Beers with Talos Podcast
Beers with Talos is a podcast hosted by Cisco Talos security experts, featuring hot takes on current security topics and their latest research. The show blends serious threat discussions with casual banter, covering everything from YouTube trends to Olympic curling etiquette. New episodes are released every other Thursday.
Episodes
For the Record, No Comment
Kaitlin Acharya joins the Beers with Talos crew to take us inside the world of threat intelligence: what happens when Talos spots something that could become a major threat, how her team tracks changes in threat actor behavior, and how intelligence moves from an investigation into detection content. She also faces some tougher questions involving tennis, Derry Girls and an evil genie.We also attem
"I Pay You $200 a Month!" - When Threat Actors Argue With AI
Cybercriminals are increasingly relying on AI, but in doing so, they're creating an entirely new source of threat intelligence.This week, Talos researcher Arnaud Zobec joins Hazel, Bill, Joe and Dave to discuss what happens when attackers leave behind AI prompt logs, agent configurations and other unexpected artifacts. From jailbreak attempts to agentic workflows and accidental infrastructure
Keeping Up With the Cybercriminals
In this episode of Beers with Talos, Hazel, Bill, Dave and Joe are joined by Kendall McKay to dive into the soap opera of modern cybercrime. From rival gangs launching smear campaigns against one another to reputation systems, trusted intermediaries and dark web "customer reviews". Turns out, every ransomware operation is one passive-aggressive group chat message away from falling apart.
Space Pirates, Living Off Trusted Services, & Bill Declares Food War
In this episode of Beers with Talos, Hazel, Bill, Dave and Joe are joined by Talos Security Research Engineer James Nutland to discuss Living Off Trusted Services (LOTS) - a growing technique where attackers use platforms such as GitHub, Google Drive, Microsoft services and Telegram for command and control, malware delivery and data exfiltration.We explore why this trend is growing, how it differs
AI Is Finding Bugs Faster. Now What?
AI is accelerating vulnerability discovery, so what impact is that having on defenders?In this episode of Beers with Talos, Hazel, Bill, Joe, and Dave are joined by Nick Biasini to unpack what attackers are doing with AI-assisted vulnerability discovery, why local models rather than frontier models may be a more attractive route for them, and the vendors who are now drowning in a flood of bug repo
25 Years of Uninterrupted Persistence
Hazel, Dave and Joe plot to celebrate Bill's 25 years at Talos with stories and a good old fashioned roast.The team also covers the latest security headlines, including AI-assisted vulnerability research, and why attackers still can’t resist abusing trusted systems (or Roblox).They also break down the latest Cisco Talos Incident Response Quarterly Trends report, including:Phishing’s return as
Gravy, Glutes, and the Talos Year in Review
Hazel, Bill, Joe and Dave break down (sometimes in the literal sense) the 2025 Talos Year in Review which is available now at blog.talosintelligence.com/2025yearinreviewThe team, supported as always by the Turkey Lurkey Man, dives into the biggest cybersecurity trends of the year, including:· The rapid weaponization of vulnerabilities· Why identity abuse showed up everywhere · R
It's the B+ Team: Matt Olney returns
It's the one, the only, it's Matt Olney! We are delighted to have Matt back to talk with the crew about about the most random things, including TikTok diagnosing us with ADHD, inspiring vtubers, K-Pop Demon Hunters, ransomware in hospitals (the serious bit), attacker use of AI, why 1999-era tricks are still undefeated, and an entirely reasonable number of desserts.We recorded this episod
Ranksgiving Returns: The Appetizer Uprising
Guess who’s back? Hazel, Bill and Joe welcome back fresh-from-parental-leave Dave Liebenberg, who has returned with a new baby, and some truly chaotic Thanksgiving opinions. We kick things off with the security headlines. Joe gets spicy about a recent “AI-orchestrated cyber campaign” report. Dave brings us the poetic news that AI models can apparently be jailbroken with a well-placed limerick.
