I recently had the awesome opportunity to take the awesome Real World Red Team course put on by Peter Kim, author of The Hacker Playbook series. TLDR and TLDR (too long don't listen): go take this training. Please. Now. The end. If you want to hear more, check out today's podcast episode where I talk about all the wonderful tidbits I learned fr ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by NoteCast. Try it free for 60 days (no credit card required) and enter code 7MS when completing your signup. In today's episode, I talk about how the level of Windows server/client logging out of the box is...not really awesome. I then look at how we can create a GPO that turns logging "up to 11" using some f ...…

Today's featured interview is with Lewie Wilkinson, senior integration engineer at Pondurance. Pondurance helps customers improve their security posture by providing a managed threat hunting and response solution, including a 24/7 SOC. Lewie joined me via Skype to talk a lot about a topic I'm fascinated with: incident response! I had a slew of ...…

Today's featured interview is with Ameesh Divatia, cofounder and CEO at Baffle. Baffle offers an interesting approach to data protection that they call data-centric protection, and the idea is you need to protect information at the record level, not just the sort of traditional approach of "encrypt at rest" and call it good. Ameesh sat down wit ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by my friends at safepass.me. Safepass.me is the most efficient and cost-effective solution to prevent Active Directory users from setting a weak or compromised password. It's in compliance with the latest NIST password guidelines, and is the only enterprise solution to protect organizations against credential ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by my friends at safepass.me. Safepass.me is the most efficient and cost-effective solution to prevent Active Directory users from setting a weak or compromised password. It's in compliance with the latest NIST password guidelines, and is the only enterprise solution to protect organizations against credential ...…

WARNING: Today's episode is a bit of an experiment, and I hope you'll hang in there with me for it. I had the opportunity to do a week-long red team engagement, and so I recorded a little summary of the experience at the end of each day, and then pasted them all together to make today's episode. Listening back to the episode now, it sounds like ...…

Coming up on Tuesday, January 22 I'll be doing a Webinar with Netwrix called 4 Ways Your Organization Can Be Hacked. It features a Billy Madison theme and pits evil Eric Gordon against sysadmin Billy Madison. Hope you'll join us - it'll be fun! Today I'm pleased to welcome Amber Boone to the program! She is an awareness builder for a cybersecur ...…

I'd like to coordially invite you to the first-ever 7MS User Group meeting, coming up Monday, January 14th at 6 p.m.! You can attend physically, virtually or both! All the info you need is in today's podcast, as well as here. See you there!

Psssst! Wanna come to the first ever 7MS User Group meeting? It's coming up on January 14th. You can join in person or virtually! Head here for more information! Dan DeCloss (a.k.a. wh33lhouse on Slack and @PlexTracFTW aon Twitter) joined me virtually in the studio to talk about his passion project, PlexTrac. Dan also shared his insight on all ...…

Matt McCullough (a.k.a. Matty McFly on Slack) joined me in the studio to talk about his wild and crazy path to security. He started literally with no technical experience, but through a lot of hard work, aggressive networking and taking advantage of educational and career opportunities, Matt now rocks a SOC job. Matt and I sat down to talk abou ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by my friends at safepass.me. Safepass.me is the most efficient and cost-effective solution to prevent Active Directory users from setting a weak or compromised password. It's in compliance with the latest NIST password guidelines, and is the only enterprise solution to protect organizations against credential ...…

Last week I had the fun privilege of speaking twice at the Minnesota Goverment IT Symposium on the following topics: Forensics 101: This was a "reloaded" talk that I started earlier this year (and covered in episode 299 and 300). At a high level, the talk covered: Hunting malware with Sysinternals Creating system images with FTKImager Dumping m ...…

On a recent security assessment I was thrown for a loop and given the opportunity to do a two-part physical pentest/SE exercise - with about 5 minutes notice(!). Yes, it had me pooping my pants, but in retrospect it was an amazing experience. This is the mission I was given: See if you can get the front desk staff to plug in a USB drive - I pos ...…

Today's episode talks about some SIEMple tests you can run on your SIEM (OMg see what I did there? I took the word simple and made it SIEMple. Genius stuff, right? And there's no extra charge for it!). And if you're just now starting to shop around for a SIEM, this episode also has an extensive questionnaire you can use to put your vendors' fee ...…

Happy Thanksgiving! In this episode I: Share some things I'm thankful for - like you! Talk about a fun episode I'm working on that has some SIEMple tests you can use to test your SIEM (omg see what I did there? So clever) Announce the 7MS user's group that will start meeting in the south metro area of Minnesota in January of 2019! Tell you a st ...…

Welcome to part 6 of our miniseries all about the ups, downs, trials and tribulations of being a small, one-person security start up. In this episode I detail out all the software/services I use to run 7 Minute Security, LLC in hopes it might help you run your company as well! I started a new gist to complement this episode, which you can get b ...…

