Technado (Archived)

Want to live in a world without passwords? This week’s podcast guest, Shahrokh Shahidzadeh from Acceptto, came on to talk about how it’s possible with continuous behavioral authentication. He also shared his perspective on the launch of Dropbox’s new password manager. In the news, the crew discussed Amazon’s new quantum computing service, Braket, Microsoft’s efforts to add transparency in Windows 10 updates, an exploit targeting Apache Struts Surfaces on GitHub, newly released speed tests from SpaceX Starlink, and a bug which meant Instagram wasn’t deleting photos and direct messages.

It’s two for one this week on Technado, where the team talks to both Sam Rubin of The Crypsis Group and John Prisco from Quantum Xchange. After surviving a hurricane last week, John came on to talk about Quantum Xchange’s growth since we last spoke, as well as a newly-released DoE blueprint for a quantum internet. But first, Sam’s security expertise helped the guys breakdown news including a leak of passwords for 900+ enterprise VPN servers, scam browser extensions that made it in the Chrome Web Store, an IP breach from Intel finding it’s way online, pro-Trump hackers defacing popular subreddits, and a Zoombomber crashing the Twitter hack hearing in a colorful way.

With a hurricane bearing down on our scheduled guest, the Technado team decided to focus on more news in this week’s episode. First, in “Who Got Pwned,” the crew discussed the difficulties Garmin had trying to pay their ransom. Then, in “Behind Bars,” they looked at the updates to the Twitter breach that saw 2 Florida teenagers in custody. In other news, they talked about the death of Cortana on iOS and Android, a recently patched Zoom exploit, and a new tool to detect shadow admin accounts in AWS and Azure. Finally, they tried to maintain a straight face while discussing Boot Hole, a new way to install boot-level malware.

Ben Brennan stopped by Technado this week to talk about how his company’s QSTAC data can improve the quality of IT teams as well as his book, Badass IT Support. Then, the group discussed how IT workers are like flat earthers. In the news, the panel looked at the reorg at Intel, a supercomputer collaboration between Nvidia and the University of Florida, how masks are messing with facial recognition, and a multi-day ransomware outage at Garmin. Finally, they look at the implications of a security breach at a major genealogy database.

Since we’re focusing on CompTIA this month on Technado, we decided to go right to the source and speak with Dr. James Stanger. He talked about all things CompTIA, from the changes they’ve seen from COVID-19 to the growing emphasis on security. Then, he helped the team dissect the high-profile Twitter breach from earlier in the week in the “Who Got Pwned” segment. In other news, the Technado crew looked at the Cloudflare outage, Google pushing back on Microsoft’s Chrome RAM reduction, the latest in the EU-US data privacy act, the exposure of VPN logs for millions of users, and a cloud provider’s interesting approach to a ransomware attack.

Getting a CompTIA cert is a big accomplishment. Getting all of them? That’s podcast-worthy. In addition to holding all the current CompTIA certifications, this week’s guest Lee McWhorter is also the CTO of Covered 6, a security training firm focussed on veterans. After an interview, Lee helped breakdown ‘Who Got Pwned’ due to home routers riddled with flaws and running unpatched Linux. In other news, the Technado team discussed Intel’s Thunderbolt 4 specs, Fedora’s approval of Nano as the default terminal text editor, billions of leaked credentials on the dark web, and the seizure of the BlueLeaks server. They ended with a new segment, “Behind Bars,' where a hacker was caught after flaunting his wealth on Instagram.

An old friend of the show, Christiaan Brinkhoff, returned this week after joining Microsoft on the Windows Virtual Desktop team. After letting us know what he’s been up to since we last spoke, he talked about the impressive new features in WVD including management through the Azure portal. In the news, the Technado team looked at Huawei’s first foray into PC’s, Discord’s attempt to rebrand itself, Microsoft sneaking Edge into updates, a new Mac ransomware, and the sentencing of a former Yahoo engineer who snooped on more than 6,000 email accounts.

Joe Carson, the Chief Security Scientist at Thycotic, joined the Technado crew to talk about the importance of privileged access management. He also shared some facts on the Estonian language before helping dissect a data leak at Twitter. Then, the hosts put on their tinfoil hats to debunk the conspiracy theory that Bill Gates wants to microchip vaccines. In the news, they discussed Apple’s Xcode 12, an Arm-based supercomputer in Japan, Microsoft’s addition of Linux protections to Windows, and a Detroit man who allegedly hacked a hospital.

Mike Weber from Coalfire was this week’s guest, and he told the team about an experiment where they were able to cause 3D printers to catch fire with a remote attack. Mike also gave an update on a story from several episodes ago where 2 of his coworkers were arrested during a physical pen-testing job at a courthouse in Iowa. Then, in the news, the crew discussed Apple’ WWDC announcements including macOS 11 Big Sur and the move from Intel to ARM chips. In other news, they reviewed a massive DDoS attack Amazon mitigated, how hackers used Google Analytics to steal credit cards, and how Windows 10 managed to slash RAM usage for Chrome and Edge browsers.

We were fortunate to not only be joined by John Dileo, the cofounder and managing principal of Vartai Security, but also Johnny Macluf, the director of threat research. After learning about them and the company, they shared their thoughts on a honeypot set up by researchers that was infected in just three days. In the news, the team discussed Apple’s move to ARM chips, a sketchy Hackintosh system, an overhaul to the Windows 10 Insider Program, and if Zoom is the next Huawei. Finally, they unpacked the bizarre story of a couple cyberstalked by eBay employees.