Two Marshalls, One Podcast
Talos' Vice President Christopher Marshall (the “real Marshall,” much to Joe’s displeasure) joins Hazel, Bill, and Joe for a very real conversation about leading people when the world won’t stop moving. We start with Marshall’s days in the Navy’s nuclear program and the art of translating deeply technical work for non-technical leaders. We then get into how he joined Talos (“you WILL do this
How to Ruin an APT's Day, with Sara McBroom
This week, the B-Team gets an upgrade as we’re joined by Sara McBroom from Talos’ nation-state threat intelligence and interdiction team. Sara shares her journey from a liberal arts major to tracking some of the world’s most advanced adversaries. Along the way, she talks about moving from the U.S federal service to Talos, mentoring, leading with empathy, and why making bad actors miserable is a pr
So You Wanna Be an Incident Commander? Meet Alex Ryan
We welcome new Talos teammate and incident commander Alex Ryan to the pod this week. Bill, Joe and Hazel chat with Alex about what it really takes to lead through the chaos of a cybersecurity incident, from coordinating stressed-out teams, fielding exec questions, and making sure people eat.Much to Bill's dismay, we have something resembling a "format" for this episode, and we start
Terms and conceptions may apply
Welcome back to the podcast where the structure is theoretical and the only certainty is uncertainty. In this episode, the crew reassembles after a totally intentional and not-at-all accidental hiatus (blame is assigned, forgiveness is not).We cover:AI-assisted IVF (spoiler: it's mostly robots and headlines)The dawning of Mind-games-as-a-service in ransomware operationsConference dogs that ma
Year in Review 2024
Joe, Hazel, Bill and Dave break down Talos' Year in Review 2024 and discuss how and why cybercriminals have been leaning so heavily on attacks that are routed in stealth in simplicity. The team also provide insights into some of the topics of the report, including the top-targeted vulnerabilities of the year, network-based attacks, adversary toolsets, identity attacks, multi-factor authentica
The truth about Tasmanian devils, and getting into cybersecurity
Bill springs a surprise topic on the team in this episode - how did you get into cybersecurity, and what skills have you brought with you throughout your career? What ensues is a rather lovely, vulnerable conversation that we hope will be helpful for anyone currently thinking about their next career move.Before that Dave has some surprising facts about Tasmanian devils, what they didn't cover
Social Media Bans, Live Experiments, Cybersecurity Crosswords, and Nine Lives: The B team returns
More hijinks and silliness ensue in the second episode of the BWT B Team podcast. Joe shares his frustration with being involuntarily removed from a social media platform, Hazel conducts a live experiment, Dave talks about his newfound addiction to crossword puzzles and its parallels to cybersecurity, and Bill recommends the game "Nine Lives" and shares his top books of the year. Joe als
Misadventures, Rabbit Holes, and Turkey Lurkey Goes to the Movies
With Mitch, Matt and Lurene currently stuck in the void, the Beers with Talos B team duly elect themselves to reopen the sacred BWT airwaves with their own brand of nonsense. Hazel, Joe, Bill and Dave each share the security rabbit hole they went down this week - from analyst in-jokes about AI, oligarchs and bad actors refusing to learn good op sec, the songs you'd play to send a message mid-
Black Hat 2024 preview
It's been a while huh? Apologies for our absence, but the team are back with a run through of everything we've got going on at Black Hat - from our 10 year birthday celebrations, the interesting lightning talks in our booth, and Joe Marshall's "Backdoors and Breaches" game. Come and visit us at Cisco Booth 1732 and Splunk Booth 1940.Before that, Matt encourages Mitch and L
Stories from the Power Grid
Power grid security expert Joe Marshall joins the crew today to talk all things, well, power grid security. But not before he gets an impromptu pop quiz from Matt in the roundtable.Joe then tells some stories from his days working in electric utility, deploying new systems and his experiences with pentesting teams ("Wow, y'all need to stop!"). Plus, the team ask Joe about the risk
