In my conversation with Detective Richard Wistocki (Ret.), we talked candidly about a reality that many school leaders and law enforcement professionals already feel in their bones: online threats are constant, confusing, and often paralyzing. This Cyber Talk, developed by BareMetalCyber.com, focuses on what it really takes to track school swatters and potential shooters through “leakage” in social media and online platforms, and then turn that information into timely, lawful action. If you are looking at the video above, this article is here to frame the big ideas and give you a reason to hit play.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to transform a traditional, forgettable tabletop exercise into something unforgettable: a telenovela. We explore how to recast roles as characters with motives, build dramatic arcs with twists and cliffhangers, and use realistic props to make your IR plan come alive. Instead of walking through checklists, you’ll hear how to stage a story your team will actually remember when a real breach occurs.You’ll also discover the skills that improve when training shifts from paperwork to drama. From sharper communication under pressure, to quicker decision-making, to cross-functional empathy, the tabletop telenovela strengthens instincts that no binder can teach. It turns compliance drills into lived experiences, building resilience through memory and story.Produced by BareMetalCyber.com.
Patch and update management rarely makes headlines, but it quietly determines how exposed your environment really is. In this audio Insight, we walk through the foundations of a solid patch and update management practice, from intake of vendor advisories and scan results through testing, change windows, rollout, and verification. You will hear how this discipline sits between security, operations, and the business, and why predictable patch rhythms do more for real-world risk reduction than one-off fire drills or heroic weekend upgrades.You will also explore everyday patterns that teams use to keep systems current, from quick-win cycles in smaller environments to more risk-driven, strategic approaches in larger estates. Along the way, we unpack the trade-offs around downtime, tooling, skills, legacy systems, and culture, and highlight the warning signs of shallow adoption versus the healthy signals of a mature practice. This narration is developed by Bare Metal Cyber and based on the Tuesday “Insights” feature from Bare Metal Cyber Magazine.
This episode takes you inside the world of the Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), a certification that helps professionals grow from hands-on security work into roles that shape programs, policies, and risk decisions. In clear, beginner-friendly language, the narration explains what CISM is, who it is really for, and how it changes the way you think about governance, risk management, and incident response. The story is developed from my Monday “Certified” feature in Bare Metal Cyber Magazine, so you get a structured walkthrough rather than a loose collection of tips. You will hear how the CISM exam actually tests your judgment through real-world style scenarios, what kinds of responsibilities it supports in the workplace, and where it fits in a long-term security career path. The episode also helps you understand whether a management-focused certification is the right move for your current stage, or a goal to aim for later. If you want to go deeper and turn this overview into a full study plan, you can pair the episode with the dedicated CISM audio course inside the Bare Metal Cyber Audio Academy.
In my Cyber Talks conversation with Craig Taylor the co-founder and CEO of CyberHoot, we dive into a problem that is evolving faster than most organizations can keep up: phishing in the age of agentic AI. Cyber Talks, developed by BareMetalCyber.com, is all about learning from practitioners who are pushing the field forward, and Craig has spent three decades on the front lines of security, risk, and cyber literacy. If you lead security, IT, or risk, the video above is worth a careful watch—because the phishing problem you think you have is not the one you’re actually facing today.
In this episode, we explore why email is both the oldest and most dangerous application in your enterprise. You’ll learn how protocols built in the 1970s still carry modern business logic, why attackers thrive on its openness, and how Business Email Compromise has evolved into one of the most profitable cybercrimes in history. The discussion traces the history of email’s insecure DNA, the patchwork of fixes that never quite solve it, and the cultural and regulatory anchors that make it impossible to abandon.Listeners will come away with sharper skills in evaluating email risk, recognizing the tactics adversaries use to exploit trust, and applying pragmatic controls that actually reduce exposure. You’ll understand how to treat email like a critical application, design workflows that resist fraud, and build governance that prevents small compromises from becoming catastrophic losses. This is not just theory—it’s a roadmap for defending the unpatchable app every organization depends on.Produced by BareMetalCyber.com.
