Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. Our mission here is well
Speaker 1: pretty simple. We take your sources, peel back the layers,
Speaker 1: and pull out the most important insights. It's basically a
Speaker 1: shortcut to being really well informed. Today we're plunging into
Speaker 1: the complex and constantly shifting world of cybersecurity. We're drawing
Speaker 1: our insights from this incredibly practical book, Cybersecurity, Attack and
Speaker 1: Defense Strategies by Uri Diogenes and erdal Askaya. Our goal
Speaker 1: for this deep dive it is to truly understand that
Speaker 1: intricate dance between cyber attackers and the defenders. We'll explore
Speaker 1: how cyber criminals think, dig into their sophisticated methods, and
Speaker 1: then pivot to understanding the robust strategies and essential tools
Speaker 1: that organizations and importantly you can use to protect against them.
Speaker 1: You might actually be surprised to discover just how often
Speaker 1: some of the most devastating attacks are based on surprisingly
Speaker 1: old techniques fill with the modern twist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what's truly critical, I think, from the author's perspective,
Speaker 2: is this A strong security posture isn't just about building
Speaker 2: walls anymore, not at all. It's equally about having robust
Speaker 2: ways to detect when those walls are breached, and then
Speaker 2: crucially rapidly respond. So this deep dive it should offer
Speaker 2: you a complete picture, helping you grasp not just what
Speaker 2: attacks look like, but why they manage to succeed, and
Speaker 2: then how truly effective defenses are actually constructed.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's unpack this. Then why has cybersecurity become
Speaker 1: such an enormous challenge right now? What are the big
Speaker 1: shifts really driving this?
Speaker 2: Well, if we zoom out look at the bigger picture,
Speaker 2: it really boils down to two sort of seismic shifts
Speaker 2: in how we work and live digitally, First the explosive
Speaker 2: growth of remote work and second the widespread adoption of
Speaker 2: cloud computing. The book actually highlights that nearly half of
Speaker 2: employed Americans are now working remotely, and often they're using
Speaker 2: their own devices, their home networks, which means that old
Speaker 2: idea of a secure office perimeter it's practically gone. The user,
Speaker 2: you sitting at your home computer, you become the frontline target.
Speaker 1: That's a huge shift. So what does that actually mean
Speaker 1: for individuals? For companies trying to stay secure? If our
Speaker 1: traditional boundary are blurring, where is the new perimeter?
Speaker 2: Well, it leads to a fundamental rethink, doesn't it. If
Speaker 2: identity is now the new perimeter, how are we protecting it?
Speaker 2: And the book lays out or really stark statistic from
Speaker 2: Verizon's twenty seventeen data breach investigations report, stolen credentials are
Speaker 2: the go to attack method for financially motivated cyber criminals. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 2: accounting for a staggering sixty three percent of confirmed data breaches.
Speaker 2: We're talking weak passwords, default passwords, stolen passwords.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Things like users re using passwords across personal and work accounts.
Speaker 2: And here's where it gets maybe surprising. Even two factor authentication,
Speaker 2: which we rely on so heavily, it can be bypassed
Speaker 2: clever social engineering like that Deraymakissen simswap example. Attackers just
Speaker 2: tricked his phone carrier, got his number transferred, and intercepted
Speaker 2: his codes.
Speaker 1: So they didn't even need a technical exploit exactly.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they just exploit human trust. It shows vulnerability isn't
Speaker 2: always technical.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a powerful example of Yeah, human vulnerability. Okay,
Speaker 1: beyond our login details, what about all these new apps
Speaker 1: we use and just the sheer volume of data we're generating,
Speaker 1: are they also major targets.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, applications, especially those cloud based software as a
Speaker 2: service you know, sauce apps. They're evolving incredibly fast. But
Speaker 2: the question is how secure are they? And just as importantly,
Speaker 2: how secure are the apps employees are using without it
Speaker 2: even knowing this whole shadow it thing shadow ike, right,
Speaker 2: employees using unapproved apps like personal cloud storage, maybe uploading
Speaker 2: confidential work documents. The Cloud Security Alliance found something like
Speaker 2: ninety two percent of companies don't actually know the full
Speaker 2: scope of their shadow it.
Speaker 1: Ninety two percent. That's huge.
Speaker 2: It's a massive blind spot, a huge risk for data leakage.