The old people episode
Matt, Mitch and Lurene discuss if the internet is better or worse today than it was 20 years ago. This leads them to discuss their various career paths, with Lurene talking about how she got into vulnerability exploitation and how Matt got into threat intelligence. And why neither of those paths would be recommended today. Lurene and Matt then clash about threat research and and the importance of
The Reverberations of Volt Typhoon
You will no doubt have seen the advisories published over the last few weeks concerning Volt Typhoon's malicious activities. In this episode, JJ Cummings joins the crew to discuss the background to this threat actor, their impact on the threat landscape, and the covertly strategic (and specific) nature of their operations. The team also discusses their recommendations for defenders, particula
The Reddit Security Diaries
Matt, Mitch and Lurene sit down to discuss “random stuff from Reddit” (don’t be put off – they’re all genuinely interesting security questions!). Topics range from password managers and how password security guidance has become outdated, how to ‘self-learn’ in cybersecurity, and thoughtful approaches towards security incidents. Before that, the team comes up with a prank to pull on their co-worker
Talos Speed Dating (the episode we never set out to make but did anyway)
Mitch, Matt and Lurene were almost about to be in the same physical space at the same time to record an episode, and then Lurene couldn't make it...so we made this instead! Mitch is joined by Azim Khodjibaev from the Talos Threat Intelligence and Interdiction team to rapid-fire interview a bunch of Talos employees who happened to be around the Maryland office. Hear from teammates from all wal
The TurkeyLurkey Man wants YOU to read the Talos 2023 Year in Review report
We recorded this episode AFTER Thanksgiving, so you'll need to forgive us for the amount of Thanksgiving talk that doesn't actually apply until Thanksgiving 2024. It all evens out in the end because the annual "Ranksgiving" from special guest David Liebenberg results in the creation of TurkeyLurkey Man. Then, TurkeyLurkey Man helps the rest of the gang recap the top malware and
Chicken Soup and Contact Centers
It's that time of the quarter again when we sit down to look at what we learned over the past three months. Caitlin Huey from the Talos Threat Interdiction Team joins the show for this special look at the latest Talos Incident Response Quarterly Trends report. Caitlin's team helps compile these reports and digs through mountains of data to find out what defenders can learn from what Talo
Who is Jacques Wagon?
This episode of Beers with Talos has a very special guest: Our old friend Nigel Houghton. He's one of the OG BWTers and is back with two-plus years' worth of hot takes to get off his chest. Nigel starts out by delivering his long-awaited update on his beloved Mighty Red. But he, Mitch, Matt and Lurene do eventually get to cybersecurity talk, including things like:The challenge of keeping
"I'm going to breach you off." "Not if I breach you off first!"
We know we're like two weeks late to the Barbie party, but the whole Beers with Talos crew has seen it now so we had to talk about it. Expect a lot of "Barbie" talk up at the top. After that, though, we dive into how to set up deception systems and establish your environment to make it harder for an intruder to get in. The goal here is to make it so that attackers have to waste time
Rachel Tobac on social engineering, expanding opportunities for women in cybersecurity
In this special episode, Matt is flying solo while he interviews Rachel Tobac, the CEO of SocialProof Security. Rachel's company helps individuals and companies keep their data safe by offering various training and penetration testing opportunities, all related to social engineering attacks and risks. Ahead of BlackHat and DEFCON, Matt wanted to talk to Rachel because they first met at DEFCON
Yarrr! There be mercenaries on the high seas!
