and 3 ). The interview was conducted by Lee Michaels , and though my heart was pounding for the first few m...

Today's episode is brought to you by ITProTV . Visit itpro.tv/7ms and use code 7MS to get a FREE 7-day trial and 30% off a monthly membership for the lifetime of your active subscription. Today's episode is a follow-up interview with Joe Klein, who is my good pal, a former coworker, and a SOC analyst extraordinaire. You might remember Joe from things such as... this podcast - episode #290 to be ex...

Today's episode is brought to you by ITProTV . Visit itpro.tv/7ms and use code 7MS to get a FREE 7-day trial and 30% off a monthly membership for the lifetime of your active subscription. This week I sat down with Lane Roush of Arctic Wolf to discuss the big hairy beast that is...( insert dramatic music here ) logging and alerting! I work with a lot of clients (and you probably do too) who want an...

Today's episode is brought to you by ITProTV . Visit itpro.tv/7ms and use code 7MS to get a FREE 7-day trial and 30% off a monthly membership for the lifetime of your active subscription. In today's episode, I talk about my fun experience using the Sn1per automated pentesting tool. It's really cool! It can scan your network, find vulnerabilities and exploit them - all in one swoop! It also does a...