Speaker 2: And then there's the data itself, you know, whether it's
Speaker 2: just sitting there on a server at rest or zipping
Speaker 2: across the Internet in transit. Each state needs specific defenses
Speaker 2: like encryption because it presents unique threats.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's where it gets really counterintuitive for me. The
Speaker 1: book says the biggest, most costly data breaches often stem
Speaker 1: from old attack methods just applied with new sophistication. That
Speaker 1: feels like a contradiction.
Speaker 2: It does, doesn't it, But it's absolutely true. Despite all
Speaker 2: the advanced threats we hear about, the top causes for
Speaker 2: breeches are still you know, viruses, basic malware, trojans, but
Speaker 2: also lack of diligence, untrained employees, phishing, social engineering. These
Speaker 2: are still at the top.
Speaker 1: Really still. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Take the wantacry ransomware attack in twenty seventeen. It infected
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of machines globally, how by exploding a
Speaker 2: vulnerability that Microsoft had already released a patch for almost
Speaker 2: two months prior.
Speaker 1: Fifty nine days. Yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker 2: It is. The truly stunning insight here is that despite
Speaker 2: all the cutting edge tech, our most persistent vulnerabilities remain
Speaker 2: remarkably basic human oic sight, failing to apply fixes that
Speaker 2: have existed for ages.
Speaker 1: So the basics still matter a lot, immensely.
Speaker 2: It's a reminder that even in cybersecurity, the simplest fixes
Speaker 2: are often the most overlooked. And we're also seeing this
Speaker 2: chilling shift towards government sponsored cyber attacks, you know, data
Speaker 2: as a weapon aiming to steal info for geopolitical advantage.
Speaker 2: Think Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear targeting the DNC network.
Speaker 1: Right, So, if these old attacks are still so effective
Speaker 1: and human factors are so critical, how do we even
Speaker 1: begin to defend ourselves. The book suggests starting by thinking
Speaker 1: like the attacker. It introduces something called the cybersecurity kill chain.
Speaker 1: What is that? Exactly?
Speaker 2: The kill chain? It's essentially a step by step roadmap
Speaker 2: that most cyber attackers follow. It outlines the typical phases
Speaker 2: they go through to achieve their goals, and it all
Speaker 2: kicks off with reconnaissance, which is basically their intelligence gathering phase.
Speaker 1: Okay, reconnaissance like spying.
Speaker 2: Pretty much, it can be external reconnaissance happening outside your
Speaker 2: organization's network, sometimes surprisingly low tech, like dumpster diving for
Speaker 2: discarded documents. People still do that, oh yeah, But more commonly,
Speaker 2: it leverages publicly available info, especially social media. Attackers scour
Speaker 2: social media for personal details, birth dates, pet names, family info,
Speaker 2: anything that might give clues for passwords or security questions.
Speaker 1: So if we all put online exactly.
Speaker 2: And this lets the craft highly convincing spear phishing attacks
Speaker 2: tailored just for you, like that Pentagon official who clicked
Speaker 2: a malicious holiday package post. Social engineering is key here too,
Speaker 2: Exploiting human psychology are liking things, respecting authority, social validation,
Speaker 2: using techniques like pretexting, making up elaborate lies, phishing fraudulent
Speaker 2: emails or even phone calls. That's vishing and water holing,
Speaker 2: infecting websites. Their targets visit.
Speaker 1: Often, so they poison the well basically.
Speaker 2: Precisely, and don't underestimate physical methods like tailgating just walking
Speaker 2: in right behind someone with legitimate access.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's a lot of ways to gather intel without
Speaker 1: even touching a keyboard. Okay, So once they have all
Speaker 1: this information, maybe even a physical foothold, what happens next
Speaker 1: in this kill chain? How do they get deeper?
Speaker 2: That's when they move to internal reconnaissance. Once they're inside,
Speaker 2: they use specialized tools to map the network from the
Speaker 2: inside out. They'll use network scanners like endmap to identify
Speaker 2: connected devices, open ports, operating systems, maybe check firewall.
Speaker 1: Rules seeing what's connected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they might deploy packet sniffers like wire shark to
Speaker 2: capture an analyzed network traffic, looking for say, insecurely exchanged passwords.
Speaker 2: Then they use hacking frameworks metasploit is a big one.
Speaker 2: It's like a toolkit full of various exploits and payloads.
