Decipher Security Podcast

Veteran security journalist and podcaster Ryan Naraine joins the Decipher podcast to discuss the challenges of separating fact from fiction when reporting on complex incidents such as the Snowflake breach.

Garrett Yamada, associate director of identity security at Texas A&M University, talks about his experiences navigating identity challenges, building an identity-centric strategy and moving away from “home-grown, home-managed systems” that were historically used for authentication.

Sarah Powazek, the Program Director of Public Interest Cybersecurity at the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about her work in setting up Cybersecurity Clinics at high education institutions around the country to help bring knowledge and skills to underserved organizations. 

Caitlin Condon of Rapid7 joins Dennis Fisher to dive into the juicy tidbits from the Rapid7 Attack iNtelligence Report, including the rise in attacks on zero days, ransomware proliferation, and why network edge devices remain a major problem. 

Read the report here: https://www.rapid7.com/c/fr-2024-attack-intelligence-report-TY/1/

Chris Langford, Director of Network, Infrastructure, and Cyber Security at the Lewisville Independent School District, talks about how having experience in the classroom has helped him from a cybersecurity perspective, and how we can best educate the next generation of students on cybersecurity best practices.

At RSA Conference 2024, Kelly Shortridge, senior director of portfolio product management at Fastly, talks about the first steps organizations can take toward adopting a Secure by Design mindset and how businesses can approach the challenge of sustaining resilience in complex systems.  

In this special episode, Dennis Fisher and Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch are joined by Brian Donohue of Red Canary to preview the RSA conference talks they're excited about and to try to make sense of some of the session titles that are maybe a little indecipherable.

Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch turns the tables on Decipher editor-in-chief Dennis Fisher in this episode of Memory Safe to find out how his background covering crime prepared him for the cybersecurity beat, why Ferris Bueller's Day Off is his favorite hacker movie, and how much the security world has changed in the last 20 years. 

In this week's Source Code podcast, we go over findings from a newly released Ransomware Task Force report and give an update on the types of data accessed in the Change Healthcare ransomware attack.

The Salvation Army’s Lachlan McGill, general manager of cyber risk and compliance, and Euan Moore, security operations manager, talk about their experiences building a strong cybersecurity foundation, navigating the organization’s unique challenges and fostering a culture around security awareness.

In this week’s Source Code podcast, we discuss new reporting from Change Healthcare parent UnitedHealth Group that the massive ransomware attack has cost the company $872 million so far. We also talk about recent research about Sandworm, which has been designated by Mandiant as APT44.

Cody Stokes, a security leader at Procellis Technology, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about his time in the Marine Corps, the challenges of breaking into the cybersecurity field, and the fulfillment he gets from helping to protect users. 

In this week’s Memory Safe episode, Sherrod DeGrippo of Microsoft talks about her first experiences with hacker culture, why a Stanley Kubrik movie shows a glimpse of what AI is, and how she makes sure that “threat intelligence hits the right note.”

Dan Lorenc, co-founder and CEO of Chainguard, joins Dennis Fisher to dig into the recent XZ Utils backdoor incident, the implications for the open source ecosystem, and what can be done to avoid similar incidents in the future. Then they discuss the problems facing NIST's National Vulnerability Database and the CVE ecosystem. 

Rick Gordon of Tidal Cyber joins Dennis Fisher to discuss his path from the US Naval Academy to submarine officer to Wall Street and finally to the cybersecurity industry, where he's worked for the last 25 years. Dennis and Rick also talk about the importance of the community aspect of cybersecurity and why it's vital to the collective defense. 

In this week's Source Code news wrap podcast, we talk about a report by the U.S. Treasury Department looking at AI-specific cybersecurity risks in the financial sector, CISA's newly released Notice of Proposed Rulemaking document for the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA), and recently discovered activity linked to APT29. 

Jack Cable, senior technical advisor at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), talks about his past experiences with bug bounty programs, CISA’s Secure By Design initiative and its efforts to help secure the open-source software ecosystem. 

Brian Donohue of Red Canary joins Dennis Fisher to talk about some of the surprising findings from the company's new 2024 Threat Detection Report, including why identity based attacks continue to work so well and how attackers are approaching the shift to the cloud.

In this week's Source Code podcast, we talk about Patch Tuesday updates and the HHS investigation into the ransomware attack on Change Healthcare.

Decipher editors Dennis Fisher and Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch talk about the BlackCat ransomware attack on Change Healthcare that has crippled the company and affected the ability of thousands of health care providers, pharmacies, and hospitals to get paid and submit claims. 

Daniel Cuthbert, global head of cybersecurity research at Banco Santander, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about getting his first computer, a ZX Spectrum that he still owns (!), finding his way into hacking through IRC, his passion for photography, and his surprising alternate career path.

In this week's Source Code podcast we talk about how threat actors are using malware that allows them to maintain a better foothold on compromised Ivanti appliances, and we discuss advisories from the U.S. government about APT28, APT29 and the BlackCat ransomware group.

Alex Delamotte, threat researcher at SentinelLabs, talks about the importance of actionable threat intelligence, how threat actors are leveraging cloud services, and the upcoming Net Gala, a hacker and tech-themed art exhibition. 

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss the LockBit ransomware takedown operation and  a critical, actively exploited ScreenConnect flaw. 

Jennifer Leggio, a longtime security industry executive who has served in many different roles, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the shift in thinking among  those in the security community, technical gatekeeping in security, her new consulting venture Moveable Feast, and finding your niche.

Dennis Fisher and Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch discuss the disruption of the LockBit ransomware operation by the FBI, Europol, and UK authorities, what it means for victims, and how it fits into the government's larger strategy to target cybercrime groups. 

In this week's Source Code podcast we discuss the return of the Bumblebee malware and the DoJ's announcement of a Russian botnet disruption. 

Mick Baccio, global security advisor at SURGe with Splunk, talks about how his perspectives on cybersecurity have changed over time - from first reading Neuromancer at age nine, to acting as the White House threat intelligence branch chief across multiple administrations.

Software security and AI security expert Gary McGraw joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the findings of a new AI architectural risk analysis research paper that his Berryville Institute of Machine Learning did on LLMs, the risks of black box models, and what kind of regulation would be most effective at reducing those risks. 

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss a U.S. congressional hearing about the Chinese state-sponsored cyber threats, how CISOs' understanding of operational technology threats is evolving, and the ongoing situation with actively exploited Ivanti vulnerabilities. 

Kevin Tian and Rahhul Madduluri, co-founders of Doppel, join Dennis Fisher to discuss the emerging threats of AI-enabled phishing and brand impersonation and how AI can also be used to detect and stop these attacks. 

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss actively exploited Citrix flaws, a VMware patch and new activity from a Russian threat group - and what it all means for security defenders.  

In the latest Decipher Memory Safe episode, Casey Ellis, founder and CTO of Bugcrowd, talks about everything from imposter syndrome to the security concept of “building it like it’s broken.”

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss a  cloud-targeting hacking tool, two Ivanti zero days and a decryptor that was released for the Babuk Tortilla ransomware.

James Doggett, CISO of Semperis and a longtime executive in the financial and insurance industries, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss his career arc and the challenges of being a CISO in today's highly scrutinized and pressure-filled environment. 

Feross Aboukhadijeh, founder and CEO of Socket, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the challenges of securing open-source projects, supply chain security, and the fragility of the open-source software ecosystem. 

In Decipher’s latest Memory Safe episode, Phil Venables, CISO at Google Cloud, talks about how he came to work in the cybersecurity space, how CISOs can help prop up potential future CISOs, and “striving for secure products, not security products.”

In this week's Source Code podcast we discuss flaws found in Sierra Wireless routers, sanctions announced by the US and UK, and a Microsoft Exchange flaw under attack by the Fancy Bear threat group.

