That one time I allowed my Security Engineer to make policy changes to our EDR It took months to figure out why every device, from hypervisors in the data center to my own laptop, was running at 100% CPU every night. Hundreds of alerts.Hundreds of emails by morning.I had a hunch, but no proof. Here’s […]
Read more "That one time I allowed my Security Engineer to make policy changes to our EDR"People Over Policies, Pt. 9 — Tools Don’t Make You Secure John Hammond once wrote: “Don’t forget, 0-days wouldn’t happen if you had just bought that one vendor’s EDR, MDR, XDR, NDR, RDR, NXDR, ODR, PDR, LDR, QDR, VDR, JDR, KDR, IDR, 1DR, 4DR, DDR, ZDR, YDR, ⧫DR, 🟋DR, 🙻DRR, DRDRDR, AIDR solutions they emailed […]
Read more "People Over Policies, Pt. 9 — Tools Don’t Make You Secure"People Over Policies, Pt. 8 — Trust Is the Real Firewall You can’t firewall a lack of trust. You can buy the best technology, implement the strongest controls, and build the tightest perimeter—but if your people don’t trust leadership, don’t trust each other, or don’t trust the mission… you’re already compromised. Trust is what keeps […]
Read more "People Over Policies, Pt. 8 — Trust Is the Real Firewall"People Over Policies, Pt. 7 — Leadership in the Trenches Leadership in cybersecurity isn’t about control.It’s about credibility. Anyone can sign policies.Not everyone can stay calm when the alerts flood in, the SOC is on fire, and the board wants answers yesterday. When things break, your team doesn’t look to the org chart.They look to […]
Read more "People Over Policies, Pt. 7 — Leadership in the Trenches"People Over Policies, Pt. 6 — Awareness Over Automation We can automate alerts.We can automate responses.But we can’t automate accountability. Every tool we add—AI, SOAR, EDR—makes us faster, smarter, more efficient.But if awareness drops, if curiosity fades, if people stop asking why… we’re not getting more secure.We’re just getting more complacent, faster. Automation should amplify […]
Read more "People Over Policies, Pt. 6 — Awareness Over Automation"People Over Policies, Pt. 5 — When Frameworks Fail, People Don’t Frameworks give us structure.But structure alone doesn’t save you when everything goes wrong. I’ve seen the best-written playbooks fall apart under pressure—Not because they were wrong,but because they couldn’t predict people. In the real world, it’s the human decisions—the quick judgment calls, the trust […]
Read more "People Over Policies, Pt. 5 — When Frameworks Fail, People Don’t"(Honoring Heath Adams and the end of an era at TCM) Today I learned that Heath Adams, The Cyber Mentor, is stepping away from TCM Security at the end of 2025. I’ll be honest; that hit me harder than I expected. Many people in cybersecurity know Heath as a content creator, instructor, founder, or “that […]
Read more "How I Pawned My First HackTheBox Machine With One Arm"
All Systems (Are) Go. 