Beers with Talos Podcast Cisco Talos

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 risks with both aging infrastructure versus newer, smarter based infrastructure. And what happens when threat actors target critical infrastructure?

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 approaching things from a "how do I be a problem" perspective.

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, particularly for critical infrastructure organizations.

The CISA statement on Volt Typhoon can be found here https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa24-038a

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 Topics range from password managers and how password security guidance has become outdated, how to ‘self-learn’ in cybersecurity, and thoughtful approaches towards security incidents.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-workers and bring some joy and chaos to Webex meetings. And Lurene reflects on what advice she would give high schoolers today.
 As Matt says at the end of the episode, we want to hear from you! Get in touch at beerswithtalos@cisco.com

Here's the video 'Hi Ren' that Matt mentions at the outset https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_nc1IVoMxc

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 walks of life and areas of expertise about what they've loved working on in 2023 and how they feel their work has changed the broader security landscape. 

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 attacker trends from 2023. If you'd like to read more, download the full Talos Year in Review report here. We also discussed the recent CNN article and Talos blog post on our work to protect Ukraine's power grid.