My Echo Requests

Just when you thought I had gone and left you.....

Week #34: Back from Vacation and Catching Up

Hello, dear readers!

I hope you’ve all been well. I missed out on sharing Week #33 because I took some much-needed vacation time, but I’m back and excited to fill you in on the past couple of weeks. It was a mix of relaxation, spontaneous adventure, and catching up with old friends.

Vacation Vibes

Week #33 was all about unwinding. I embraced a more sedentary lifestyle, spending most of my time just lounging around and enjoying some much-needed downtime. There’s something incredibly satisfying about giving yourself permission to be a couch potato every now and then. I watched some movies and basically let the days drift by. But it wasn’t long before I felt the itch for a bit of excitement.

ROAD TRIP!
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big bad meanie..

So I have had a bird problem at the house. Apparently this spring one of the big storms blew off one of my fireplace caps. I had no clue! Well, until a family of birds moved in! They built a nest about half way down. Said babies were hatched and then the entire family would stop by to help feed and teach them stuff. That took almost 2 months.


This is the one that flew off and how this all started…

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Week 31 – From Cyber Incidents to Olympic Joy, Grandbaby Fun, and a Rescue Tale

Hello, dear readers!

This week has been quite the rollercoaster, full of unexpected twists and turns, and I’m excited to share it all with you. It’s been a week of observing, celebrating, and reflecting, and I hope you enjoy catching up with my adventures as much as I enjoyed living them.

Crowdstrike Outage: A Learning Experience from the Sidelines

The world recently saw a significant outage from Crowdstrike, a leading cybersecurity company. For those who might not be familiar, Crowdstrike provides vital protection against cyber threats, and their outage was a major event for many businesses relying on their services. Thankfully, I wasn’t directly affected, which gave me a unique vantage point. It was fascinating to watch the global reactions and responses unfold, and I took the opportunity to learn more about the complexities of cybersecurity and crisis management. It’s always intriguing to see how industries respond to such critical events, and this was no exception.

Olympic Excitement: Paris 2024

On a brighter note, I’ve been glued to the Olympics in Paris, especially enjoying the swimming and gymnastics events. The athletes have been nothing short of extraordinary, showcasing their incredible skills and determination. As of now, the USA is holding strong in the medal standings, with a commendable number of golds, silvers, and bronzes. The swimming team, in particular, has been making waves (pun intended!), and the gymnastics performances have been breathtaking. It’s been a true joy to witness these athletes shine on the world stage.

Family Celebrations: Grandbaby Sitting and Birthdays

This week is extra special on the family front. I’m thrilled to be spending time with my grandbaby, a delightful bundle of joy who never fails to bring a smile to my face. Additionally, it’s a week of birthday celebrations for both my daughter and my son, who have their special days nearly back to back. The joy of celebrating with family and reflecting on how quickly time flies is truly heartwarming. We’ve got some exciting plans in the works to make their birthdays memorable, and I’m looking forward to making the most of these special days.

Lucy’s Happy Reunion

Last but certainly not least, I have to share the heartwarming story of Lucy, the little dog we rescued. We found her wandering near a McDonald’s in Tulsa, and after a 150-mile journey of searching for her owner, we finally succeeded! Lucy had escaped from her car while her owner was grabbing lunch at Chicken and the Wolf. It was a frantic search for her owner, who was desperately looking for her lost pup. Seeing the joy on her face when we reunited them was an incredibly rewarding experience.

Looking Ahead: A Commitment to Consistency

As I continue to navigate through these diverse experiences, I’ve decided to make a commitment to post more consistently. Whether or not anyone reads these reflections, I believe that sharing them will help me in my daily affirmations and personal growth. It’s a small step towards creating a routine that brings me fulfillment and keeps me engaged with my thoughts and experiences.

Thank you for joining me on this journey. Here’s to more adventures, celebrations, and learning opportunities in the weeks to come!

Until next time,

-me

Dell hit hard..Urgent Security risks…HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS systems affected

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything from my line of work – but this one is pretty large and I just wanted to give my friends a heads up. Dell has a driver that can be used by anyone that has access to your laptop, workstation, server etc…to gain admin rights to your system from a simple standard user account. They are working on and just released a new firmware update utility to mitigate this risk.

I urge anyone to make sure you apply updates – I would start by reading and following the Dell announcment:

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-in/000186019/dsa-2021-088-dell-client-platform-security-update-for-dell-driver-insufficient-access-control-vulnerability

Want to geek out and see who found it and more – follow:

and:

https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/bios-privesc-bug-affects-hundreds-of.html

The Kaiser’s Pumpkin Carve Off!