Nathan Hamiel, senior director of research at Kudelski Security and member of the Black Hat review board, where he serves as the track lead for AI, ML, and data science, talks about the intersection between AI and cybersecurity, differentiating between AI hype and reality and more.

Shamla Naidoo, a veteran CISO and lawyer, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about her introduction to computing as a teen in South Africa, what she learned after discovering an attacker on her company network as an admin, and how she has structured her career to only work on projects she enjoys. 

Dennis Fisher and Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch talk about some of things in the security community they're thankful for, and a couple of things they're not. 

Merritt Baer, field CISO at Lacework and former member of the AWS office of the CISO, joins Lindsey O'Donnel-Welch in this week's Memory Safe episode to discuss her career arc, finding a true seat at the table as a security executive, and security as a business enabler.

In this week's Source Code podcast, we talk to researchers about their discoveries of Confluence flaw exploitation attempts and of a new Gootloader malware variant.  

Kymberlee Price, co-founder of Zatik, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about her experience running security response programs at Microsoft, BlackBerry, and other companies, and how the changing security landscape helped lead her to start her own company. 

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss a recently exploited Apache ActiveMQ flaw, the SEC charges against SolarWinds and its CISO, and the Biden administration's executive order on AI. 

In the premier episode of Memory Safe, Dennis Fisher talks with Michelle Finneran Dennedy, founder and CEO of Privacy Code, former CPO of Sun Microsystems and Cisco, and all around great person, about her early interest in technology, the influence of her father on her career, and why she's still doing security after all this time.

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss a threat group that's been  targeting a zero day vulnerability in the Roundcube webmail server and the recent Okta breach.

Dennis Fisher talks with Mat Donahue, a former FBI counterterrorism specialist and founder and CEO of Kodex, and Nick Selby, a technologist and law enforcement officer, about the challenges organizations face when responding to data requests from law enforcement agencies and how CISOs and legal teams can address them.

Dr. Christopher Mitchell, the CISO for the City of Houston, joins the Decipher podcast to discuss how he inspires his team and drives collaboration related to security within his organization. 

Alessio Setaro, CISO of Leroy Merlin Italy, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about his path to becoming a CISO, the challenges of breaking down silos in an organization, and why security is a people-first challenge. 

In this week's Source Code podcast, we hear from Caitlin Condon with Rapid7 about a critical flaw in TeamCity, a continuous integration and continuous deployment tool. Also this week we discuss a recent FBI private industry notification about changing ransomware tactics, and flaws in the WS_FTP file transfer software from Progress Software. 

In this week's Source Code podcast, we talk about the DHS new recommendations for cyber incident reporting, Apple zero day flaws and a previously unknown attack group that has been targeting telecommunications providers in Middle Eastern countries.

This week's Source Code podcast is a Patch Tuesday bonus episode, where special guest Chris Goettl, VP of security products with Ivanti, talks about the severity of various zero day bugs disclosed by Microsoft, Apple, Google and more. 

Decipher editors Dennis Fisher and Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch break down a busy news week, including Microsoft's revelations about the theft of its signing key, the Trickbot group sanctions, and some new Apple iOS zero days.

In this week's Source Code podcast, security researchers examine the impacts of the FBI's Qakbot disruption on the broader threat landscape.

iVerify CEO Danny Rogers and COO Rocky Cole join Dennis Fisher to discuss the spinout of the iVerify mobile security tool as a standalone company, the scourge of mercenary spyware, and how enterprises can protect their users. 

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss a macOS variant of the XLoader malware and new details on malware used by the Lazarus Group.

At Black Hat USA, Greg Notch, CISO at Expel, talked about his previous experiences as the former NHL CISO and how to effectively communicate security risk at the board level.

At Black Hat USA last week, John Checco, resident CISO at Proofpoint, talked about how the threat landscape has evolved for financial services organizations, the new SEC cyber rule and its impact for CISOs, and a new phishing campaign recently discovered by Proofpoint targeting executives’ Microsoft 365 accounts. 

Katelyn Bowden and TC Johnson join Dennis Fisher to discuss the release of Veilid, a new protocol built by members of the Cult of the Dead Cow that is designed to bring true privacy and anonymity to users. 

Decipher editors Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch and Dennis Fisher discuss the top sessions, keynotes and trends to look out for at Black Hat USA in Las Vegas next week.

Chris Kirsch, CEO of runZero, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the problem of trying to secure what you don't know you have, asset management, and his history in the original crypto war. 

In this week's Source Code news wrap podcast, we discuss the newly approved SEC cyber rules and new revelations about the JumpCloud breach.

Dave Lewis, Global Advisory CISO at Cisco, talks about the importance of communication, transparency and relationships for CISOs trying to juggle the technical aspects of the role with the business side of things.

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss the recent blacklisting by the U.S. government of spyware companies, the White House's announcement of the  U.S. Cyber Trust Mark for IoT devices and recent changes to a financially motivated attacker's backdoor.

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss a new undocumented malicious driver, an unpatched Microsoft zero day under active attack, Chinese cyberattacks against U.S. government agencies and a new implementation plan released this week by the White House for the National Cybersecurity Strategy. 

Jackie Burns Koven, head of cyber threat intelligence at Chainalysis, talks about the "cat and mouse game" between law enforcement and threat actors in cryptocurrency-related cybercrime.

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss the latest tactics from the Charming Kitten APT, a warning from CISA on the TrueBot malware and a recent Interpol investigation into the OPERA1ER cybercriminal group.

This week, Decipher talks to security researchers about how they use crypters to track cybercriminals in a post-Conti world, and a new RAT found being deployed by a subgroup of the Lazarus Group. 

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss a custom malware tool that targets RDP's client drive mapping feature, a new cyber unit announced by the DoJ, and intelligence-gathering campaigns launched by APT15.

Matt Johansen joins Dennis Fisher to discuss his path from infosec n00b to senior security roles at White Hat, Bank of America, Reddit, and his new newsletter and podcast venture, Vulnerable U. 

During this week's Source Code podcast, Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch with Decipher discusses CISA's directive for federal agencies telling them to secure network devices that are exposed to the public internet, and new details from Mandiant about targeting by a China-linked actor of a flaw in Barracuda ESG appliances.

In this week’s Source Code podcast, we hear from John Hammond with Huntress on the widely exploited MOVEit Transfer bug, and from Aleksandar Milenkoski with SentinelOne about recent social engineering tactics used by the Kimsuky APT group.

In this week's Source Code podcast, Decipher editor Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch discusses several actively-exploited vulnerabilities - including ones impacting Zyxel and MOVEit Transfer - and new tactics used by the BlackCat ransomware group.

Dennis Fisher is joined by Hazel Burton from the Cisco Talos team to talk about the importance of empathy in communications, her non-linear path to infosec, and how her improv comedy training has helped her in her roles. 

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news wrap podcast with input from our sources. This week, we discuss research showing that APTs are increasingly interested in targeting small and medium-sized businesses;  newly discovered operational technology malware called CosmicEnergy; and a new technique used by BlackCat where the ransomware group leverages a malicious Windows kernel driver in attacks.

Megan Stifel, chief strategy officer for the Institute for Security and Technology and executive director of the Ransomware Task Force, talks about the multitude of efforts being made in tackling the ransomware threat landscape.  

In this week’s Source Code news wrap podcast, we discuss the DoJ’s charges against an alleged key Russian ransomware actor, a multi-year campaign against government, aviation, education and telecoms organizations in South and Southeast Asia, and a number of incidents involving the abuse of the serial console on Azure virtual machines.

In this week's Source Code podcast, we discuss the dismantling operation by the U.S. government of Turla's Snake malware,  a leak of MSI data that exposes firmware signing keys and Intel BootGuard keys for several manufacturers, and several takeaways from Proofpoint's new Voice of the CISO report.

Lucia Milica, global resident CISO at Proofpoint, discusses the top takeaways from the 2023 Voice of the CISO report, including how the global recession is impacting security budgets  and how boards are increasingly becoming part of the security conversation.

