21. Cybersecurity for the Road Warrior
Welcome everybody to episode 21 of unhacked. Today, we're gonna talk about cybersecurity for the road warrior. Do, do any of you guys consider yourselves to be road warriors?
Bryan:Well, the past little bit, maybe. I've been traveling a while in the past couple months. Couple of years. Yeah.
Justin:Yeah. It's it's been
Mario:Especially now My wife wants to go on a quarterly vacation. I'm like, oh, I'm not doing that.
Justin:I've got a friend that travels. He's a salesman, and he would travel almost every week. He was on a plane going somewhere. Yeah. That's that's really not what I had in mind when I, you know, kinda titled this episode, but, that compared to most people, but definitely not on that scale.
Justin:But anyways, so the the thing is, though, bad things can happen when you travel, and I mean, bad things can happen no matter what. But when you're away from home, man, shit can hit the fan pretty fast. So, that's what I wanted to talk about today. I've had some of my own experiences on this front. I've read about other people, and then it's just, you know, just like we always talk about, we wanna help people out.
Justin:So here we go. Let's go ahead and do some quick introductions. Brian, tell everybody who you are, what you're all about, and, you gotta throw your slogan in there because you always do. And then, Mario, go ahead and take over.
Bryan:Yeah. Brian Lachpoe with b four Networks, providing computer and, technical support to people all throughout the Southern Ontario. And, what I like to say is that we help clients, get 1% better every single day, with regards to their technology. So it's not just about technology, but, you know, just improving their business, primarily using technology.
Justin:Alright. Mario?
Mario:Mario, Zacche, with MasTec IT. We are located, in North Jersey right right out of side, Manhattan, about 15 miles away. We've been in business for 20 years. And, you know, just like these guys, you know, cybersecurity, and we help our clients get 2% better.
Justin:Yes.
Bryan:Oh, no.
Justin:Well, you know, I can just go for 3% and kick all y'all's asses. Right?
Bryan:Good luck with that.
Justin:Oh, that was brilliant, Mario. Well played. Well played. See, I I had a smart ass but wasn't near as good because I was just gonna ask if if you have KPIs and ways to track this, Brian. Because it's a it's a pretty cool claim, but, like, can you back it up with numbers?
Bryan:Oh, so it's not there's not, like, an actual 1% improvement. It's just the idea. It's continuous improvement, obviously. Listen.
Justin:It wasn't a serious question.
Bryan:No. I know.
Justin:He goes right into explaining, though. Listen, Brian. We're all being smart asses. This is what happens when you guys get me out of bed at 4:45 in the morning. So What are you
Bryan:talking about? It's almost 10. No.
Justin:For you guys on the other side of the world. Alright. I'm Justin Shelley.
Mario:Keep busting your chops until you shave the Well hair off.
Justin:You you and and grow some facial hair. Doctor. Shelley. My turn. My turn.
Justin:My turn. It's my turn for an intro. Justin Shelley, CEO of Phoenix IT Advisors. I almost went back to the old company name. I almost said I'm from Master Computing.
Justin:Those are days gone by. Phoenix IT Advisors, We do work in the Dallas Fort Worth Metro as well as Northern Nevada. And, listen. I'm a greedy bastard, so I've got my eyes on other areas as well. Probably expanding into Idaho and Utah here in the next, who knows, number of weeks, months, or years.
Justin:I say a lot of stuff. We'll see how much of it actually happens, but that is the plan. Like, pinky and the brain, I'm always trying to figure out how to take over the world. And, you know, on a more serious note, I checked the mail on the way home last night and, just just threw it on the site, you know, on the dash or whatever. And then this morning as I was coming in to record, I just kinda flipped through it.
Justin:And I saw 2 postcards that said something I don't have them in front of me, so I can't quote it exactly, but something about, you know, that this is authorized legal communication, whatever whatever, about a class action lawsuit. And again, I don't remember the name of the company. I wouldn't say it if I did, but some health care organization of some sort had a cybersecurity incident, and you've got some attorney out there just, like, handing out candy. Like, you know, here, take this, take this. Money for you.
Justin:Money for you. Money for you. And so, like, it it just kinda drove home. Here's the thing. I love technology.
Justin:I've said that before. I love business. I I always say that's my number 1. But goddamn it. I don't love cybersecurity.
Justin:I don't. I don't love that this is what we have to do. We don't do this podcast because we sit around and think, god. This is the funnest game ever to fight Russian hackers. But I'll tell you what.
Justin:I don't want my client's name on that postcard. Right? I don't want my, you know, people getting a postcard saying, hey. Phoenix IT's client is being sued, and here's how to get money from them. So that it it becomes a passion.
Justin:My passion is more about protecting people. I want my audience or, you know, this audience to be able to grow their business and to do it well and, you know, be profitable and to be able to sleep at night and and not have to worry about their name being on this next postcard that hits my mailbox. So, that's kind of what we're all about, what we're doing. There's a lot of advice, a lot of tools, a lot of money can be spent, a lot of energy, a lot of effort. And and so we really do wanna just kinda boil that down to the nuts and bolts.
Justin:Where can you get the most bang for your buck? So on that note, today, we are gonna talk about, like I already said, what we can do to protect ourselves when we hit the road. Most people travel to some extent, some people more than others. The the story that's always kinda stuck in my head you guys know who Verne Harnish is. Right?
