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Professor Simon's IT and Cybersecurity Podcast
By Professor SimonTechnology
Professor Simon's IT and Cybersecurity Podcast episodes
- I Learned Computers Before YouTube and AI. Here's What That Taught Me.
You can learn almost anything about cybersecurity tonight, so why do so many people get stuck the first time a lab doesn't match the tutorial? Professor Simon shares what learning computers before YouTube and AI taught him and three habits that still matter: investigating a problem you don't understand, learning why a solution works and not only the steps, and using YouTube and AI to move faster without handing over your judgment. He closes with a 15-minute exercise you can do in a lab you own. All examples are made-up, and there is no code.
Summary: Three habits for learning cybersecurity with videos, labs and AI: investigate, understand why, and keep your judgment.
Show notes:
- Why people get stuck when a lab does not match the tutorial.
- Learning computers on an Apple IIgs before YouTube and AI.
- What has changed in learning tools and what has changed much less.
- Habit 1: investigating a problem you don't immediately understand, with a shared folder example.
- Habit 2: learning why a solution works, with a firewall example.
- Habit 3: using YouTube and AI without handing over your judgment.
- How to ask AI a better question when troubleshooting.
- Keeping real work data out of experiments and unauthorized tools.
- A 15-minute exercise: predict, test, compare, explain out loud.
▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/LnAWaS0tYUo
📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/i-learned-computers-before-youtube-and-ai-heres-what-that-taught-me
🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast
👉 Need help with your IT or cybersecurity career? Work with me: https://professorsimon.com/guidance
🎯 Cybersecurity Interview Prep Pack: https://professorsimon.com/products/cybersecurity-interview-prep-pack
🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links
🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon
📸 Instagram • X • TikTok: @profsimononline
10 min - Help Desk to Cybersecurity: How to Turn Your Tickets Into Experience
Closing a ticket and demonstrating security experience are two different things. Professor Simon shows IT support professionals how to sort their tickets, document the ones that show security-relevant judgment with four questions, respect employer confidentiality, and turn the result into honest resume bullets and interview answers, with no code and no tools to learn.
Show notes:
- Closing a ticket versus demonstrating security experience.
- A worked example: five made-up help desk tickets and what each one shows.
- How to tell a security decision from a routine task.
- Four questions to document ticket work.
- Employer confidentiality: what not to copy, export, photograph or share.
- Turning ticket work into resume bullets and interview answers.
- Overclaiming and underclaiming, and what hiring managers can verify.
- An exercise: turn one ticket into a resume bullet.
▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/r-5YCIVHXIw
📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/you-work-in-it-support-heres-how-to-turn-your-tickets-into-cybersecurity-experience
🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast
👉 Need help with your IT or cybersecurity career? Work with me: https://professorsimon.com/guidance
🎯 Cybersecurity Interview Prep Pack: https://professorsimon.com/products/cybersecurity-interview-prep-pack
🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links
🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon
📸 Instagram • X • TikTok: @profsimononline
10 min - Your SIEM Generated 100 Alerts. Which One Do You Investigate First?
A full alert queue is a pile of decisions. Professor Simon shows IT professionals moving toward a SOC role how to separate severity from priority, ask five questions about every alert, group related alerts, order the work with stated conditions, and explain the order to a SOC lead, using a made-up queue and a paper-only assignment.
Show notes:
- Why severity is not the same as priority.
- Impact, urgency and evidence, plus your organization's procedures.
- Five questions to ask about every alert.
- A worked example with a made-up queue of five alerts.
- Grouping related alerts and treating relatedness as a hypothesis.
- How to explain your order, and what would change it, to your lead.
- A paper-only assignment: rank five alerts and write the sixty-second update.
▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/5d1L1asDAjQ
📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/your-siem-generated-100-alerts-which-one-do-you-investigate-first
🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast
👉 Need help with your IT or cybersecurity career? Work with me: https://professorsimon.com/guidance
🎯 Cybersecurity Interview Prep Pack: https://professorsimon.com/products/cybersecurity-interview-prep-pack
🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links
🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon
📸 Instagram • X • TikTok: @profsimononline
10 min - Want to Learn Scripting for Cybersecurity? Start With This Task.
Everyone tells you to learn scripting for cybersecurity, but almost nobody explains what scripting is for. Professor Simon gives IT support and early-career security learners five questions to ask before automating any task, three testing traps that quietly break scripts, and a paper-only assignment to try before writing any code.
Show notes:
- Why learning scripting vocabulary alone does not teach you what to build.
