Warning: The following blog is a commentary of the Netflix limited series, "Zero Day" and may contain spoilers.
Appalachia Technologies Blog
Appalachia Technologies team is comprised of a diverse mix of IT professionals, some of whom have been on the forefront of IT since the industry’s inception. Through the years, our team has developed a wide array of experience in understanding individual needs and how they relate to your business.
Curtis McPherson is a security engineer and writer who focuses his time on penetration testing and incident response. Curtis graduated cum laude from Penn State University with a bachelor’s degree in Security and Risk Analysis, concentrating on cybersecurity and digital forensics. In his time at Penn State, he participated in the Technology Club, which conducted open-sourced intelligence (OSINT) investigations into missing person cases, using social media and the internet to find clues to their disappearance. Curtis is married with two cats and a bouncy bearded collie named Laddie. In his spare time, Curtis is an avid fiction writer, Civil War historian, and a tried and true lover of all things related to airplanes and aviation.
Time flies when you’re having fun, which is an accurate depiction of the last three days at the Zero Trust World conference in Orlando, Florida. There is quite a buzz going through the air about ThreatLocker after they announced their new endeavor, ThreatLocker Ops, which is their first foray into cyber attack detection. The ThreatLocker booth is hard at work answering questions and fielding requests to beta test the product. Not to mention their cool cash machine that new clients get to spend 30 seconds in to grab as much money as possible! It has been fun to watch.
All flights, regardless of the airplane, encounter some form of turbulence. A wise person (my mother) once told me before my first flying experience that just because there is some shaking and bouncing on the flight, to not worry, because it is all part of the glory of flying. This of course came on the heels of overwhelming news coverage of a plane crash in Charlotte, North Carolina that was caused due to wind shear and turbulence. Needless to say, I was anything but calm until I got into the air and witnessed the majesty of the earth from 37,000 feet. Day two of ThreatLocker’s Zero Trust World conference had a very similar theme.
3…2…1... We have lift-off! Zero Trust World 2023 has officially launched and is coming to you from the Omni Champions Gate Resort in Orlando, Florida. Seated in a dark ballroom with a blue ambient light cascading throughout the room like the aurora borealis, I took in the events of the morning with splendor. The National Ballroom is the main stage where the morning’s activities took place. I don’t want to just bring you the information, but I want you to feel like you are here sitting beside me at the round table. No stone was left unturned at the event. As I sat at my table before the speakers even began, I was mesmerized by the exuberance and excitement pulsating through the room. If I were to close my eyes and just absorb the auditory environment, I would have assumed that I was at a trendy nightclub with upbeat music pulsating through the air.
I’m going to throw some names out at you: Target, Uber, Colonial Pipeline, Equifax, Twitter. I’m sure most, if not all of you know these household names… maybe with the exception of Colonial Pipeline. I myself had never heard of them until I was sitting in my car in line to get gas while vacationing in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. On the radio was playing the news of how Colonial Pipeline had suffered a severe network breach that allowed an attacker to launch ransomware on their systems, shutting down their fuel transmission operations to the Southeastern United States. Which by sheer luck, I happened to be in that neck of the woods and got to experience my first-ever gas shortage. All I knew was I needed gas, or I wasn’t going to be able to leave the beach! Wait… how is that a bad thing? I digress.