Speaker 2: Other tools target wireless network specifically, or identify misconfigurations and
Speaker 2: missing patches or driving still happens too looking for unsecured WiFi.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they've gathered their intel map the network. Now
Speaker 1: what this is where they actually try to break in,
Speaker 1: right exactly.
Speaker 2: The next critical phase is compromising the system. This is
Speaker 2: where they actively try to exploit those vulnerabilities they found
Speaker 2: during reconnaissance. And we're seeing definite trends here. Things like
Speaker 2: extortion attacks, ransomware like wannacrize the classic example, but also
Speaker 2: threats to leak sensitive data if you don't pay up,
Speaker 2: like what happened with Ashley Madison or that charge of
Speaker 2: bank incident.
Speaker 1: Right the extortion angle.
Speaker 2: Then there are data manipulation attacks. The goal isn't just
Speaker 2: stealing but altering information. Think Chinese spies allegedly altering US
Speaker 2: defense blueprints or that hack of the Associated presss TWITTER
Speaker 2: that caused a huge stock market dip. Scary stuff absolutely,
Speaker 2: And with the explosion of connected devices, IoT device attacks
Speaker 2: are surging, creating massive networks of compromised devices, bought nets
Speaker 2: for things like DDAs attacks often just exploiting default passwords.
Speaker 1: Default passwords against.
Speaker 2: Still a huge issue. We're also seeing persistent use of
Speaker 2: back doors, often hidden in legitimate software hardware, and a
Speaker 2: big increase in attacks targeting mobile devices.
Speaker 1: And a lot of our systems and data are in
Speaker 1: the cloud. Now does that make them more or less secure?
Speaker 1: How does that factor in?
Speaker 2: That raises a really important question, doesn't it? If everything
Speaker 2: is shared in the cart, what does that mean for security?
Speaker 2: The book emphasizes this shared responsibility model. The cloud provider
Speaker 2: handles a lot, sure, but the customer, you still hold
Speaker 2: significant responsibility, especially for what you put into the cloud.
Speaker 2: How you can figure it so.
Speaker 1: It's not just handed over and forget it?
Speaker 2: Definitely not, and many organizations simply aren't ready for this.
Speaker 2: We've seen high profile breaches target Home Depot, Sony Pictures,
Speaker 2: even the Irs, where initial compromises were leveraged to steal
Speaker 2: data from cloud servers. Microsoft's own security intelligence report noted
Speaker 2: a three hundred percent increase in cyber attax on cloud
Speaker 2: based Microsoft accounts in just one year from Q one
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen to Q one twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And often attackers exploit zero day vulnerabilities. These are
Speaker 2: the really dangerous ones. Flaws unknown to the vendor, so
Speaker 2: there's no patch available yet.
Speaker 1: How do they find those?
Speaker 2: Through techniques like fuzzing? Basically throwing unexpected data at software
Speaker 2: to see if it breaks, or by meticulously analyzing publicly
Speaker 2: available source code, or using reverse engineering tools like idaprro Okay, So.
Speaker 1: Let's say they've gotten in compromise a system using one
Speaker 1: of these methods, it's not overright, how do they typically
Speaker 1: maintain that access and then spread out correct?
Speaker 2: That leads to two interconnected phases, really chasing a user's
Speaker 2: identity and lateral movement. After getting that initial foothold, often
Speaker 2: with just a low level standard user account, their next
Speaker 2: goal is to gain a deeper, more persistent presence. Even
Speaker 2: after a successful initial breach, attackers or red teams in
Speaker 2: a testing scenario will study how legitimate users operate to
Speaker 2: try and blend in emulate their patterns, blend invite, and surprisingly,
Speaker 2: one of the most successful entry points even now is
Speaker 2: still the well crafted phishing email, often tailored using that
Speaker 2: social media intel we talked about earlier, matching the target's
Speaker 2: hobbies or interests.
Speaker 1: This is much more convincing.
Speaker 2: Exactly so, once they're in lateral movement means moving from
Speaker 2: that initial compromise system to other systems within the network.
Speaker 2: This allows them to strengthen their hold, maybe find more
Speaker 2: valuable data or get closer to critical system and they're
Speaker 2: often using legitimate Windows tools for this.
Speaker 1: Built in tools, yeah.