Today I'm excited to brain-dump a bunch of cool stuff I learned at a red team conference called ArcticCon this week. Although this conference observes the Chatham house rule I'm just going to talk about a few things from a general, high level. Specifically, I asked several heavy-hitting red teams these burning questions: When you red team an or ...…

This week I got to celebrate Halloween with my friends at Netwrix by co-hosting a Webinar called IT Security Horrors That Keep You Up at Night. The content was a modified version of the Blue Team on a Budget talk I've been doing the past year or so, and essentially focuses on things organizations can do to better defend their networks without d ...…

This week I was in lovely Boise, Idaho doing some security assessment work. While I was there I got to hang out with Paul Wilch and some of the Project7 crew and picked up a lot of cool tools and tips I share in today's episode: The Badger Infosec group did a cool Rubber Ducky demo. Dan from DDSec did a demo of PlexTrac which is "the last cyber ...…

In this episode I'm releasing a new document aimed to help organizations eliminate low hanging hacker fruit from the environment. The document contains (relatively) cheap and (relatively) easy things to implement. And my hope is it can be a living/breathing document that will bulk up over time. Got things to add to this list? Then please commen ...…

It's done! It's done!! It's DONE!!! That's right mom, my PacktPub course called Mastering Kali Linux Network Scanning is done! In today's episode I: Recap the course authoring experience Explain my super anal retentive editing process that takes 4 hours for every 10 minutes of produced video Admit some last minute mistakes that about made me qu ...…

In today's episode, I'm excited to be joined in the studio by Nathan Hunstad, Director of Security at Code42. Nathan and I had a great chat about Code42's new security offering called Code42 Forensic File Search, which helps IT and security teams figure out where files are located across their enterprise - even if the endpoints are offline. Thi ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by my friends at Netwrix. Their amazing Netwrix Auditor tool gives you visibility into what’s happening both on your local network and cloud-based IT systems and tells you about critical changes, and when and where people have been accessing data. Give it a spin right in your browser here, and then try it in yo ...…

This episode is a cavalcade of fun! Why? First, I've got a big announcement: I've accepted a new position. "What?!" exclaimed my mom. "I thought you were president of 7MS, what the what?" No worries, it's business as usual, and my responsibilities at 7MS aren't changing. But I'm also going to start writing blogs, nurturing a Slack channel and p ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by my friends at Netwrix. Their amazing Netwrix Auditor tool gives you visibility into what’s happening both on your local network and cloud-based IT systems and tells you about critical changes, and when and where people have been accessing data. Give it a spin right in your browser here, and then try it in yo ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by my friends at Dashlane, a fantastic password manager for you, your family and your business! Head to www.dashlane.com/7ms and use the code 7MS for 10% off a year of Dashlane Premium! Today I'm super pumped to be joined by Ryan Manship of RedTeam Security and Dave Dobrotka of United HealthGroup. Both these gu ...…

Today's episode is a follow-up to #304 where we talked about how you can integrate over 500 million weak/breached/leaked passwords form Troy Hunt's Pwned Passwords into your Active Directory. To get started with this in your environment, grab Troy's updated passwords list here, and then you can check out my BPATTY site for step-by-step implemen ...…

It's been a while so I thought I'd update you on how things are going on the business front. Here are the big updates I want to share with you in today's episode: A new 7MS hire that's going to hunt sales opportunities! My approach to finding podcast sponsors (it seems to be working) Some kick-butt interviews that are on the horizon (including ...…

I'm putting together a general security awareness session aimed at helping individuals and businesses not get hacked. To play off the lucky number 7, I'm trying to broil this list down to 7 key things to focus on. Here's my list thus far: Passwords 2FA/MFA Wifi (put a good password on it, don't use WEP, don't use WPS Sign up for HaveIBeenPwned ...…

I had an exhilarating and terrifying experience this week doing my first ever live radio interview! As a quick bit of background, this interview was part of the 7MS radio marketing campaign that I've talked about my "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying" series (here's part 1, 2 and 3). The interview was conducted by Lee Michaels, a ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by ITProTV. Visit itpro.tv/7ms and use code 7MS to get a FREE 7-day trial and 30% off a monthly membership for the lifetime of your active subscription. Today's episode is a follow-up interview with Joe Klein, who is my good pal, a former coworker, and a SOC analyst extraordinaire. You might remember Joe from t ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by ITProTV. Visit itpro.tv/7ms and use code 7MS to get a FREE 7-day trial and 30% off a monthly membership for the lifetime of your active subscription. This week I sat down with Lane Roush of Arctic Wolf to discuss the big hairy beast that is...(insert dramatic music here) logging and alerting! I work with a l ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by ITProTV. Visit itpro.tv/7ms and use code 7MS to get a FREE 7-day trial and 30% off a monthly membership for the lifetime of your active subscription. In today's episode, I talk about my fun experience using the Sn1per automated pentesting tool. It's really cool! It can scan your network, find vulnerabilities ...…