In this week’s Source Code podcast we discuss ongoing developments by NIST in updating its Cybersecurity Framework, Apple and Google’s draft framework that aims to fight against unwanted Bluetooth trackers and new malware that was discovered stealing Gmail, Outlook and Facebook credentials.

Decipher talks to Dawn Cappelli, director of OT-CERT at Dragos, about the challenges of securing operational technology, particularly for organizations with limited budget and resources. 

This week at the RSA Conference, software supply-chain security, CISO liabilities and public-private sector partnerships were some of the key topics.

Chris Wysopal and Cris Thomas of the L0pht join Dennis Fisher to talk about the 25-year-anniversary of the group's landmark Senate testimony, what's changed since then, and Cris's new book, How the Hackers Known as L0pht Changed the World. 

In this week's Source Code news wrap podcast, Decipher editor Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch discusses a malware family called Domino,  the increasing use of custom tools by ransomware groups  and new findings around the 3CX supply chain attack.

Casey Ellis, founder and CTO of Bugcrowd, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the newly formed Hacking Policy Council, the challenges of influencing security research policy and legislation, and what the council hopes to achieve.

Mike Hanley, CSO and SVP of engineering at GitHub, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the company's move to enforce 2FA for all developers, the changing role of the CISO, and what's ahead for software supply chain security. 

Chris Wysopal, CTO and founder of Veracode, joins Dennis Fisher to dive into the new White House National Cybersecurity Strategy and discuss what's missing, how practical the pillars are, and when these ideas may be implemented. 

Courtney Nash joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the 2022 VOID Report on incidents, why mean time to resolve is no longer a meaningful metric, whether the duration of an incident matters, and how organizations can get better at responding to an analyzing incidents. 

Andrew Morris, the founder and CEO of GreyNoise, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about software liability, the evolution of the security industry, and why we're not getting better at securing our systems.

Michelle Finneran Dennedy, co-founder of Privacy Code and co-author of The Privacy Engineer's Manifesto, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about her new startup, her path from studying psychology to becoming the first chief privacy officer at Sun and Cisco, and what everyone gets wrong about privacy. 

Chris Eng, chief research officer at Veracode, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the company's new State of Software Security report, whether we're getting better at fixing bugs, and the fragility of open source projects an the software supply chain. 

Kevin McCallister may not be a hacker or even own a computer (as far as we know), but no one embodies the hacker ethic better than he does, an eight-year-old boy left alone at Christmas who is forced to use his imagination and creativity to defend a prime target and lure his adversaries into his trap. This is Deciphering Home Alone.

Wired journalist and author Andy Greenberg joins Dennis Fisher to discuss his new book Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency, which tells the stories of the agents, academics, and security experts who tracked the admins of the Silk Road, AlphaBay, and other darknet markets through specialized blockchain tracing techniques.

Haroon Meer of Thinkst joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the state of the security industry, the value of treating customers with respect, and what the economic downturn could mean for the security community. 

Welcome back to the Source Code news wrap podcast. This week, we discuss recent changes to the Emotet malware and vulnerabilities disclosed in F5 BIG-IP appliances.

Dan Lorenc, CEO and founder of Chainguard, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about supply chain security, asset inventory, Sigstore, and the challenges of helping developers write more secure code. 

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher's weekly news wrap podcast with input from our sources. This week's podcast looks at a new analysis linking Black Basta ransomware to FIN7 tools, the release of a new OpenSSL version addressing high-severity flaws and top findings about the adoption of authentication methods highlighted in the 2022 Duo Trusted Access report.

Dave Lewis, Global Advisory CISO at Cisco, talks about the top takeaways of the 2022 Duo Trusted Access Report and the driving factors behind increased adoption of WebAuthn, MFA and biometrics.

Welcome to Source Code: Decipher's behind the scenes look at the weekly news with input from our sources. In this week's podcast, we discuss a government agency alert for healthcare providers about the Daixin group, a new FTC proposed order against Drizly and a set of voluntary performance goals for critical infrastructure organizations released by CISA. 

Kelley Misata, senior director of open source of open source at Corelight and CEO of Sightline Security, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about her road to get into security, the importance of protecting at-risk populations, and the challenges of building community in the open source world.

In this week's Source Code news wrap podcast,  we discuss a critical remote code execution flaw in certain versions of the Apache Commons Text library; recent efforts by Fortinet to encourage organizations to apply patches for a vulnerability in its products that is under attack; and a new variant of Ursnif that has been reconstructed from a banking trojan into a generic backdoor.

Martin Roesch, CEO of Netography, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the evolution of network security, protecting hybrid computing environments, and where that Snort pig couch came from. 

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news wrap podcast. Highlights from this week’s security news lineup include a newly discovered flaw in some Siemens S7 PLCs, and Log4j attacks by the known Budworm threat group targeting an unnamed U.S.-based state legislature.

David Agranovich, director of threat disruption with Meta, discusses how threat groups are evolving their inauthentic behavior on social media platforms, as well as recent cyber espionage and malware activity highlighted in Meta’s adversarial reports. 

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news wrap podcast. This week, new research showed the Lazarus Group leveraged a rootkit in two attacks that abused a known vulnerability in a Dell driver in order to disable various Windows monitoring features. Also this week, a new government directive required federal agencies to set up measurable processes needed to perform automated asset discovery and vulnerability detection at regular intervals. Finally, analysts released research into the Bumblebee malware loader, which is a relatively new malware loader that first emerged in March.

Dennis Fisher talks with Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, senior director at SentinelLabs, about the investigation into the new Metador APT group that he and his colleagues unveiled at LabsCon recently.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher's weekly security news podcast. This week, we discuss a new Chaos malware family, a phishing campaign that delivers trojanized versions of legitimate open source applications and novel backdoors being installed on VMware ESXi servers. 

Welcome to Source Code: Decipher's behind-the-scenes look at the weekly news with input from our sources. In this week's podcast, we talk to Mark Montgomery with CSC 2.0 about a  progress report on the government's implementation of the Cyber Solarium Commission's recommendations, and to Brigid O Gorman with Symantec about research on recent Noberus/ BlackCat ransomware updates.

Dennis Fisher talks with Asheer Malhotra and Guilherme Venere of Cisco Talos about the group's new research on the Gamaredon APT group, which has been targeting Ukrainian organizations in a new campaign.

Mark Werremeyer and Bryce Kerley join Dennis Fisher to talk about this year's Hack-a-Sat capture the flag competition, how the challenges have evolved since last year, and how the competition helps players build their hacking skills. 

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. This week we discuss Microsoft’s patch Tuesday security release, new guidance from the Biden administration that requires federal agencies to use software developed using secure practices, and the charges by the DoJ against three Iranian nationals for allegedly hacking hundreds of victims.

Dennis Fisher, Zoe Lindsey, Pete Baker, and Casey Ellis convene to honor the 30th anniversary of the release of Sneakers, the greatest hacker movie ever made, and discuss its legacy, popularity in the hacker community, and why it still holds up today. 

Welcome back to Decipher's Source Code news wrap podcast. Topping the news this week, Albania’s prime minister has blamed Iran for a major cyberattack two months ago that took down parts of the country’s national infrastructure. Also this week, researchers detailed Iranian state-sponsored group APT42 and the software control panel used by the well-known TA505 financial threat group in order to manage its ServHelper malware.

Dennis Fisher talks with Meg Gardiner, the coauthor of Heat 2, the bestselling sequel and prequel to Heat, the greatest crime movie ever made. They discuss the infosec and hacking subplot of the novel, where that idea came from, and how the research into the hacking scene worked. 

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. This week, we discuss a recent FTC lawsuit against a data broker,  a bug bounty program from Google aimed at securing open source software projects, and a recent campaign from a known China-based espionage actor.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s news wrap podcast that includes input from our sources. Topping the news this week, the Zero Day Initiative announced it was changing its disclosure policy for ineffective patches. In other news, CISA warned that attackers are exploiting multiple flaws that impact Zimbra’s Collaboration Suite. Finally, a recent report highlighted an uptick in organizations being hit by two or more threat actors in recent months.