Understanding vulnerability data can feel like learning a new language, especially when every report is packed with identifiers and scores. In this narrated Insight, we walk through the relationship between software vulnerabilities, Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE), and the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). You will hear how vulnerabilities move from discovery to public CVE records, how CVSS scores are calculated, and why those numbers show up in dashboards, tickets, and board reports. The narration is based on the Tuesday “Insights” feature from Bare Metal Cyber Magazine and is designed for working security and IT professionals who want clear, vendor-neutral explanations. We then shift to everyday practice: how teams actually use CVE and CVSS in vulnerability management, where these tools genuinely help, and where they can mislead if treated as the whole story. You will hear practical examples of quick-win prioritization for smaller teams, as well as more advanced ways to combine scores with asset criticality and threat activity. We also explore common failure modes, such as chasing scores instead of real risk, and highlight healthier signals that show your vulnerability data is driving better decisions. By the end, you will have a grounded mental model for reading those lists of IDs and scores with more confidence.
This episode walks through the Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) certification in clear, beginner-friendly language, focusing on what it really means to think like an IT auditor. You will hear how CISA frames technology in terms of controls, evidence, and risk, and why that perspective matters if you want to move closer to audit, governance, or technology risk roles. The narration is based on my Monday “Certified” feature from Bare Metal Cyber Magazine, so you get the same structured breakdown in an audio format that fits into a busy day. We will cover who CISA is really for, what the exam emphasizes, and how it fits into a broader career and certification path for early-career cyber and IT professionals. You will also hear practical ideas on preparing for the exam, from understanding the domains and question style to building a simple, sustainable study plan that fits around work and life. If you want to go deeper, you can continue your journey with the full audio course for this certification inside the Bare Metal Cyber Audio Academy.
This is your weekly cyber news roll-up for the week ending December 5th, 2025. Holiday shopping dominates the threat landscape, with industrial scale fake Christmas and Cyber Monday stores siphoning card data while a massive breach at Korean retail giant Coupang exposes tens of millions of shoppers. At the same time, attackers are burrowing into the software factory, from exposed secrets in cloud code repositories and malicious developer packages to tainted browser extensions that quietly spy on everyday work in customer relationship, finance, and human resources tools. Law enforcement’s takedown of a major crypto mixer shows real pressure on ransomware cash washing, even as mobile devices and airport Wi Fi remind leaders how fragile everyday access can be.Across the episode, you will hear how attackers exploit hurry, convenience, and shared platforms in very different settings, from North Korean software supply chain campaigns and steganography tools built for espionage, to vendor breaches at financial data providers and cross tenant flaws in cloud services. We explore how weak artificial intelligence governance and powerful low code workflows can be twisted into ransomware launchers, how fake ChatGPT style browsers steal passwords at scale, and why critical bugs in React based web stacks demand rapid attention from builders. Executives, security teams, engineers, and students all get practical context on where trust is eroding and which signals to watch in logs, workflows, and vendor relationships. This weekly roll-up is designed to help you decide what to act on first, and it is available at DailyCyber.news.
Excel is great for many things — but it is not a governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) platform. In this Cyber Talk developed by BareMetalCyber.com, Dr. Jason Edwards sits down with Dean Charlton, Managing Director of DC CyberTech, to unpack why even the most well-intentioned GRC programs stall out when they live in spreadsheets.Dean walks through the real-world pain points of “Excel-driven” GRC, from version chaos and manual updates to audit gaps and poor visibility for leadership. He then shows how automated, AI-driven GRC solutions can support organizations of all sizes, giving you cleaner data, clearer accountability, and a living view of risk instead of static files.If you’re still managing controls, risks, and audits in Excel — or you’re afraid a full-blown platform is “too big” for your team — this session will give you practical ways to think differently about tooling, scalability, and where AI can actually help.
In this episode, we pull back the curtain on Shadow SaaS—the hidden world of unsanctioned apps quietly multiplying across the enterprise. You’ll learn how a single “Sign in with Google” click can spawn a durable, invisible connection, why OAuth tokens never seem to die, and how browser extensions and plug-ins form entire shadow ecosystems. We trace the blast radius from data leaks to compliance failures, and show how discovery pipelines, technical guardrails, and smart workflows can expose the sprawl without slowing innovation.By listening, you’ll sharpen your ability to spot the signs of Shadow SaaS in your own environment, build stronger instincts around risk-based discovery, and gain practical strategies for token management, data protection, and cultural alignment. You’ll walk away with skills to govern SaaS without becoming the “department of no,” turning hidden risk into managed resilience. This episode equips you to secure speed and innovation hand in hand.Produced by BareMetalCyber.com.
