Stories From the SOC

A SOC analyst ignores an alert they’ve seen a hundred times before, except this time it wasn’t a false positive. In today’s episode of Stories From the SOC , Randy breaks down a real-world example of alert fatigue, how detection noise blinds even the best teams, and why tuning and automation are leadership responsibilities, not just technical ones. You’ll learn: How “noisy” alerts create blind spo...

A single fax led to a six-figure loss. In this episode of Stories from the SOC , Randy Breault unpacks a real-world Business Email Compromise that didn’t even start with email. A finance employee receives what appears to be a legitimate vendor banking update, the logo, the signature, and the domain all perfect. Except that “w” in the email address wasn’t a “w.” It was two v’s. This story reveals h...

Feeling stuck mid-career? You’re not alone. In this episode, Randy Breault explains why so many cybersecurity professionals lose their sense of direction after years of hard work and how to realign their goals, values, and growth path to find their North Star again.

Everyone loves a good tabletop exercise until the real incident hits and the plan falls apart. In this episode, Randy Breault breaks down why many organizations mistake familiarity for preparedness, how to build real stress into your incident simulations, and what separates confidence from true readiness.

Sometimes the scariest incidents aren’t real at all; they’re false positives that send an entire SOC spiraling down a rabbit hole. In this episode, Randy shares a familiar story of chasing phantom alerts, the emotional rollercoaster of “critical” false alarms, and the real danger that follows when tools cry wolf too often. You’ll learn how to build digital intuition, spot the difference between no...

When Jaguar Land Rover was hit by a cyberattack in late 2025, production lines across the world went silent. Factories shut down, suppliers were left waiting, and the company faced hundreds of millions in losses. But through it all, customer trust barely wavered. In this episode of Stories from the SOC , Randy Breault breaks down one of the year’s most significant breaches, exploring where the rea...

Every day brings a new AI headline, new copilots, new models, new promises to change everything. But for cybersecurity professionals, it’s starting to feel like mental overload. In this episode, Randy Breault from North Star Cyber Group breaks down AI fatigue, explores how “cyber brain rot” sneaks in through the hype cycle, and shares how leaders can stay sharp, focused, and resilient in a world t...

In this episode, Randy Breault, founder of North Star Cyber Group , shares how mentors shaped his 27-year cybersecurity career and why mentorship is the key to clarity, confidence, and long-term success in this field. You’ll hear: Why every cybersecurity professional needs a mentor What makes a strong mentor–mentee relationship How mentoring accelerates leadership and trust in security teams and i...

Every organization is experimenting with AI, whether security knows it or not. Employees quietly use tools like ChatGPT, Sora, and Copilot to move faster, create more, solve problems, and move data outside the company’s control. In this episode, Randy Breault explores  Shadow AI,  the new evolution of shadow IT, and how the speed of innovation collides with the slower pace of security and complian...

Not every security incident starts with a hacker. Sometimes, it starts with someone who’s simply exhausted. In this episode of Stories from the SOC, Randy Breault shares the story of one employee who kept failing phishing tests and what he discovered when he looked beyond the click. It’s a reminder that cybersecurity isn’t just about tools or training. It’s about people and the culture we create a...

When AWS goes dark or a massive update like CrowdStrike’s takes systems offline, the internet erupts with theories: cyberattack? breach? insider threat? In this episode of Stories from the SOC , Randy Breault unpacks why not every outage is a cybersecurity event and why curiosity, not panic, should be your default. You’ll hear why operational failures can look like security incidents, how to stay...

In this episode of Stories from the SOC , Randy Breault shares a story that starts with a signature, a trusted vendor’s digital certificate, and ends with a sobering truth about software supply chain attacks. Everything looked safe when an application appeared legitimate, even verified by the vendor’s signing key. But under the surface, the attacker wasn’t breaking trust; they were borrowing it. R...

A forgotten Linux server. An unpatched vulnerability. A crypto miner that crashed the system instead of profiting from it. In this Stories from the SOC episode, I share how one outdated system taught lessons in asset management, visibility, and leadership.

In the very first episode of Stories from the SOC , Randy Breault, founder of North Star Cyber Group, takes you inside a real-world battle against a foreign adversary. What started as a six-figure wire fraud quickly turned into an international chase through the SWIFT banking system, late night calls to China, and a lesson in why curiosity and persistence can change the outcome of an entire compan...