Bryan:Mhmm.
Justin:Business coach, author. Have you you've heard of him, Mario?
Mario:I've heard of him. I I don't know him well.
Bryan:Scaling up.
Justin:Yeah. Right. He's the book scaling up, the previous book was Rockefeller Habits.
Bryan:Right.
Justin:Really good stuff. It's, I I won't get into too many details there, but, I've I've done some of his training. I've read some of his books and and whatever. But so the the story from him was he was do you Brian, have you heard this story? Do you remember where he was traveling to?
Justin:Okay.
Bryan:I I haven't heard it.
Justin:He was overseas, and somebody had gotten into his email or or his admin. I don't know. It was emails were going back and forth between, and it must have been Verne's email that was, breached and his administrative assistant or or whoever finance person back home, and and they were being either created or intercepted. Long story short, he was, hit for $400,000. And to my knowledge, I don't think he got that money back.
Justin:And so what hap you know, the high level story, he's he's overseas, and and somebody's emailing his admin saying, hey. You know, I've got this transaction that needs to happen. I know I'm out of town. I won't be able to respond quickly, but I need you to take care of this. Anyways and and she did.
Justin:The money was wired. It's gone. $400,000, happened while he was traveling. And so that's kind of it was like, you know, it can happen at any time, but most of these stories that I hear do happen when there's some version of travel because now the person, usually the the CEO, the higher up who authorizes these things isn't physically in the office to make those decisions or to confirm that, you know, this is really what what has to happen. So that's that's kinda why this, was was on my mind.
Justin:So let's jump in. We've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. It looks like 9 points that we're gonna talk about of things that we can do to prepare for travel. Fun fact, one of the most annoying things about me is I have checklists for everything. Right on my phone, I have checklists for travel when I'm going overseas, you know, international or if I'm going local.
Justin:I actually have different checklists for those. Those have been built not, because I'm smart, but because I've fucked up a lot. So that's how I build my checklist is how to not screw this up one more time. Let's go ahead and jump in. The the first point I've got on here is wireless, and that's just, one word, no details.
Justin:So I'm gonna punt this over to you, Brian. I think you you first mentioned it. So tell me a little bit about, what you wanted to talk about where wireless networking is cons concerned.
Bryan:Yeah. So, a lot of us will be connecting to wireless networks when we are out and about, especially when we're traveling. I mean, it happens even when you're not traveling. So this this this, sort of advice flows regardless of whether you're, you know, going on a long vacation and or just, you know, at your local coffee shop type of thing. So the the the rule of thumb is when you are connecting to any public Wi Fi hotspot or anything like that, a couple couple things you can do to protect yourself.
Bryan:And one is just making sure that the network you're connecting to is a legitimate network, and that the way that you log into it is the way that it's intended because anybody who knows anything about IT can spin up their own, wireless network and and pretend or and or use the same name. And so, having the the understanding how the connection works and whether you have to log in, whether you have to, you know, put your room number in and or your last name, things like that will help understand whether you're connected to the right network. If you connect to it and it doesn't do those things, then you kinda know. And regardless of what happens once you're connected to those wireless networks, if it's not something that you have control over or that you know 100% is secure, you should never be doing any kind of sensitive activities. You shouldn't be doing any kind of banking, any kind of sensitive work for for your workplace.
Bryan:Preferably, if you can, if you have a VPN connection and you're gonna do work, you can VPN into your office or or work using a VPN connection. That would be more secure. And if you're just browsing the web, just make sure every site you visit has, the s at the end of HTTP just so that way you know that there's a secure connection. It doesn't mean that it's always 100% secure because there are some very clever people who can intercept and, and do things like that. So, the rule of thumb is if you don't have to do, you know, banking or any kind of sensitive material sensitive things on your laptop while connected to an untrusted network, then don't do it.
Bryan:Your personal Wi Fi hotspot is always a better option if you're going to be, doing something like that. So, yeah,
Mario:just think before
Justin:you connect Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say the personal the, hotspot. Sometimes though you get into airports or you get into places like Home Depot, for example. I think they have, like, signal jammers all over.
Justin:I don't know.
Bryan:Yeah.
Justin:You cannot use your Internet inside of a Home Depot for whatever reason. So you do have to use their network and and, yeah, that does get a little bit dicey. Mario?
Mario:Guys a question? Yeah. Well, speaking of VPNs, have you guys ever used because I haven't. I don't I I kinda doubt it really is what it advertised. Have you ever used those VPNs, like, NordVPN or, like, the ones that you hear on the radio?
Mario:Like, oh, you know, you connect, you know, always use a VPN and, you know, for $10 a year, you know, you can purchase the software and stuff like that. Have you guys ever used any of those?
Bryan:Yep. Yeah. They were.
Mario:Any good? They were
Justin:Yeah.
Bryan:It takes your data, encrypts it through, through the the the network. A lot of people will use those to be able to, you know, get the, for example, the Canadian Netflix in the US or the Australian Netflix in the
Justin:US. Right?
Bryan:Like, they'll they're using them to to, you know, make their presence as if they're coming from a different country. And a lot of times, they'll do that. But they do they do protect you from any kind of, anybody spying it because the essentially, the head to traffic gets encrypted from the time that with a pre encrypted key from the time that you connect to the Internet all the way to the other end. Right? So anybody who's looking in to the traffic won't be able to do much with it.