This narrated Insight walks through the Cyber Kill Chain (CKC) and broader cyber attack lifecycle models as practical tools for real-world defenders. You’ll hear how CKC breaks an intrusion into recognizable stages, from reconnaissance to actions on objectives, and how that gives analysts and engineers a common storyline for messy, real-world incidents. The audio stays vendor-neutral and plain-language, focusing on how to connect alerts, logs, and behaviors to a clear sense of “where in the attacker’s journey are we right now?”You’ll also explore everyday use cases, from tuning detections and building playbooks to running more realistic tabletops and making smarter architecture and budget decisions. Along the way, the episode examines benefits, trade-offs, and common failure modes, like treating the Cyber Kill Chain as a slideware checkbox instead of an operational lens. This narration is developed from the Tuesday “Insights” feature in Bare Metal Cyber Magazine, giving you a concise, audio-first way to absorb the full breakdown.
Step into the world of CompTIA Security+ (Security+) with this narrated guide designed for early-career technologists and career-changers. This episode explains what Security+ actually covers, who it is really for, and why so many entry-level security and IT roles call it out by name. You will hear how the exam objectives translate into real skills around threats, defenses, secure design, and day-to-day operations, all in clear, plain English. The narration is based on my Monday “Certified” feature from Bare Metal Cyber Magazine, adapted for audio so you can follow along without needing the article in front of you. We also explore where Security+ fits in a broader certification and career path, from help desk and junior admin roles through security analyst and SOC positions. You will learn how the exam rewards applied understanding over flashcard memorization, what common misconceptions trip up candidates, and how to think about your next steps once you pass. If you are ready to go deeper and follow a structured, step-by-step study plan, you can continue with the full audio course for Security+ inside the Bare Metal Cyber Audio Academy.
This is your weekly cyber news roll-up for the week ending November 27th, 2025. This week revolves around quiet dependencies turning into loud problems, from abandoned calendar links that can be hijacked to analytics and customer platforms leaking sensitive context. You will hear about a breach at an OpenAI analytics vendor that exposes who is building on artificial intelligence, A I, projects and a ransomware hit on Asahi and Iberia that mixes large data leaks with operational disruption and reputational damage. Developers face a heavy supply chain week as poisoned npm packages, GitHub workflows, and a self spreading JavaScript worm target build systems and secrets. At the same time, flaws in logging agents, emergency alert platforms, and Ray powered A I clusters show how core infrastructure can be hijacked for stealth access, cryptomining, or simply going dark when people need it most. Across the full set of stories, the focus is on how attackers exploit trusted tools and identity layers that many teams treat as background plumbing. You will hear how spyware vendors are turning secure messaging users into targets, how years of pasting code into online tools has quietly exposed live credentials, and how flaws in Oracle identity, Azure Bastion, and Grafana can hand over powerful access with a few crafted requests. Website and endpoint risks also feature, from W three Total Cache and FortiWeb to seven zip, reminding teams that small utilities and plugins can still open big doors. The episode is designed for executives, security teams, builders, and students who need a fast weekly sweep of the real attack surface, stitched across cloud, identity, and software factories, available at DailyCyber.news. By the end, you will have a clear sense of where your own quiet dependencies might be hiding.
In this episode, we uncover the reality of “Zero Trust theater”—where organizations invest in flashy front gates like MFA prompts, dashboards, and vendor logos while leaving the walls behind them flimsy and unprotected. Listeners will learn how these illusions are built, where attackers push through the cardboard, and the specific tactics adversaries use to bypass props. From consent phishing and token replay to legacy carve-outs and SaaS trust chains, the episode paints a vivid picture of why optics without structure fail.You’ll also gain practical insight into the skills that strengthen real Zero Trust. By the end, you’ll understand how to operationalize least privilege, enforce identity at every hop, design microsegmentation that actually holds, and measure resilience through meaningful metrics rather than green lights. This is more than theory—it’s a guide to recognizing illusions, breaking free from stagecraft, and building durable frameworks that withstand pressure.Produced by BareMetalCyber.com.
This is your weekly cyber news roll-up for the week ending November 21st, 2025. We track a crippling cyberattack on a major automaker that shut factories and erased hundreds of millions in profit. We also follow a suspected China aligned espionage group that turned an artificial intelligence, A I, coding agent into an automated intrusion assistant. Fresh consumer and supporter data breaches, including a social engineering hit on a food delivery platform and exposure of political affiliation records, show how one person or vendor mistake can unlock large data sets. Critical flaws in Fortinet FortiWeb web application firewalls and an actively exploited Windows kernel bug round out the list of urgent patches for the week.You will hear clear run downs of each of the week’s biggest stories, from industrial shutdowns and agent driven intrusions to social engineering breaches and vendor failures. We explain how third party services, software supply chain projects, law enforcement case systems, and cloud platforms like Azure are being probed and stressed, and what that means for executives, security teams, builders, and students trying to stay ahead. Along the way we call out who is most exposed, which signals in logs and dashboards deserve a second look, and which updates should move to the front of the queue. The episode is designed as a fast, practical briefing that you can replay or share with your teams, available at DailyCyber.news.
