Beers with Talos Podcast

Everyone fears the dreaded 10-out-of-10 CVSS severity score on a vulnerability with "critical" written somewhere on the advisory. But does that number even matter to an attacker or hypothetical defender? Matt, Mitch and Lurene discuss the various ways the security community classifies vulnerabilities and how potential targets can use that information to their advantage. They discuss patching strategies, potential security holes that attackers look for and real-world cases of vulnerabilities that have led to breaches or cyber attacks.Other suggested talking points:Band jam sessionsConference season getting underwayWhether Tom Petty's music is actually complex

(Recorded Jan. 27, 2023)No Matt this episode, so we have two guests in the rotating chair(s): Nick Biasini and David Liebenberg. Lurene, Mitch and our two esteemed companions talk about the human problem of ransomware. Lurene says getting rid of email altogether is the best option — but since that doesn't seem likely anytime soon, what are some other options for enterprises and companies to avoid being hit with the latest phishing scam? Other suggested talking points:Wawa vs. SheetzWhy everyone has a "Dave in Accounting"Lurene being way ahead of the curve on Twitter's slow demise

With this episode, we set out to discuss the first annual Cisco Talos Year in Review report - a look back at the major threats, trends, and topics from 2022 and what we should take forward into 2023.   Our guest Dave Liebenberg runs the team behind this report and joins us to discuss *why* his team undertook this effort, and some of the finer points of the report findings.  The Year in Review is broken down into four major parts, and Talos will be releasing "topic focus reports" to zoom in on each through February.  ...BUT...  in reality, we spent the first 20 minutes of the show ranking Thanksgiving foods by awesomeness - henceforth, Ranksgiving - and it was too much fun to cut.  If you don't want to be angered or surprised where turkey lands on the list, skip to the 20 minute mark.  The #1 spot is definitely a hot take that could upset some listeners, just like it upset to the previous long-standing title holder. Check out the Year in Review page (https://blog.talosintelligence.com/year-in-review) for the full Year in Review report,  topic summary reports, livestreams, podcasts, and other content starting December 14th.  

We are (finally) talking about the recent OpenSSL vulnerability as we had to redo this EP.  In our infinite podcasting wisdom, we took a stab at it roughly 2 hours before the embargo expired and coverage was released - which is obviously is a very silly idea in hindsight. After we cover the current issue at hand, Lurene leads us through the surface levels of how vulns can be exploited in the heap or stack, and the different perspective and processes in practice by offensive security experts.  If you want to walk away with a new view of vulns and exploits, stay for the whole hour.Here is a great write up from DataDog on OpenSSL vulnerability CVE-2022-3602.

Mitch was trying to preserve his voice, so Matt is driving the bus during this episode — hang on! In this edition, we're talking about script kiddies (unfortunately, not "kitties.") These are basically adversaries with an extreme base level of computer knowledge who use basic scripts to carry out cyber attacks. How can we avoid these attacks, even if they'll look like benign activity in your environment? 

At the onset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many experts and government officials expected there to be two fronts of the war — one on the ground in Ukraine and one in cyberspace. But all things considered, we haven't seen as much offensive cyber warfare come from either side of this conflict this year. J.J. Cummings from Talos Threat Intelligence and Interdiction joins the show again to share his experience from working hands-on with networks in Ukraine. He, Lurene, Mitch and Matt discuss why there haven't been as many offensive attacks as we were expecting, or if they're just happening in the background and no one's talking about it.Other suggested talking points include:What is the "Texas" of other continents?Drama inside the Conti ransomware gang.Why Matt definitely doesn't spend too much time on Twitter.How sad should we be about the Queen of England dying?Some helpful links:HermeticWiper | New Destructive Malware Used In Cyber Attacks on Ukraine from SentinelOneAcidRain | A Modem Wiper Rains Down on Europe from SentinelOneTranslated: Talos' insights from the recently leaked Conti ransomware playbookVictoria & Albert Museum in Discussions to Return Artifacts to GhanaUkraine Independence Day: Talos update

We're excited to add to the growing Beers with Talos family with the addition of Lurene Grenier to the squad. Lurene joins her first episode and hits the ground running talking about her current role within Talos. She, Mitch and Matt talk about the major differences between exploit development and vulnerability discovery, and how Lurene started her career in exploit development. While exploit development might sound like the stereotypical thing a "basement hacker" does, it's actually very important to the security arena and something a hobbyist can easily turn into a career. Other talking points:Unsolicited marketing advice for Pennsylvania government agencies.Dunking on the Tampa Bay Rays.Why Lurene is always right.$8 million worth of exploit development for Apple products.

(Uploaded again, this time with the correct music!) The OG Beers with Talos folks are dropping like flies, because now we also have to say goodbye to Joel! We know this has been quite the roller coaster for listeners, but we appreciate you all sticking with us through all these changes. We take some time in Joel’s farewell to discuss “Rent,” as only BWT could, and burnout in cybersecurity.

This was admittedly a tough one to record. In the middle of us trying to respond to the situation in Ukraine, we felt it was important to let our listeners in a bit. Matt, JJ and Liz discuss the work they and their teams are doing in Ukraine to protect critical systems there and keep users online. We also talk about the human side of things, and why it’s important for folks in cybersecurity to think about self care during this time.If you want to stay up to date on Talos’ work in Ukraine and our ongoing research about cybersecurity concerns in the region, continually check cs.co/TalosUA. Here are some additional links to Talos research and Cisco announcements:Livestream with Cisco ThousandEyes, Cisco Secure and Cisco TalosSpam campaigns leveraging Ukraine themes to spread malware, steal cryptocurrencyCisco’s statement on standing with Ukraine

We’re dropping two episodes today. This is undoubtedly the less serious of the two, as it was recorded prior to the invasion of Ukraine. Check out Ep. #118 for more on that situation. In this episode, though, we got to talk about Talos’ involvement at the Super Bowl. Mitch welcomes on Brett Ellis, who was at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles to help defend “The Big Game,” of Talos Incident Response to discuss his experience. He, JJ and Liz talk about what goes into securing these major global events and talk about what it’s like to have to come in and handle someone else’s networking equipment and then parachute out. If you want to learn more about Talos and Cisco Secure at the Super Bowl, you can read Cisco’s announcement.