Mario:Yeah. I'm just very, you know, suspicious about where that traffic gets routed through.
Justin:And I use it. They take their they take your data and encrypt it. Like, what do they do before they encrypt it?
Bryan:Yeah. I I would just you encrypt it on your phone and then or Okay.
Justin:Well, I would I would just put the disclaimer out there because you say you encrypt it. But do you know, if this product is free or cheap Right. Think twice.
Bryan:At the end of the day, you've got like, I don't know much about, like, those specific, like, Nord Nord, for example. I I don't like using brand names personally, but, just, yeah, do your research before you do it. Talk to a professional. They'll do the research if they're if they're making a professional recommendation, and Spend
Justin:money on it.
Bryan:Again, if it's free.
Justin:If it's super cheap. If it's free, you are the product. So, and the other thing I was gonna say is this is a little bit technical, what we're talking about right now. A lot of today will be. So, you know, I'm gonna put myself out there.
Justin:I assume it's, I'm I'm okay speaking for you 2 as well. You know, our contact information is on unhacked.live. Jump on there and schedule an appointment with us. If you don't wanna do anything other than talk about one of these points, go ahead. Hit us up.
Justin:We're we're all gonna talk to you about this stuff. No strings attached. So, Mario, did you have anything else you wanted to say about wireless?
Mario:No. I mean, Ryan did a pretty good job covering it. I mean Yep. Essentially, you know, like, I know when I travel with, like, family, like, we'd literally walk into the room and my daughter and my son is like they take out their iPad or their phone, like, you know, their phone and they're like, dad, what's the WiFi? Yeah.
Mario:Because they don't have the with their like, they have our old phones, they don't actually have like Oh. You know. So we don't, you know, essentially, it's a small iPad. So like that, what's the Wi Fi? What's the Wi Fi?
Mario:Connect me to the Wi Fi. Yeah. You know, and if you don't need the WiFi, like, if you're traveling overseas, usually they're like 3 you know, you're on connecting to like 3 g or
Justin:I think it's 1 g or 0 g most of the time.
Mario:You know, if you connect to their Wi Fi, you know, just like Brian said, you know, limit what you're really doing. You know, you don't need to you don't need to check your bank account while you're, you know, in the Caribbean, you know, unless you're
Justin:Okay. So
Mario:I'm so over there.
Justin:Hold on right there, and I'm gonna tell you a story, that this was not part of my prep that just kind of so a year ago, I went to, my brother was celebrating an anniversary, and and we went to Jamaica. Now years years before that, I had set up with my provider, my, cell phone provider, automatic international plans. I don't I don't even know what it's called. But basically, when it detected that you were outside of your country, it would switch, you know, kick on the $10 a day so that you had international stuff. Right?
Justin:Yeah. Well, they didn't. And I got overseas or I keep saying overseas, whatever. I got into Jamaica, and I'm my phone was a brick. I couldn't do anything with it.
Justin:And by the way, I was in the middle of trying to sell my house. I was in the middle of a divorce. Like, I had stuff that I had to do online. And now I've got a phone because we're saying use your own Internet, your hotspot versus public Wi Fi, and that wasn't an option for me. This was a case of poor planning.
Justin:When I say I have checklist because I've screwed things up, this is one of those cases where I built, or at least added to my checklist because of this particular trip. I didn't plan ahead. I didn't think things through. It was just a really shitty time of my life. So, I was in survival mode.
Justin:But, man, that's that is the worst thing because that's when they'll get you the most. Fortunately, I didn't have any kind of an incident other than I was completely unable to take care of business back home that desperately needed my attention. So, yeah, I mean, if nothing else, make sure that you can connect and you can do those things. You're saying don't do banking. Don't do this other stuff.
Justin:Absolutely take care of. Right. No. Absolutely. Take care of that before you hit the road.
Justin:Yeah. But then if you do, you've gotta be super careful. And and I put myself in a really bad situation. So, I don't even have advice for that other than it was just a bad situation. Make sure that you've got business taken care of before you go.
Justin:And if not, have a way and have maybe a backup plan on how you're gonna handle that because I had new I had none of that. So, that was my lesson learned. Alright. So enough about wireless. Let's go on to social media.
Justin:And I think, Brian, you seemed a little passionate about that one this morning when we were prepping. So I'm gonna I'm gonna start with you again here.
Bryan:Yeah. Sure. So, I always laugh because, I I I'm married to someone who loves to post on social media. Loves that.
Justin:Not true. I never see her posting on social media. Never. Never. Never.
Bryan:And it's great because she shares a lot, and a lot of people, you know, connect with her, because of all the things that she shares. But with that said, when you go on vacation, the last thing you should be doing is telling people you go you're going on vacation because it's a big giant, you know, advertising sign saying, hey, I'm gonna be away from my house. Come rob me. Right? And so, fortunately, we even when we go on vacation or go on on on trips, we have people coming in and out of our home all the time.
Bryan:So 247. So food for thought. You know, there's nothing in my house, but, you know, and there's always somebody there. But with that said, you know, the Bad guys
Justin:don't look behind the curtain. That's what Yeah.
Mario:Exactly. Don't forget, your neighbors have guns.
