Down the Security Rabbithole Podcast (DtSR)

** This episode is being re-published due to an issue with the RSS feed/provider ** TL;DR: This week I brought on David Barton the CTO of HighWire Networks - who knows a few things about a few things. We discuss the complex nature of our business, where things get weird, and how we can work to make them better. We talk about complexity, specifically, and what makes this such a difficult thing for...

TL;DR It's been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I feel like this applies to SBOM so much it's scary. All the good intentions in the world seemed to have led us to a place where we have tools that produce inconsistent results, tool sets that aren't necessarily integrated or mission-focused to deliver results, and a lot of confusion. Varun joins us with a boa...

TL;DR: This DtSR podcast brings back a good friend of the show, and one of the most experienced leaders I know - Mr. Jim Tiller. We talk about an interesting topic - the "virtual CISO". vCISO is interesting because as markets tighten, and it becomes more difficult to  find and  afford good CISOs and security leaders in this market. So how can a company best utilize this part-time resourc...

TL;DR: I'm extremely excited to present to you, dear listeners and friends, a wonderful conversation with Sergio Caltagirone, who is quite the authority on 'threat intelligence' - where others talk tools and limited knowledge, Sergio literally was there at the birth of the cyber dawn of the threat intelligence operations we know (or don't know) today. Sergio has been at an agen...

Tl;DR: Automation. It's a precarious thing in cyber security. Whether you're thinking about SOAR, or incident investigation, or maybe SIEM (I'm sorry) - this conversation will be worth your time. Anton and Jonathan join us to talk about how "automation" has evolved over the last decade or so, and where it's largely failed. We also start to explore the future and requi...

TL;DR A few days ago, my pal Kevin asked me if I had seen the LinkedIn post by Helen Patton that asked an interesting question of the podcast space... Her post made me think - why the heck not? So, I did. Thanks to Helen, whose idea this was - I hope you get a chance to watch and enjoy the outcome of your request ... we had far too much fun recording it. Here on this episode - which I promise you...

TL;DR On this episode, we welcome Josh Grossman - who has a pretty interesting perspective on AppSec, or Software Security, or (cringe) "DevSecOps". Josh has a bit of an edge on the subject, so he fits in with myself & James perfectly. We talk about where things stand from the vendor perspective, building programs, and why it takes to make a real impact, versus continuing to push a v...

TL;DR This week on 2023's first live-streamed episode (technical our first recorded in '23) our friend Larry Whiteside, Jr. joins us to talk about the prospects for 2023 and beyond. We discuss trends, make some rather sad predictions, and attempt to be hopeful about what the new year could bring us - if we don't find a way to walk ourselves off a cliff, first. It's a light disc...

TL;DR Shawn Tuma, our favorite cyber legal eagle, joins Rafal & James to talk about the sorts of things we learned about 2022, in what could be confused for a year-in-review episode. We saw ransomware, big incidents, but overall ... things weren't the worst out there. If you missed our live-stream on LInkedIn (link below) you can replay that any time, or listen to this episode as a podcas...

Prologue This week James and I are joined by my good friend and many-timer on the podcast Brandon Dunlap, and our mad genius and serial entrepreneur pal Paul Calatayud to talk about all of these guarantees, warranties, and insurance. It's a strange discussion but quite necessary as the industry is littered with some of these offerings by providers and various software (security) vendors. Thes...

Prologue Karim Hijazi joins Rafal & James this week on the podcast to talk about some interesting trends and developments in the world of bad actors. It's an interesting update including some things I wasn't expecting to hear about how threat actors "hit back at" incident responders and threat hunters. This is a good conversation about the current threat landscape with an e...

Prologue This is a very interesting episode... Gadi Evron joins James and me on this slightly technically difficult (the IPoCP - IP over Carrier Pigeon - was awful at times) episode to talk about the CISO role and the potential liabilities that lie within. Whether we're talking about the Joe Sullivan case (and we're not, or we try not to), or we're generalizing about employment and...

