Collaborate Disseminate
We have recently been seeing a newer method of infecting you by embedding macro enabled word docs into pdf files. To all intents and purposes these PDF files look quite innocent and will normally be an almost blank page with 1 line of text These recent posts illustrate the attack … Continue reading → Continue reading Embedded documents in PDF files that can easily infect you
Creating a strong password for every website that you use is the essential first step in secure online behaviour. This advice from UK Gov’t is at first glance very good advice. But it implies that you only need different secure passwords for a few important online accounts, Your email, your bank … Continue reading → Continue reading Creating and using a strong individual password for every online account.
In the Fall I was staring out my back window seeing my yard covered in orange leaves. This sight is one I see each year and I have always viewed as my yearly chore. The chore of cleaning up the leaves that have fallen from the trees. At times I would see some joy the leaves would bring as my kids would play in them but mostly I viewed the leaves with disdain. Knowing I would be spending hours upon hours cleaning it up. I came to accept this yearly chore as something that doesn’t change since it came with the territory of owning a property with trees. This was until I became more knowledgeable about a subject and this knowledge changed my perspective on how I see these leaves.
For over the past year I took some time to get refocused in life. During this time I was reflecting on different things; one of those things was I have never grown my food. My food typically came from stores, farmer markets, or local farmers. Thinking about it I realized my food has always came from someone else’s labor. I had no clue how to grow food nor what was involved with growing food. I decided I wanted to change this and I jumped head first into becoming more knowledgeable about organic gardening.
I won’t go into detail about my approach; basically I read books, researched on websites, spoke to friends who garden, and I spoke to local farmers who I buy food from. I tried to cover all of my bases to know as much as I could about the entire plant life cycle. My goal is to be fully self-reliant so to avoid having to constantly buy compost I started to learn about composting. As I went deeper into the art of composting by reading and seeing what others have done before me, the more knowledgeable I started to become. The more knowledgeable I started to become the more my perspective started to change. Staring out of my back window each Fall I only saw a chore. However, this year as I was staring out of the window I saw something else. I saw enough brown material that I could use to make compost the next spring. To create the rich compost loaded with nutrients to feed my vegetable plants. I saw the potential for cover material I could put on my raised beds to protect the soil during the winter months. I saw what a blessing each Fall is since it is when nature provides you with a wealth of material you can use to improve your soil to grow better vegetable plants.
As I stared out the window I also reflected on the similarities between my journey into composting and a security analyst’s journey into DFIR. When I’m building up a security analyst to do DFIR work the approach is the same. The first few months I allow them to be paid to learn; there job is to gain knowledge so their perspective looking at data changes. I want to give them knowledge about what they are looking for, different files and folders on the system, different log sources, and the analysis process. I try to give them enough knowledge to change how they see data and what that data means. To change them from seeing just a bunch of files and folder names to seeing select artifacts and log files. To change them from seeing just a bunch of activity to seeing the malicious activity. To change them from seeing alerts and alarms to seeing what the exact attack vector is.
Knowledge is the key to changing one’s perspective; applying the knowledge is what makes the change reality.
“Knowledge without application is like a book that is never read”
~ Christopher Crawford
In the Fall I was staring out my back window seeing my yard covered in orange leaves. This sight is one I see each year and I have always viewed as my yearly chore. The chore of cleaning up the leaves that have fallen from the trees. At times I would see some joy the leaves would bring as my kids would play in them but mostly I viewed the leaves with disdain. Knowing I would be spending hours upon hours cleaning it up. I came to accept this yearly chore as something that doesn’t change since it came with the territory of owning a property with trees. This was until I became more knowledgeable about a subject and this knowledge changed my perspective on how I see these leaves.
For over the past year I took some time to get refocused in life. During this time I was reflecting on different things; one of those things was I have never grown my food. My food typically came from stores, farmer markets, or local farmers. Thinking about it I realized my food has always came from someone else’s labor. I had no clue how to grow food nor what was involved with growing food. I decided I wanted to change this and I jumped head first into becoming more knowledgeable about organic gardening.
I won’t go into detail about my approach; basically I read books, researched on websites, spoke to friends who garden, and I spoke to local farmers who I buy food from. I tried to cover all of my bases to know as much as I could about the entire plant life cycle. My goal is to be fully self-reliant so to avoid having to constantly buy compost I started to learn about composting. As I went deeper into the art of composting by reading and seeing what others have done before me, the more knowledgeable I started to become. The more knowledgeable I started to become the more my perspective started to change. Staring out of my back window each Fall I only saw a chore. However, this year as I was staring out of the window I saw something else. I saw enough brown material that I could use to make compost the next spring. To create the rich compost loaded with nutrients to feed my vegetable plants. I saw the potential for cover material I could put on my raised beds to protect the soil during the winter months. I saw what a blessing each Fall is since it is when nature provides you with a wealth of material you can use to improve your soil to grow better vegetable plants.
