BrakeSec Education Podcast

Roxy, who we interviewed a few months ago on our podcast about hackerspaces, is back with us this week to discuss a project she is working on, called 'Big Brown Cloud'. If you've ever wanted to setup your own fake blog and send people to it to gain information on possible attacks, you've come to the right place.     We also get an update on the hackerspace that Jarrod, Sean, and Roxy were getting...

In this podcast, you'll learn about: Log analytics software that can be used to parse system logs for naaty malware Detecting Malware artifacts learn about windows directory locations looking for indicators like packing, changed hashes, etc Tips for capturing malware using tools like RoboCopy Learn about what code caves are and how malware hides inside them ( http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/20...

Michael Gough joined us again to discuss malware detection techniques on Windows systems. We talk about how you can modify Powershell's defaults to allow for better logging potential. Also, we find out some hidden gems that pretty much guarantee to let you know that you've been infiltrated.  Stay for the powershell security education, and you also learn some new terminology, like "Malware Archaeol...

This week, we discuss various methods of enabling companies to move applications to cloud based platforms.  We discuss containers, like Docker, and how various hosting services handle converting businesses from a traditional data centers to a secure. cloud based entity. We even discuss securing the data in the cloud, preventing bad guys from accessing it, as well as the cloud provider themselves,...

With last week's revelation from Microsoft that they will support SSH, understanding powershell has become more important than ever as a tool to be used by blue teamers, both for adminstration, and to understand how bad guys will use it for nefarious deeds on your network.   Part 2 of our interview with Mick Douglas discusses a bit more about the DEV522 class that he teaches for SANS, and why it s...

We had the opportunity to discuss with Mick Douglas the fact that there is a stigma of blue team always being on the losing end of the security. Is it because there are more tools for the pentesters or bad guys, or that it takes a massive IT budget to be secure? We don't believe so... Great insights into how a blue team can protect their network.

Having a more secure network by deploying tools can be no easy task. This week, we show you a tool, Security Onion, that can give you an IDS and log analysis tool in less than 20 minutes.  http://blog.securityonion.net/p/securityonion.html

When you're working with network infrastructure, there's a real need for proper configuration management, as well as having a proper baseline to work from. Mr. Boettcher and I continue through the SANS Top25 Critical Security Controls. #10 and #11 are all dealing with network infrastructure. Proper patches, baselines for being as secure as possible. Since your company's ideal security structure ne...

We continue our journey on the 24 Deadly Programming Sins. If you listened to last week's podcast, we introduced the book we were using as a study tool: http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Sins-Software-Security-Programming/dp/0071626751 This week is on command injection. We first discussed command injection as part of our OWASP Top 10 for 2013, but you'll be surprised just how easy devs compile conditio...

Code Audits are a necessary evil. Many organizations resort to using automated tools, but tools may not find all issues with code. Sometimes, you need to take a look at the code yourself.  Mr. Boettcher and I begin going through the book "24 Deadly Sins of Software Security: Programming Flaws and How to Fix Them" What we covered this week is "buffer overruns", we discuss what they are, and how the...

When you're faced with major projects, or working to understand why your IDS fails every day at the same time, there must be a way to work that out. Or when you must do the yearly business continuity failover, you need a process oriented framework to track and ensure changes are committed in a sane, orderly manner. ITIL is a completely versatile, flexible framework that scales with your organizati...

Much of InfoSec and Compliance is all about processes, procedures, controls, audits, and the proper management of all of these.  To do so, you need a proper framework to make these as seamless as possible. ITIL is one of these types of frameworks. We introduce Mr. Tim Wood on the podcast, who has over 20 years of ITIL experience and began ITIL implementations in banks and Healthcare systems in the...

Special interview this week! On the heels of their uber successful KickStarter campaign, we brought co-founder Ryan and one of the technical editors Anthony in to discuss what Cybrary is. We also discuss ways you can leverage it in your own business to get quality security awareness training, as well as train up your employees on infosec topics that can benefit your company and employees. You can...

