The Gate 15 Podcast Channel

The gang is back together as Bridget Johnson and Joe Levy join Dave on the podcast to catch up on what they've missed while turning their attention to Ukraine and outdoor events. Within Ukraine, the nerdites talked about the effects of the current conflict, TikTok and the evolving information wars to include disinformation and misinformation campaigns on all sides, and what some outcomes may be long term. The gang then turned to thoughts of warmer weather and the upcoming outdoor events and activities. Looking at it through a security lens the Bridget, Joe and Dave looked at some important considerations while also keeping focus on those other events leading up to the 2022 election season. Before wrapping up with some pointed security plugs, the team talked about hurricane predictions and outdoor events to look forward to.

Joe Levy is the chairman of the International Associate of Venue Managers (IAVM) Venue Safety and Security Committee. In addition, Joe is the Chief Operating Officer at the Usdan Center for the Creative & Performing Arts. IAVM website https://www.iavm.org/ Venue Safety and Security committee contact information: [email protected]; LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelevy1/   

Bridget Johnson is the Managing Editor for Homeland Security Today. In addition her contributions on Homeland Security Today (hstoday.us), they are also running a series of webinars (Webinar signups, https://www.eventbrite.com/e/le-only-anti-government-extremists-who-they-are-how-to-combat-them-tickets-144507635227?aff=ebdsoporgprofile). Twitter: @BridgetCJ

In this episode of The Gate 15 Interview, Andy Jabbour speaks with Gary Warner, Director of Research in Computer Forensics’ for the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the Director of Threat Intelligence for DarkTower. From his LinkedIn bio, “Gary is the ‘Director of Research in Computer Forensics’ for the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). In this role, which brings together the Computer Science and Criminal Justice departments, he is concentrating on research that will help law enforcement and other security professionals to identify, apprehend, prosecute and convict those who are committing cybercrime, and spread information to victims and potential victims about cybercrime issues. 90 analysts and programmers work in the UAB Computer Forensics Lab building tools and providing intelligence for a variety of clients around Cybercrime, Fraud, and Terrorism, as well as the Social Media aspects of more traditional crimes, including Gang Activity and Transnational Drug Networks. In addition to his duties at UAB, Warner serves as the Director of Threat Intelligence for DarkTower, a subsidiary of Queen Associates in Charlotte, North Carolina. Gary Warner was the founding president of the Birmingham InfraGard chapter, and has served as secretary and member of the board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, among other roles. 

Read more on LinkedIn. Gary on Twitter: @GarWarner. Gary’s blog: CyberCrime & Doing Time; A Blog about Cyber Crime and related Justice issues. “Malware analysis is a team sport” – Gary Warner, on information sharing, during our podcast recording In the discussion we address: 

• Gary’s backstory and the work he’s doing today 

• Information sharing and the value of plugging into information sharing communities 

• The great work being done by the FBI and CISA 

• The importance of knowing your competition, China, Russia, and ongoing threats 

• Some of Gary’s go-to resources 

• Gary talks about haikus, Talking Heads, GarBot, birdwatching, and more! “CISA, it's a new era of info sharing in the government” before giving some shout outs to CISA’s first Director, Chris Krebs, and current Director, Jen Easterly 

A few references mentioned in or relevant to our discussion include: 

• CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog (KEVC), something Gate 15’s Jen Walker raves about often, including in our recent Risk Roundtable: The Risk Roundtable EP 27: Don’t let bias guide your preparedness (07 Mar 22). https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog

• Gary discussed this event: Justice Department Announces Court-Authorized Effort to Disrupt Exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerabilities (13 Apr 21) https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-court-authorized-effort-disrupt-exploitation-microsoft-exchange

• BITNET https://bit.net

• FBI SENTINEL System https://www.fbi.gov/services/information-management/foipa/privacy-impact-assessments/sentinel

• Intellipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellipedia

• REN-ISAC https://www.ren-isac.net

• Gary’s four CISA “must watch” sites from the CISA cyber landing page: 

o Current activity: https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/current-activity 

o Alerts: https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts 

o Bulletins: https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/bulletins 

o Analysis: https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/analysis-reports 

• Gary strongly encouraged listeners to check CISA Director Jen Easterly’s “about” section in her LinkedIn profile to understand why she is so excellently qualified to be the woman leading CISA today (something Chris Krebs, her predecessor at CISA agrees with)

This month, The Cybersecurity Evangelist chats with a couple of budding podcasters. For the third appearance on the Gate 15 Podcast Channel, the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center (H-ISAC) joins me for episode 17.