Speaker 2: Things like PowerShell utilities from the SUS internal suite like PSZX,
Speaker 2: Windows Management Instrumentation WMI Scheduled Tasks tools admins use every day.
Speaker 2: They might even use a technique called pass the hash.
Speaker 2: They don't need your actual password, they can pass a
Speaker 2: stored encrypted version of it to authenticate as you sneaky,
Speaker 2: They'll target core network services like active directory to gain
Speaker 2: broader control, and sometimes they even hide their malicious files
Speaker 2: inside legitimate Windows files using something called alternate data streams
Speaker 2: ADS makes them incredibly hard for standard anti virus scans
Speaker 2: to spot.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, so they have access. They're moving around using
Speaker 1: legitimate cools. Their next goal is usually getting higher level privileges.
Speaker 1: Isn't it admin rights exactly?
Speaker 2: That's privilege escalation and it's absolutely crucial for them. Most
Speaker 2: systems are built with the least privilege principle right users
Speaker 2: only have the minimum access needed for their job, so
Speaker 2: attackers need to escalate their privileges from that compromised low
Speaker 2: level account to an administrative or even a system level account,
Speaker 2: which is basically full control.
Speaker 1: How do they do that?
Speaker 2: Well, there's horizontal escalation, which is simpler, maybe they just
Speaker 2: find and use stolen administrator credentials directly. But then there's
Speaker 2: vertical escalation, which is more complex that requires hacking tools
Speaker 2: to gain that system level access. This often involves exploiting
Speaker 2: unpatched machines. Again Eternal Blue used by WannaCry as a
Speaker 2: classic example.
Speaker 1: Unpatched machines still a theme a.
Speaker 2: Huge theme, or they use specialized tools like power up.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's even physical tricks like exploiting Windows accessibility features,
Speaker 2: sticky keys, Utoleman dot ex right at the login screen
Speaker 2: if they have physical access. More advanced methods involve subtle
Speaker 2: techniques like application shimming or DLL injection or dilib hijacking
Speaker 2: on max basically tricking legitimate processes into running malicious code
Speaker 2: with higher privileges.
Speaker 1: So they've gained access escalated privileges. They're moving freely within
Speaker 1: the network using legitimate tools. What's the endgame? What are
Speaker 1: the ultimate goals?
Speaker 2: The ultimate goals usually fall into sustainment and assault. Often
Speaker 2: the immediate goal is data expltration, simply stealing sensitive data.
Speaker 2: Think about the huge Yahoo and LinkedIn breaches. Millions of
Speaker 2: user accounts stolen. The impact is massive. Attackers might also
Speaker 2: aim to erase or modify files like the threat's.
Speaker 1: Apple face right sealing or destroying data.
Speaker 2: And there's sustainment. Here, attackers install persistent malware, things like
Speaker 2: rootkits designed to remain hidden undetected. This ensures they have
Speaker 2: continuous access, buying them time for more damaging attacks down.
Speaker 1: The line, keeping the door open exactly.
Speaker 2: And then there's the most feared stage assault. This is
Speaker 2: where the attacker directly damages physical hardware or infrastructure. The
Speaker 2: infamous stucksnet attack on Iran's nuclear facility is the terrifying
Speaker 2: real world example. Here, Stuck's neet, a digital weapon, lived
Speaker 2: in their network for a year.
Speaker 1: A year undetected.
Speaker 2: Undetected, it infected air gap systems, systems not even connected
Speaker 2: to the Internet using USB drives. Then it subtly manipulated
Speaker 2: Siemens software, causing centrifuges to spin wildly out of control
Speaker 2: and literally self destruct.
Speaker 1: Physical destruction from code.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it showed the world that a cyber attacker's goal
Speaker 2: can move far beyond just stealing data. It can be
Speaker 2: actual physical destruction, chill and stuff.
Speaker 1: That is truly sobering. Yeah, okay, so how do we
Speaker 1: possibly counter such sophisticated, evolving threats. The book talks about
Speaker 1: strengthening your security posture through three foundational pillars. What are those? Right?
Speaker 2: These pillars are absolutely foundational, protection, detection, and response. Historically,
Speaker 2: organizations poured most of their budget into protection, you know,
Speaker 2: building firewalls, installing anti virus, rolling the walls higher exactly.
