Open Source Security

Josh and Kurt talk about Secure Boot. The conversation uses the recent "Boot Hole" vulnerability to frame a conversation about what Secure Boot is and isn't. Why the Boot Hole flaw doesn't really matter, and why Secure Boot was very scary for Linux users back when it came out. Show Notes Boot Hole

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about some of the necessary evils of security. There are challenges we face like passwords and resource management. Sometimes the problem is old ideas, sometimes it's we don't have metrics. Can you measure not getting hacked? Show Notes Clearing checks FAIR Institute Factorio

Josh and Kurt start this one by explaining how the Twitter hacker was just a dumb criminal (most criminals are dumb). We then discuss the new GPT-3 AI that can create text. How we create, and how social media is doing everything it can to weaponize our attention. It's not a fight humanity is winning. Show Notes GPT-3 AI Blipverts

Josh and Kurt talk about Google's new confidential VMs. The AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization is the technology that makes it all possible. What is SEV, how does it work, and why should you care? This technology is going to be the future of the cloud. Show Notes Google confidential VMs AMD SEV SEV vs SGX

Josh and Kurt talk to Alyssa Miller from Snyk about the State of Open Source Security 2020 report. Alyssa was the report author and has some great insight into the current trends we're seeing in open source security. Some of the challenges developers face. We discuss the difficulty static and composition analysis scanners face. It's a great conversation! Show Notes The State of Open Source Securit...

Josh and Kurt talk about some recent security actions Apple has taken. Not all are good, but in general Apple is doing things to benefit their customers (their customers are not advertisers). We also discuss some of the challenges when your customers are advertisers. Show Notes Apple one year certificates Apple declines to implement 16 new APIs Apple is tracking unsigned executables

Josh and Kurt talk about human behavior. The conversation makes its way to conferences and the perpetual question of if a conference is useful or not. We come to the agreement the big shows aren't what they used to be, but things like BSides are great experiences. Show Notes Security and Human Behaviour Josh's blog post Mudge's Twitter thread

Josh and Kurt talk about the security of applications. We talk about the security of infrastructure all the time, but what happens when we combine infrastructure into an application or solution? Show Notes Picture of Kurt's security check-up Dragon controls

Josh and Kurt talk about CVSSv3 and how it's broken. We started with a blog post to explain why the NVD CVSS scores are so wrong, and we ended up researching CVSSv3 and found out it's far more broken than any of us expected in ways we didn't expect. NVD isn't broken, CVSSv3 is. How did we get here? Are there any options that work today? Where should we go next? Show Notes Josh's blog post NVD Red...

Josh and Kurt talk to Liz Rice from Aqua Security about container security and her new book on the same topic. What does container security look like today? What are some things you can do now? What will container security look like in the future? Show Notes Container Security download Pictures of elephants Kubernetes Security book Starboard project Dynamic threat analysis

Josh and Kurt talk about a grab bag of topics. A DNS security flaw, port scanning your machine from a web browser, and CSV files running arbitrary code. All of these things end up being the result of corner cases. Letting a corner case be part of a default setup is always a mistake. Yes always, not even that one time. Show Notes Bind advisory Robustness Principal eBay port scanning localhost OWASP...

Josh and Kurt talk about the Krebs blog post titled "When in Doubt: Hang Up, Look Up, & Call Back". In the world of security there isn't a lot of actionable advice, it's worth discussing if something like this will work, or ever if it's the right way to handle these situations. Show notes When in Doubt: Hang Up, Look Up, & Call Back Tech Support Scam podcast: Part 1 , Part 2 STIR/SHAKEN Drill the...

Josh  and Kurt  talk about what beer and reproducible builds have in common. It's a lot more than you think, and it mostly comes down to quality control. If you can't reproduce what you do, you're not a mature organization and you need maturity to have quality. Show Notes Reinheitsgebot Josh's Blog Post Ken Thompson's reflections on trusting trust Tor Browser Deterministic Builds One line package...

Josh  and Kurt  talk about automatic updates. Specifically we discuss a recent decision by Ubuntu to enable forced automatic updates. There are lessons here for the security community. We have a history of jumping to solutions rather than defining and understanding problems. Sometimes our solutions aren't the best. Also murder bees. Show Notes The Oatmeal giant bee comic Honeybees cook giant horne...

Josh  and Kurt  talk about the uproar around Cloudflare's "Is BGP safe yet" site. It's always interesting watching how much people will push back on new things, even if the new things is probably a step in the right direction. The clever thing Cloudflare is doing in this instance is they are making the BGP problem something anyone can understand. Also send us your funny dog stories. Show Notes Is...

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about the new normal that's working away from an office. It's not exactly working from home as there are some unforeseen challenges that we just took for granted in the past. There are a lot of new and strange security problems we have to adapt to, everyone is doing amazing work with very little right now. Show Notes Microsoft buys corp.com Hijack computer network traffic wit...

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about space. We intended to focus on Apollo 13 but as usual we have no ability to stay on topic. There is a lot of fun space discussions in this one though. Do you think you can hack Voyager 1? Only if you have a big enough satellite dish. Show Notes Eavesdropping on Apollo 11 Apollo 11 classified weather satellite The pen that saved Apollo 11

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about Kurt's recent treadmill purchase and the lessons we can lean in security from the consumer market. The consumer market has learned a lot about how to interact with their customers in the last few decades, the security industry is certainly behind in this space today. Once again we display our ability to tie even the seemingly mundane things back to a discussion about se...

Josh  and Kurt  talk about security scanners. They're all pretty bad today, but there are some things we can do to make them better. Step one is to understand the problem. Do you know why you're running the scanner and what the reports mean? Show Notes Edmonton freeze thaw cycles Josh's security scanner blog series

Josh  and Kurt  talk about building a talent ecosystem. What starts out as an attempt by Kurt to talk about Canada evolves into a discussion about how talent can evolve, or be purposely grown. Canada's entertainment industry and Unit 8200 are good examples of this. Show Notes SCTV Red Team Project Moon Shot book   AvE channel   Turning a tree root into a bowl   Mailing the Hope Diamond The Ecosyst...

Josh  and Kurt  talk about video games and hacking. Specifically how speed runners are really just video game hackers. Show Notes Developer speedrun commentary Super Mario World end credits glitch explained Mario 3 RCE Breath of the Wild speedrun Super Metroid reverse boss order TMR beats every NES game

Josh  and Kurt  talk about video games. Yeah, video games. Specifically about cheating in video games. There's a lot of other security themes in the discussion. With the news being horrible these days, we needed to talk about something fun. Show Notes Penny Arcade Banned from Fortnite Apollo Robbins, world's best pickpocket

Josh  and  Kurt  talk about Wireguard. There have been a lot of recent conversations about it and if it's better or worse than other VPN solutions. It's safe to say in our modern age, less is usually more, especially when it comes to security. Wireguard has a lot going for it, it can't be ignored. Show Notes Replacing a Nintendo Switch fan WireGuard Hacker News discussion

Josh  and Kurt  talk to Tony Meehan from Elastic (formerly Endgame) about endpoint detection, response, protection, and even SIEM. Tony has a great history coming from the NSA and has a number of great stories to help understand the topics. Show Notes Tony Meehan   Rob Joyce on Disrupting Nation State Hackers Bobby Filar living off the land blog Dwell time graph   Snowboarder vs Tree

Josh  and Kurt  talk about the Linux Foundation Census 2. There is a lot of talk around how to fix open source security, but the reality is we can't fix it. We need to stop trying to fix what isn't broken and engineering around the system we have, not the system we want. Show Notes Linux Foundation Census 2 Core Infrastructure Initiative