Hacker Valley Red

In this special mini series of Hacker Valley Red, hosts Ron and Chris are joined by the Senior Vice President of Intelligence at CrowdStrike, Adam Meyers, to review and highlight elements shared in CrowdStrike’s 2022 Global Threat Report. 

In episode one of this series Ron, Chris and Adam take a deep dive into understanding the state of ransomware today and how it’s shaping the cybersecurity landscape as we know it. Adam explores the evolution of ransomware from a targeting and technical perspective, how data extortion has impacted day-to-day operations and services in our industry, and the risks cloud/SaaS environments present in today’s threat climate. Adams shares a glimpse into the creation of the Global Threat Report and how CrowdStrike is uniquely poised in providing actionable intel to help safeguard your data and operations. Lastly, he gives his advice on how to properly ingest the information provided in the report.

Guest Bio:

Adam Meyers is a recognized expert in the security and intelligence communities. With more than 15 years of experience in the security space, Adam has extensive experience building and leading intelligence practices in both the public and private sector. Adam is a founding employee and SVP on the executive team at CrowdStrike Inc., a global provider of security technology and services focused on identifying advanced threats and targeted attacks. A sought-after thought-leader, Adam conducts speaking engagements and training classes around the world on the topics of threat intelligence, reverse engineering, and data breach investigations.

Links:

Stay in touch with Adam Meyers on LinkedIn and Twitter

Follow CrowdStrike on LinkedIn and Twitter and learn more about what CrowdStrike has to offer on their website

Hacker Valley Studio: Swag | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Email Ron & Chris | Website

Support Hacker Valley Studio on Patreon

Continue the conversation on our Discord

Thanks to our friends at CrowdStrike for sponsoring this episode!

Alissa Knight joins Ron and Chris to wrap up this season  2 of Hacker Valley Red. Why? Some big news is why! Stay tuned for that and much more as the trio dive back into the mind of a hacker.

Key Takeaways:

02:57 Big News!

03:20 Alissa's Bio, round 2

05:10 Ron’s takeaway for this season of Hacker Valley Red

06:43 Alissa’s take on Lisa Forte

09:30 “My content is different”

11:38 Hacking an entire industry and doing research with it

18:56 The generational difference – Past vs. Present

21:10 Alissa and the video world

23:49 The dream guest

26:13 Alissa asks the golden question

Links:

Hacker Valley Studio: Swag | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Email Ron & Chris | Website

Alissa Knight: YouTube | LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

Support Hacker Valley Studio on Patreon

Join our monthly mastermind group via Patreon

HVR is proudly presented by Axonius

This episode is all about the hacked mind and who better to discuss it with than Lisa Forte. Lisa is a partner at Red Goat Cyber Security -- she started her career in counter piracy operations off the coast of Somalia and then worked her way to UK Counter Terrorism Policing. She continued her career in UK Police Cyber Crime Units and co-founded a movement called, “Respect in Security” to try and stamp out harassment and abuse in the infosec industry. This episode is a loaded weapon in the fight against insider threat.

Key Takeaways

2:11 Bio

2:42 Lisa’s favorite part of the job - working with Marines

5:07 What is insider threat?

6:04 An actual employee who got coerced

10:03 Surprising facts about attackers

12:30 Preventing insider threat

15:05 The attackers’ tactics and motivation

22:56 Respect in security - a company after harassment in cyber

26:20 Chris was manipulated on Myspace. What happened?

Hacker Valley Studio: Swag | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Email Ron & Chris | Website 

Lisa Forte: Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog | Website

Support Hacker Valley Studio on Patreon

Join our monthly mastermind group via Patreon

HVR is proudly presented by Axonius

This week on Hacker Valley Red, Chris and Ron are joined by Dan Trauner. Dan is Senior Director of Security at Axonius, and takes pleasure in breaking things to find creative ways to put them back together. The three colleagues discuss more technical specifics of a hacker’s mind, like how we can understand motive and deception, trends among attacks, and much more.  

Key Takeaways:

03:09 Bio

04:33 Where to start when you attack a computer – Finding weaknesses

10:20 Surprising Motives

13:00 Trends among security risks

14:34 Bitcoin & Crypto

16:26 The future of attacks

21:00 Reducing attack success

23:10 Understanding deception

27:50 Cohesion between red and blue teams

Links:

Hacker Valley Studio: Swag | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Email Ron & Chris | Website 

Dan Trauner: LinkedIn | Twitter 

Support Hacker Valley Studio on Patreon

Join our monthly mastermind group via Patreon

HVR is proudly presented by Axonius

Laurie Pieters-James is an Offender Profiler, Forensic Criminologist, Expert Witness and best-selling author of Shattered Lives: The Story of Advocate Barbie. Chris, Ron and Laurie dive deep into understanding the mind of a hacker, a criminal, and a criminal hacker. Laurie has spent her career learning to profile the most heinous criminals, both in cyber and on the streets. Listen to help yourself understand the enemy from the inside out.

03:20 Bio

04:41 Why did you choose to learn the mind?

06:23 Do criminals think about the punishment when they commit a crime?

09:06 The bridge to cyber security

13:39 Replicating red challenges on the blue side

18:47 Moral disengagement

20:03 Justifying deviant behavior

24:28 More tools for hackers

28:07 Getting into criminology 

31:05 Getting started understanding a hacker’s mind

Links:

Hacker Valley Studio: Swag | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Email Ron & Chris | Website 

Laurie Pieters-James: Twitter | LinkedIn | Book

Support Hacker Valley Studio on Patreon

Join our monthly mastermind group via Patreon

HVR is proudly presented by Axonius

Welcome back to Hacker Valley Red season two. This week Chris and Ron are joined by a hacker through and through. Alissa Knight blends influencer marketing, content creation in writing and filmmaking/cinematography, and go-to market strategies for telling brand stories at scale in cybersecurity through the lens of a hacker. She achieves this through ideation to execution of content strategy, storytelling, and execution of influencer marketing strategies that take cybersecurity buyers through your brand’s custom curated journey. But more importantly, she tells us what it takes to hack an entire industry...

