Beers with Talos Podcast

Recorded May 29, 2020 – Prod. Note: Things are a hot mess right now and the team thinks that there are voices you have needed to hear more than ours, so we held back on releasing a few episodes. We are releasing those now, please pardon any weeks-old info. Be safe, be kind, and listen to each other. Black lives matter. This is the last of the In-Between episodes. Thanks for having fun with this no...

Recorded May 26, 2020 – Prod. Note: Things are a hot mess right now and the team thinks that there are voices you have needed to hear more than ours, so we held back on releasing a few episodes. We are releasing those now, please pardon any weeks-old info. Be safe, be kind, and listen to each other. Black lives matter. You, our audience, have asked this question a lot - in person, on Twitter, in D...

Recorded May 15, 2020 – Prod. Note: Things are a hot mess right now and the team thinks that there are voices you have needed to hear more than ours, so we held back on releasing a few episodes. We are releasing those now, please pardon any weeks-old info. Be safe, be kind, and listen to each other. Black lives matter. Sammi (inexplicably) continues tolerating hanging out with the rest of the crew...

Brad Garnett from Cisco Talos Incident Response joins us today to talk about DFIR, the Talos Quarterly Trends Report, and how a high-speed police chase on reality TV kick-started his DFIR career. That’s not even clickbait, for real. After Brads drops a quick IR trends briefing on us, the crew drills down on some key findings. (IDK what that means either, but there were good questions asked and gre...

Recorded May 1, 2020 –Sammi is back and the rest of the crew is here to hang out, chat, and as is The In-Between Way - avoid discussing security at all. These EPs are all about just keeping in touch and having some fun. Despite Joel forgetting his one. job. on this podcast, we are taking your (sometimes crazy) questions from Twitter on these episodes, so keep sending them for the next “The In-Betw...

Matt isn’t with us today, but the rest of the crew discusses current security issues in our new WFH environment, including some more-than-the-basics advice on how to protect yourself and your organization’s data while working wherever. We go a bit more in depth on VPN and explain how VPNs work, how they protect you, and more importantly, how they DON’T protect you. The key takeaway of this podcast...

We are renaming these episodes - “Quittin’ time” was okay and all, but “The In-between” better captures what these eps are. Compared to our normally named eps, you can expect the same lack of actual security content presented in Vol. 1, just a shorter format. You seem to enjoy us taking your (sometimes crazy) questions from Twitter, so keep sending them! We are doing these extra episodes because w...

We have a couple great topics today - and only one of them is a COVID-19 related topic. So, it turns out that you can fake fingerprints - the good news is that it takes a lot of time, equipment, and expertise. It is much easier for a criminal to just make you unlock it yourself. We have also seen an unprecedented level of collaboration and righteous anger across all vendors responding to COVID-bas...

Recorded April 3, 2020 – We’re kinda bored. We figured you are too. So we decided to get together between normal recordings to help save you from the bottom of the Netflix barrel. It gets weird down there. These Quittin’ Time eps are just the crew hanging out for a bit without a security topic agenda. Sans. None of that. Honestly, if you’re not a fan of the banter in the Roundtable and Closing Tho...

Our goal is always to talk to you about what’s on our minds. Right now, we are pretty sure we all have the same thing on our minds. In addition to our regular show material, we want to talk through some of the things that we are dealing with professionally and personally in the hopes that it applies and is useful to you. To that end, we asked Sammi Seaman (our Education coordinator and resident me...

Recorded 3/13/20 - Of course we have to talk about the implications of Coronavirus to the way business and security are getting done. While everything about the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be a fluid situation, a rare constant has been the same rehashed disaster scams. But that could quickly change with the mass shift toward remote work. This episode takes a look at both securing that shift as well...

Recorded 3/02/20 - We open up the show with a sugary sweet poem before talking about RSA and our annual trip through the startup hall. Matt expertly segues the crew into talking about the impact the security industry can have on public-interest technologies and civil society - both in the industry sense as well as in the interpersonal sense. FInally, we take a look at opposing mindsets and approac...

Recorded 2/19/20 - Craig made an oopsie. He sends his apologies for the echo-chamber reverb. We had no idea until he sent in his audio for mixing, we would never do this to you intentionally. This is a shorter ep focusing on software licencing and features as well as vulnerability disclosure. Join us to talk about vendors abilities to disable feature sets and owning versus using products. We furth...