Peter Mackenzie, director of incident response at Sophos, and Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist at Sophos, join the Decipher podcast to talk about why more ransomware attackers are clustering onto vulnerable networks - sometimes simultaneously. 

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news wrap podcast with input from our sources. This week, the U.S. government announced sanctions against the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixer. In other news, Black Hat kicked off with keynotes from former CISA director Chris Krebs and investigative journalist Kim Zetter.

Megan Stifel, the chief strategy officer at the Institute for Security and Technology and co-chair of the Ransomware Task Force, talks about how cyber policy has evolved over time and the Ransomware Task Force’s new Blueprint for Ransomware Defense for small and medium-sized businesses.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher's weekly news podcast with input from our sources. In this week's Source Code podcast, security experts discuss a critical VMware authentication bypass bug and a new attack framework called Manjusaka. 

In this week's Source Code podcast, Decipher discusses a reissued Security Directive from the TSA, new Microsoft research and a hearing with the House Select Committee on Intelligence about cyber mercenary groups,  and an actively exploited Atlassian Confluence bug.

Sean Zadig, CISO of Yahoo and head of the Paranoids, talks with Dennis Fisher about his start in the security field, protecting a massive user base, and thinking about security critically.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly security news podcast with input from our sources. In this week's podcast, Decipher goes over a previously unknown macOS backdoor and an announcement by the Department of Justice that it had disrupted the activities of a North Korean state-sponsored group.

Mark Arena, CEO of Intel 471, joins the Decipher podcast to talk about the journey behind founding Intel 471 in 2014  and how cybercrime has evolved over the past few years. 

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news wrap podcast with input from our sources. In this week’s podcast, we go over an actively exploited vulnerability disclosed during Patch Tuesday, a Cyber Safety Review Board report that gives new details about the Log4j flaw and research that sheds light on how the ransomware ecosystem is evolving. 

Welcome back to this week’s Source Code podcast by Decipher, where we go over the top security news of the week with input from our sources.  This week, we discuss the U.S. government's warning that North Korean-backed actors are using the Maui ransomware to target health care and public health organizations; a software supply-chain attack involving packages hosted on the NPM Package Manager; and the new Hive ransomware variant.

Dennis Fisher talks with Joe Grand, renowned hardware hacker and member of the L0pht, about his recent work hacking hardware crypto wallets, hacking culture, and why curiosity matters. 

Welcome back to another episode of our weekly Source Code news wrap podcast. This week, Gustavo Palazolo with Netskope talks about how Emotet attackers are still skirting Microsoft's VBA macros security measures while using old delivery methods, and John Hultquist with Mandiant talks about why a Chinese information operations campaign targeted rare earths mining companies in the U.S.   

John Hultquist, VP of Mandiant Intelligence, talks about new Mandiant research that exposes a Chinese information operation campaign targeting U.S., Canadian and Australian rare earths mining companies, including a processing facility in Texas, and how these types of information operations can be detrimental to private companies.

In this week's Source Code podcast, Forescout researchers discuss the impact of 56 vulnerabilities that they discovered in operational technology (OT) devices, and Cisco Talos researchers talk about the top takeaways from a recently exposed AvosLocker ransomware campaign. 

Daniel dos Santos, head of security research with Forescout, talks about a set of over 50 vulnerabilities discovered in operational technology (OT) devices from 10 different vendors, and why patching levels are so low for OT.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news wrap podcast. This week, researchers exposed a spear-phishing campaign that targeted several high-ranking officials from the U.S. and Israel. Also this week, Microsoft issued a patch for a previously disclosed RCE vulnerability that has been under active exploitation by attackers. Finally, researchers discuss a recently discovered malware family that they say is “highly evasive.” 

On this week's Source Code podcast, security experts discuss attacker exploitation of a vulnerability in certain WSO2 products, a Microsoft zero day in many current versions of Office, Office 365, and Windows, and new research that shows attackers getting quicker at launching ransomware attacks against enterprises.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news wrap podcast. This week, we go over a landmark change to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a serious remote code execution bug in Zyxel firewall products and an emergency directive that orders civilian executive branch agencies to apply updates for several VMware products within five days.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly security news podcast. This week, the State Department said it will offer rewards for more information for the Conti group. Also this week, cybersecurity agencies from the U.S, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand warned that cybercriminals are increasingly targeting managed service providers. Finally, researchers released more details on a sophisticated post-exploitation framework being deployed on Microsoft Exchange server instances.

In this week's Source Code podcast, Decipher discusses plans by GitHub to require anyone who contributes code on the platform to use some form of MFA by the end of next year. Also in this week's podcast, researchers talk about a newly discovered threat group that targets companies focusing on corporate development, mergers and acquisitions and large corporate transactions. 

Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch speaks with Jonathan Reiber, Vice President, Cybersecurity Strategy and Policy at AttackIQ.

In this week's Source Code podcast, Decipher looks at a novice, sophisticated malware loader and a new tactic being used by the BlackCat ransomware to speed up its encryption process.

Don Smith of the Secureworks CTU joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the effects of the Conti leaks, the ransomware landscape, and how law enforcement and researchers are countering attackers' ploys. 

Topping this week's Source Code podcast, Lenovo released security updates addressing vulnerabilities related to Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware drivers in its products. Also, the U.S. government warned of recent Lazarus APT campaigns  and the BlackCat ransomware-as-a-service. Finally, Decipher this week talked to Justine Bone, CEO of MedSec, about the challenges of securing medical devices.

Justine Bone, CEO of MedSec, discusses the security threats that hospitals and healthcare providers face, and the challenges of securing medical devices. 

Martin Roesch, CEO of Netography and creator of Snort and former CEO of Sourcefire, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about why he decided to come out of retirement and what the big challenges are for security right now.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. In this week’s podcast, a Ukrainian man was sentenced to five years in jail this week for his work with the financially motivated FIN7 cybercrime group, which researchers with Mandiant in an analysis revealed continues to evolve its tactics for initial access, first-stage malware delivery and more. Also this week, Meta announced it disrupted two separate cyberespionage groups from Iran that were using a variety of tactics on its platforms to target academics, activists, journalists and other victims. 

Tazin Khan, founder of Cyber Collective, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the ethos behind the group's work and the challenges of educating people about the safest ways to use technology.

Topping the news in this week's Source Code podcast were several security warnings and alerts from the U.S. government, including a phishing attack that targeted U.S. election officials, and attacks on UPS devices. Also this week, researchers warned of an IcedID malware attack leveraging compromised Microsoft Exchange servers to send phishing emails.

Caitlin Condon, vulnerability research manager at Rapid7, talks about the rise of “widespread threats,” how the time to exploitation by attackers has shifted, and what that means for security teams.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. In this week’s podcast, security experts discuss Lapsus$, a group that made big claims this week that it hacked both Okta and Microsoft. Both Okta and Microsoft confirmed the hacks.

Welcome to the Source Code podcast by Decipher, where we take a look behind the scenes at top news with input from our sources. This week, researchers disclosed a set of seven vulnerabilities in PTC’s Axeda platform, which is preinstalled on connected devices, particularly in the healthcare industry. In other news, researchers detailed three flaws that affect APC SmartConnect and Smart-UPS devices, which are used to supply constant power to many types of network devices,

Runa Sandvik discusses her work helping journalists to secure their devices and how more newsrooms are recognizing the need for better cybersecurity measures. 

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. In this week’s podcast, security experts discuss a new type of distributed denial-of-service attack technique; as well as the Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act, which was recently passed by the Senate.