Bryan:My that's right.
Justin:Yeah. You mentioned that.
Bryan:I wasn't gonna mention that on the podcast, but I'm not
Justin:too too little in the way
Bryan:you like.
Mario:So that's far.
Bryan:So with that said, you know, the majority of us don't have somebody coming in and out of our homes all day long, you know, throughout the weeks and and when we're on vacation. So if you're saying, hey, I'm on vacation, then you're posting pictures of you on vacation throughout the entire time, it is really a big giant advertising saying, you know, hey, nobody's home right now. You're free to come to my house and take whatever you want because I won't know for another week after I get back. Right? And so the rule of thumb is never like, keep keep the post.
Bryan:Keep all the things you're gonna say and all the things you wanna, like, pictures and everything, and post them when you get back. Right? Don't go putting a big giant billboard out, because it will draw people in. And if you can, while you're away, you can even just toss, like, a little bit of automation in in your house, like, you know, have lights come on or have people come over, you know, even if it's just to pull out of the driveway and and and pull out just to, like, add a little bit of activity there. But the big biggest part is just don't post about it in advance.
Justin:Okay.
Mario:Alright. Or why you're there. Yeah. Or why you're there. Like, the, you know, stop sending pictures of the family.
Bryan:That's right.
Mario:On vacation, you know, because then they know, oh, oh, look.
Bryan:I I remember there was once upon a I don't know if it still exists, but there was a website called something about, like, come rob me.com or something. I can't remember if that was it. And what it would do is it would aggregate like, this is prior to Facebook and everything, washing things down, but it would it would go into Facebook and it would aggregate everybody who is, you know, posting things about being away from home. And it would basically draw it on a map, and it would show their house and be like, you know, because they they they would, use pictures, and and people back then were posting pictures with,
Justin:the embedded
Bryan:geotags. Right? And so it'd be like, okay. Well, this is where the person lives, you know, and and and if you wanna go rob them, they're away till Friday. And it was it wasn't intended as, like, a a real thing.
Bryan:It was intended to draw attention to the fact that you really ought to be doing this stuff, but it was really freaking cool, that somebody was able to create that automation.
Justin:And Brian, can I ask a personal question? How much how much how much money did you make? I mean, did did you go to jail? Did you get away with this? I mean, how did that work out
Mario:for you?
Bryan:I wish I had that kind of,
Justin:programming
Bryan:skills, but no. Unfortunately not.
Justin:No. I mean, get to go out and rob people.
Bryan:Oh, I see. Yeah.
Justin:You you clearly spent some time on the site. So I'm just wondering.
Bryan:No.
Justin:Okay. Mario Mario, thoughts on social media?
Mario:Yeah. So, things to also remember and I you know, in preparation for this, I was actually, reading. Also, when you do your away message, don't tell people when you're coming back. Just say your away and, you know, contact this person and this person Good point. In, you you know, during that point.
Mario:You know? So, don't
Justin:mean, like, an autoresponder on your email or stuff like that? Okay.
Mario:Yeah. Yeah. You know, don't say, I I will be out of the office until June 30th, you know, because that's essentially once they, you know, you get a spam or you get an email from somebody, a phishing, whatever, they'll reply you they're getting a reply.
Justin:Everybody. Yeah. You're letting the bad guys know. That's a good point. Yeah.
Justin:Good point. Yep. I had not thought of that. That's a good point.
Mario:Yeah. I didn't know. I didn't need it until preparing, and, you know, a little disclaimer. I did do a little AI search on
Justin:Nice. Nice. Now we're talking.
Mario:And it said, you know, don't put a a return date. You know, just let them know you're away. That they don't won't tell them when you're coming back.
Justin:Okay. That's that's actually a really good point. So Yep. Hope Brand Brand's posting the link on on the chat. Please rob me.com.
Justin:That's that's a real gaining awareness about over here. We might have to take, an intermission guys, and, let's let's see who we can rob. I'll be back in about 45 minutes. There's one right
Bryan:next story.
Justin:Shit. Okay. So moving on, and I'm gonna let you guys talk for a minute while I go next door. Locking your computer. Now this, Brian and, again, I'm I'm starting with all the ones you brought up.
Justin:This one seems kinda dumb. I'm not gonna lie. Lock your computer. Like, doesn't everybody do that?
Bryan:Oh my gosh. There there's actually a running gag. If you look up, like, pound, lock it up, on Twitter, you'll find pictures or Facebook or LinkedIn, you'll find pictures of people at conferences, and and then the my favorite is these are security conferences, and, and there's literally people walking away from their computer unlocked in a a public area that anybody can walk up to and essentially I mean, they can literally take it and then run with the bat and then, like, do whatever they want. Like, they they would not be able to stop them. It's unlocked.
Bryan:But, yeah, all over the place, people are, leaving their computers unlocked in in public, in hotels, in, you know, in, in public lobbies, or even, you know, walking into a bank and seeing somebody who's left their station with a computer unlocked. And it's just like Right?
Justin:Okay. So are you familiar with, some colleagues of ours who went to a a particular conference at a particular hotel chain, and the hotel had left a computer unlocked. And and they got in and and and did some educational work for the hotel.
Mario:Do you
Justin:know what I'm talking about?