The Beers with Talos Crew is back to a team of four this week, with special guest Nick Biasini joining the show to talk about Mercenary Groups and the spyware they're creating. This episode, we talk about the current spyware landscape, and how it encompasses "mercenary" groups like the NSO Group and Intellexa, and state-sponsored actors looking to track high-profile targets. Nick&ap
Oh hello, "Susan"
Mitch was out for this recording, so Hazel Burton, the newest addition to Team Talos, stepped in to host this episode! She, Lurene and Matt got together for Mental Health Awareness Month and share stories and advice with one another. Cybersecurity is a notoriously rough field for burnout and an imbalance between work and life, so they share some tips they use to decompress after a long day and how
The XDR Files
Our second of two episodes recorded live at the RSA Conference, Mitch and Lurene are joined by Nick Biasini from Talos Outreach and AJ Shipley, a vice president of product management for Cisco Secure. The four of them recap Nick and AJ's talk they gave at RSA and discuss the centralization of cybersecurity. AJ shares some important insights about the product side of cybersecurity, and how eve
SHIFT_NOP
This is the first of two episodes we have coming out that we recorded live at the RSA Conference. In this edition of Beers with Talos, we welcome Mick Baccio, a security strategist for Splunk, to talk about all things RSA. At this point in the week, we had hit the halfway point of RSA and were pretty tired already, so bear with us — don't expect any hardcore security takes here. That being sa
The one where they talk a lot about wireless routers
This episode discusses network resilience, hardware hygiene, and the recently disclosed Jaguar Tooth campaign. J.J. joins the show and the usual cast to discuss the recent attacks against out-of-date and unpatched wireless routers from sophisticated, state-sponsored actors. J.J., Matt and Lurene detail the research around these campaigns and advice for anyone to improve their network hygiene. If y
Should we even care about vulnerability severity scores?
Everyone fears the dreaded 10-out-of-10 CVSS severity score on a vulnerability with "critical" written somewhere on the advisory. But does that number even matter to an attacker or hypothetical defender? Matt, Mitch and Lurene discuss the various ways the security community classifies vulnerabilities and how potential targets can use that information to their advantage. They discuss patc
Beers with Talos Ep. #130: Ransomware is a people problem (but getting rid of email helps)
(Recorded Jan. 27, 2023)No Matt this episode, so we have two guests in the rotating chair(s): Nick Biasini and David Liebenberg. Lurene, Mitch and our two esteemed companions talk about the human problem of ransomware. Lurene says getting rid of email altogether is the best option — but since that doesn't seem likely anytime soon, what are some other options for enterprises and companies to a
Talos Year in Review 2022 w/ Dave Liebenberg
With this episode, we set out to discuss the first annual Cisco Talos Year in Review report - a look back at the major threats, trends, and topics from 2022 and what we should take forward into 2023. Our guest Dave Liebenberg runs the team behind this report and joins us to discuss *why* his team undertook this effort, and some of the finer points of the report findings. The Year in Review is b
I find your vulnerabilities offensive (and exploitable).
We are (finally) talking about the recent OpenSSL vulnerability as we had to redo this EP. In our infinite podcasting wisdom, we took a stab at it roughly 2 hours before the embargo expired and coverage was released - which is obviously is a very silly idea in hindsight. After we cover the current issue at hand, Lurene leads us through the surface levels of how vulns can be exploited in the heap
Im a skiddie, and you can too!
Mitch was trying to preserve his voice, so Matt is driving the bus during this episode — hang on! In this edition, we're talking about script kiddies (unfortunately, not "kitties.") These are basically adversaries with an extreme base level of computer knowledge who use basic scripts to carry out cyber attacks. How can we avoid these attacks, even if they'll look like benign ac
The intricacies of cyber conflict in Ukraine
At the onset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many experts and government officials expected there to be two fronts of the war — one on the ground in Ukraine and one in cyberspace. But all things considered, we haven't seen as much offensive cyber warfare come from either side of this conflict this year. J.J. Cummings from Talos Threat Intelligence and Interdiction joins the show again t
A(nother) new host approaches!