Mike Hanley, CSO at GitHub and former VP of security at Duo Security, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the open source security summit at the White House, the Log4j response, and how the tech industry can support the open source community.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. Researchers this week uncovered similarities in the code of the Dridex malware and Entropy ransomware. In other news, Nitin Natarajan, deputy director for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), talked to Decipher this week about the agency’s top initiatives.

Nitin Natarajan, deputy director for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), talks about how the agency is tackling various emerging security challenges more effectively.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. Topping the news this week, CISA is requiring federal agencies to patch actively exploited vulnerabilities in Google Chrome and the Adobe Commerce and Magento platforms. Also this week, the FBI warned of U.S. critical infrastructure compromises by the BlackByte ransomware group.

Chris Eng of Veracode joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the company's new State of Software Security report and what's driving the increase in enterprises scanning their apps for vulnerabilities. 

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. Topping the news this week, Microsoft plans to block macros obtained from the internet by default for several Office applications, including Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and Word. Also this week,  the U.S., UK, and Australia released a joint security advisory that showcased how ransomware attacks became an increased globalized threat in 2021.

Allan Liska, intelligence analyst with Recorded Future, discusses the challenges that organizations face in implementing security measures to protect against ransomware, and how ransomware actors are evolving their tactics, services-for-hire models and victimology.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. Topping the news this week, Samba patched a vulnerability that could enable remote, unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code as root on impacted installations. Also this week, the U.S. government launched a Cyber Safety Review Board, which will bring together private and public sector industry leaders to assess the lessons learned from “significant cybersecurity events.”

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. This week, the White House has outlined a number of cybersecurity measures that federal agencies must adopt. Also this week, an easily exploitable vulnerability in a Linux component has been patched. Finally, Jon Callas, director of technology projects with EFF, joined the Decipher podcast this week to talk about invasive data tracking and surveillance during the pandemic.

Jon Callas, director of technology projects with EFF, talks about invasive data tracking and surveillance during the pandemic.

Welcome back to Source Code, Decipher’s weekly news podcast with input from our sources. Topping the news this week, president Joe Biden signed a new National Security Memorandum that aims to better secure national security systems. Also this week, Europol announced that several law enforcement authorities dismantled a VPN service that was being utilized by cybercriminals in order to deploy ransomware. 

Welcome to Source Code: Decipher’s behind the scenes look at the weekly news with input from our sources.  Topping the headlines this week, Microsoft researchers released details for a recently patched vulnerability in macOS. Also in the news, U.S. Cyber Command exposed a number of open-source tools that it said are being used by the MuddyWater APT.  And, researchers with Cisco Talos highlighted a phishing campaign that relied on "complex" obfuscation tactics in order to deliver three different RATs.

Robert Hansen (aka RSnake) joins Dennis Fisher to talk about his new research on NaN injection in Python and the issues with the software supply chain.

In a podcast discussion with Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch, Crane Hassold with Abnormal Security discusses how business email compromise attackers are getting savvier and best practices to defend against BEC attacks.

Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch and Dennis Fisher look back on a wild year in cybersecurity and discuss the ongoing ransomware problem, the increase in zero days used in the wild, our favorite stories and podcasts of the year, and more.

Zoe Lindsey, Pete Baker, and Dennis Fisher sit down to talk about Die Hard 2, the forgotten member of the Die Hard series, which is not a Christmas movie. It is, however, a movie with a lot of great hacking and social engineering scenes, and Bruce Willis spewing one-liners like a 1950s standup comic.

Sherrod DeGrippo, vice president of threat research and detection at Proofpoint, talks about Emotet's return; how attackers are fine tuning their malware campaigns to be more targeted; and why "your point of view is the most valuable thing that you bring" in cybersecurity.

Welcome to Source Code: Decipher’s behind the scenes look at the weekly news with input from our sources.  The Log4j flaw - and its impact on millions of third-party applications and services - dominated this week's security news, with researchers pointing to challenges in deploying fixes and exploitation attempts from nation-state actors.  Also this week, Microsoft issued its Patch Tuesday security updates, which included a fix for a flaw that was being exploited in Emotet malware attacks. 

John Hammond of Huntress joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the critical Log4j vulnerability, the community response, and the potential long-term effects of the bug.

Welcome to Source Code: Decipher’s behind-the-scenes look at the weekly news with input from our sources. Topping the news this week, Microsoft and Google both announced disruption operations for infrastructure used by attackers. Microsoft said it seized 42 websites that were used by the Nickel threat group, while Google targeted Glupteba botnet servers. Researchers also highlighted new tactics being used by the Emotet malware since its reappearance last month.

Wade Baker and Ben Edwards of the Cyentia Institute join Dennis Fisher to discuss the process of designing and interpreting the data from the Cisco Security Outcomes study, what surprised them from the data, and how organizations can use the study.

Welcome to Source Code: Decipher’s behind the scenes look at the weekly news with input from our sources. Topping the news this week, researchers detailed a ransomware operator that has repeatedly rebranded itself in order to evade detection. Also making headlines is a threat group’s use of a unique RAT, which can communicate directly with other compromised hosts via a peer-to-peer network. Finally, researchers are warning of a new phishing attack technique that leverages a legitimate RTF template functionality.

Casey Ellis joins Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch to discuss the evolution, adoption and standardization of vulnerability disclosure programs - both in the U.S. and across the globe.

Welcome to Source Code: Decipher’s behind the scenes look at the weekly news with input from our sources.  Topping the headlines this week,  the Emotet malware has returned almost a year after law enforcement disrupted its infrastructure. In other news, CISA warned that Iranian threat actors are exploiting known vulnerabilities in Fortinet security appliances and the ProxyShell flaw in Microsoft Exchange servers. Finally, the DHS launched a new talent management system that aims to improve the government's efforts in recruiting top cyber talent.

Nick Selby joins Dennis Fisher to talk about his long and varied career in security, the challenges that law enforcement faces in investigating cybercrime, and what the future may hold for enterprise security teams. 

Welcome to Source Code: Decipher’s behind the scenes look at the weekly news with input from our sources.  Topping the headlines this week, Microsoft's Patch Tuesday updates  addressed 55 vulnerabilities, including two actively exploited flaws. Siemens also patched a set of 13 vulnerabilities in the TCP/IP network communication stack, which impacts safety-critical devices, such as anesthesia machines and patient monitors used in hospitals. Finally, a newly uncovered hacker-for-hire group for years offered a slew of services, from hacking into corporate email inboxes or social media accounts, to selling victims' sensitive data.

Amanda Gorton, CEO and cofounder of Corellium, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss her path from studying classics to found two security startups, the challenges of building a unique platform, and the opportunity to help address IoT security. 

Welcome to Source Code: Decipher’s new behind the scenes look at the weekly news with input from our sources. Topping the headlines this week are two key cybersecurity-related moves by the U.S. government. These include the government blocking exports to NSO Group, Positive Technologies and other companies, and creating a catalog of known, actively exploited vulnerabilities that federal agencies must address. In other news, researchers have uncovered a threat group targeting vulnerable Microsoft Exchange servers with ransomware. A new report also shed light on various network access brokers selling credentials that they claimed belonged to logistics companies.

Kristina Balaam, of Lookout, joins Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch to discuss the ins and outs of reverse engineering malware, as well as how spyware has proliferated and evolved over the past few years.

Courtney Nash of Verica joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the new Verica Open Incident Database, which centralizes reports of software outages, security incidents, and near misses, and why studying the way systems fail is so valuable.

On the 25th anniversary* of the release of Hackers, Zoe Lindsey and Pete Baker join Dennis Fisher to talk about the cultural influence of the movie, the effect it's had on hacker culture, and why it is still so beloved today.

*because 2020 never happened

Carolina Terrazas joins Dennis Fisher to talk about getting into security, the importance of diversity in hiring practices, and  why Tom Brady is the worst.

Amélie Koran joins Dennis Fisher to talk about her start in computing with a Commodore 64, her early years in the private sector, and her security and policy work in several federal government agencies.