Key Takeaways:

03:25 Bio

05:59 Why hacking?

07:32 What is FHIR? Hear how it was to hack it.

10:43 I’m just a hacker who did homework

13:50 Unexpected vulnerability

17:57 Support

20:22 How an API works

24:23 Input validation

29:28 A date worth more than oil

33:23 How to scale efforts

Hacker Valley Studio: Swag | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Email Ron & Chris | Website 

Alissa Knight: YouTube | LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

Support Hacker Valley Studio on Patreon

Join our monthly mastermind group via Patreon

HVR is proudly presented by Axonius

In episode three of Hacker Valley Red, Chris and Ron are joined by Deviant Ollam, a hacker to the bone and one of Chris’ inspirations in security. Deviant is currently a physical penetration specialist with The CORE Group and the Director of Education for Red Team Alliance. He is also a master lock-picker and uses his skill to shape the future of physical security. The three discuss very important topics, such as the hacker’s mindset, what we can do to foster growth in the next generation of cyber professionals and how physical security is changing.

Key Takeaways:

03:32 Bio

05:30 Developing the hacker’s mindset

08:40 Hacking in the past vs. the present

11:05 Bringing creativity and freedom back to kids, ultimately freeing adults

17:00 Impactful tinkering

21:39 The difference in the means to get to the end

25:28 Progress in physical security

27:17 Staying ahead of criminal tactics and mindset

31:35 Advice for people who need to fail up

34:57 Get in touch

Links:

Hacker Valley Studio: Swag | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Email Ron & Chris | Website 

Deviant Ollam: Website | Youtube | Twitter

Support Hacker Valley Studio on Patreon

Join our monthly mastermind group via Patreon

Hacker Valley Red is proudly presented by Axonius

Charity Wright is a Threat Intelligence Analyst with over 20 years of experience in the intelligence community, including the US Army and the National Security Agency, where she translated Mandarin Chinese. Charity now specializes in strategic intelligence, dark web cybercrime, counter-disinformation, and at Recorded Future. Join Ron, Chris and Charity as they discuss all things nation state-level, what we can do to avoid bad habits as a community, and how we understand our enemy.

Key Takeaways:

03:12 Bio

04:16 China’s security threat to the U.S.

07:20 What are hackers’ motives?

12:30 China plays the long game, and it helps them

15:11 In regards to national security, can we learn from any other countries?

17:20 When the line between crime and nations blurs

23:24 Know thy enemy

28:47 Using high-level strategic intelligence

30:54 Get in touch with Charity!

Links:

Hacker Valley Studio: Swag | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Email Ron & Chris | Website 

Charity Wright: Twitter | LinkedIn | Email

Support Hacker Valley Studio on Patreon

Join our monthly mastermind group via Patreon

Visit our presenting sponsor Axonius to solve your asset management efforts

Chris Hadnagy – Show Notes

Christopher Hadnagy is the founder and CEO of Social-Engineer, LLC. He created the world’s first social engineering framework, as well as hosted the first social engineering-based podcast. Chris is an adjunct professor of Social Engineering for an NSA Cyber School of excellence at University of Arizona. Chris is also a well-known author, having written five books on social engineering. Chris’ new book, “Human Hacking: Win Friends, Influence People and Leave Them Better Off for Having Met You”, released January 5, 2021. Join both Chris’ and Ron for an episode of self-analyzation, empathy and understanding.

Key Takeaways

02:52 Bio

06:20 Exploring the title of Chris’ book

08:40 What’s the difference between manipulation and influence?

10:36 A contract in a book. Why?

14:33 What books describe Chris?

 21:48 The importance of Empathy

26:48 The science 

30:57 Chris’ conference: The Human Behavior Conference

Links:

Hacker Valley Studio: Swag | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Email Ron & Chris | Website 

Chris Hadnagy: Twitter | Facebook | Book | Conference

Support Hacker Valley Studio on Patreon

Join our monthly mastermind group via Patreon

Visit our presenting sponsor Axonius to solve your asset management efforts

This episode of the Hacker Valley Studio podcast concludes the Hacker Valley Red series.  In this finale, Ron and Chris interview their friend - and formerly their shared roommate - Marco Figueroa.  Marco is a security researcher and cybersecurity speaker, and he is also a bug bounty enthusiast.  He and the hosts constant improvement, bug bounty, and more, while also looking back at the conversations thus far in the season.

-The episode features Marco Figueroa, and listeners are introduced to the content ahead.

-What is Marco’s background, and what is he doing now?

-Is there such a thing as an unhackable device?

-The group talks about Marco’s philosophy in his protection work, the place of social engineering, and the value of building relationships.

-What is the hacker mindset, and do you need coding experience to be a good hacker?

-If interested in the red side of the field, what should someone do first?

-Marco shares about what he sees on the horizon.

-The group considers two major season takeaways: the value of mentorship and the need to put yourself out there and take the first shot.

-Where is Marco planning to take his contact creation from here?

Links:

Connect with Marco Figueroa on Twitter

Connect with Marco on LinkedIn

Follow Marco’s Livestream

Learn more about Hacker Valley Studio

Support Hacker Valley Studio on Patreon

Follow Hacker Valley Studio on Twitter

Follow Ronald Eddings on Twitter

Follow Chris Cochran on Twitter

Learn more about the season sponsor, RiskIQ