We're excited to add to the growing Beers with Talos family with the addition of Lurene Grenier to the squad. Lurene joins her first episode and hits the ground running talking about her current role within Talos. She, Mitch and Matt talk about the major differences between exploit development and vulnerability discovery, and how Lurene started her career in exploit development. While exploit
Beers with Talos Ep. #107: Sailing the high seas in search of privateer groups
You’re not going to believe this, but everyone actually agreed on something in this episode. And no, it’s not regarding the best flavor of beef jerky. In this episode, we discuss a new category of threat actors that we’re choosing to call privateers. The guys discuss why this classification is much needed in the security community, the previous research on this topic, and the ways private security
Is More than Executive Action in Order?
Recorded May 11, 2020 – Craig wins MVP of the podcast for his attempts to avoid discussing… something. Anyway, we went a little long on this podcast, but stick with us as we wind through the recent Executive Order on cybersecurity, and then discuss another… interesting take on how we should then combat these new threats. I feel almost obligated to let you know before you listen, it’s a letter of m
Beers with Talos Ep. #122: LIVE and in living color from RSA
We recorded this special episode live and actually in person last week at the RSA Conference, and we have a special treat for the listeners. The ever-elusive Matt Watchinski, Talos’ fearless leader, joins the show. We mainly spend some time talking about Talos’ work defending Ukraine during the invasion of Russia. Tomorrow, be on the lookout for a more laid-back podcast in the Security Stories fee
Beers with Talos Ep. #120: How attackers are finding new ways to bypass MFA
Our rotation of special guests continues on with Nate Pors from Talos Incident Response. Nate has been following several different attacks in which attackers bypassed multi-factor authentication with “prompt bombing” and other techniques. The crew discusses what the security community can do to make MFA safer and how to improve user education about using the technology. Plus, Matt gets an opportun
Beers with Talos Ep. #118: Reacting to the current situation in Ukraine
This was admittedly a tough one to record. In the middle of us trying to respond to the situation in Ukraine, we felt it was important to let our listeners in a bit. Matt, JJ and Liz discuss the work they and their teams are doing in Ukraine to protect critical systems there and keep users online. We also talk about the human side of things, and why it’s important for folks in cybersecurity to thi
Beers with Talos Ep. #114: And then there were two...
(Uploaded again, this time with the correct music!) The OG Beers with Talos folks are dropping like flies, because now we also have to say goodbye to Joel! We know this has been quite the roller coaster for listeners, but we appreciate you all sticking with us through all these changes. We take some time in Joel’s farewell to discuss “Rent,” as only BWT could, and burnout in cybersecurity.
Beers with Talos Ep. #119: If it walks like a BlackCat, meows like a BlackCat...
We’re all still pretty exhausted from our work in Ukraine. But that hasn’t slowed down any of the threat actors, unfortunately. So we enlisted special guest Nick Biasini to dive into the BlackCat ransomware group to discuss how it potentially is or isn’t connected to BlackMatter/DarkSide. These ransomware-as-a-service groups surprisingly run like regular companies, and even have the same problems
Beers with Talos Ep. #117: Talos' Big Game commercial about a month too late
We’re dropping two episodes today. This is undoubtedly the less serious of the two, as it was recorded prior to the invasion of Ukraine. Check out Ep. #118 for more on that situation. In this episode, though, we got to talk about Talos’ involvement at the Super Bowl. Mitch welcomes on Brett Ellis, who was at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles to help defend “The Big Game,” of Talos Incident Response to d
Beers with Talos Ep. #113: Emergency Log4j live show
Log4j was a big enough deal that we finally decided to host a live show. Mitch, Matt, Liz and special guest JJ Cummings from our Threat Intel team got together to update everyone on where things stand with this critical vulnerabilities. It’s not all doom and gloom though, Matt at least brought some memes!
Beers with Talos Ep. #112: A new host approaches!
This is our first episode sans-Craig, but we didn’t wait long to find his replacement! Tune in as we add a new host to the crew. Then, we talk about drama on the ransomware landscape among as-a-service groups. Please note, we recorded this episode before everything dropped on Log4J. We are recording an emergency episode as we speak on this and will be releasing it later this week.