It's that time of year again...  when all the reports come out that shows how various industries did over the last year. Brakeing Down Security went over the results of the Verizon PCI report.  Did companies do worse this year, or could they have actually improved? Listen to our analysis, and what companies can do to learn from this, and how you can use this report to help get a leg up when your Q...

We continue our trek down the list of SANS Top 20 Critical Security Controls this week with #12 and #13 - Boundry Defense, and Controlled use of Administrative Privileges.  Learn what you can do to shore up your network defenses, and how to handle admin privileges... When to give that kind of access, and how to make privileged access as secure as possible while still allowing administrators to do...

We invited the organizers of the "TheLab.ms", a Dallas, Texas based hacker/makerspace on the podcast to talk about why they wanted to start a makerspace, the costs and plans to setup a hacker space, and some of the things you can do with a makerspace. We also understand the sense of community and the learning environment gained from these places.  If you are looking to start a 'space in your area,...

Mr. Boettcher went on vacation and was volunteering for Austin Bsides this week, and I needed to do a podcast, so I enlisted the aid of Lee Brotherston and Jarrod Frates discuss some important topics.  We discuss the seemingly short talent pool for IT/IS positions.  We talk about the ROWHAMMER vulnerability and how it may affect your organization. Additionally, we talk about how the NTP protocol i...

In our continuing discussion with Jeff and "Str4d", we got right to the heart of the matter: Privacy and anonymity.   If you're trying to remain anonymous, what steps do the devs of I2P use to keep themselves as anonymous as possible.  We also touch on what the "Browser Exploitation Framework", and why it scares the heck out of Jeff.   Finally, I ask them if there is any real 'good' sites on I2P,...

Mr. Boettcher got a hold of the developers and maintainers of the anonymizing network "I2P". We talked with "str4d" and "Jeff" this week. In Part 1 of the interview, we discuss the technical aspects of I2P, how it functions, how 'Garlic routing' works, and how the flood Fill servers allow for I2P to function effectively. In the final segment, we discuss form factors, specifically if I2P is availab...

The second part of our interview with Pawel discussed Content management systems, and how you can integrate CSP in Drupal, Django, and the like. Content managers, you'll want to listen to this, especially about how CSP can help you secure the content on your systems, as well as protect customers from web based attacks using the sandboxing functions of CSP Pawel's Blog =  ipsec.pl Pawel's CSP build...

Pawel Krawczyk did an interview with us about Content Security Policy. Learn about what it is, and whether or not the latest browsers can support it.   We also talk about how you can get around it, if there are ways to avoid it if you are a bad guy, and how you can get the most out of it. If you're a web developer, and want to reduce your site's chances of allowing XSS, you'll want to take a liste...

Extra special treat this week!  We do a continuation of our review of the Top 20 Security Controls, in which we do #14 and #15, which all of you will find very interesting.   But the real reason we are posting this today is the Call for Papers and Call for Mentors for the Bsides Las Vegas Proving Grounds! We invited Magen Wu (@tottenkoph) on to discuss. If you've ever asked yourself "I'd like to g...

During our research with Lee Brotherston, who we had on last week for our podcast on threat modeling, we got to listen to one of his talks about how his ISP in Canada was actively doing a Man-in-Middle injection of a banner into sites that he visited.     We were intrigued, and also gobsmacked (I can say that, right?) about the brashness of an ISP not apparently understanding the security implicat...

Threat Modeling... ranks right up there with Risk Assessments in importance...  You gotta figure out how the applications you're creating or the systems you're engineering are secure.  It really takes knowing your application and really, knowing the enemies/factors that can cause your application to fail, from santizing inputs on a web app, to making sure that your code doesn't have use-after-free...

Mr. Boettcher and I went over the bottom 5 of the SANS Top 20 security controls that businesses should implement. When put into the right order, you should be able to have an environment that is able to withstand most any attack. We also talk about 5 'Quick Fixes' that will put you on the right track with becoming more secure.   You may be surprised at what is considered a priority...  have a list...