First I would like to thank everyone for their participation and for asking us to take a look and judge such a wonderful bunch of contestants! DANG…You guys were all so Good!…(or baaaad…? What’s the cool thing these days?..Phat!? Tubular?) <grin>

Anyhow – This is in no particular order – but we lucked out having a ball last night while trick or treaters came to our house looking for some tricks! (and treats)….Sorry we were so late in getting this up and around – but without further ….wa…it…..

Our first contestant –

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Geo-Fencing and Remote Security amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

As I’m watching more and more of my co-workers send out WFH (Work from Home) emails…as I see more and more users of Webex and other forms of remote connectivity and sharing … my spidey senses start tingling.

Most companies have some form of remote management software deployed for their traveling brethren – but many of them haven’t prepared for full out war and suddenly having thousands of workers coming in remote. This will certainly challenger the network and security teams globally! What about those BYOD guys…no company offered laptops so they are surfing on in from their 2003 bought IBM laptop running XP with no support and protection. Do you have a plan for them? Maybe spinning up remote workstations so the work is done locally and not from their old XP or Windows 7 computers?

What about Geo-Fencing? Do you see all those hundreds of thousands connections looking for a handshake!? Now they are increasingly important to the vital success (or failure) to your business!? Do you know if you do business in Brazil? Do you have people there? Russia? Do you allow remote connections from Geo-Locations that you do not have offices? Maybe it’s time to tighten your defenses and start looking from the outside in again!? Everyone gave up on the boarder…everyone went to the cloud cause they thought it was safer. Was it? Can you see who’s trying to connect to your cloud? Are they your actual remote workers that are forced home or just some generic Taiwan hacker sitting under the radar of 50,000 connection attempts.. because you are overwhelmed at desktop support calls from vpn users that can’t connect? Do you allow remote resources to connect from public Wi-Fi networks? Did you think your help-desk would collapse? *frightening*

How about general physical security – where are your workers really working from? Can someone else see what they are doing? Have you had a proper security education program so your people know about shoulder surfing? Maybe they walked up to the Starbucks counter leaving that laptop behind – unlocked – while remoted into a customer site and updating a dat file for some ancient anti-virus client. Do they know to lock their screen? padlock their laptops? Do you have hard drive full encryption for your mobile workforce? Who’s DNS servers are they using…yours or unknown? Breath..not going to panic…well, maybe a lil?

Phishing attacks have increased for sure – even offering a cure for the virus! We are seeing no release or suspensions of compliance rules so you can bet there will be fines for mishandled sensitive information leaving your networks – are you sure you’re watching your Data Loss tools now? Everyone is connecting from home…you know what they are reading or editing? Did they move it to USB yet? Print out that form of HR birthdays and payroll entries to create happy birthday emails for employees while working from home?

Sure feels like a good time to remember how well a zero-trust network works. If you’ve been doing it all along, you know what you’re looking at. You know what you’ve allowed and only that is what is getting in. You can handle the one off’s that come in because they had to travel to X country and need to VPN in…Create that small group on a time scale of allowed access. etc etc..

My mind just started spinning and I didn’t have a place to vent it so I used this page randomly. Facebook friends just see me as paranoid security guy – Linked in people think I’m trying to get a job or impress odd views. Honestly I’m most likely just thinking outside about all the thoughts in my own head and making sure I, myself, have cross all my T’s and dotted all my i’s…. 🙂

Happy hunting!

January 14, 2019…WIN7 – ONE YEAR TO GO..

Windows 7 – The Final shutdown…

Mainstream support for Windows 7 stopped in January 2015, but users have continued to receive security fixes and patches for known issues as part of Microsoft’s extended support, which runs for five years. However, that’s due to come to an end on January 14 2020, exactly one year from today.

So honestly – I’m still a Windows 7 user and have fought the push to Win 10 for a good long time but the battle is about over. We all have to give in or move to another OS (MacOS, Linux, *BSD, etc)…and everyone knows Windows will win that again.

What’s more scary is the number of Corporate entities that still run this O/S – I’m typing this right now from a major corporate laptop that’s Win7. IF they want to keep this machine thru it’s lease, they can pay for EXTENDED support – and it will probably cost my company up to $1,000,000.00 PER YEAR to continue using it. A MILLION DOLLARS? And they funny part is…MANY will opt for that option rather than migrate.

Anyhow – this is your friendly reminder from your Security guy – Just make the jump…any direction but none. Have fun!

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