Beers with Talos, Ep. #115: Everybody's measured by quarters — even threat actors
We wanted to start off the new year by reflecting on 2021 with Talos Incident Response. The one thing many cyber attacks had in common? People.There are issues that arise any time humans are involved, whether it’s being tempted by a phish or someone making simple human errors. So, Matt, Mitch and Liz discuss how logs are crucial during the worst-case scenario and look at how to remove human error
Beers with Talos Ep. #111: Saying farewell to Craig and his killer robots
[Re-uploaded to fix an audio gap.] Yes, we’ve been sitting on this one for a while. But it’s worth it, we promise! We wanted to wait until we had more news to share, so it’s finally time to announce that Craig has left us. We will absolutely miss Craig, but look forward to the next act of Beers with Talos now that 2/5ths of the original crew is gone. We take the time to reminisce with Craig about
Beers with Talos, Ep. #110: The 10 most-exploited vulnerabilities this year (You won't believe No. 6!)
We mainly spend this episode doing some catching up because it’s been a while since we recorded. But on the actual, helpful, front, we discuss a recently released list of the vulnerabilities that are most often exploited in the wild, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.It’s particularly interesting to compare the lists from 2020 and 2021 to see how threat actors
Kaseya it ain't so
Summer hacking, happened so fast….We’ve been trying to enjoy our summer, but supply chain attacks just had to go and ruin the fun. So Mitch got back from fishing and decided to pull the guys together to discuss the Kaseya supply chain attack. We cover this major event BWT-style, and talk phony patches, mitigation strategies, and unsolicited advice for Kaseya’s CISO. For more, you can also watch ou
Beers with Talos Ep. #109: We have not secured our society — Or, working out a conference talk in realtime
Most of the Beers with Talos folks are refreshed after a summer vacation. But don’t assume that means they actually prepared for this episode. This is more of a free-flowing episode, where we discuss cyber conflict between nations — one of the many things that keep Matt up at night. They go back and forth discussing what a “cyber war” could actually look like, and what crosses the line into confli
Beers with Talos Ep. #121: The ghost of conferences past
We wanted to prep for the RSA/Cisco Live stretch of June by looking back on security conferences past. Mitch, Matt and Liz got together to talk about their best and worst conference memories. Plus, Mitch has an overview of everything Talos is doing at RSA and Cisco Live, including a LIVE episode of Beers with Talos next week at RSA. There is a little security talk at least, as we also cover the la
Beers with Talos Ep. #124: There's no such thing as "I have nothing to hide"
We’ve all heard that popular refrain by now: “Well I have nothing to hide so I don’t care if the government sees my data.” This week, we tell these people they are completely wrong. Ashlee Benge joins the show to discuss her upcoming BlackHat talk on the types of data and personal information health apps track. This has taken on special importance in the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the U.S, mak
Beers with Talos Ep. #123 (FIXED!): Hunting for ransomware actors on *whispers* the dark web
Re-uploaded on July 22, 2022 to fix audio issues —We’re back from RSA, Cisco Live and COVID breaks (yes, those things are all absolutely related). Paul Eubanks joins the show to talk about his recent blog post on unmasking ransomware actors on the dark web. He’ll go over several different tactics he and his team use to remove actors’ anonymity that’s so important when actors are working on these w
Beers with Talos Ep. #116: Let's talk about the Olympics (but not in the way you were expecting)
Most people would expect us to approach the Winter Olympics from a security perspective. Why are athletes using burner phones? Are we worried about any state-sponsored attacks? Not this year, folks! Instead, we rank each country’s curling uniforms, discuss the origins of ski jumping and debate which events would be the most difficult to compete in.On the actual cybersecurity front, we did carve ou
[CROSS-BROADCAST]Security Stories Ep. 27: Dealing with stress, burnout and mental health in the threat intelligence industry