Speaker 2: But the way threats are shifting now means we absolutely
Speaker 2: need balanced investment across all three. Protection is still vital,
Speaker 2: but you have to assume you'll be breached eventually, so
Speaker 2: detection and response become critical. This is where the Red
Speaker 2: and Blue team concept comes in, bringing theory into practice.
Speaker 2: It's a simulation like military wargames, designed to test an
Speaker 2: organization's actual defenses in a real.
Speaker 1: World way, right versus Blue yep.
Speaker 2: The Red Team acts as the adversary, the attackers. They
Speaker 2: perform realistic penetration tests trying to break through controls, find vulnerabilities,
Speaker 2: often following that kill chain we just discussed. The Blue Team,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, is the defender. Their job is
Speaker 2: to secure assets, rapidly fix vulnerabilities found by the Red team,
Speaker 2: and critically document everything they learned.
Speaker 1: So they learned from the simulated attack.
Speaker 2: Precisely and full open collaboration between these teams is vital.
Speaker 2: It's not about winning or losing, it's about improving. They
Speaker 2: focus on key metrics like ETTD estimated time to detection
Speaker 2: and ETTR estimated time to recovery. How fast can we
Speaker 2: spot them? How fast can we kick them out and
Speaker 2: fix things?
Speaker 1: Makes sense. The book really emphasizes incident response too, calling
Speaker 1: it primordial for companies. What does a solid, effective incident
Speaker 1: response process actually look like when an attack hits, For.
Speaker 2: It has to be a clearly documented process. You can't
Speaker 2: figure it out on the fly when alarms are blaring.
Speaker 2: It's about having a plan for handling security incidents and
Speaker 2: responding rapidly. The Wanna cry outbreak is a perfect real
Speaker 2: world example. Again, when users at a company suddenly saw
Speaker 2: those ransomware screens, the security team had to move fast.
Speaker 2: They needed to rapidly identify the threat, use available threat intelligence,
Speaker 2: find the right patch MS seventeen zero ten in that case,
Speaker 2: and apply it. They worked on trying to break the encryption,
Speaker 2: identifying all the vulnerable systems, managing communication internally and.
Speaker 1: Externally, coordinated effort, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And the critical part often missed is that the process
Speaker 2: doesn't end when the incident is resolved. It continues after
Speaker 2: with crucial lessons learned, documentation, what went wrong, How can
Speaker 2: we prevent this specific thing again? How can we improve
Speaker 2: our response next time?
Speaker 1: Continuous improvement exactly.
Speaker 2: And in the cloud, incident response involves that shared responsibility again.
Speaker 2: With sauce apps, the provider handles most of it. With
Speaker 2: infrastructure as a service, where you're renting servers, you the customer,
Speaker 2: have far more responsibility for incident response on those systems.
Speaker 1: Got it? So, given all this, what are the foundational
Speaker 1: strategies for actually building this strong defense that companies need?
Speaker 1: Where do they start? It?
Speaker 2: Really all begins with a well defined security policy. And
Speaker 2: this isn't just some dusty document sitting on a shelf.
Speaker 2: It has to be a living document. It needs constant review,
Speaker 2: constant updates, incorporating the latest industry standards, clear procedures, clear guidelines,
Speaker 2: and m'st clearly define its scope. Who does it apply to? Employees, contractors? Everyone?
Speaker 1: Living document? Not set and forget definitely not.
Speaker 2: And this raises that crucial point again. If the end
Speaker 2: user is often called the weakest link. How do we
Speaker 2: strengthen them? The book strongly emphasizes continuous security awareness training,
Speaker 2: but not just boring lectures right. Real world examples show
Speaker 2: people what a phishing email actually looks like. Simulate a
Speaker 2: fake social media campaign targeted at them. That's stuff far
Speaker 2: more effective than just reading texts. Make it real. It
Speaker 2: also means clear social media security guidelines. What's appropriate business
Speaker 2: behavior online? What are the potential disciplinary actions for, say,
Speaker 2: defamatory or hostile posts. It all needs to be clear.
Speaker 2: Then these policies need to be enforced holistically, not just
Speaker 2: on individual computers and servers, but network devices too, routers, switches, firewalls, everywhere, everywhere.
Speaker 2: For Windows systems, you can use Group Policy objects GPOs
Speaker 2: to deploy policies centrally. Tools like AppLocker can whitelist only
Speaker 2: authorized applications based on their publisher or digital signature. Stopping
Speaker 2: unknown stuff from running. Hardening systems is also key. Applying
Speaker 2: industry guidelines like CCE, Common Configuration Enumeration and security baselines.
