Return of the Mac

014: Defense in the Driver's Seat: A Conversation with Kyle Kirkwood

In this engaging conversation, MacKenzie Brown, Oli Thordarson, and Kyle Kirkwood explore the parallels between racing and cybersecurity. They discuss the importance of data analysis, team dynamics, and preparation in both fields. Kyle shares insights from his racing experience, emphasizing the need for quick decision-making and the role of engineers in strategy. The discussion highlights how lessons learned from racing can be applied to cybersecurity, particularly in terms of incident response and collaboration.

013: Privileged Access and the Vendor Playground, with Wes Spencer

Organizations often struggle most with privileged access control, which is the root cause of many breaches—and they also often lack monitoring capabilities to detect those breaches. Mac welcomes Wes Spencer of CyberFox to discuss how these deficiencies enable live-off-the-land tradecraft, and the challenge facing MSPs: Identifying security vendor solutions that compensate for these gaps while satisfying compliance needs, all within limited budgets. This isn't just vendor management, it's crafting a holistic security program by finding the right vendor symbiosis and doing the painful work needed for policy creation.

012: Putting the Intelligence Back Into Threat Intel

In cyber, we often hear the term "threat intelligence-driven," but what does that actually mean? James McCarter’s intelligence background as a Marine gives him a very unique view of what threat intel is—and what it is not. A former cryptologic linguist, James is President and CEO of Shadowscape, which provides intelligence-driven cybersecurity, training and analytics. To hear him tell it, a lot of what we think of threat intel today isn’t really threat intelligence at all. James describes how threat intel is misused and the value it can truly offer organizations that’s too often missed.  Referenced links and articles:   https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/26/china-cyber-attack-uk-us-explained-hack-apt-31 [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/26/china-cyber-attack-uk-us-explained-hack-apt-31]

011: So You Think You Can Stack, with Kevin Lancaster

The tech stack: It’s a constant conundrum for MSPs. From pricing to bloat to vendor relationships, there are lots of questions around the technologies you use to serve and protect your clients. As CEO of Channel Program, Kevin Lancaster vets innovative products to guide MSPs in curating an optimized stack. Kevin joins Mac to discuss MSPs’ overwhelming task of choosing technologies in a crowded market, the trends towards platformization, why enablement is the future for vendor/MSP relationships, and how Channel Program is helping MSPs cut through the noise.  Referenced links and articles:   https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/nsa-shares-zero-trust-guidance-to-limit-adversaries-on-the-network/ [https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/nsa-shares-zero-trust-guidance-to-limit-adversaries-on-the-network/]

010: After-Action on Right of Boom, with Ryan Weeks

Right of Boom has come and gone and it was another fantastic conference, unique in the MSP world for educational content rather than sales pitches. Mac is joined by Ryan Weeks, the mastermind behind content curation for Right of Boom, to recap the con and discuss the behind-the-scenes of planning the event and the decisions that went into attendees’ learning journey. Listen as Ryan dives into the artifacts, future plans, and the main takeaway he hopes MSPs bring home.