Dennis Fisher talks with Zoe Lindsey, one of the early Duo Security employees, about her entrance into hacker culture, finding her way in the tech world, and the importance of lifelong learning.

Jonathan Mayer, assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the technical and legal challenges of Apple's announced CSAM scanning system.

Note: This episode deals with sensitive topics. 

Jules Okafor, CEO of RevolutionCyber, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about her unconventional career arc, the importance of empathy in leadership and communications, and why conventional security awareness programs don't work. 

Mark Werremeyer and Bryce Kerley join Dennis Fisher to talk about the Hack-a-Sat CTF competition at DEF CON and the need for collaboration between aerospace engineers and cybersecurity professionals.

Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch talks to Derek Manky of Fortinet about the breakdown of barriers between private firms and public sector agencies, law enforcement and the security industry.

Dennis Fisher, Zoe Lindsey, and Pete Baker ride a cart through the steam tunnels to meet at the Pacific Tech lab,  crank up the laser, and ponder the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "I drank what?" Get your giant tinfoil ball of popcorn ready for Real Genius!

Note: There is another version of this episode in the feed with the movie audio laid in at low volume under the commentary track.

Dennis Fisher, Zoe Lindsey, and Pete Baker ride a cart through the steam tunnels to meet at the Pacific Tech lab,  crank up the laser, and ponder the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "I drank what?" Get your giant tinfoil ball of popcorn ready for Real Genius!

Note: This version is synced with the audio of the movie laid in at low volume. There is a separate version in the feed without the movie audio laid in.

Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch talks with Troy Hunt, founder of Have I Been Pwned, about the biggest challenges facing the security industry when it comes to credential stuffing and data breaches.

Dennis Fisher talks with Kimberly Goody from FireEye's cybercrime analysis team about the DarkSide ransomware operation, the emergence of the ransomware-as-a-service model, and what might be next for these groups. 

Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch talks to Ken Munro with Pen Test Partners about the biggest challenges around securing Internet of Things devices, and how regulatory efforts and consumer awareness are beginning to have a positive impact on the IoT security landscape.

Dennis Fisher talks with Peter Baker, the founding brand designer at Duo and the man behind the Decipher brand, about his design philosophy, the earliest days of Scio/Duo, why design matters in security, and the influence that positivity and usability has had on the industry.

Dennis Fisher talks with Katie Moussouris, Rich Mogull, Kymberlee Price, and Thomas Ptacek about the unique and inspiring life and legacy of hacker Dan Kaminsky.

To celebrate the good, the bad, and the terrible in hacker movies, Zoe Lindsey, Pete Baker, and Dennis Fisher convene to hand out some fake awards for fake hacking.

Steve Ragan, security researcher with Akamai, joins Lindsey O’Donnell-Welch to discuss the evolution of phishing kits over the past year, and how attacks on the identity and trust model will change as employees start to go back into the office.

Mac security researcher Patrick Wardle joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the evolution of Mac malware, the relative security of macOS to other platforms, and Apple's current approach to platform safety.

Charles Shirer, a red teamer, hacker, and FreeBSD enthusiast, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about his path to working in security, learning to hack, and his motivational videos.

Idan Plotnik, CEO of Apiiro, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about taking a risk-based approach to code and securing the software development lifecycle.

Decipher's new executive editor, Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about getting into security journalism, the challenges of telling highly technical stories, and how it can help defenders do their jobs more efficiently.

Zoe Lindsey, Pete Baker, and Dennis Fisher dive deep into the dark web (or whatever Hollywood thinks it is) to decipher the jumbled plot and wild philosophy of Dark Web: Cicada 3301, which is a movie that definitely exists.

Andrew Morris, founder of GreyNoise, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the unique origins of the company and the security case for removing all of the background noise from the Internet to find what really matters.

Joe Slowik, senior security researcher at DomainTools, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the Exchange vulnerabilities, the exploitation activity timeline, and the question of attribution. 

Neil Daswani, co-director of the advanced security program at Stanford University and a former engineer at Twitter and Google, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss his new book, Big Breaches: Cybersecurity Lessons for Everyone, and the common root causes and effects of major data breaches.

Andy Ellis, CSO of Akamai, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the importance of setting priorities, how to assess your strengths and weaknesses as an organization, and the NFL draft.

Amanda Berlin of Blumira joins Dennis Fisher to talk about how she got her start in security, learning new skills on the fly, and helping customers find the things that really matter on their networks. 

Semi-retired software security expert Gary McGraw joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the root causes of supply chain breaches and his new work on machine learning security.

Haroon Meer, founder of Thinkst, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about why a lot of security products don't work, the challenges of running a security company from South Africa, and doing well by doing good.

Ryan Noon and Abhishek Agrawal, founders of Material Security, join Dennis Fisher to talk about fixing the email security problem and approaching security challenges with diverse mindsets.

Zoe Lindsey, Pete Baker, and Dennis Fisher break down the delightfully goofy and moderately incoherent 1995 film Johnny Mnemonic.

Jeremy Kennelly of Mandiant joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the spike in ransomware infections in health care organizations and how ransomware operators are evolving their tactics.

Kurtis Minder, CEO of GroupSense, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the delicate process of ransomware negotiations and how enterprises are dealing with infections today.

Larry Cashdollar, a senior security researcher at Akamai, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about 20 years of vulnerability research and the many different ways that things can go sideways.

Dennis Fisher is joined by Jennifer Leggio, CMO of Claroty, to talk about her career path from journalist to executive and the challenges of learning the intricacies of security in OT environments. 

Dennis Fisher is joined by Robert Hansen, CTO of Bit Discovery, to talk about finding forgotten network assets, breaking things, and building a business.

Dennis Fisher is joined by Brian Donohue, Chris Brook, and Mike Mimoso to discuss the experience of watching the Black Hat talks online this year and what progress the industry has made in keeping people secure.

Dennis Fisher, Zoe Lindsey, and Pete Baker got tired of waiting for Hollywood to make sequels to some of our favorite hacker movies, so we came up with some pitches for the sequels we'd like to see.

Katie Moussouris, hacker and CEO of Luta Security, joins Dennis Fisher for a long overdue conversation about vulnerability management, bug bounty programs, and assessing risk. 

Zoe Lindsey and Peter Baker join Dennis Fisher to break down the 1974 Francis Ford Coppola paranoid classic The Conversation, a film that predicted today's surveillance culture and is a master class is social engineering and hacking.

Melanie Ensign, CEO and founder of Discernible Communications, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about what effective security and privacy communications look like, how executives can empower security teams to communicate, and the importance of preparing for bad things.

Alex Pinto from Verizon Enterprise joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the findings of the 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report.

Ping Look, senior director of Microsoft's Detection and Response Team, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about her team's work helping enterprises recover from intrusions, the massive spike in ransomware infections, and understanding attacker behavior.

Andy Ellis, CSO of Akamai, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the process of planning to move tens of thousands of employees to remote work securely, the increased stress on Akamai's network, and what things might look like from a security perspective on the other side of the quarantine.

Jeremy Oddo, director of technology at The Third Floor, a premier Hollywood visualization studio, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the security and logistical challenges of moving to a fully remote workforce while protecting the intellectual property of clients such as Disney, Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios.

David Brumley, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and CEO of ForAllSecure, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the importance of software security and the software supply chain as well as the need for better cooperation between developers and security teams.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. Ferris Bueller is a master of social engineering and possibly the witness protection identity of David Lightman from WarGames. Dennis Fisher, Zoe Lindsey, and Pete Baker five into a 1980s classic to discover what makes Ferris tick and why everyone loves him. Except Jeannie. This is Deciphering Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Rich Mogull, CEO of Securosis and a longtime paramedic and disaster medic, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the mindsets required to prepare for and respond to both physical disasters and security incidents.

Listen to Rich's own podcast, the Cloud Security Mindset.

