In Cybersecurity, Every Month is Black October

It may be spooky season, but we start by discussinf the fact that the frightening prospect of mass PHP2Shell exploitation has not materialized. Some good news! Then we dig into the Silent Train operational infrastructure report that Black Lotus Labs released detailing Volt Typhoon's activities. Finally, we have some spooky-themed malware names for you!

Timestamps

0:00 Intro and Halloween small talk2:36 Update on the PHP-to-shell vulnerabilities: almost no confirmed exploitation4:38 Why the hype happened and how it compares to Log4Shell6:19 Retracted exploitation claims and how defenders used the lead time8:14 Why the exploits are hard to build (what Dennis heard from Caliph)10:01 Hype vs. everyday weaknesses that businesses don't prioritize11:39 "Black October," Matt Johansson and cybersecurity going mainstream16:34 Cybersecurity Awareness Month and the MFA takeaway17:00 Entry-level security jobs and advice for new grads20:02 Volt Typhoon and the Silent Train report (Lumen's Black Lotus Labs)23:01 The Littleton, MA utility intrusion24:01 Volt Typhoon's targets and its use of SOHO routers and IoT devices26:10 Operational discipline in how they rotate infrastructure28:26 Threat actor naming conventions29:46 Favorite spooky malware names: Ghost RAT, BlackCat, Spectre, Satan, GhostNet34:44 Halloween costumes and the Halloween nor'easter story36:45 Outro