Recorded 1/31/20 - When a vulnerability is released, regardless if it has a website and logo or not, we need to understand the risk to the network and what defense options are possible before the patch is ready for production. Can you defend against the vulnerability or do you go straight for known exploits? What happens if an exploit occurs? Also discussed: Talos begins releasing Threat Assessmen...

Recorded 1/20/20 - Powershell is a frequent flyer in security headlines - a powerful and oft wielded tool for attackers and defenders alike. This ep takes a look at Powershell and how to help ensure its security posture as an effective management tool. We also look at the missing-the-forrest-for-the-trees concept of behind being concerned about the latest shiny ATP before all else. Full show notes...

Recorded 1/6/20 - There is a looming cyber conflict on the horizon between the US and Iran. We use all our time this week to discuss the situation at hand and take a hard look at what you should have already done foundationally. The crew offers insight and analysis of what nation-state cyber conflict looks like and what you can do to elevate your security strategy to the next level in an uncertain...

Recorded 12/20/19 - In a shorter year-end EP, we take a look back and a look forward. It seems everyone else wants to break out the crystal ball this time of year and prognosticate the coming year’s threat landscape. We don’t have one of those, so we used a Magic 8-ball, but we’re pretty confident the results are as-good or better. However, most of the EP is dedicated to going through the notable...

Recorded 12/9/19 - We have a big announcement to make today! Check your feed for a few Ep’s of a new podcast from Talos - “Talos Takes”. On this Ep of BWT, we welcome Joe Marshall to the table - Joe is a Talos ICS/IoT tech lead and he stops by to discuss issues in the IoT space - macro and micro, from both the vendor and user perspectives. Check out the crew’s advice on staying secure in this IoT...

Craig is out sick/injured/fighting robots (actually all three), so we brought in Sean Mason from Talos IR to talk shop today and give you the inside scoop on IR (and Sean’s next-level beard care regimen). How do incidents affect the enterprise and consumers? How has the advent of widespread ransomware fundamentally shifted the burden of responsibility in the c-suite and what have been the outcomes...

Recorded 11/8/19 - Joel is out on PTO, so Mitch, Matt, Nigel, and Craig carry the banner this EP discussing how attackers approach targets like investors looks at portfolio. We also talk about how the most recent off-cycle elections in the US give us a glimpse of improvements and changes in election security. Finally, we take a quick look at popular scams and how attackers use seasonality to incre...

Recorded 10/25/19 - Today is a bit different. We normally keep things pretty neutral on this show (not really), but today is all about the new service Talos is launching - say hello to Talos Incident Response. Amy Henderson from the Talos Intel and Interdiction group joins us as we discuss the full circle of threat intelligence - from global visibility to hyper local context, and how IR allows tho...

Recorded 10/10/19 - This EP lives up to it’s name, by trying to only take on a minimal topic and then becoming completely convoluted. We start of with an extended round table (I even cut like half of it out) and then start talking about the trials and tribulations of making things too complex - from software to network design. If the devil is in the details, then the danger is in there being too m...

Recorded 9/27/19 - We are down Matt and Joel today, so Mitch, Craig, and Nigel are taking you through this EP. We cover some recent posts from Talos with Divergent and Tortoiseshell. Turns out, people get a bit excited when you target US veterans with malware - even other malware authors thinks that’s scummy. That takes us into a chat about social engineering in general and we end up talking about...

Recorded 9/13/19 - In one of our rantier episodes of late, the BWT crew dives into the ongoing insidiousness that is cryptomining with Watchbog, and then we turn our attention to some idiot that thinks charging people $50 to bypass MFA on their own machines is a swell idea, because nothing bad can happen there, right? RIGHT?! Finally, we take a look at some recent breaches and the trend of attempt...

Recorded 8/30/19 - In this extra-sized EP, we cover a lot - starting with Retadup, and discussing the intricate workings of why it’s a bead idea to execute code on other computers without permission when you have no idea what that computer is doing. WannaCry is making some headlines again, but this time it isn’t WannaCry and frankly it’s not news. From the mobile ecosystem os battleground, Google’...