I got to put my ISAC analyst hat on and talk with the heart of Health-ISAC – the dynamic duo of Zach Nelson (Threat Operations Center Manager) and Joshua Justice (Senior Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst) from the Threat Operations Center about what drives Health-ISAC and the goals of the Threat Operations Center – the privacy and security of our protected health information (PHI) and why threat actors want that information – yours and mine! We also talked a little about cross-sector collaboration, especially between the ISACs, and rounded it out with a general reminder for all to be #BeCyberSmart about phishing themes leveraging the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Resources mentioned in this episode

In the latest Risk Roundtable, Andy, Jen, and Dave talk about the war in Ukraine and what it means for preparedness. Sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade and not allow personal, political or other bias to affect your organization’s analysis or preparedness. While Andy and Dave throw flags on their previous predictions, Jen brings us back to reality and talks about being aware, being prepared, and reminds “don’t panic.” Andy then drills down on bias and how it can have an impact on organizations.

During the Roulette Round, Jen talked about CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, vulnerabilities, and patching (while Dave ensured it wasn’t his Windows 2000 computer exposure that Jen was referring to…), then Dave brought up the importance of disaster preparedness in light of spring and summer severe weather events. Andy wrapped things up with a quick talk about the “People’s Convoy” and the battle of the Washington, D.C. Beltway! The pod wraps up with three questions – from COVID predictions, to Andy’s confusion about when seasons start, to Batman.

Link mentioned in the pod include: CISA’s Shields Up webpage: https://www.cisa.gov/shields-up CISA: Russia Cyber Threat Overview and Advisories. https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/russia#russian And our post on the Gate 15 blog from 03 March, Russian Cybersecurity Threats: 5 Asks from the FBI: https://gate15.global/russian-cybersecurity-threats-5-asks-from-the-fbi/ Bridget Johnson on Twitter, and at Homeland Security Today (HS Today) CISA Adds 95 Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog (03 Mar 22): https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/current-activity/2022/03/03/cisa-adds-95-known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog WaterISAC: Update (March 3, 2021) – 95 Added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog (03 Mar 22): https://www.waterisac.org/portal/cisa’s-known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog Microsoft: Customer Guidance for WannaCrypt attacks (12 May 17): https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2017/05/12/customer-guidance-for-wannacrypt-attacks/ ZDNet Ransomware attack: Hospitals still struggling in aftermath of WannaCrypt's rampage (15 May 17): https://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-attack-hospitals-still-struggling-in-aftermath-of-wannacrypts-rampage/

Why Scammers Love Love Too! On Episode 16, The Cybersecurity Evangelist talks about love! Well, more specifically romance scams. I talked about the social engineering component of romance scams, a few fraud reports and financial losses due to romance scams, red flags that could indicate someone you know is caught in a romance scam, some common and practical steps to defeating romance and other types of social engineering based scams, and the importance of reporting romance scams. No matter how painful, falling for a romance scam is nothing to be ashamed of. Romance scams can happen to anyone at any age.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

In this episode of The Gate 15 Interview, Andy Jabbour speaks with Joseph Marks, Washington Post reporter for The Cybersecurity 202. From his Washington Post bio, “Joe Marks writes The Cybersecurity 202 newsletter focused on the policy and politics of cybersecurity. Before joining The Washington Post, Marks covered cybersecurity for Politico and Nextgov, a news site focused on government technology and security. He also covered patent and copyright trends for Bloomberg BNA and federal litigation for Law360. Marks began his career at Midwestern newspapers covering city and county governments, crime, fires and features. He spent two years at the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota and is originally from Iowa City. Joe on Twitter, @Joseph_Marks_. Joe on LinkedIn. Subscribe to The Cybersecurity 202.

In the discussion we address:

A few references mentioned in or relevant to our discussion include:

In the latest episode of Nerd Out, Dave starts off by talking about his recent quarantine experience in Costa Rica (21 days!) before welcoming in a panel to discuss the Colleyville, Texas synagogue attack. Bringing in Mayya Saab, Seth Ozer, and Ed Heyman the panel went through the hostile event and looked at initial reactions, what can be learned from this situation, and some of the key takeaways. The team then stressed the importance of training in this situation, but also discussed several low cost options and ways to make their location more secure. Mayya Saab is the Executive Director of the Faith-Based Information Sharing and Analysis Organization (FB-ISAO); Seth Ozer is Senior Consultant with Woodstone Consulting, LLC; Ed Heyman is the co-chair of the FB-ISAO Organizational Residence Group