Today's episode is brought to you by ITProTV. Visit itpro.tv/7ms and use code 7MS to get a FREE 7-day trial and 30% off a monthly membership for the lifetime of your active subscription. This week's show is another interview episode - this time with my pal Bjorn Kimminich of the OWASP Juice Shop. If you've never heard of the Juice Shop before, ...…

Today's interview features Justin McCarthy, CTO and cofounder of StrongDM, which offers both commercial and open source tools (like Comply) to help customers with SOC compliance. Justin schooled me (in a nice way) about a lot of things, including: What SOC and the various SOC types are all about What SOC compliance costs What to look for in sel ...…

In this episode I wanted to give you some cool/fun updates as it relates to 7MS the business! Specifically: A new member of the 7MS team (kinda!) The weird and varied projects I'm working on Upcoming podcast sponsors (probably in July) 7MS has a "real" office coming soon to the southern metro of MN (hopefully!)…

As a continuation of last week's episode I'm now making a bit of progress in finding a good backup solution that protects USB backups both at rest and when pumped up to the cloud. I mentioned I've been using BackBlaze for backups (not a sponsor), and they allow you to backup USB drives as long as they're connected at least once every 30 days. T ...…

You probably create DR plans for your business (or help other companies build them), but have you thought about creating one for yourself? Yeah, I know it's grim to think about "What will my loved ones do to get into my accounts, backups, photos, social media accounts..." but it's probably not a bad idea to prepare for that (spoiler alert: we a ...…

As I was preparing for my Secure 360 talk a month or so ago, I stumbled upon this awesome article which details a method for getting Domain Admin access in just a few minutes - without cracking passwords or doing anything else "loud." The tools you'll need are: PowerShell Empire DeathStar Responder Ntlmrelayx I've written up all the steps in a ...…

It has been a heck of a week (in a good way), and I'm taking a break from security so you can help me untangle a mystery that's been wrapped around my brain for years. I need you to help me figure out what this dude meant when he said that something was as frustrating "as boxing a cat." P.S. if you hate off-topic episodes no worries! We'll be b ...…

This week I dove into building a Cuckoo Sandbox for malware analysis. There are certainly a ton of posts and videos out there about it, but this entry called Painless Cuckoo Sandbox Installation caught my eye as a good starting point. This article got me about 80% of the way there, and the last 20% proved to be problematic. I got some additiona ...…

Last week I was in the recording studio to record three 7MS commercials aimed at churches. The goal was to educate them on some security topics and close with a "hook" to contact 7MS for help securing your church. The commercials themselves are embedded in this episode so please have a listen and let me know what you think! I'll also let you kn ...…

Cracking passwords in the cloud is super fun (listen to last week's episode to learn how to build your own cracking box on the cheap at Paperspace)! In the last couple weeks, customers have asked me about doing a password strength assessment on their Active Directory environment. I asked around and read a bunch of blogs and found a method that ...…

I had an absolute ball this week trying to figure out how to crack passwords effectively, and on the cheap, and in the cloud. Today's episode goes into much more detail, and embedded below is the Gist of my approach thus far. If you've got things to add/suggest to this document, let me know! P.S. if you don't see the gist because you're reading ...…

Hey, so this week I am without my main machine - thus no jingle or "jungle boogie" intro music. Feels weird. Feels real weird. Anyway, ya know how I teased last week that 7MS could possibly be coming to a radio station near you? Well I think it's more of a probability than a possibility at this point! I met with a radio exec a few weeks ago and ...…

We've dug into some pretty technical topics the last few weeks so we're gonna take it easy today. Below are some FAQs and updates I'll cover on today's show: FAQs What security certs should a sales person get? What lav mic should I get for podcasting? How do I know if I'm ready to take the OSCP? When are you gonna do some more YouTube videos? W ...…

Today is part two of evaluating endpoint solutions, where I primarily focus on Caldera which is an adversary simulation system that's really awesome! You can essentially setup a virtual attacker and cut it loose on some test machines, which is what I did as part of an endpoint protection evaluation project. The attacks simulated are from Advers ...…

I've been super pumped about Troy Hunt's Pwned Passwords project ever since it came out - especially when I saw a tweet about using it in Active Directory so that enterprises could essentially stop people from picking previously pwned passwords! That led me to explore the following two solutions: Pwned Passwords DLL This blog entry has everythi ...…

I'm working on a fun project right now where I'm evaluating endpoint protection solutions for a client. They're faced with a choice of either refreshing endpoints to the latest gen of their current product, or doing a rip and replace with something else. I've spun up a standalone AD environment with ~5 Win 10 VMs and nothing on 'em except a cur ...…