In a rush to grab their share of a growing market, manufacturers are pushing devices to market quickly for low-cost and convenience but with minimum security features. Gartner recently forecasted there will be 8.4 billion “connected things” in use worldwide in 2017.

It seems that almost every standard household item from kitchen appliances to toothbrushes can be purchased with internet connectivity these days, and most all of these connected devices need patching and updating to remain secure – if they were ever secure to begin with.

There also remains a lot of unanswered questions about what happens to data intentionally and unintentionally collected from these connected devices, and who should have access to the data?

In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Shaun Walsh is joined by special guest Elizabeth Wharton, Senior Assistant City Attorney with the City of Atlanta’s Law Department (Aviation Group) and Host of Buzz Off with Lawyer Liz to discuss the potential perils of connected technologies.

The role of the CISO is evolving, and security teams are less often seen as the being the “house of NO,” preventing an organization from pursuing certain initiatives due to security concerns.

To build a strong security culture, security teams should instead seek to support the business in creating a long-lasting set of values that can be embraced by every stakeholder to better define the organization’s overall risk appetite.

In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Shaun Walsh is joined by special guest Thom Langford, CISO at Publicis Groupe and co-founder of Host Unknown, to discuss the role of the CISO as a trusted advisor who can enable the business and the C-Suite by providing context needed to make risk-based decisions.

Originally a military term, OPSEC (operations security) has become an important part of business processes and even our personal safety online. Practicing OPSEC is important to protecting IP and employee’s personal information.

In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Shaun Walsh is joined by special guest Zoë Rose who explains how to protect critical information and determine threats to your personal security, and how practicing OPSEC when posting on social media and elsewhere online can help keep you and your family safe.

Our technology driven life would not be possible without the men and women working in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations.

 The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Report – STEM Occupations: Past, Present, And Future found the following:

• Out of 8.6 million STEM jobs 45% where computer-related occupations
• Employment in computer-related occupations is projected to increase by 12.5% by 2024
• Computer-related occupations are projected to have over one million job openings by 2024
• The average wage for all STEM occupations was $87,570, almost double for non-STEM occupations ($45,700)

 In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Shaun Walsh is joined by special guest Haley Kiker, who provides a first-hand point of view on the state of STEM in our schools from her unique perspective of being a female student interested in pursuing a technical career.

Third-party testing of anti-malware solutions has long been fraught with issues that often make the results of little use to those in the process of evaluating the right product for their particular business needs.

Ultimately, in-house testing in your own environment is the only reliable way to know if an anti-malware product is the right fit for your environment. If you don’t have experience testing anti-malware products, creating an in-house testing environment can be a daunting endeavor.

The recently published book Next-Generation Anti-Malware Testing for Dummies was designed to assist in understanding how to setup an in-house testing environment, safely obtain live malware samples, and perform tests that address real-world tactics attackers are using today.

In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Shaun Walsh is joined by special guests Carl Gottlieb - Founder/Consulting Director at Cognition and Founder of TestMyAV.com - and Chad Skipper – VP of Product Testing and Industry Relations at Cylance – the authors of the book.

While many people may be skeptical of their bank’s digital security these days, financial institutions are still thought of as being physical fortresses that cannot be breached. 

Social engineering combined with the improper implementation of even the best physical security systems can allow threat actors to walk right through the front door of institutions that are supposed to be keeping our money and personal information secure.

In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Shaun Walsh is joined by special guest Freaky Clown, a well-known ethical hacker, social engineer, and co-founder of Redacted Firm, who discusses the intersection of physical and digital security.

Data Sanitization as defined by IDSC (International Data Sanitization Consortium) is the process of deliberately, permanently, and irreversibly removing or destroying the data stored on a memory device to make it unrecoverable.

Furthermore, GDPR compliance will require the “right to erasure,” and PCI DSS states organizations must “Keep cardholder data storage to a minimum by implementing data retention and disposal policies, procedures and processes.”

In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Shaun Walsh is joined by special guest Richard Stiennon, Chief Strategy Officer at Blancco Technology Group and Director of the IDSC, to discuss the often-overlooked topic of data sanitization.

A Recent SANS survey of ICS security practitioners titled Securing Industrial Control Systems – 2017 found that 69% of respondents view threats to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) as high or severe/critical, and 40% lack visibility or sufficient supporting intelligence into their ICS networks.

In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Shaun Walsh is joined by special guest Eric Cornelius, VP of Innovation at Cylance and certified SANS instructor, to discuss how teams can better perform security assessments or audits of control systems and control system networks and increase visibility into control system cyber assets and configurations.

Industrial control systems (ICS) have become increasingly network connected over the years, driven by the need for rapid information on production and shipping. This cuts costs for equipment and manpower, but there are risks attached to these business advantages. Additionally, some ICS systems are connected to enterprise IT systems, making it possible for malware to jump from the IT network to the ICS.

In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Shaun Walsh is joined by special guest Chris Blask (@chrisblask) as they discuss industrial control systems and how securing them is different from securing traditional IT systems. 

When it comes to trusting in technology, we have many vectors for trust, and trust of course affects our relationships with people and organizations. Security vendors, despite our best efforts, are often the least trusted. And there is the plain truth that trusting too much can lead to insecurity, but trusting too little is often inefficient and creates obstacles to performance and success.

In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Shaun Walsh is joined by special guest Pete Herzog who has researched, written, and spoken on the subject of trust for many years. Herzog says he has learned that knowing how things really work allows us to apply the right controls, and adjust our level of trust accordingly.