Prologue It's always a pleasure when I can get some friends together and banter on about a topic we all find interesting. This week's topic was supposed to be released a bit later, but it couldn't wait. We had  so much fun that I thought it needed publication right now. The premise is simple - have you looked around at how many security vendors there are and just asked yourself ......

Prologue On this episode Rafal & James re-visit the concepts of machine learning, "artificial intelligence", and applicability to cyber security from Sven Krasser, Chief Scientist at CrowdStrike. Dr Krasser has been working on algorithms and computers analyzing massive amounts of data since the early 2000's so his analysis of today's "state of the art" and project...

Prologue This podcast has attempted to go down-market a few times, with some success in discussing the important issues that service providers and security vendors oddly ignore. If you're not in the enterprise, you get ignored by 90%+ of the security vendor space, that's just fact, and that means that you're left to fend for yourself at the worst scale possible. That's unfortun...

Prologue Are you sick of hearing "Zero Trust"? Do you, like us, also feel like it's a marketing buzzword, and then a cute concept that has a very difficult time in reality? Yeah, this episode is for you. David Fairman and Jason Clark, join Rafal to talk about what is essentially continuous signals evaluation, least privilege, and default deny with segmentation. All those things we l...

Prologue This week, we take it back to the basics, that's right, the  basics , as we talk to Huxley Barbee about the need to identify and understand the assets on your network and in your various environments. A fascinating conversation with some history, some laughs, and some honest discussion a topic that's absolutely critical to cyber security. If you've not done so, go check out...

Prologue Today's guest helps James and Rafal attempt to unravel the completely confusing space of "modern remote access". Some call it SASE, some SSE, some ZTE and some are completely mad and still use the term VPN. Who knows who's right, or why any one is preferred over the other ...except Carlos Salas from NordLayer. Listen in, and give it some thought. Maybe you'll unde...

Prologue It's been a while since we have done an episode on cyber insurance, in fact, the last episode was https://ftwr.libsyn.com/dtsr-episode-454-tpa-cyber-insurance-fact-vs-fiction back in July of 2021. So we revisit with the two experts plus a bonus guest for you. We look at the issues from the perspective of the broker, buyer, and lawyer -- a complete picture if I do say so myself! Story...

Prologue Our industry has been talking about  XDR for a while now. Some people think it's the savior, some people think it's marketing garbage - and neither of them really understands what this "thing" named XDR is. Well, I figure we'll get some smart people on the podcast, people who live in this field and use this word a lot, and giddy up. This episode is slightly PG-13&...

Prologue We start Cyber Security Awareness Month - the 30-day window where corporate law requires you to check the box and take boring security 'awareness' training, then forget it November 1st. Not my favorite month... so what about scammers, criminals, and bad people who prey upon those who aren't covered by corporate mandated training? Join us, let's talk about it.   Guest M...

Prologue This week, Rafal takes the show on the road (literally) to Las Vegas for Fal. Con '22 -- this is CrowdStrike's premier global get-together of customers, partners, and industry experts to showcase some innovation and share ideas and insights. I wanted to say a big thank you to CrowdStrike -- all the folks who helped make this happen and continue to support this podcast and provid...

Prologue Solving problems is a challenge not everyone is up for. The industry is littered with people and companies that bring small-time solutions to an industry begging and pleading for actual solutions. Jason Clark of Netskope, and long-time friend, joins James and Rafal to talk about the mindset and approach needed to solve BIG problems that change the game, change the landscape, and change ou...

For those of you paying attention - DtSR is officially 11 years old. This episode is the first episode of year (season) 12. WOW. Thank you for listening, sharing, commenting, and watching us live! Prologue We work in a weird industry where marketing has to make ever-more outrageous claims that product and service teams then have to attempt to live up to, but it's a way of life. Now, I'm...

Prologue Fresh off his presentation at Defcon 2022, Ken Pyle joins Rafal to talk about the Emergency Alert System (EAS) he's been hacking since 2019 and discusses findings, challenges, and the work left to do. It's a fascinating conversation that will leave you wondering - how do we fix this clear and present problem, and more importantly...where else should we be looking? Guest Ken Pyle...