

Three Buddy Problem
Security Conversations
The Three Buddy Problem is a popular Security Conversations podcast that goes beyond industry talking points to discuss what others won’t -- nation-state malware, attribution, cyberwar, ethics, privacy, and the messy realities of securing computers and corporate networks.
Hosted by three veteran security pros -- journalist Ryan Naraine and malware paleontologists Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade -- the weekly show attracts a highly engaged audience of security researchers, corporate defenders, CISOs, and policymakers.
Connect with Ryan on Twitter (Open DMs).
Hosted by three veteran security pros -- journalist Ryan Naraine and malware paleontologists Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade -- the weekly show attracts a highly engaged audience of security researchers, corporate defenders, CISOs, and policymakers.
Connect with Ryan on Twitter (Open DMs).
Episodes
Mentioned books

Apr 29, 2021 • 29min
Doug Madory on the mysterious AS8003 global routing story
Director of Internet Analyis at Kentik, Doug Madory, joins the podcast to shed light on the mysterious appearance of unused IPv4 space belonging to the US Department of Defense: the strange connection to a Florida company now managing the world's largest honeypot; the odd Inauguration Day timing of this discovery;, and why enterprise network defenders should pay very close attention.Links:The Mystery of AS8003 — On January 20, 2021, a great mystery appeared in the internet’s global routing table. An entity that hadn’t been heard from in over a decade began announcing large swaths of formerly unused IPv4 address space belonging to the U.S. Department of Defense. Pentagon explains odd transfer of 175 million IP addresses to obscure company | Ars Technica — "Did someone at the Defense Department sell off part of the military's vast collection of sought-after IP addresses as Trump left office? Had the Pentagon finally acted on demands to unload the billions of dollars worth of IP address space the military has been sitting on, largely unused, for decades?"AS8003 GRS-DOD

Apr 23, 2021 • 32min
Crossbeam CISO Chris Castaldo on securing the start-up
Sponsored by Eclypsium
Chris Castaldo has a fascinating career in cybersecurity. A U.S. army veteran who dabbled in tech during the early 2000s dot-com boom before settling on security, Castaldo is now CISO at Crossbeam and a decision-maker with a bird's eye view into how the should be protected.
Castaldo joins Ryan on the show to talk about his new book on securing the startup, why he's the rare CISO that loves security vendor briefings and demos, and his vision of the CISO's top priorities.

Apr 20, 2021 • 53min
Shubs Shah on finding riches (and lessons) from bug bounty hacking
Shubham Shah is a brilliant hacker who quit his pen-testing job to hack for cash in bug-bounty programs. He quickly mastered the game of automating automating pre-breach reconnaissance and zero in on common webapp programming and configuration errors. Shubs, now co-founder at Assetnote, joined Ryan on the show to talk about the stressful life of a fulltime bug-bounty hunter, advancements in web app security defense, and how automation is completely rewriting the bug-discovery business.Links:AssetnoteShubs Shah: Hacking on Bug Bounties for Four YearsHigh frequency security: 120 days, 120 bugsh2c Smuggling: Request Smuggling Via HTTP/2 Cleartext (h2c)H2C Smuggling in the Wild

Apr 9, 2021 • 37min
Fahmida Rashid, Executive Editor, VentureBeat
Newly appointed Executive Editor at VentureBeat Fahmida Rashid joins the show to talk about her introduction to computer networking in school, her winding path into cybersecurity journalism, the security stories worth telling, the venture capital ecosystem, and the surge in unicorn cybersecurity startups.Links:Follow Fahmida on TwitterFahmida Rashid on LinkedIn

Apr 6, 2021 • 33min
Microsoft's David Weston on the surge in firmware attacks
Microsoft's David Weston joins Ryan on the show to discuss a new report that shows 83% of organizations have been hit by a firmware attack in the last two years.
As businesses continue to under-invest in resources to prevent firmware attacks, Weston warns about the inevitability of advanced attacks at the 'invisible' layer, the absence of skills and tools to find malicious activity in firmware, the nightmare of navigating the patching treadmill, and exciting tech innovation in the space.

Apr 2, 2021 • 54min
Lena Smart, CISO, MongoDB
At age 16, Lena Smart finished high school and went into the workforce. At the time, a university degree and advanced education were not available to her in a single-parent household in Scotland. Today, she is CISO of MongoDB, a $16 billion company with thousands of employees around the world and she is a leading voice on education and talent-identification in cybersecurity.
Lena joins Ryan on the show to tell stories from her childhood, the decisions that carved a path for a successful career in security, the anguish of imposter syndrome, the joys of building a modern security program, and impressive tech innovation moving the security needle.

Mar 30, 2021 • 26min
Patrick Howell O'Neill, Cybersecurity Editor, MIT Technology Review
Patrick Howell O’Neill is the cybersecurity senior editor for MIT Technology Review. In this out-of-band episode of the show, Patrick joins Ryan to discuss his latest scoop on Google Project Zero's visibility into malware used in a Western .gov counter-terrorism operation, the tricky nature of attributing nation-state backed attacks, Apple's iOS becoming a hot target and the controversies surrounding all of these conversations. Follow Patrick on Twitter.

Mar 26, 2021 • 56min
Nico Waisman, Head of Privacy & Security, Lyft
After a 20-year career working in the offensive security reseach trenches, security industry pioneer Nico Waisman made the transition to defense to head up privacy and security efforts at ride-sharing firm Lyft. Waisman joins Ryan Naraine on the show to talk about early hacking in Argentina, the contributions of non-Americans to the security industry, and much much more...

Mar 11, 2021 • 50min
Ron Brash on the water plant hacks and the state of ICS security
Ron Brash joins Ryan Naraine on the show to talk about the recent water supply hack, the state of security in ICS/SCADA installations, the checklist of affordable things for critical infrastructure defenders, and the things we should worry -- and not worry -- about.
Ron is Director of Cyber Security Insights at Verve Industrial Protection, a critical infrastructure-focused organisation that sells services and products that work across IT and OT environments for effective cyber security, controls and management.

Mar 3, 2021 • 25min
Throwback: Zero-day exploit broker Chaouki Bekrar
This is the republication of an interview first conducted in March 2013 with then-VUPEN chief executive Chauki Bekrar. The audio file was lost in several podcast platform transfers and I'm glad to be able to retain this interview for historical purposes.
The recording was conducted in the hallways of the CanSecWest Pwn2Own hacking contest in 2013 where Bekrar's team of hackers demo'd a zero-day attack against Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8, an exploit that bypassed all mitigations including the browser sandbox. We chat about the controversies surrounding the sale of zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits, his company’s business dealings and the work that goes into winning the CanSecWest Pwn2Own hacker contest.
(Please excuse the audio quality and background chatter, this was recorded with a small handheld device in a noisy room).