This is a very different episode in that it isn’t really a BWT episode at all. Hazel Burton from the Security Stories podcast invited Matt and Mitch to come on with the leader of Talos, Matt Watchinski. The idea was to chat with Hazel and her co-hosts Ben and Sana about burnout from three levels of a security research team. What followed as we all started talking was real and unfiltered conversati
Supply Chain has Matt Hopping Mad Like a Kangaroo
Recorded March 30, 2021 – What better way to discuss supply chain attacks than to have Matt demonstrate how easily you can blend your payload into normal operations via Twitter shenanigans? We’re talking about (surprise!) supply chain attacks and how their rise to prevalence is notable, albeit expected. Supply chain gets linked in with privacy concerns as we round out the ep discussing the Signal/
ICS/SCADA Security - The Permanence and People Problems
Recorded March 2021 – ICS and SCADA systems are deeply embedded all around us in critical infrastructure. Today we talk about some of the inherent issues in infrastructure security and take a wide-ranging look at the ICS- and SCADA-specific issues found there. Joe Marshall from the Talos Outreach group joins to share his insights on the space and how donuts are the ultimate career track switching
Twitter has Questions for Us
We’ve been quiet for a minute, but we have a few new EPs ready to go, starting with some of your questions from Twitter. And yes, one of the first questions concerns Craig and the robots. Do you have a question you’d like to ask us for the next listener questions episode? Send us a tweet (links below). Ask us anything security related or something else entirely. It’s your question, I’m not going
The Super Sized Centennial EP
Recorded January 8, 2020 – It’s hard to believe that we have made 100 episodes of BWT. It easily feels like two or three times that many. This is a long winded show, as we welcome back our buddy Nigel for this special milestone. As an unintentional nod to our early episodes, the opening roundtable gets way off track and we basically host an “In-between” ep in the middle of a regular show. We also
P@ssw0rds and Closing Out 2020
This EP was recorded toward the end of the year and lived a quiet, but meaningful life in the production queue patiently waiting it’s turn to get released. In this Ep, we dig into a discussion on passwords and some of the issues both conceptually and in practice. Passwords aren’t inherently problematic, but how they are used…sometimes is. We discuss best practices to share with your friends and al
Why Ransomware Actors Are (and Aren’t) Targeting Healthcare
Recorded early November, 2020 – This is an EP we recorded in early November but got pushed back in the end of year shuffle to make production schedules work. We’re happy to put this one out now with somewhat belated takes on (somewhat recent) health care ransomware attacks. We discuss a few key questions that are rather evergreen. Why is health care targeted in this way (and other verticals for th
Getting to Better Security Outcomes (ft. Wendy Nather)
Recorded November 24, 2020 –On this EP, Mitch and Matt are joined by Wendy Nather to discuss the newly released Cisco Security Outcomes Study. The results and findings of the research are interesting and somewhat surprising. As often happens with most good research, we end up asking more questions - in this case, geared toward the nature of the relationships found in the data. Special thanks to We
The Bogeyman and QR codes
We got delayed with the holidays and PTO, but here is a long awaited ep. The rest of the year is on deck to release through the holidays, so fret not. In this EP we talk about QR codes becoming pervasive as easily deployed “touchless tech” (and how they could help the robots try to kill Craig), and then we take a look at some recent DOJ and APT activity that begs the question: is bringing charge
Election 2020: Advice for voters and election officials
Recorded October. 9, 2020 –We are running a short bench today after Nigel’s retirement and Joel being on vacation. We start off talking about how specific use cases don’t equate to the death of entire defensive technologies, despite the frequent assertions otherwise you may find on Twitter. The key to defense in depth is that no silver bullet stops everything - nothing is surprising here.The big f
Nigel is Marching On, Victorious and Glorious
Recorded Sept. 25, 2020 –Today is Nigel’s last episode as a regular host of BWT. Join us in wishing him a happy transition to his next chapter - as we all know, Nigel won’t ever actually retire. Today’s show is us chatting with Nigel - about his career and his take on the industry as he entered, and now as he moves on to whatever comes next. Every aspect of Talos is better off because Nigel was he
