I’m the CEO, why should I care about Cyber…

Introduction

First and foremost, I’m going to start by saying if I include any cliché quotes it’s probably in an ironic context or used to show how they aren’t practically useful. Why are we here? Well, based on the title, it’s because you are either a CEO/MD or you are in a leadership position and want to learn a little more about cyber security.

I’m sure you have read the news, I’m sure you have seen vendor adverts explaining something like:

Zero Trust
The Security Skills Gap
How phishing can be solved through security awareness training (pro tip: it can’t)

And I’m sure someone on your LinkedIn feed you have seen people exclaim all kinds of crazy things like:

TLS Weaknesses Lead to Ransomware
Security is Simple (it, I’m afraid, is not)
Managed Security Service Providers ensure security

Leadership

The Security Challenges of 2021

The gaps between strategic security improvement and keeping the wolves out, today!

The Cyber Realities in 2021

Most organisations today honestly don’t have great cyber security postures. Cyber security has improved since the 80’s and 90s’s but still common gaps can be found in the same old areas.

So, whilst security possibilities and technical capabilities for defence have greatly improved, this hasn’t really translated into the level of change we would like to see on the ground inside organisations.

I’m writing this post after giving a talk today about the challenges I see in cyber security across different organisations but also after watching a talk by Dave Kennedy which from my perspective emulates my experiences and largely my views. Read more “The Security Challenges of 2021” →

Defense

Phishing your own people – path to eroding trust…

Introduction

“Security education and awareness darling, it’s all the rage! It’s simply to hot right now.” Ok stop, let’s take a minute to get some context. It’s the year 2021, organisations are taking a battering round the globe from cyber criminals who are deploying ransomware, extortion, and fraud via a range of methods but one you can’t not have heard of is phishing.

In this post today, I’m going to look at realities of initial access, phishing and some questions I think people should be asking themselves about the idea of phishing their own userbase. I try and look at this from multiple perspectives because I think it’s a complex subject. Let’s start with initial access methods!

Common Patterns of Access

If we look at the world of technology and cyber security, you will see logs of references to frameworks and language that is enough to send even the committed to sleep! However, let’s abstract from our TTPs, our MITRE ATT&CK frameworks and our “threat actors” and let’s talk in normal English. Read more “Phishing your own people – path to eroding trust or a useful tool?” →

Defense

Fast Monitoring Deployment with Datadog

Imagine the scenario where you have an endpoint or server running and you don’t have centralised logging or visualisation of log data and you need to perform some rapid analysis without wanting to stand up a new set of VMs or services, well this is where cloud really can come into it’s own.

Very rapidly we can setup a Datadog account. (this blog will be updated as I deploy and configure) Read more “Fast Monitoring Deployment with Datadog” →

Defense

HID Attacks using OMG Cables

Human Interface Devices is the science way of saying (in this case) keyboard! Now that doesn’t sound amazing but then we look at the details. What we are talking about here is a wireless remote controlled programable keyboard emulator disguised as a USB cable or a cable between a real USB keyboard (must be detachable). This provides attack opportunities to both key log and hijack inputs to PC devices covertly and remotely (within WIFI range). Just imagine what you could do with one of these.

Defense

Password Auditing with L0phtcrack 7 – A quick intro

If you know me that one of the first things, I recommend organisations do is conduct password audits against active directory on a regular basis. There are a ton of ways to do this and depending upon size of directory and budget you will likely want to do this with more than a CPU however the process remains the same. So, with the news that a new release of L0phtcrack (open source) is online let’s take a look at how we can deploy and start cracking those hashes! This isn’t an end to end guide to cracking with l0phtcrack – but it does show the install process and provide considerations for your cracking adventures. Remember, only do this where you have authorisation. Read more “Password Auditing with L0phtcrack 7 – A quick intro” →

Guides

Reporting an email as phishing in Office 365 with…

Did you ever just ignore or delete a phishing email? I mean that’s great in one sense that you won’t have any negative impact. But if the email did get past the mail security filters, you can report it using the “Mark as phishing” option.

What if as well you wanted to not only enable users to report but also pass the intelligence onto the NCSC Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS)? How cool would that be! Well, have no fear people, we are going to show you how easy this stuff is to deploy and configure. Read more “Reporting an email as phishing in Office 365 with NCSC SERS” →

Leadership

The problem with gatekeeping in the cyber security industry

Stark Realities

Imagine having an industry where you can’t be in it without already being an expert in all fields, imagine having to be able to command policy and drive strategy but not having anyone having ever helped you learn how to do this, imagine that if you did all the activities involved with secure service and yet people say you aren’t part of the industry because your job title doesn’t have the word “security” in it and imagine if that you are told you aren’t part of the cyber security industry because you also have to worry about budgets, sales, marketing, new business initiatives, IT services and well anything else!

What would happen if we had this as our cyber security industry principles… well that’s simple?

Leadership

The Art of Cyber

Cyber Security is an intersection of different activities, processes and capabilities. It uses skills from multiple traditional roles. As such the definition of it, often seems to lie in the reader. I did a poll the other day on twitter where ~30% of people thought a scenario I described wasn’t cyber because basically an “IT” person did the activity or they made assumptions that the IT person was told to do it (they were not). This led me to try and describe what Cyber means to me:

Guides

mRr3b00ts Pentest Plus Study Notebook

I created a PDF notebook a while ago when I decided on a whim to to the Pentest+. I have quite a few people ask me about getting into cyber security and well, you know when I was younger this stuff was just called IT mainly (IT + Infosec) so I thought let’s go test out the Pentest+. I did the course and exam in a week (whilst writing the notebook) (don’t think that’s a good idea but my objectives were more to make sure if I think it’s any good or not). Pleased to say I thought the course was good (I used pluralsight at 1.x speed) and the exam was fun (for an exam).

Hopefully this helps people explore the some of the world of offensive security and appsec. Read more “mRr3b00ts Pentest Plus Study Notebook” →