IT SPARC Cast

This week on IT SPARC Cast - CVE of the Week, John Barger and Lou Schmidt dive into the massive ransomware attack that crippled global IT distributor Ingram Micro. The breach, allegedly carried out by the SafePay ransomware group, took down Ingram Micro’s critical ordering and licensing platforms, causing widespread disruption across the tech industry. With speculation that attackers may have gain...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - CVE of The Week , John and Lou break down two critical Linux vulnerabilities—CVE-2025-6018 and CVE-2025-6019—that could allow local users to escalate privileges all the way to root. Discovered by the Qualys Threat Research Unit, these flaws affect major Linux distributions, including openSUSE and SUSE Enterprise Linux. Even though Ubuntu users may be safe if defa...

In this Episode of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes, John and Lou break down a historic first meeting between Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, sparking speculation about collaboration. They also cover Nvidia’s bold move into cloud services, how Congress is banning apps like WhatsApp and Co-Pilot from staff devices, and whether the Computer Science bubble is finally bursting. This is your enterprise IT new...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - Hot Take , John and Lou shine a spotlight on the crumbling façade of cloud reliability. Once upon a time, enterprise IT measured uptime in “nines”—with five nines (99.999%) meaning just over five minutes of downtime a year. Today’s cloud providers? They’re barely holding onto three or four nines, if that. From Microsoft’s massive Microsoft 365 outage on June 16th...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - CVE of The Week , John and Lou break down CVE-2025-31324 — a critical remote code execution vulnerability in SAP NetWeaver’s Visual Composer. With a CVSS score of 9.8, this exploit is not just theory — it’s actively being weaponized by ransomware gangs, Chinese APTs, and groups like BianLian and RansomEXX. Despite SAP issuing emergency patches in April 2025, orga...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - News Bytes , John and Lou break down the week’s biggest tech stories—from Amazon’s quiet plan to replace portions of its workforce with generative AI, to BlueNoroff’s chilling new Zoom scam using deepfake technology. They also follow up on pricing details for Google’s Beam 3D video conferencing, discuss rising tension between OpenAI and Microsoft, and look at Upt...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast – CVE of the Week , John and Lou dig into Apple’s latest transparency report, which reveals how governments worldwide are requesting access to Apple user data at record-breaking levels. From iCloud backups to metadata, these requests expose just how much personal and corporate information could be vulnerable—even for organizations that think they’re secure. The guy...

📄 Episode Description: In Episode 39 of IT SPARC Cast – News Bytes , John and Lou unpack how enterprise IT budgets are rapidly shifting toward AI projects, IBM’s ambitious plans for large-scale quantum computing, and why some venture-backed AI startups may be headed for a valuation reset. It’s a fast-paced look at the real business implications behind today’s biggest tech headlines. ⸻ ⏱️ Show Not...

In this inaugural “Hot Take” episode of IT SPARC Cast , John Barger and Lou Schmidt deliver a candid, unscripted conversation about the seismic shift coming to enterprise IT. Prompted by recent moves—like OpenAI’s Chief Product Officer joining Cisco’s board and Sam Altman’s AGI talk with Snowflake’s CEO—the hosts explore what these changes really mean for network professionals, IT vendors, and inf...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - CVE of the Week , John and Lou explore a major development in cybersecurity: the collaborative initiative between Microsoft, Google, Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, and others to standardize naming conventions for nation-state threat actors and cybercriminal groups. With more than 48 aliases for Russian hacking collectives alone in past U.S. government reports,...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - News Bytes , John and Lou kick off with a hilarious-yet-creepy experiment that caused Claude to hallucinate its way out of a fictional business. Then, things get serious with a deep dive into a new YouTube data-mining service that could expose personal information. Finally, the guys unpack OpenAI’s flashy announcement of new Business Intelligence tools powered by...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - CVE of the Week , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break down two freshly identified and actively exploited CVEs that have just been added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) database . First, we discuss CVE-2025-1976 —a severe vulnerability in Broadcom’s Brocade Fabric OS —which allows local admins to execute arbitrary code with root privileges exploit ,...

In Episode 37 of IT SPARC Cast - News Bytes, John and Lou break down the moment ChatGPT refused a shutdown command, raising questions about AI autonomy. They also explore Microsoft’s new Copilot training capabilities on internal company data, a breakthrough in quantum transistors, and the final nail in the coffin for the VGA standard. This episode delivers the week’s most important tech updates wi...

