A security podcast geared towards those looking to better understand security topics of the day. Hosted by Kurt Seifried and Josh Bressers covering a wide range of topics including IoT, application security, operational security, cloud, devops, and security news of the day. There is a special open source twist to the discussion often giving a unique perspective on any given topic.
Episode 425 - Video game cheaters, also pretendo
Josh and Kurt talk about a database of game cheaters. Cheating in games has many similarities to security problems. Anti cheat rootkits are also terrible. The clever thing however is using statistics to identify cheaters. Statistics don't lie. Also, we discuss the Pretendo project sitting on a vulnerability for a year, is this ethical? Show Notes Hacker News searchable database Benford's law John Oliver Medicaid Mario64 invisible walls Pretendo Pretendo exploit
Episode 424 - The Notepad++ Parasite Website
Josh and Kurt talk about a Notepad++ fake website. It's possibly not illegal, but it's certainly ethically wrong. We also end up discussing why it seems like all these weird and wild things keep happening. It's probably due to the massive size of open source (and everything) now. Things have gotten gigantic and we didn't really notice. Show Notes Help us to take down the parasite website Open Source is bigger than you can imagine Toronto Pearson International Airport heist
Episode 423 - FCC cybersecurity label for consumer devices
Josh and Kurt talk about a new FCC program to provide a cybersecurity certification mark. Similar to other consumer safety marks such as UL or CE. We also tie this conversation into GrapheneOS, and what trying to claim a consumer device is secure really means. Some of our compute devices have an infinite number of possible states. It's a really weird and hard problem. Show Notes GrapheneOS FCC approves cybersecurity label for consumer devices Cyber Trust Mark Logo
XZ Bonus Spectacular Episode
Josh and Kurt talk about the recent events around XZ. It's only been a few days, and it's amazing what we already know. We explain a lot of the basics we currently know with the attitude much of these details will change quickly over the coming week. We can't fix this problem as it stands, we don't know where to start yet. But that's not a reason to lose hope. We can fix this if we want to, but it won't be flashy, it'll be hard work. Show Notes GossiTheDog's Blog Post fr0gger diagram OpenSSF Blog (archive) stb library
Episode 422 - Do you have a security.txt file?
Josh and Kurt talk about the security.txt file. It's not new, but it's not something we've discussed before. It's a great idea, an easy format, and well defined. It's not high on many of our todo lists, but it's something worth doing. Show Notes RFC 9116
Episode 421 - CISA's new SSDF attestation form
Josh and Kurt talk about the new SSDF attestation form from CISA. The current form isn't very complicated, and the SSDF has a lot of room for interpretation. But this is the start of something big. It's going to take a long time to see big changes in supply chain security, but we're confident they will come. Show Notes Secure Software Development Attestation Form The U.S. Military Is Missing Six Nuclear Weapons NIST 800-218
Episode 420 - What's going on at NVD
Josh and Kurt talk about what's going on at the National Vulnerability Database. NVD suddenly stopped enriching vulnerabilities, and it's sent shock-waves through the vulnerability management space. While there are many unknowns right now, the one thing we can count on is things won't go back to the way they were. Show Notes Anchore's Blog Grype Josh's Cyphercon Talk Ecosyste.ms Episode 266 – The future of security scanning with Debricked
Episode 419 - Malicious GitHub repositories
Josh and Kurt talk about an attack against GitHub where attackers are creating malicious repositories then artificially inflating the number of stars and forks. This is really a discussion about how can we try to find signal in all the noise of a massive ecosystem like GitHub. Show Notes GitHub besieged by millions of malicious repositories in ongoing attack
Episode 418 - Being right all the time is hard
Josh and Kurt talk about recent stories about data breaches, flipper zero banning, and realistic security. We have a lot of weird challenges in the world of security, but hard problems aren't impossible problems. Sometimes we forget that. Show Notes Mon Dieu! Nearly half the French population have data nabbed in massive breach Feds move to ban auto theft tech device ‘Flipper Zero’ Gmail and Yahoo’s 2024 inbox protections and what they mean for your email program Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students
Episode 417 - Linux Kernel security with Greg K-H
Josh and Kurt talk to GregKH about Linux Kernel security. We most focus on the topic of vulnerabilities in the Linux Kernel, and what being a CNA will mean for the future of Linux Kernel security vulnerabilities. The future of Linux Kernel security vulnerabilities is going to be very interesting. Show Notes Greg K-H Linux Kernel is a CNA Machine learning and stable kernels Bug reporting for Linux
Episode 416 - Thomas Depierre on open source in Europe
Josh and Kurt talk to Thomas Depierre about some of the European efforts to secure software. We touch on the CRA, MDA, FOSDEM, and more. As expected Thomas drops a huge amount of knowledge on what's happening in open source. We close the show with a lot of ideas around how to move the needle for open source. It's not easy, but it is possible. Show Notes Thomas Depierre I am not a supplier Open Source In The European Legislative Landscape devroom Cyber Resilience Act The 2023 Tidelift state of the open source maintainer report
Episode 415 - Reducing attack surface for less security
Josh and Kurt talk about a blog post explaining how to create a very very small container image. Generally in the world of security less is more, but it's possible to remove too much. A lot of today's security tooling relies on certain things to exist in a container image, if we remove them we could actually result in worse security than leaving it in. It's a weird topic, but probably pretty important. Show Notes How I reduced the size of my very first published docker image by 40% - A lesson in dockerizing shell scripts Hacker News Discussion Episode 293 – Scoring OpenSSF Security Scoring
Episode 414 - The exploited ecosystem of open source
Josh and Kurt talk about open source projects proving builds, and things nobody wants to pay for in open source. It's easy to have unrealistic expectations for open source projects, but we have the open source capitalism demands. Show Notes Open Source Doesn't Require Providing Builds The things nobody wants to pay for Audacity privacy policy update has caused an outcry The History of X11
Episode 413 - PyTorch and NPM get attacked, but it's OK
Josh and Kurt talk about an attack against PyTorch and NPM. The PyTorch attack shows the difficulty of trying to operate a large open source project. The NPM problem is one of the difficulty in trying to backdoor open source. A lot of people are watching and it only takes one person to notice a problem and we all benefit. Show Notes Peanut Butter the dog plays Gyromite The Wizard movie PyTorch supply chain attack npm Package Found Delivering Sophisticated RAT Deceptive Deprecation: The Truth About npm Deprecated Packages Changing a lightbulb Spelunking the Bitcoin Blockchain with Josh Bressers | CypherCon 4.0 Operation Triangulation - What You Get When Attack iPhones of Researchers 9th Annual State of the Software Supply Chain
Episode 412 - Blame the users for bad passwords!
Josh and Kurt talk about the 23andMe compromise and how they are blaming the users. It's obviously the the fault of the users, but there's still a lot of things to discuss on this one. Every company has to care about cybersecurity now, even if they don't want to. Show Notes Security leaders weigh in on 23andme hack Don't need a gun when you have a Donk - Crocodile Dundee 2 Hackers can infect network-connected wrenches to install ransomware My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined