Explore the remarkable journey of Shannen Rossmiller, a mother turned cyber warrior fighting terrorism from her home. Witness her resilience in the wake of 9/11 as she navigates personal challenges and transforms into a key figure in counterterrorism. Delve into her covert operations, including the intriguing Operation Whirlpool, where malware is deployed in the fight against extremism. Experience the tension of undercover work, as she uncovers a potential terrorist plot while balancing her dual roles as a judge and guardian against digital threats.
01:15:12
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
question_answer ANECDOTE
Shannon's Path to Counterterrorism
Shannon Rossmiller, a Montana judge, became obsessed with understanding the 9/11 attacks.
This led her down a path of online investigation and counterterrorism efforts.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Early Internet Investigations
Shannon began exploring online forums and chat rooms to understand radical Islam and terrorism.
She was fascinated by the diverse opinions and anonymity of the internet.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Creating Fake Personas
To get closer to her online enemies, Shannon created fake personas and adopted their language.
She meticulously built backstories and hid her IP address to maintain anonymity.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
Shannen Rossmiller wanted to fight terrorism. So she went online and did.
Read more about her from her book “The Unexpected Patriot: How an Ordinary American Mother Is Bringing Terrorists to Justice”. An affiliate link to the book on Amazon is here: https://amzn.to/3yaf5sI.
Thanks to Spycast for allowing usage of the audio interview with Shannen.
Sponsors
Support for this show comes from Varonis. Do you wonder what your company’s ransomware blast radius is? Varonis does a free cyber resilience assessment that tells you how many important files a compromised user could steal, whether anything would beep if they did, and a whole lot more. They actually do all the work – show you where your data is too open, if anyone is using it, and what you can lock down before attackers get inside. They also can detect behavior that looks like ransomware and stop it automatically. To learn more visit www.varonis.com/darknet.
Support for this show comes from Axonius. The Axonius solution correlates asset data from your existing IT and security solutions to provide an always up-to-date inventory of all devices, users, cloud instances, and SaaS apps, so you can easily identify coverage gaps and automate response actions. Axonius gives IT and security teams the confidence to control complexity by mitigating threats, navigating risk, decreasing incidents, and informing business-level strategy — all while eliminating manual, repetitive tasks. Visit axonius.com/darknet to learn more and try it free.
Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker®. ThreatLocker® is a Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform that strengthens your infrastructure from the ground up. With ThreatLocker® Allowlisting and Ringfencing™, you gain a more secure approach to blocking exploits of known and unknown vulnerabilities. ThreatLocker® provides Zero Trust control at the kernel level that enables you to allow everything you need and block everything else, including ransomware! Learn more at www.threatlocker.com.
Darknet Diaries