As part of my role at AlienVault I get to speak to journalists. A friend recently asked me how it was to respond to journalist queries. In many ways it’s similar to communicating with C-level executives. For this, I try to follow the acronym of UMAD. Usable: Is the information you provide usable by the … Continue reading UMAD? →

For the week ending 21st August 2016 The "Have I been pwned" API, rate limiting and commercial use Cyber cold war? Scammer gets scammed. Interesting story, but worth remembering hacking back is considered illegal in many jurisdictions. U.S. to share supply chain threat intel with industry. Better threat intelligence sharing can definitely benefit companies, if they … Continue reading Things I hearted last week →

BSides Manchester 2016 BSides Manchester is in its third year and they very kindly invited me back to be the MC for track 1. I drove up to Manchester the night before. It was an uneventful trip, barring the usual average speed cameras on the M1 and the roadworks on the M6. I’ve clocked up … Continue reading BSides Manchester 2016 roundup →

Apologies if you found the title of this post to be a bit click-baity. But bear with me, I'm pretty excited about this. Next week is hacker summer camp aka Blackhat, Defcon, and BsidesLV in sunny Las Vegas. I asked myself, other than the talks, the networking, and the things we won't talk about - … Continue reading Be in a Vegas music video →

For the week ending 24th July 2016 Lessons learnt from trying to negotiate with five different ransomware gangs. If you're willing to haggle, you can get a discount. This isn't a new talk by Jim Manico, but the first time I saw it and serves as a great lesson on TSL/SSL and how HTTPS should … Continue reading Things I hearted last week →

Just over four years ago I received a LinkedIn email from a young man in Russia. It wasn’t too different from emails I occasionally receive. He was someone wanting to build a career in information security and was looking for some advice. He was on his way to London to start his MSc and wondered … Continue reading Breaking in, and through security: Leron Zinatullin →

For the week ending 17th July 2016 Pokemon Go took the cybers by storm. There was much hullabaloo over the excessive permissions the app was asking for, which seem to have been fixed. Still, I liked this writeup by Dan Guido on the permissions Pokemon Go got. Four cyber attacks on UK railways in a … Continue reading Things I hearted Last Week →

For the week ending 10th July 2016 The recorded talks from BsidesLondon are up! Check out the playlist here. There are some really good talks in there - I haven't seen all of them yet, but Steve Lords Naughty Toys for Wicked Girls and Boys  and Holly William's Offensive Anti-Analysis are definitely worthwhile. Ashley Madison … Continue reading Things I hearted last week →

For the week ending 3rd July 2016 The rumours are in the air of Intel mulling sale of its security business. A practical guide to securing OSX geared towards power users. Facebook and creepy? <shocked face> Using your phones location to suggest new friends. US hospitals hacked with ancient exploits. No O-day here, only Old-Day. See … Continue reading Things I hearted Last Week →

For the week ending 26th June 2016 OSSEC 2.9 release. An Australian healthcare system using MS-DOS 6.22 is being taken to court to force upgrade.  Paypal dumped cloud company after it refused to monitor customer files. Microsoft extends its support for Docker containers. How celebrity twitter accounts are getting hacked. Want to stop people filming … Continue reading Things I hearted last week →