Wade Baker and David Severski of Cyentia Institute join Dennis Fisher to discuss the findings from their new Information Risk Insights Study into the risk and cost of security breaches across industries.

Read the full IRIS study here. 

Jo Van Bulck of KU Leuven joins Dennis Fisher to discuss his team's recent research into load value injection attacks on some Intel processors. 

Dennis Fisher is joined by Chris Brook and Brian Donohue to revisit Enemy of the State, the 1998 techno-paranoia thriller that foretold much of what's happening in today's surveillance society.

Wendy Nather, head of advisory CISOs at Duo, joins Dennis Fisher to discuss her RSA keynote speech on democratizing security and making security more usable and collaborative. 

Rick Altherr of Eclypsium joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the new research the company published this week on the dangers of unsigned firmware in a wide range of peripherals used in enterprises and home networks.

Riana Pfefferkorn of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the EARN IT Act's potential effects on encryption and individual privacy and security.

Read Riana's analysis of the bill here. 

Kenn White joins Dennis Fisher to dig into the details of the Windows crypto bug (CVE-2020-0601), how exactly it works, what the practical attack scenarios are, and what the dangers are for enterprises. 

 

Die Hard may not be your standard hacking movie, but it is the standard against which all subsequent action movies must be measured. It introduces Bruce Willis to the world as a major movie star, establishes the prototype of the wisecracking action hero in John McClane, and gives us some of the most memorable lines in movie history. While Theo is "cracking" Mr. Takagi's password and wandering through the Nakatomi Socrates BSD 9.2 OS, John McClane is showing us all what it means to be a modern action star. Yippie ki yay, melon farmers, this is Deciphering Die Hard.

(Die Hard is not a Christmas movie.)

Ransomware has become an ugly fact of life for enterprises, and incorporating it into threat models and disaster recovery plans is a must. Kelly Shortridge of Capsule8 joins Dennis Fisher to discuss her untested hypothesis that achieving an economic equilibrium with professional ransomware attackers could be beneficial for both sides.

Read Kelly's piece on this hypothesis here. 

Brian Donohue of Red Canary joins Dennis Fisher to break down all the interesting talks and news from this week's Cyberwarcon conference, including Andy Greenberg's keynote on Sandworm and several sessions on influence operations.

Read Brian's research and analysis on the Red Canary blog.

For more than 15 years, the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto has been doing groundbreaking research into a variety of security, privacy, and civil liberties threats. Ron Deibert, the founder and director of the lab, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the team's origins, its work uncovering GhostNet and other cyberespionage operations, and the current work investigating surveillance vendors such as NSO Group and others.

When Mr. Robot premiered in 2015 it was an immediate hit not just in the hacker community but with wider audiences, as well. The show follows the exploits of Elliot Alderson, a troubled young loner who gets involved with a small group of other hackers called F-Society and runs up against a variety of adversaries connected to the monolithic E-Corp. The show has a number of deeply technical storylines, and its creators relied on a handful of technical advisors to keep the hacking realistic, including James Plouffe, a lead architect at MobileIron. As the fourth and final season of Mr. Robot ramps up, James joined Dennis Fisher to talk about his experience working with the creators and writers of the show, Mr. Robot's effects on the culture and the challenges of portraying hacking accurately on TV. 

Math is hard and because encryption relies on some pretty complex math, encryption is hard to get right. Kenneth White, product security lead at MongoDB and a member of the board of the Open Crypto Audit Project, joins Dennis Fisher to talk about the challenges of implementing encryption in modern environments and how shifting public policy is affecting enterprises and individual users who rely on encryption to stay safe online.

The state of IoT security is not great, and despite increased pressure from lawmakers and regulators, vendors are actually going backward in some respects. A year-long study by the Cyber Independent Testing Lab of millions of IoT firmware binaries found that many manufacturers are removing various hardening technologies such as ASLR from their binaries over time. Dennis Fisher spoke with Parker Thompson of CITL about the results and what can be done to turn things around.

Sometimes the most interesting careers don't follow a straight line, and that's certainly the case for Tanya Sam, the director of operations and partnerships at TechSquare Labs in Atlanta. Tanya spent years as an oncology nurse in Toronto and New York before moving to Atlanta and finding her way into the startup and security culture that thrives there and helping found a seed fund and incubator for early stage companies. As if that wasn't enough, she joined the cast of the Real Housewives of Atlanta this year, adding another layer to an already fascinating career.

There are a lot of things you could say about Blackhat. Not many of them are kind. But of all the hacker movies that have been made, it's definitely one. It has many of the elements of a good spy thriller, and there's probably a very solid espionage movie hiding in there somewhere. It also has some pretty realistic hacking scenes, shady CIA operatives, and Thor. It's a lot, but Zoe Lindsey, Peter Baker, and Dennis Fisher are here to break it all down for you.

Spy Game isn't explicitly a sequel to Sneakers or Three Days of the Condor, but it's certainly a spiritual successor, with all of the high-stakes espionage, double-dealing, and shady characters that made those films classics. Also: Robert Redford. Spy Game serves as a master class in social engineering and influence operations and demonstrates exactly how powerful the art of persuasion can be. This is Deciphering Spy Game. 

Michael Coates, CEO and co-founder of cloud security startup Altitude Networks, has had a long and varied career. Beginning with a stint as a consultant breaking into banks and continuing through roles as head of security assurance at Mozilla and CISO at Twitter, he has helped protect hundreds of millions of users over the years. He spoke with Dennis Fisher about what he's learned about empowering teams, the importance of making users safe by default, and the value of solving problems one at a time. 

The security community is full of interesting characters who have had meandering, random paths to success, and Adam O'Donnell fits that description quite nicely. A gifted student who studied engineering and went on to earn a Ph.D. in computer science, O'Donnell has been a staff engineer, a startup founder, a political fundraiser, and a member of the famous Cult of the Dead Cow hacking group for nearly 20 years. He joins Dennis Fisher to talk about his introduction to the hacking scene in the '90s, joining the cDc, Beto O'Rourke's influence on the group, and the new book about the cDc.

Joseph Menn's new book The Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World dives deep into the history of not just the cDc, but also the hacking culture that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s and has produced some of the most influential hackers, executives, artists, and even politicians working today. Dennis Fisher talks with Joe about the cDc's founding, its members, its lasting influence on the tech industry and the world at large.

This week, several separate teams of researchers disclosed new speculative execution attacks against Intel processors. Dennis Fisher spoke with Daniel Gruss of TU Graz in Austria, one of the researchers who developed the Zombieload attack and helped work on some of the others, as well.

The publication of the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report is an important event every year for the infosec community, and the 2019 version includes analysis of data from more than 41,000 incidents and more than 2,000 actual breaches. Dennis Fisher talks with Alex Pinto of Verizon Enterprise about the trends in this year's report, how the data is collected, synthesized and analyzed, and what surprises the report holds.

There are good movies, there are bad movies, and then there's Swordfish, a movie that exists in a world beyond your world. It has everything: John Travolta, Halle Berry, guns, an incoherent plot, 128-bit DES encryption, a multi-headed worm. Dennis Fisher, Zoe Lindsey, and Pete Baker break it all down and then we mercifully move on to Three Days of the Condor, a classic of the 1970s paranoia genre and early techno-thriller with an all-time great Robert Redford performance.

The Carbanak backdoor has been in use for many years by the infamous FIN7 attack team, and researchers at FireEye discovered files containing the source code for the malware on VirusTotal two years ago, but only recently published a detailed analysis of it. Dennis Fisher talks with Michael Bailey, who did much of the source code analysis, about the discovery, the work of pulling the code apart, and what makes Carbanak unique.

Read the FireEye analysis here. 

DNS hijacking and manipulation is a serious ongoing threat and researchers at Cisco Talos Intelligence Group recently uncovered one such campaign called Sea Turtle that has been running for more than two years. The attackers are well-resourced and likely backed by a nation state, and have targeted intelligence agencies, military organizations, and a DNS registry, among others. Craig Williams of Talos joins Dennis Fisher to discuss the Sea Turtle attacks and the ramifications for the Internet as a whole.

