Episodes

There is some buzz circulating about the upcoming CompTIA Cybersecurity Trustmark, Compliance with frameworks, and how to get started as a solution provider. I sit down with Matt Lee of Pax8 to discuss the opportunities presented to Solution Providers who submit their organization to comply with a framework. Similarly, the new Trustmark from CompTIA while not a framework on it's own has taken on safeguards from multiple frameworks to give direction and a path toward cybersecurity maturity.

There is still a mindset in our industry that says, " You are too small to need X." With the experiences shared by Sarah Goffman of TCE Communications, we cover the necessity of firewalls, Endpoint protection, and other security components that are necessary for today's threat landscape. Great conversation and I think a big opportunity to educate prospective and existing clients on the threat landscape.

I sit down with Kevin McDonald of Alvaka to talk about the three main scam types out there and what they look like. While we might not be able to prevent all threat actors from prevailing, we can make it more difficult and in many cases, our quick actions can reduce the likelihood of someone else falling victim to the same attack. If it is too good to be true then it probably is!

So this episode is not about Lastpass specifically but about Password Hygiene and best practices around securing your credentials. We talk about the better-than-nothing model and even some unconventional ideas around password management. Hopefully this conversation with Eric Hanson of Inland Productivity Solutions will give you some ideas on how to talk about better passwords and the necessity of password management with your clients.

Not to follow in everyone's footsteps on predictions... I waited to publish until January 3rd 2023. I had an opportunity to sit with Steve Alexander, Facilitator and founder of MSP-Ignite, to talk about his hope and predictions for MSP-Ignite members. I threw in a few of my own just to push some buttons but I think you will find some surprises in this episode. Please contact me if we missed something or if you have an idea for the next show topic!.

Looking back on 2022 with Joshua Smith of Reliaquest and Charles Love of ShowTech Solutions on looking back on the highs and lows of 2022 and what we hope for in 2023.

I brought Jim Harryman back to finish the conversation on policies and controls. We left out a few key pieces.

Whether you have decided to get prepared for an ISO, SOC2, or other audit can be a daunting task. Listen to the journey and all of it's ups and downs that Jim Harryman goes through to get a SOC2 certification and all of the different things done to prepare.

The impact of an incident is often unknown until we enter into the aftermath. How it happened can't always be answered but the goal post incident is to determine what can be done to prevent this in the future. How do we prepare to reduce the impact of a future event when we don't know in advance what that event might be? Join me as Chad Holstead and I revisit an all to recent event and how his team was able to piece together the events that led up to a user in the client company having their ide...

How do we create better relationships between vendors and solution providers? How do we get vendors to lean into their partner success? How do I build confidence in those relationships? This and more as I sit down with Kevin Lancaster of Channel Program.

We spend a lot of time and energy to protect our businesses and our client's businesses from threat actors, natural disasters and even user error. I'm pretty sure we don't spend enough time focusing on the backups of the data that we are trying to protect. Join me as I sit down with W. Curtis Preston of Druva to discuss his passion around business continuity and backups. Be sure to listen for the URL thrown out to download a free ebook, "Modern Data Protection. (an O'Reilly publication)"

Risk has been at the top of mind for several episodes as of late. So much so that it seems to show up in my Flipboard news feed and suddenly a LinkedIn post popped up by David Schultis, of Red Panda, talking about Risk to UNLV students. Join us for a conversation around Risk and educating people who often are the risk.

Within every MSP we have roles that involve Account Management and in some cases have even evolved the title to vCIO or other name. The challenge in many cases is how to charge for this role? Should it be a standalone service offering? Is it just the tip of the spear or the whole spear? I sit down with Brian Doyle of vCIOToolbox.com to discuss this challenge and opportunity as it pertains to how we provide advisory services both internally and to our clients.

In talking about risk we often don't address risk management plans at all. In this episode I discuss with Jim Harryman of Kinetic Technology Group, all things risk. It often starts with a Risk Assessment and we step through what that might look like and how to begin building out a plan within your organization.

I always have wondered why we assume our end users know how to use the technology we provide them. The age old argument of 10% of the product's capability is actually used. I sit down with Charles Love to talk about all the interesting things that go on behind the scenes with end users. We spend a lot of time on a specific vendor or two but these are just to provide good examples.

I couldn't let it go... The browser or browsers have the potential to be the trojan horse. I sit down with Jim Harryman of Kinetic Group to discuss what we can do within the browser to ensure a more secure posture with resources to protect the user experience. If you remember in part one of, "Zero Trust Your Browser" we talked about how much power the browser has. In this episode we focus on reining it in.

You can't secure others if you don't first secure yourself. Security should be just as important at home as it is at work and you take responsibility for your actions. I sit down with Scott Augenbaum to discuss what is in his book, "The Secret to Cybersecurity." Spoiler alert there is no secret. We have a great conversation and I think everyone who listens will find some takeaways that will cost little to nothing to implement.

Regardless of which browser(s) you use how often do you patch them. Do you maintain the extensions and restrict what is and isn't sync'd. I sit down with Kenneth May of Swift Chip to discuss how we need to do a better job creating whitelist/blacklist on apps within the browser. Educate the end user on the vulnerabilities created by adding extensions or not relaunching the browser when updates are pending. It is Cybersecurity month and I think you will find this episode will give you some serious...

In cybersecurity we don't spend as much time as we probably should in the area of onboarding and offboarding. Initiated by the HR department or in smaller companies perhaps handled by the company owner to bring in new employees and then of course when an employee exits the company what does that process look like. Is this process documented and is the workflow the same for onboarding as it is offboarding? This and many other questions associated with people and their role within a company as the...

A continued discussion on RMM and MDM tools. How they differ and how they overlap. In this ever evolving threat landscape they are both extremely important. In this episode Jim Harryman and I will review some of the historical reasons behind why we have them in our environments but we will really be focused on how they help us now and in the future as BYOD and Cloud computing factor in to our end user and device management.

Over the past two years I have gotten to know Brian Weiss and much of our conversation has revolved around how he continues to improve the security posture of his company. This is largely tied to an event that took place back in March of 2018 that crippled 1/2 of his then client base. In this milestone episode 100 we recap his journey when we checked in on him for episode one almost two years ago and how the world has changed in the last four years.

As solution providers we spend a lot of time with different tools and services to support our clients. I sit down with Charles Love of ShowTech Solutions to discuss how RMM and MDM (DM) go hand in hand in managing the assets placed under our care.

Vulnerabilities and exploits happen to be very common in today's threat landscape and not all vulnerabilities are actionable. I sit down with Wes Spencer, of Fifth Wall, to provide insights to solution providers on how to communicate with their vendors and their clients in a way that is actionable and with credibility. As the saying goes, "You are either part of the problem or part of the solution."

I think most of us would agree that protecting data is a very big part of the job as a Solution Provider. Joshua Smith and I tackle this conversation when it comes to the costs associated with protecting that data and what it means to lead and follow in an ever evolving threat landscape.