Speaker 2: Often using tools like Microsoft Security Compliance Manager or the
Speaker 2: old EMAT, which tried to block new threats by anticipating
Speaker 2: attacker actions.
Speaker 1: And enforcing isn't enough, right, you have to.
Speaker 2: Check exactly you must monitor for compliance. There are dashboard
Speaker 2: tools as your Security sets, OMS, Security and Audit Solution
Speaker 2: where examples that show your security posture across systems Windows
Speaker 2: and Linux. They identify non compliance and even suggest countermeasures
Speaker 2: based on those CCE guidelines.
Speaker 1: Okay, what's fascinating here too is the idea of physically
Speaker 1: and virtually segmenting networks. It sounds like creating internal walls
Speaker 1: within the organization.
Speaker 2: Precisely. Network segmentation is a core defense in depth approach.
Speaker 2: Think of it like the layers of an onion. You
Speaker 2: want multiple layers of protection. You protect data as it
Speaker 2: moves across networks in transit using encryption like IPsec. You
Speaker 2: protect it at the end points, separating corporate and personal
Speaker 2: data on devices, OS hardening storage encryption, and you protect
Speaker 2: within your core infrastructure layer upon layer exactly for existing
Speaker 2: physical networks, just understanding the complex layout the topology can
Speaker 2: be a challenge for the blue team. Tools like solar
Speaker 2: Wind's Network Performance Monitor Suite help discover the network. Physical
Speaker 2: segmentation often uses vlan's Virtual Local Area Network, basically carving
Speaker 2: up your physical network into separate broadcast domains. Often with
Speaker 2: port security and access list controlling traffic between them. Virtual
Speaker 2: network segmentation, whether it's on your own premises or in
Speaker 2: a hybrid cloud, involves isolating virtual networks and using routing
Speaker 2: services or virtual firewalls between them. AZ your security center
Speaker 2: helps assess virtual network security in the cloud. It's all
Speaker 2: about compayment. If one part gets breached, you limit the blast.
Speaker 1: Radius, right, contain the damage? And how do active sensors
Speaker 1: fit into this picture? That sounds like more than just
Speaker 1: your basic antivirus software.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right. Active sensors go well beyond simply looking
Speaker 2: for known virus signatures the old way. Modern detection aims
Speaker 2: to add context to data, which helps reduce those annoying
Speaker 2: false positives. They look for indicators of compromise or IOCs.
Speaker 2: These are like patterns of behavior or specific digital footprints
Speaker 2: left by threats. Think of it like the PETI ransomware
Speaker 2: always running a specific command. That command becomes an IOC,
Speaker 2: a tilltale sign exactly. Organizations can you shared resources like
Speaker 2: open IOC to track and contribute these IOCs, helping everyone's
Speaker 2: spot threats faster. Then we talk about IDs versus IPS
Speaker 2: Intrusion detection systems IDs simply detect potential intrusions and alert you.
Speaker 2: Intrusion prevention systems IPS actively take action, block the traffic, stop.
Speaker 1: The process, detect versus prevent right.
Speaker 2: They can be host based at each ships running on
Speaker 2: individual machines, or network based and idsmpmes. Watching traffic flow,
Speaker 2: IPS operates in rule based mode, following specific rules like
Speaker 2: block traffic, matching the snort rule for WannaCry, or anomaly
Speaker 2: based mode.
Speaker 1: Anomaly based How does that work?
Speaker 2: That's where it gets much more sophisticated. Anomaly based systems
Speaker 2: learn what normal network and user behavior looks like.
Speaker 1: Over time.
Speaker 2: They build a baseline, then they flag anything that significantly
Speaker 2: deviates from that norm. This leads into behavior analytics. User
Speaker 2: and Entity behavior analytics or UIBA systems are becoming primordial,
Speaker 2: absolutely essential for spotting security breaches. Early track legitimate processes
Speaker 2: and user behavior.
Speaker 1: Patterns so they know it's normal for you exactly.