Bryan:I I don't know the story, but I I'm I'm
Justin:That they got kicked out of the they can't go back to that hotel now. Oh, no. I don't re I don't know all the details. I heard this from one of the guys who had done it, you know, a while later, and he's like, I'm not supposed to be here. I had to have so and so check-in for me because I was just trying to help out.
Justin:I mean, they left their computer locked, so I was just showing them what people. So here's the thing, guys. Accessing somebody's computer network data or whatever without their permission is a federal offense in the United States. Like, this is big time. Don't do it even if your intentions are good.
Justin:And, I think our friends know that now. They probably knew it before, and they thought they were being super funny and maybe they'd had a few beers. I don't know. But yeah. Okay.
Justin:So I I started off by saying, I think everybody locks their computer, but then I remembered that one. So So
Bryan:I I have a question for you then. Let's just turn this around a second. If if you if you had planned and prepared in advance and you knew somebody was gonna be able to leave their computer unlocked and you had prepared a dongle USB key something, how long how much time would you need with that computer, in order to essentially compromise it if the computer's unlocked.
Justin:3 seconds.
Bryan:Right. Like it takes no time at all. They could literally walk up to it, plug in the USB key.
Justin:And done. Done. And walk away.
Bryan:And then walk away.
Justin:Especially plug it in back behind where nobody's gonna see it and walk away, let it do its damage. Yeah. No. You're right. You're absolutely right.
Bryan:So it doesn't take long. Like, people walk away for a few minutes, and they're like, oh, I was just gone for a minute. I just went to the bathroom. I just I just I just went around the corner. Like, no.
Bryan:Like, it doesn't take much time at all at all at all. Like so, yeah.
Mario:Yeah. And we're we're talking about traveling, like, for work. Like, you know, like, you're going to a conference. You're going to a convention or something. You know, that that's where a lot of the stuff could easily happen.
Mario:It's we're not just talking about going on vacation.
Justin:So while while we're talking about federal crimes, for fun, it it is really fun at at a conference where somebody brings their laptop and they leave it open and unlocked and they walk away to, especially if you know what political party they are, put the other political candidate or whatever as a background on their screen.
Mario:Yeah. That's a good one.
Justin:Well, you said, well, that was kind of a running prank, in my Dallas office for a while where, they would all my techs would always try to catch somebody else who didn't lock their screen and got up and to get a drink or go to the bathroom or whatever. You'd come back and your your your desktop was fucked. I mean, it's like, you shouldn't be doing that, so we're we're going after you if you do. And it was it was always, you know, we had the I think it was it was election time. So it was Trump versus was it Biden, I guess?
Justin:Because I I don't even know. I don't get into politics. I really don't. But, yeah, they'd always put the other person on their backgrounds, or or something else that would just piss them off. You know?
Justin:Sports teams or Okay. Cool.
Mario:Funny story with background. So, long time ago, somebody got up, left his computer unlocked. I went to it, took a screenshot of their desktop, and then deleted everything on their desktop. That's before. Made made that picture makes they made the screenshot the actual desktop.
Bryan:I've done that before.
Mario:It's hilarious. So they they
Justin:clicking on it.
Mario:They're clicking on everything. And when I and I made the, the taskbar auto auto disappear. So they were clicking on everything, and they rebooted the computer, like, 3 times. And they're they're trying to click on everything. It was not you know, they couldn't do it.
Mario:And it just looked like like it was that their desktop. And Yeah. They finally came up and they're like, hey. You know, I don't know what's wrong with my computer. Can you take a look at it?
Bryan:You want you want another one, Mario, that you can do to attack? Because this one will really throw them off. Do the exact same thing, but just reverse the image upside down. And then in the computer settings, reverse the computer right back. So every time they try to use a mouse, it's going in the wrong directions.
Bryan:Hilarious. Yeah.
Justin:Oh my god.
Mario:Wow. We're such nerds. Uh-huh.
Justin:I know. This this is turning into a way better episode than I anticipated. This isn't fun advice for travelers. This is how techs fuck with each other.
Bryan:Yeah. Pretty much.
Justin:Look behind the scenes, guys. This is this is what you're paying us to do for reals is we just we just, turn off the phones and go and screw with each other. Okay. It's like April Alright. So our
Bryan:office every day if somebody leaves their computer unlocked.
Justin:I I'm telling you. Like, sometimes the hard lessons are they have to be learned. So Yep. Now yeah. Okay.
Justin:Alright. Let's, let's let's move on. Definitely lock your computer and especially if Brian or Mario are anywhere in the vicinity. In my defense, I don't I'm trying to think. I I can't say I haven't done.
Justin:I act oh, I did this I did this to my girlfriend. I'm not gonna lie, because she never locks her computer. I just ratted her out. Luckily, she's sleeping. She's not watching because we did this one so early, so she won't watch this one.
Justin:And she I was at her at her office and she, you know, her computer's unlocked. She stepped away. So I went and put a great big picture of my ugly face right on the on her background. And and she's super shy about stuff like that, so she was just beside herself afraid somebody else would see it or, you know, I I don't know. It was that was, it it's an insight joke.
Justin:You had to be there. Nobody else will get it, but that was a good time. I'm just saying that. And I bet. Just trust me.
Justin:Just trust me on that.
Mario:So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would that's the thing. We we love, you know, we love fucking with people.