As I stared out the window I also reflected on the similarities between my journey into composting and a security analyst’s journey into DFIR. When I’m building up a security analyst to do DFIR work the approach is the same. The first few months I allow them to be paid to learn; there job is to gain knowledge so their perspective looking at data changes. I want to give them knowledge about what they are looking for, different files and folders on the system, different log sources, and the analysis process. I try to give them enough knowledge to change how they see data and what that data means. To change them from seeing just a bunch of files and folder names to seeing select artifacts and log files. To change them from seeing just a bunch of activity to seeing the malicious activity. To change them from seeing alerts and alarms to seeing what the exact attack vector is.
Knowledge is the key to changing one’s perspective; applying the knowledge is what makes the change reality.
“Knowledge without application is like a book that is never read”
~ Christopher Crawford
In the Fall I was staring out my back window seeing my yard covered in orange leaves. This sight is one I see each year and I have always viewed as my yearly chore. The chore of cleaning up the leaves that have fallen from the trees. At times I would see some joy the leaves would bring as my kids would play in them but mostly I viewed the leaves with disdain. Knowing I would be spending hours upon hours cleaning it up. I came to accept this yearly chore as something that doesn’t change since it came with the territory of owning a property with trees. This was until I became more knowledgeable about a subject and this knowledge changed my perspective on how I see these leaves.
For over the past year I took some time to get refocused in life. During this time I was reflecting on different things; one of those things was I have never grown my food. My food typically came from stores, farmer markets, or local farmers. Thinking about it I realized my food has always came from someone else’s labor. I had no clue how to grow food nor what was involved with growing food. I decided I wanted to change this and I jumped head first into becoming more knowledgeable about organic gardening.
I won’t go into detail about my approach; basically I read books, researched on websites, spoke to friends who garden, and I spoke to local farmers who I buy food from. I tried to cover all of my bases to know as much as I could about the entire plant life cycle. My goal is to be fully self-reliant so to avoid having to constantly buy compost I started to learn about composting. As I went deeper into the art of composting by reading and seeing what others have done before me, the more knowledgeable I started to become. The more knowledgeable I started to become the more my perspective started to change. Staring out of my back window each Fall I only saw a chore. However, this year as I was staring out of the window I saw something else. I saw enough brown material that I could use to make compost the next spring. To create the rich compost loaded with nutrients to feed my vegetable plants. I saw the potential for cover material I could put on my raised beds to protect the soil during the winter months. I saw what a blessing each Fall is since it is when nature provides you with a wealth of material you can use to improve your soil to grow better vegetable plants.
As I stared out the window I also reflected on the similarities between my journey into composting and a security analyst’s journey into DFIR. When I’m building up a security analyst to do DFIR work the approach is the same. The first few months I allow them to be paid to learn; there job is to gain knowledge so their perspective looking at data changes. I want to give them knowledge about what they are looking for, different files and folders on the system, different log sources, and the analysis process. I try to give them enough knowledge to change how they see data and what that data means. To change them from seeing just a bunch of files and folder names to seeing select artifacts and log files. To change them from seeing just a bunch of activity to seeing the malicious activity. To change them from seeing alerts and alarms to seeing what the exact attack vector is.
Knowledge is the key to changing one’s perspective; applying the knowledge is what makes the change reality.
“Knowledge without application is like a book that is never read”
~ Christopher Crawford
I believe higher quality learning happens from sharing failure than from sharing stories of success. If you have set your mind to living on contract, I present this cheat sheet of some of the most simple and effective ways to muck it all up that have surprisingly little or nothing to do with your technical skill, knowledge, or even deliverables.
The previous installment of Life on Contract discussed how one might find clients as an engineering contractor or consultant while also taking a bit of time to pull apart the idea of whether life on contract is appropriate as opposed …read more
Continue reading Life on Contract: How to Fail at Contracting Regardless of Skill
How to stay sane until it’s over. Continue reading Log Off
Meetings can actually be useful. It’s hard to believe, but they can actually save time if done right. While most of us are in a perpetual state of torture by Kevin in marketing holding another three-hour meeting during lunch hours, there are a few of us who know their hidden power when put in the right hands.
Working as a contractor, wasted meetings mean wasted billable hours. Even wasted meeting time is covered in the cost of the contract it runs the risk of giving the client the impression that you’re not as productive as originally thought. Organized, productive meetings …read more
You sit there, irritation bubbling deep within as minute forty-five of the meeting ticks past on the clock in the corner of the office. Fight or flight is in a contest with your attention span as you struggle to keep an interested look on your face while they drone on. Real work could be done in this time. Maybe if you go to the bathroom you could sort of… fast forward the meeting. Panicked thinking continues for a bit until your awareness snaps back to the babble of words in the room.
“How long will it take you to do …read more
It may seem like an unlikely source, but VG Advisor on Twitter shows that some solid advice comes from video games of the past and present. Continue reading Some of the Best Advice May Come From Video Games