Read the Cisco Talos report here.
Read the Decipher story on Sea Turtle here. 

Dennis Fisher sits down with Mac security researcher Patrick Wardle to talk about his entry into entry, his development of the Objective See suite of Mac security tools, the state of Mac malware and his Objective By the Sea conference.

Dennis Fisher talks with hardware security researcher JoeFitzPatrick at the CanSecWest conference about the challenges of finding and verifying hardware implants and the questions people should ask when these stories emerge.

There are heist movies, there are hacker movies, and then there's Ocean's Eleven. Blessed with one of the all-time great ensemble casts and an airtight script, Ocean's Eleven combines brilliant social engineering tactics, clever hacking ideas, revenge, greed, and Julia Roberts. This is Deciphering Ocean's Eleven.

The first Mission: Impossible film gave us so many wonderful gifts: goofy Usenet searches, Apple PowerBook action shots, CIA mainframe hacking, and some great mid-career Tom Cruise running. Before the series turned into a high-stakes, high-budget action franchise, the original film was a fun, sometimes goofy heist story with a vein of technobabble running through it. This is Deciphering Mission: Impossible.

Dennis Fisher sits down with Fahmida Rashid, Mike Mimoso, and Jessy Irwin at the RSA Conference in San Francisco to talk about the major themes of the conference.

Dennis Fisher talks with Yonathan Klijnsma of RiskIQ about his new research into Magecart Group 4, the background and tactics of the web skimming group, and how the defender community responds through takedowns and other techniques.

Read the RiskIQ report here.
Read our coverage of Magecart here. 

Sneakers isn't just one of the best hacker movies of all time, it's one of the best movies ever. Full stop. The tale of a crew of outcasts with sketchy pasts who break into companies for a living (not a very good one), Sneakers has an all-star cast, a killer script, and a terrifyingly prescient story about information and its control over our lives in the modern age. This is Deciphering Sneakers.

All of the movies in the Die Hard franchise include more than their share of absurd stunts and ridiculous moments, and the fourth installment, Live Free or Die Hard, sets the standard. From throwing a car at a helicopter to hacking the power grid to Kevin Smith's basement lair to everything Justin Long does, this movie is 128 minutes of over the top stunts, stunt hacking, and stunted dialogue. This is Deciphering Live Free or Die Hard.

David Scott Lewis was part of the early generation of computer hobbyists who built their own machines, learned through trial-and-error, and paved the way for the hackers and tinkerers who would follow in their footsteps in the next few decades. As a college student in the late 1970s, David met two screenwriters who were working on a script about a brilliant scientist and his teen protege. That story eventually evolved into the script for WarGames and David became the inspiration for Matthew Broderick's character, David Lightman. Dennis Fisher sat down with David to talk about his introduction to hacking, his involvement in WarGames, and how he's stayed involved in the scene throughout the years.

If you'd like to contact David, send an email to [email protected]. 

When The Net hit theaters in 1995, the World Wide Web was in its infancy, Internet access was spotty, slow, and unreliable, and the concepts of identity theft and database hacking were completely foreign to most people. Sandra Bullock's character Angela Bennett is a smart and resourceful but introverted systems analyst whose world is thrown into chaos by a shadowy hacking group, a story that foreshadows much of what has come to pass in the nearly 25 years since. This is Deciphering The Net, with Fahmida Rashid, Melanie Ensign, and Dennis Fisher.

Dennis Fisher talks with Nate Cardozo, senior information security counsel at the EFF, about a proposal from the UK's spy agency, GCHQ, that would insert a backdoor into encrypted communications by adding a "ghost", or invisible third party, to two-party conversations. The proposal is the latest in a long line of ideas to weaken or cripple encryption systems in the name of easier access for law enforcement and Dennis and Nate discuss the risks of the ghost method as well as what it could portend for users in other countries.

Read Nate's piece on the ghost proposal on the EFF Deeplinks blog.

Dennis Fisher talks with Stefan Tanase, a principal security researcher at Ixia, about the concept of Internet Balkanization, the consequences of large-scale censorship for users, and how technical and policy experts can help address the problem. 

You can watch Stefan's TedX Bucharest talk on this topic here: https://youtu.be/liSD3lL_-Kw

For anyone who has worked a thankless job for a tyrannical, ineffectual boss, Office Space touches a nerve. The story of a trio of programmers--Peter Gibbons, Michael Bolton, and Samir Nagheenanajar--at the faceless Initech in the late 1990s, Office Space mixes the existential dread of dead-end jobs with the illicit thrill of deciding to get back at your boss and everyone else. In this case, the revenge comes in the form of a virus that steals money from Initech and transfers it to Peter and his pals. Office Space is perhaps the quintessential tech industry comedy and set the stage for Silicon Valley nearly 20 years later. This is Deciphering Office Space.

Zero Cool. Acid Burn. Phantom Phreak. Cereal Killer. Lord Nikon. Twenty-three years after its release, the movie Hackers is still a touchstone for a generation that grew up with AOL disks in their mail, Jolt cola in their fridges, pagers on their belts, and Rollerblades on their feet. Hackers introduced us to Angelina Jolie and Matthew Lillard, brought hacking into the mainstream consciousness and gave us the iconic line: Hack the planet. This is Deciphering Hackers. 

Released in 1983 and starring '80s movie icons Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, and Dabney Coleman, WarGames was a huge hit in theaters and remains a classic 35 years later. The movie helped shape the popular perception of hackers as mischievous teens with too much curiosity for their own good and illustrates many of the security mistakes people and organizations still make. Dennis Fisher is joined by Zoe Lindsey and Peter Baker of Duo Security to break down the first true hacker movie: WarGames.

Communicating the fundamentals of privacy and security is a difficult task, but no more so than helping security and privacy professionals with the fundamentals of communication. In her role at Uber, Melanie Ensign is responsible for both of those tasks, helping customers and journalists understand the company's security and privacy principles, while also working with executives, engineers, and others inside Uber to help them understand the way those principles are communicated externally. It's a long way from the career as a shark researcher Melanie envisioned for herself as a teenager, but the two paths have more in common than you might imagine. She joins Dennis Fisher to talk about her marine biology aspirations and the challenges and rewards she's found in her time in the security field.

Hacker Katie Moussouris probably knows more about bug bounties, how companies use and misuse them, and the incentives that they create than just about anyone on the planet. She created Microsoft's first bounty program in 2013 and has spent the years since traveling the world advising companies on how to work with security researchers and whether a bounty program is the right move. She talks with Dennis Fisher about why the security industry keeps making the same mistakes over and over and how the lack of talent on the coding and maintenance side of the equation is hurting security.

Learn more about Katie's company Luta Security.

Decipher Editor-in-Chief Dennis Fisher talks with Mikhail Davidov of Duo Labs about his new research paper on Apple's T2 security chip. The T2 is now included in all of the forthcoming MacBook Pro models and it handles a wide variety of security functions. Mikhail spent eight months on a technical deep dive on the T2 and found a lot of interesting things in that time.

Red the technical paper here.

Read the Decipher story on the T2 research here. 

Decipher Editor-in-Chief Dennis Fisher talks with Richard Bejtlich, a veteran security practitioner, consultant, and author, about his new role at Corelight, the evolution of network defense, and the difficulty of running complex incident response investigations.

Andy Greenberg of Wired magazine joins Decipher Editor-in-Chief Dennis Fisher to discuss his in-depth cover story on the NotPetya malware outbreak of 2017 that masqueraded as ransomware but actually destroyed the networks of a number of large corporations and caused billions of dollars in damages.

Decipher editors Dennis Fisher and Fahmida Rashid preview the talks at Black Hat USA 2018 and discuss the ways in which the conference has evolved in recent years.