Mario:It's just
Justin:Well, we we've gotta find have you ever okay. God. I'm so off track today. But have you ever got, spent time with health care professionals, like, behind the scenes? I used to fly air ambulance.
Justin:Fun fact about me. I, fixed wing, not helicopter. Everybody thinks of helicopters. But I flew fixed wing air ambulance, and so I spent a lot of time with the medical crew. And that is such a horrible job dealing with constant, you know, injury and pain and suffering and death, and and to stay, like, I don't know, sane.
Justin:Yeah. They they just had this really twisted sick sense of humor. And and it was it was interesting. It was fascinating, and sometimes it was horrifying. That's just a complete tangent that has nothing to do with today's episode.
Justin:So I'm gonna try to rein this back in. But, that was my opening experience. So okay. Back on track. Backing up your phone, was that yours, Brian, or Mario?
Justin:Who who posted that one? Okay. Mario, take it away.
Mario:Yeah. So funny story. I wanna say it was like 3 years ago. We went to Turks and Caicos, and we you know, it was a really nice vacation. My wife wanted to take a lot of pictures.
Mario:She bought this, like, waterproof case. I think she had the waterproof case from the year before, so she brought it with her. Literally, we got there. We took an early flight in. We checked in at the hotel, but the room wasn't ready.
Mario:So we changed and hopped, you know, one way to the beach. And literally an hour into the Being on the resort, she didn't close the case correctly, and she dropped the water right into the ocean. And, on there, you know, her computer her phone was completely, shot. And I told her, my car well, I guess we we're gonna have to buy a new phone and restore your backup. She's like, did you back up my phone?
Mario:Like Oh, shit. Why would I back up your phone? It's your phone. And she didn't she didn't have anything backed up. You know?
Mario:So my the whole point of this is back up your phone, back up your computer before you go. Because in the event something happens your way or something, you wanna rest assure, like, alright. Maybe it will be inconvenient for a week, but when you get back, you don't wanna have to sit there and and and have to restore or figure out what you you're missing. And she's she's, you know, she's in the medical field, so she has a lot of medical apps on her on her. She doesn't have, like, charts and stuff like that on there, but, you know, to figure out the dosages and stuff like that, like, you know, you have to she she had to reinstall all that stuff.
Mario:And if you know my wife, she doesn't remember one password that she has for any app. You know?
Justin:Well, first, you've gotta remember which apps to even reinstall. That's that's kinda that can be tricky.
Mario:Yeah.
Justin:So
Mario:Yeah. You're she spent weeks trying to, like, as she's going, oh, yeah. I don't have this app. I have to redownload. And then, oh, what's my login?
Mario:And what's this? And, you know, and 2 factor authenticate like, 2 factor when you have to reset a 2 factor authentication or move it to a new device.
Justin:Oh, god. That is a pain in the ass. Oh my god. That's such a pain in the ass. Yes.
Justin:And I I'm gonna see your story and raise you one because I, and this was years years ago, but, do not check your bags if the bag is nothing but a laptop case with a laptop in it. Turns out that the airline is not able to deliver those. The, baggage handlers just take those right home, and they have no record of it. And, oh, I'm sorry. We don't cover electronic devices.
Justin:Yeah. Are you sure you even checked that, sir? Because we don't even know that it it's not on I don't know. I checked my laptop. Dumbest thing I ever did.
Justin:Never saw it again. And and what brought this to my mind, Mario, is that, we had a lot of family pictures on this, and they're gone. We didn't have a backup of it. They're they're gone. Yeah.
Justin:And, you know, luckily today, it's kind of a double edged sword, but a lot of this stuff is backed up automatically for us. So if you're using you know, I'm a I'm an Android guy, so on my phone, all of my images are automatically sent up to the the Google Cloud.
Bryan:Could be a good thing or a bad.
Justin:Well, that's what I was gonna say. For a lot of reasons, it can be a bad thing. But one one important thing is that it we become super complacent when this stuff is all done automatically for us. So, you know, maybe part of the checklist is just to make sure that, you know, the stuff that you need is backed up somewhere. And I don't know.
Justin:May maybe maybe some testing is going on there.
Bryan:I would like to add one thing about backing up, and it it has more to do if you're traveling to, what would be classified as an unsafe country. You probably should not be bringing any kind of data across with you. Right. So if you're traveling to, you know, countries that may not have the same rules, regulations, or privacy laws that we do, enjoy here in North America, you probably should bring a a loaner phone or a, you know, or even consider not bringing your laptop, because at the end of the day, when you bring devices into a country, you're beholden to their rules and their regulations, and, they can pretty much do whatever they want once they got you in there. Right?
Bryan:So I wouldn't personally bring my work phone with me if I was going to one of those places, or I would just format my phone and and and, you know, restore it when I get back to the back to the office. I know that sounds extreme, but, if you're dealing with, you know, if you're working for an organization like ours, where we have access to and and potentially access to hundreds of other networks and all of the proprietary information that they contain, it becomes a a real risk that, you know, if somebody were to take my laptop, for example, or my phone, and nowadays, of course, you know, you can just use face facial recognition or fingerprints. They they don't even need your permission to, your or, you know, grab your password from you. They can just force you. Right?
Bryan:And so I don't know. That's just my opinion. If you're going somewhere where it's an an unsafe country, just don't Take
Justin:a burner phone.