- Five questions to ask before automating a task.
- Three testing traps that make a script look right when it is not.
- Why a script's output should be three leads, not three attacks.
- When automation makes sense and when a person should decide.
- A paper-only assignment: pick one boring weekly task and plan its automation.
▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/tjKTZjk20Ks
📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/want-to-learn-scripting-for-cybersecurity-start-with-this-task
🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast
👉 Need help with your IT or cybersecurity career? Work with me: https://professorsimon.com/guidance
🎯 Cybersecurity Interview Prep Pack: https://professorsimon.com/products/cybersecurity-interview-prep-pack
🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links
🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon
📸 Instagram • X • TikTok: @profsimononline
10 min - A User Says Their Account Was Hacked. What Do You Check First?
A user reports that their account was hacked. What should an IT support technician or cybersecurity analyst check first? Professor Simon walks through a fictional Microsoft 365 case: what to ask the user, which sign-in and authentication evidence to read, how to tell a suspicious notification from confirmed unauthorized access, when to escalate and contain, what to check after a suspicious sign-in, and how to write a five-sentence incident summary.
Summary: Separate suspicious from confirmed in a hacked-account report using sign-in evidence, then decide when to escalate and contain.
Show notes:
- What to ask a user who reports a hacked account.
- A three-level evidence ladder from suspicious notification to confirmed compromise.
- Reading Microsoft Entra ID sign-in records and authentication details.
- How a sign-in can succeed without a new MFA prompt.
- When to escalate and what containment usually involves.
- What to check after a suspicious sign-in.
- How to write a five-sentence incident summary.
▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/f-Xvhf4Cyc0
📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/a-user-says-their-account-was-hacked-what-do-you-check-first
🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast
👉 Need help with your IT or cybersecurity career? Work with me: https://professorsimon.com/guidance
🎯 Cybersecurity Interview Prep Pack: https://professorsimon.com/products/cybersecurity-interview-prep-pack
🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links
🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon
📸 Instagram • X • TikTok: @profsimononline
10 min - Someone Left the Company. Is Their Access Actually Gone?
Someone left the company on Friday, and you disabled their account. Done? Not necessarily. A person's access usually isn't in one place, and disabling the main account may not touch all of it. In this episode of Professor Simon's IT & Cybersecurity Podcast, I walk through four questions to trace a departed employee's access, so you aren't relying on a single checklist.
I cover why access nobody is watching is a risk, whether to take inventory before you disable an account, and the four questions: what they had, what still works without their password, what they owned, and how you know it's gone. I also cover what to do when nobody can say who owns something you find, why you report a sign-in after the departure time instead of investigating it yourself, and what to write down so the next person can finish the job. A made-up example, a finance-team departure with a separate reporting-tool login, delegate mailbox access, a shared vendor portal login and a weekly report, ties the four questions together.
This episode is for people on a help desk, in systems administration, or early in a security career. Environments differ, so your process and your system owners come first.
▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/NAePsxVMJzc
📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/someone-left-the-company-is-their-access-gone
🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast
👉 Need help with your IT or cybersecurity career? Work with me: https://professorsimon.com/guidance
🎯 Cybersecurity Interview Prep Pack: https://professorsimon.com/products/cybersecurity-interview-prep-pack
🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links
🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon
📸 Instagram • X • TikTok: @profsimononline
9 min - Cloud Storage Says Public. Is It Actually Exposed?
Your scanner says a cloud storage container is public. Okay, but is it actually exposed? And was it supposed to be? A "public" finding describes a setting, not what anyone can actually reach. In this episode of Professor Simon's IT & Cybersecurity Podcast, I walk through three questions to answer, in order, before anyone says "make it private."
I cover why access to cloud storage is usually decided by several layers, how to check what an unauthenticated request can actually get using one known, harmless item and only with authorization, and why one item doesn't prove everything about a container. I also cover how to tell whether public access is intentional, why you shouldn't close it yourself, and how to find out what would break before anyone flips the setting. A made-up example, a website container with one stray spreadsheet, ties the three questions together.
This episode is for people in IT or early in a security career. It is provider-neutral and does not tell you how any particular cloud provider layers its controls; if you aren't sure, ask someone who is.
▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/-MwnhO2F1hs
📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/cloud-storage-says-public-is-it-actually-exposed
🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast
👉 Need help with your IT or cybersecurity career? Work with me: https://professorsimon.com/guidance
🎯 Cybersecurity Interview Prep Pack: https://professorsimon.com/products/cybersecurity-interview-prep-pack
🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links
🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon
📸 Instagram • X • TikTok: @profsimononline
9 min - Before You Reimage That Laptop, What Should You Check?