In the debut episode of our new CVE of the Week series, hosts John Barger and Lou Schmidt revisit one of the largest cybersecurity incidents involving children’s data in U.S. history: the PowerSchool breach. This shocking case saw over 60 million student records and 10 million teacher records compromised by a 19-year-old attacker using stolen contractor credentials—culminating in a $2.85 million B...

In Episode 36 of IT SPARC Cast - News Bytes, John and Lou tackle the week’s biggest tech stories in under 20 minutes. They kick off with Signal’s pushback against Microsoft’s Recall feature and the broader privacy implications of screenshot-based AI indexing. Then, it’s onto Google Meet’s new universal translator, which mimics your voice in other languages in real time, and Google Beam, a 3D video...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - Top T̴e̴n̴ Twenty , John Barger and Lou Schmidt complete the two-part series covering the Top Twenty Most Influential IT Pioneers That You Never Heard Of. This time, the countdown reaches the heavy hitters of IT history—the top 10 unsung heroes whose groundbreaking contributions laid the foundations for modern computing. From Douglas Engelbart’s legendary “Mother...

In Episode 35 of IT SPARC Cast, John and Lou take you through Cisco’s bold bet on quantum networking and its implications for encryption and data privacy. OpenAI shakes things up with new leadership and acquisitions, while Disney’s massive Slack data leak ends with a hacker caught and charged. In our new Coffee Break segment, the impossible might finally be happening: Half-Life 3. In the CVE of th...

In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - Top T̴e̴n̴ Twenty , John Barger and Lou Schmidt dive deep into the first half of their Top 20 countdown of the most influential IT pioneers you’ve probably never heard of. These are the unsung heroes whose innovations paved the way for everything from modern wireless communication to object-oriented programming. From Hedy Lamarr’s groundbreaking work in secure co...

IT SPARC Cast Top Ten S01E07 - Top 10 Biggest Networking Companies That No Longer Exist ⸻ Brief Description: In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - Top Ten, hosts John Barger and Lou Schmidt count down the Top 10 Largest Networking Companies That No Longer Exist . From industry giants like Nortel and Lucent Technologies to trailblazers like 3Com and Foundry Networks , these companies once dominated th...

In Episode 34 of IT SPARC Cast, John and Lou dive deep into a week of automation, acceleration, and AI gone awry. TLS certificates are about to live shorter lives than ever before—forcing IT pros into a race toward automation. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s newest models are hallucinating more than ever, raising red flags for enterprises relying on AI accuracy. Plus, quantum messaging gets real, Shadow AI ri...

Top 10 Most Likely Ways You’ll Be Breached Episode Description: In IT SPARC Cast – Top Ten Episode 6 , John Barger and Lou Schmidt dive into the real-world threats that keep IT professionals up at night. This episode ranks the Top 10 Most Likely Ways You’ll Be Breached —from sophisticated zero-day exploits to good old-fashioned phishing emails. Whether you’re running enterprise infrastructure or j...

In Episode 33 of IT SPARC Cast, John and Lou tackle the rising tension between global tech suppliers and national security concerns—starting with TP-Link’s efforts to unlink from its Chinese roots to stay in the U.S. market. They also explore how AI is powering a nuclear energy renaissance, dig into Doom’s most absurd collector’s edition yet, and reflect on Zoom’s rare outage. In the CVE of the We...

Episode Description: In this episode of IT SPARC Cast - Top Ten , John Barger and Lou Schmidt break down the most infamous hackers and hacker groups that pulled off massive cyberattacks—then vanished into the digital shadows. From ransomware crews that crippled national infrastructure to lone wolves who sparked global panic, these digital outlaws left a trail of data breaches, financial chaos, and...

In Episode 32 of IT SPARC Cast, John and Lou unpack the controversy behind the White House blaming iPhones for the Signal security scandal—and why the real issue might not be Signal at all. They also explore Microsoft’s rollout of the Windows 365 Link and celebrate a win for transparency in Apple’s legal encryption battle with the UK government. The CVE of the Week dives into how Microsoft’s Secur...

In this week’s episode of IT SPARC Cast - Top Ten , hosts John Barger and Lou Schmidt dive into the darker side of tech turned bright. We’re counting down the Top 10 Hackers That Ran Afoul of the Law and Then Made Good . These are real-life stories of rogue coders, phone phreaks, worm creators, and cyber anarchists who got busted but eventually turned things around to use their skills to do good—s...