Don’t wait to learn the fire drill while the building’s on fire. In this Cyber Talk developed by BareMetalCyber.com, Army veteran and cyber resilience strategist Daniel Hammond shows how to move past check-the-box drills and turn exercises into a core learning culture. He walks through goal-driven planning (so every exercise serves a sponsor’s real need), the HSEEP spectrum from seminars and workshops to tabletops, drills, and full-scale events, plus when to go operations-based, run no-notice tests, and invite regulators, comms, and third-party partners into the room. Daniel shares hard-won lessons from building programs at Fortune 500s: validating response playbooks, avoiding “single-layer defense” with purple teaming, closing gaps regulators spot across your industry, and using board briefings to turn findings into funding. If you lead incident response, risk, or compliance—and you want confident teams that discover blind spots before adversaries do—this talk is for you. Join us, bring questions, and leave with practical patterns you can run this quarter.
In this episode, we cut through the alphabet soup of cybersecurity—EDR, NDR, XDR, MDR, and even the tongue-in-cheek WTF-DR. You’ll learn what each of these acronyms really means, how they differ, and where they overlap. More importantly, you’ll gain clarity on how they fit together in practice, why no single tool is enough, and how to build a layered defense without wasting budget on hype. Through clear explanations and vivid scenarios, the episode brings order to the chaos of detection and response technologies.Listening will sharpen your ability to evaluate tools, vendors, and services with confidence. You’ll improve your skills in mapping security investments to real outcomes, spotting hidden gaps in coverage, and asking the right questions about integration, costs, and response workflows. Whether you’re a security leader, analyst, or simply navigating the jargon jungle, this episode equips you to separate buzzwords from business value.Produced by BareMetalCyber.com.
This is your weekly cyber news roll-up for the week ending November 14th, 2025. This week centers on phones, clouds, and core identity systems under pressure from well funded attackers who prefer to move quietly. You will hear how new spyware campaigns abuse Samsung devices and WhatsApp features, while hotel and travel scams blend real booking details with fresh malware delivery. The episode also walks through developer and infrastructure risks, from poisoned code editor extensions to critical flaws in firewalls and container platforms that can turn one foothold into broad access. It all adds up to a week where leaders and defenders need to rethink how personal devices, travel workflows, and cloud control planes intersect in daily operations.Across these stories you will move from data exposure at an artificial intelligence company ecosystem to massive breach data feeds landing in tracking services, and from long running espionage inside a policy nonprofit to new tools that help small businesses fight review extortion. Executives will gain a faster sense of which threats can disrupt revenue and trust, while security teams hear where to focus monitoring, patching, and multi factor authentication, M F A, improvements right now. Builders and cloud operators get practical insight into container escape flaws, risky extensions, and identity platform weaknesses that change how they should think about shared environments. Students and early career defenders can use the narrative to map how scams, espionage, and infrastructure bugs all connect in real attacks. Listen in to get the full story arc in one pass, available at DailyCyber.news.
In this episode, we explore phishing as a rigged arena where attackers decide the rules and employees become the unwilling contestants. You’ll learn how phishing has evolved from clumsy spam into precision-engineered deception powered by AI, reverse proxies, and multi-channel choreography. We unpack the psychology that adversaries exploit—urgency, authority, and scarcity—and show how identity protections, layered defenses, and cultural shifts can flip the script. From role-specific vulnerabilities to the industrialization of phishing kits, this episode equips you with a clear view of the battlefield and the tools needed to navigate it.Listening also sharpens practical skills that directly improve resilience. You’ll gain insight into recognizing subtle red flags across devices and platforms, understanding the tactics that bypass traditional MFA, and adopting verification habits that make the safe path the easiest one. Beyond individual awareness, the episode builds leadership and organizational skills: how to embed verification into workflows, design effective simulations, and foster a culture where reporting is rewarded. By the end, you’ll see how to shift the odds, not by chance, but by readiness. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com.