A laptop might be compromised, the user needs it back by tomorrow, and somebody on your team says, "Just reimage it." Reimaging may be the right fix, but it also erases the machine's current state, which may be the only record of what happened. In this episode of Professor Simon's IT & Cybersecurity Podcast, I walk through four questions to ask before you change the machine.
I use one clearly made-up laptop and alert. I cover whether your organization has a process, who has the authority to decide, what you would lose by wiping the laptop, and what you can safely do within your own role. I also cover keeping a time-stamped note that separates what you saw from what you think happened, talking to the user without blame, handing the matter to the responsible team, telling a manager why the laptop is being held, and what to do under pressure to move fast, or when the laptop is just slow.
This episode is for people in IT support, systems administration or early security roles. It does not teach forensic collection and makes no legal claims; follow your organization's process.
▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/pvCj_6L8InA
📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/before-you-reimage-a-laptop-questions-to-ask
🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast
👉 Need help with your IT or cybersecurity career? Work with me: https://professorsimon.com/guidance
🎯 Cybersecurity Interview Prep Pack: https://professorsimon.com/products/cybersecurity-interview-prep-pack
🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links
🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon
📸 Instagram • X • TikTok: @profsimononline
9 min - The Job Title Says Security Analyst. What Will You Actually Be Doing?
The job title says security analyst, but you can't tell from the title whether you'd be watching alerts all day or doing something quite different. In this episode of Professor Simon's IT & Cybersecurity Podcast, I walk through four things to look for in any posting so you can read the work behind the title.
I use two made-up postings that share a title and describe very different weeks, then a third, messier one. I cover the verbs, the technologies, the deliverables and the people in a posting, a test I like: finish the sentence, "On a normal Tuesday, I would...", why a posting is a clue and not a promise, how to turn missing information into interview questions, and how to describe your own IT work in honest, plain verbs.
This episode is for people in IT, such as help desk, systems administration or networking, who are looking at security jobs and deciding which postings to apply for. No real employer is described, and I don't recommend any product.
▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/hnYc-DbLWQQ
📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/how-to-read-a-security-analyst-job-posting
🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast
👉 Need help with your IT or cybersecurity career? Work with me: https://professorsimon.com/guidance
🎯 Cybersecurity Interview Prep Pack: https://professorsimon.com/products/cybersecurity-interview-prep-pack
🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links
🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon
📸 Instagram • X • TikTok: @profsimononline
10 min - The App Team Says It's the Firewall. How Do You Find Out?
A ticket says the firewall is blocking an application and asks you to open a port. Before you change anything, how do you find out whether the firewall is really the problem? In this episode of Professor Simon's IT & Cybersecurity Podcast, I walk through a practical order of checks for testing that theory.
I use one made-up example: a new database server that an application cannot connect to. The server, the error message and the old address are invented for illustration. I cover why opening the port to see what happens is a poor test, what to ask the app team first, the five things that have to be true for one machine to reach another, how to check the service, the name and the port, and where to run the test from. I explain what connection refused and a timeout each tell you, what a failed ping does and does not prove, what to do if the port test still times out, and how to hand a firewall team evidence they can use.
This episode is for help desk staff, sysadmins and early-career security people who get firewall change requests for systems they are responsible for, inside their own change process. If your team's process says something different, your team's process wins. I don't recommend any product.
▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/QdKpCMKCXhI
📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/is-it-the-firewall-how-to-find-out
🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast
👉 Need help with your IT or cybersecurity career? Work with me: https://professorsimon.com/guidance
🎯 Cybersecurity Interview Prep Pack: https://professorsimon.com/products/cybersecurity-interview-prep-pack
🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links
🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon
📸 Instagram • X • TikTok: @profsimononline
9 min
About Professor Simon's IT and Cybersecurity Podcast
From the publisher's feed
Welcome to The Professor Simon IT & Cybersecurity Podcast, where we go beyond the textbook with real-world career advice, practical guidance, and lessons from the field. Whether you're breaking…
into IT or cybersecurity, building your skills, transitioning careers, or planning your next move, you'll gain practical insights to help you make better career decisions and understand what the work actually looks like. Topics include careers, certifications, IT fundamentals, SOC, GRC, leadership, AI, cloud security, and more. Cyber & IT Beyond the Textbook.