“More Secure” Myths and Misconceptions
On today’s show we take several of the larger security myths that are often heard around things like patching vulnerabilities - specifically the notion that more patches indicate less secure software. We also talk about other “common knowledge”-esque bits of advice we’ve all often come across. We could do a whole episode on silver bullets that (spoiler alert) weren’t. Let us know some of your fav
Now Trending in Your Network: Disinformation
Disinformation is front and center right now. As disinformation efforts constantly increase, platforms struggle to contain the problem without giving the appearance of censuring or controlling all information present. A Talos research team recently published some findings on the building blocks of disinformation campaigns (available via link below). Special guest Kendall McKay joins us to discus
Get the FUD out
Recorded August 14, 2020 –Let’s talk about FUD - it’s not enough to just say FUD sucks. Let’s talk about exactly how and why producers of FUD are garbage nightmare monster people. We also cover how they are actually damaging themselves, not just the people and organizations that buy their hype. We have rather strong opinions on this, so we invited Meredith Corley, an actual professional on the t
Hacktivism: Understanding the Real World Consequences
Recorded July 31, 2020 –This week in BWT land, we’re discussing hacktivism - from the unintended consequences to the tropes perpetuated by Hollywood. Regardless of the reason or cause, hacktivism often wields DDoS and web defacement as easily deployed tools. We discuss some instances where using code as a weapon without deeper understanding can have disastrous consequences. The crew also digs dee
What To Do When the Pwnd One is You
Recorded July 17, 2020 –The gang’s all back this week, and we take on what happens when you get pwnd, hacked, or your data is leaked. It happens to all of us eventually, one quick moment connecting to public wifi, clicking on a bad link when you just aren’t paying enough attention, or your account data is leaked through no real fault of your own. So, what do you do first when it happens to you? Su
It’s Not About the Vote, It’s About Trust
Nigel is out this week, but we have a couple light and breezy topics on the docket: 0-day research and the institutions of democracy. FUN STUFF!! First, we chat about 0-day research tools and the questions raised around them, contrasted to the time before security research was widely accepted. We spend the last half of the show discussing some of the findings and finer points of Matt’s recently re
Happy 3rd Birthday BWT - It’s story time!
Has it been 3 years already? We have a great episode to celebrate! We start off chatting about the origins of BWT and what made it… I don’t know… the way that it is. We also have some great guests. Hazel and Ben from the Security Stories podcast come by to talk about another anniversary of note to all of us - NotPetya. We also chat about what makes storytelling a powerful tool (even in security),
It’s Just an Exploit Popularity Contest...
Recorded June 5, 2020 –Prod. Note: Things are a hot mess right now and the team thinks that there are voices you have needed to hear more than ours, so we held back on releasing a few episodes. This is the last of those withheld eps, please pardon any weeks-old info. Be safe, be kind, and listen to each other. Black lives matter.This was a difficult show to make in light of the events the week p
The In-Between, Vol. 5
Recorded May 29, 2020 – Prod. Note: Things are a hot mess right now and the team thinks that there are voices you have needed to hear more than ours, so we held back on releasing a few episodes. We are releasing those now, please pardon any weeks-old info. Be safe, be kind, and listen to each other. Black lives matter.This is the last of the In-Between episodes. Thanks for having fun with this no
Mid-Career Advancement in Cybersecurity
Recorded May 26, 2020 – Prod. Note: Things are a hot mess right now and the team thinks that there are voices you have needed to hear more than ours, so we held back on releasing a few episodes. We are releasing those now, please pardon any weeks-old info. Be safe, be kind, and listen to each other. Black lives matter.You, our audience, have asked this question a lot - in person, on Twitter, in
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