Bryan:Yeah. Exactly.
Justin:For reals, get a get a prepaid phone. Those aren't super expensive and travel with that. That's not a bad idea.
Mario:Yeah. Or an old phone. Like, you know,
Justin:I I don't know about you
Mario:guys, but when I get a new phone, I never do the trade in. You know? I'm like, what? You only wanna give me a $100 for it? I'll just keep you know?
Mario:Keep keep one of those old phones, you know, and then travel laptop. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Bryan:Have a travel laptop that I wipe before leaving and and has nothing on there when I
Mario:get travel wipe. You know? Like, I know the guys try to tend to travel light, but, you know, the wives are, you know, feels like they're moving in. But travel light, you know,
Justin:if you
Mario:don't need the all,
Justin:you know,
Mario:Your your iPad and your laptop.
Justin:That cuts me deep, Mario, because I'm, we've got a little gender reversal going on in my home. I am the guy that takes a great big fucking suitcase that I can barely carry. And and people always ask me, what the hell do you have in there? I'm like, I don't know. Just the essentials.
Justin:We're only going overnight, Justin. Well, so, I don't know. I I don't know how I managed to fill that thing up, but I do. I got a light. So I'm a Whatever I'm offended by your advice to travel light.
Justin:I'm the opposite.
Mario:You know, you don't need your phone and your iPad and your laptop, you know, and this and, you know
Justin:I can make a case for all of this. Goddamn it.
Mario:And, like, one thing I do is I will have, like, a travel wallet. You know? Like, I don't take, like, all, like, my normal wallet. I'll take just, like, 1 or 2 credit cards, you know, maybe my driver's license. I don't take all everything in there because you lose your wallet.
Mario:You know? It's it's a pain in the ass. You know? It's so Okay.
Justin:So I I know I'm telling a lot of stories today, but,
Bryan:Stories are good.
Justin:Hey. Brian, you you're familiar with at least some version of this story. And if you ask around in, what you know, in at the these conventions we go to, you'll hear about 17 different versions of it. But I did have the unfortunate eye opening experience 2 or 3 years back where I managed to misplace my my phone. Well, it was taken from me.
Justin:And we're not gonna get into any of the versions of the stories, but here's the problem. And this is my old phone. I just got a new one, and I haven't decided how I'm gonna handle this yet. But, anybody that's looking on the video or watching us. So my the back of my case opens up and there's my credit card, my debit card to my business, and my driver's license.
Justin:And this went away. I didn't have my phone. I didn't have my ID. I didn't have a credit. I had no payment methods.
Justin:I had no identification, and I had no way to communicate. That's a really bad day.
Bryan:Yeah.
Mario:Yeah.
Justin:So part of my checklist now is in a separate location, probably in a separate bag. So I've got my suitcase. I've got my phone, which doubles as my wallet. And then I I carry a backpack, which is where my laptop goes. And so I'll I'll put things in different locations.
Justin:So I've got cash. I've got at least 2 different credit cards. And, in addition to my bank card and Vaxel, my I probably should start leaving my bank card at home because you just don't need that when you're traveling. K. Do everything on credit cards.
Justin:And then, Yeah. I I wish I had a different, like, a backup phone. Like, you're saying bring in a old one or something where you can just transfer over to it. Yeah. All my 2 FA was on my phone that was gone.
Justin:So when I tried to log back in, I managed to get another phone, and I'm not gonna get into all the details because it's a really long story. So I get another phone, but I then I couldn't get Uber. You know, I'm I'm walking. I couldn't even call an Uber because I have no apps. I had to walk to the Verizon store, get a phone, and then I'm trying to get it all loaded back up.
Justin:I couldn't get into Uber, so I couldn't call. I had to walk back to the hotel. I mean, it it was just an absolute disaster. So, yeah, carry a backup communication device if you can. And, god, if you can have it already set up with 2 FA, you're miles ahead.
Justin:But then stash your stuff in different locations in case something does get stolen, then you have a backup to it. And and finally, the most important thing is take two forms of identification. I couldn't get back on the airplane. I didn't have my IT ID to get through security.
Bryan:Right.
Justin:And now when I travel, part of my checklist is I have got my my driver's license, and then in a separate location, I carry my passport. So those those were hard lessons I learned, once upon a time. So guys, I when we when we started up here this morning, I thought this is gonna be pretty quick. We'll get through it fast, and then I couldn't stop telling stories. We still have a few, a few points on here, but I'm just gonna throw it out to you guys.
Justin:What, what do you wanna talk about? Let's let's try to just wrap this up pretty quick. Give me your your best advice off of the list that we have left. And, Brian, I always go with you first, so I'm gonna punt this one to Mario. If if you'll start, Mario, just take 1 or 2 points, make them relatively quick.
Justin:Brian, I'm gonna turn it over to you, and then we're gonna go ahead and wrap up today.
Mario:Sure. Yeah. I mean, pretty much if you're working with an IT company, like our like us or, you know, another IT company, let them know you're traveling, especially if you're traveling outside the country because they should have in place, you know, certain settings, like, you know, 365 cannot be accessed or your email cannot be accessed, like, outside the country. And let them know that you're gonna be traveling for this period of time. So, a, if they see, you know, all of a sudden, like, Brian's laptop logged into, you know, Haiti in, you know, in in the Caribbean or somewhere, they know, like, alright.