Speaker 2: Tools like Microsoft Advanced Thread Analytics ATA or Azure Security
Speaker 2: Center in the cloud can detect suspicious activities, things like
Speaker 2: an administrator suddenly performing actions they haven't done in the
Speaker 2: past month, or regular users suddenly trying to enumerate all
Speaker 2: the domain accounts. It looks for attack patterns, not just
Speaker 2: specific signatures.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. So if we can analyze behavior like that, yeah,
Speaker 1: can we also start to predict what attackers might do next,
Speaker 1: even before they actually do it.
Speaker 2: That's the core promise the power of thread intelligence. It's
Speaker 2: all about knowing your adversaries better, understanding their motivations. Are
Speaker 2: they cyber criminals after money, activists pushing an agenda, state
Speaker 2: sponsored groups doing cyber espionage, and knowing their typical techniques,
Speaker 2: their TTPs, tactics, techniques and procedures. This allows you to
Speaker 2: scope your defenses, prioritize based on the most likely attacker profiles,
Speaker 2: targeting your specific organization or industry, tailoring the precisely. And
Speaker 2: the Wantacry and Pettia outbreaks are prime examples of how
Speaker 2: threat intelligence offers a degree of predictability. Remember Eternal Blue.
Speaker 2: That exploit was leaked by the Shadow Brokers group in
Speaker 2: April twenty seventeen. Microsoft had released the pasch M S
Speaker 2: seventeen zero ten back in March. Wantacry used Eternal Blue
Speaker 2: in May. This means organizations had the intelligence the information
Speaker 2: to predict the risk and act proactively before the massive outbreak.
Speaker 1: They just had to connect the.
Speaker 2: Dots, connect the dots, and act on the intelligence. Petia
Speaker 2: later used Eternal Blue again for lateral movement, further proving
Speaker 2: there's a level of predictability in attack methods if you're watching.
Speaker 2: There are many open source platforms now like virus Total,
Speaker 2: Alien ball Otx, Meta Defender Cloud that provide this kind
Speaker 2: of threat intelligence, and tools like Azure Security Center's Threat
Speaker 2: Intelligence Dashboard can help visualize compromised areas, attack origins, connecting
Speaker 2: those dots for you.
Speaker 1: Okay, beyond just detecting threats, how do organizations proactively manage
Speaker 1: their own inherent security weaknesses? It feels like plugging holes
Speaker 1: in a dam a constant battle.
Speaker 2: It absolutely is, and that's precisely where vulnerability management comes in.
Speaker 2: It's not a one off task. It's a structured, ongoing
Speaker 2: life cycle. It involves taking a detailed inventory of all
Speaker 2: your digital assets you can't protect, what you don't know
Speaker 2: you have, analyzing your existing security policies against those assets,
Speaker 2: conducting risk assessments which vulnerabilities matter most, then doing actual
Speaker 2: vulnerability assessments, simulating attacks with tools like nessus to actively
Speaker 2: find weaknesses. This is followed by information management, getting timely
Speaker 2: alerts about new vulnerabilities from places like the cert Coordination Center,
Speaker 2: then crucially reporting and remediation tracking, making sure holes actually
Speaker 2: get plugged, and finally response planning what do we do
Speaker 2: if a vulnerability is exploited before we patch it? The
Speaker 2: whole process a continuous cycle. And again, MS blaster Worm
Speaker 2: way back in two thousand and three and WannaCry in
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen both exploited vulnerabilities that had patches available weeks
Speaker 2: or even months before the widespread attacks.
Speaker 1: History repeating itself.
Speaker 2: Sadly, yes, it just underscores the critical need for a
Speaker 2: strict change management process and proactive patching tools like nessis
Speaker 2: help with the scanning, and others like Secunia, PSI or
Speaker 2: CSI help manage the patching process itself. It's about fixing
Speaker 2: the roof before it rains, not scrambling afterwards.
Speaker 1: It makes perfect sense. Finally, when an incident inevitably does
Speaker 1: hit despite all these defenses, how do defenders become detectives
Speaker 1: and piece together exactly what happened? Where do they look?
Speaker 2: This is where log analysis becomes absolutely crucial. It's like
Speaker 2: being a digital detective, sifting through clues. The sheer volume
Speaker 2: of logs from operating systems, firewalls, web servers, applications can
Speaker 2: be completely overwhelming, So data correlation is the key skill here,
Speaker 2: connecting the dots between different log sources finding the pattern exactly.
