Decipher
Every week, Dennis Fisher and Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch, the editors of Decipher, bring you exclusive, in-depth conversations with security researchers, CISOs, founders, and security experts to hellp you understand the threat landscape and better protect your organizations.
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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.) Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
Chris Wysopal, co-founder and CTO of Veracode, joins Dennis Fisher to dive into the deep end of the application security pool and discuss the company's new State of Software Security report. Read the Decipher coverage of the SOSS report here. Download the full report here. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show
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. Support the show