Speaker 2: For example, you might see a suspicious process startup in
Speaker 2: the Windows operating system logs. That might lead you to
Speaker 2: check the firewall logs to see if that process tried
Speaker 2: to communicate it externally out to the internet. Then maybe
Speaker 2: you check the web server logs around the same time
Speaker 2: to see if there were signs of a web application
Speaker 2: attack like SQL injection attempts that could have allowed that
Speaker 2: process to start following the trail. Following the trail. In Windows,
Speaker 2: the event viewer is packed with critical security related events.
Speaker 2: Event ID four six eighty eight shows new processes being created,
Speaker 2: which is key for spotting malware execution. Event ID four
Speaker 2: seven twenty shows a new user account was created, maybe
Speaker 2: by an attacker. Even things like prefetch files or user
Speaker 2: mode crash dumps can reveal malicious activity. On Linux systems,
Speaker 2: logs like var logof dot log track authentication events, who
Speaker 2: logged in, when from where?
Speaker 1: So os logs are critical What else.
Speaker 2: Network and weblogs are vital too. Firewall logs from checkpoint,
Speaker 2: met screen or Linux iptables show who initiated communication, the destination,
Speaker 2: the protocol used, and importantly, whether the connection was allowed
Speaker 2: or denied by the firewall rules. Web server logs from
Speaker 2: Eyes or Apache are crucial for understanding attack against your
Speaker 2: web applications. You can use tools like log parser to
Speaker 2: querry these logs, specifically for signs of SQL injection or
Speaker 2: other web attacks.
Speaker 1: Querrying logs like a database pretty much.
Speaker 2: The book walks through a really fascinating real world scenario
Speaker 2: investigating a phishing email that led to a full system compromise.
Speaker 2: By correlating virus total scan results of a malicious URL
Speaker 2: found in the email with Windows of NID for sixty
Speaker 2: eight eight process creation, you can trace the execution of
Speaker 2: hacking tools like mimicats for stealing passwords or sec for
Speaker 2: lateral movement. Even seeing a vent ID eleven zero two,
Speaker 2: which means the security log was cleared, is itself a
Speaker 2: huge indicator of compromise attackers trying to cover their tracks.
Speaker 1: UH. Clearing the logs is a clue itself.
Speaker 2: A big one, and in a hybrid cloud environment, tools
Speaker 2: like Azure Security Center provide investigation maps. These visually link
Speaker 2: correlated alerts show compromised hosts, affected user accounts, really helping
Speaker 2: the incident response team quickly find the root cause and
Speaker 2: understand the scope of the breach.
Speaker 1: Wow. What an incredible and slightly tar verifying deep dive
Speaker 1: into the world of cybersecurity, attack and defense. We've really
Speaker 1: explored everything from the subtle art of social engineering and
Speaker 1: the scary reach of a zero day exploit, all the
Speaker 1: way to the methodical precision of red team simulating attacks
Speaker 1: and the critical vigilance of blue teams defending against them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this deep dive has truly shown us. I think
Speaker 2: that the cybersecurity landscape is just a constantly moving target,
Speaker 2: relentlessly evolving. Attackers are always adapting, using both incredibly sophisticated
Speaker 2: new techniques and as we saw, even those old tricks
Speaker 2: with modern twists. But the good news is defenders are
Speaker 2: also rapidly evolving. They're leveraging advanced behavior analytics, smart threat intelligence,
Speaker 2: robust policy enforcement, really trying to stay ahead, or at
Speaker 2: least keep pace.
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for you listening right now?
Speaker 1: I think it means cybersecurity isn't just some IT department's
Speaker 1: problem anymore, is it. It's a share of responsibility. It's
Speaker 1: a crucial part of everyone's digital life now, Your awareness,
Speaker 1: your proactive measures at every level, from understanding the basics
Speaker 1: of strong security policies and the need for continuous user
Speaker 1: education to recognizing attacker patterns and maybe even leveraging some
Speaker 1: powerful detection tools yourself. It's all absolutely essential.
Speaker 2: And this really raises an important final question for you,
Speaker 2: the listener, to maybe ponder. In a world where even
Speaker 2: legitimate system tools can be weaponized against you, and your
Speaker 2: very identity is effectively the new perimeter, how often are
Speaker 2: you truly reevaluating your own digital habits? What specific steps
Speaker 2: are you actually taking day to day to ensure your
Speaker 2: personal and your professional digital footprint is adequately protected