Mario:That is Brian and that is him traveling. You know? So we'll see sometimes, like, these logins, you know, being trying to access from an another country, and we're automatically we have a setting to automatically block it, lock the account, and stuff like that. Let them know. So that way, they they, a, they take off the lock on your account, and, b, that they know that this if you're logging in to Spain or logging in to Italy or something like that, that they know that it it's you and that they they they're they don't have to lock you out, and then you have to go through all the steps of trying to communicate with them and trying to get your your account react.
Justin:Yeah. That one's becoming really important as we, wrap security around the, you know, Microsoft 365. Man, do you guys remember the days of the Exchange servers on prem? Whole different world. That that wasn't surprised
Mario:how many people still have that stuff on there.
Justin:Well, nobody that I do business with. So currently, I'm just saying none of my clients do. I I know they're out there, but I I don't currently deal with them. So, anyways, yeah, that that one's important. Let your IT company know what's going on so that we can remove but, you know, it's called geofencing.
Justin:We we lock you into certain locations so that if the bad guys who usually are overseas Right. Start trying to hit your account. There's no questions asked. We we shoot first and ask questions later. It's the account locked.
Justin:You're out. You can't do anything. And and then we get alerted, and we can start investigating. But that is a really important safety measure we have to take now. Yeah.
Justin:Alright. Brian?
Bryan:Okay.
Mario:Not much more than 60.
Bryan:Yeah. Oh, no. I I did have one more, and that is, it's it's it's kind of like people might think it's, like, overly cautious, overly,
Justin:you know,
Bryan:I can't think of the word I'm looking for here, like, conspiracy, but it it's it's a real thing. You really ought not to be using public charging cables to charge your laptops, like maybe your phone but be it even then you probably should use your own charging cable and I say that because today, they can embed electronics directly into the little dongle part of the the plug or into the cable, essentially. So if you find a cable on the ground or whatever and and and and or you you find, you know, a charging cable to plug into your laptop, just like you shouldn't plug in a USB key into your laptop, you shouldn't be plugging in charging cables that you don't if it especially if they're USB, not a regular, you know, charging cable, but a USB one, the USB c. If you plug that into your laptop, it's essentially could act as a keyboard and or a USB thumb drive, and it could upload, and or type, things into your computer when you're not looking. And and they can access, like, access them remotely.
Bryan:Like, you they could be somebody, like, you know, standing 10 feet away and they can see you use that cable, plug it in all of a sudden, you know, when your back is turned, they're they're injecting text or whatever into your into your computer, and it would literally take seconds. So just don't use, charging cables that you don't personally know and trust. And, yeah, that's it.
Mario:Yeah. Public charging. There's there's tons of YouTube videos about, like, these people that will show you, like, you plug into a public charging station and then you'll see what happens. It's like your your computer. I'm sorry.
Mario:Your phone ends up being, you know, mirrored or, you know, you'll have, like, spyware on there and stuff like that. It's actually it's actually very popular.
Justin:Well, and one of the countermeasures for that is that you can buy USB cables, charging cables that block data.
Bryan:Correct.
Justin:That only pass through the the charging Yep. Electricity and block all data, you know, communications. So, not a bad idea to have one of those. And I mean, airports is like your biggest place where at least where I find that, you know, because I spend a lot of time at airports, and I'm bored out of my mind, and I don't wanna use public Wi Fi, so then I fire up my hotspot, and then I kill my phone, and then I gotta find a place to charge it. And, oh, shit.
Justin:I I left my, my charging brick. You know, the charger head, whatever you wanna call it, is in my suitcase that I checked. You know, so you get into these situations where it's like, I've I've gotta do this, and I've got limited resources, and you start doing things that you wouldn't otherwise do or you you know you shouldn't do, but, you know, desperation. And damn it. That's where they get you.
Justin:So planning ahead. Checklist, guys. Checklist. I'm telling you as a as a pilot, former pilot, checklists are key.
Mario:Yeah. My problem too is I'll I'll have, like, a checklist, but I'll I'll try to go through all that checklist, like, the night before. You know, I'm like, you know, we're leaving Saturday morning. I'm trying to do everything at, like, Friday at 10 o'clock. And, you know, I still wanna go sleep early because we have to wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning, and I rush it, try to plan ahead, travel light, and, you know, be secure.
Justin:Yeah. I run through those checklist early because, yeah, you're right. Last minute, checklist if if you can't do something that's on your checklist, like, go out and buy a safe charging cable. A little bit too late. Exactly.
Mario:Yeah. Exactly.
Justin:Alright. Alright, guys. Listen. We're 45 minutes into this episode that I thought would last about 20 minutes. So although I've had a great time telling stories, I think it's time to say goodbye.
Justin:You guys, I'm gonna I'm gonna go around the room one more time, and this is just kind of a closing arguments, a sign off, a, a goodbye or whatever, and then and then we'll wrap. So, Brian, back to you for the first one.
Bryan:Yeah. Just, we're just closing off. Right? Like, we're
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. We're Yeah. Okay. Good.
Justin:This is this is a goodbye, and see you next week. Final thoughts. Key takeaway.
Bryan:Yeah.
Justin:Most important thing they need to remember. You know? Because 45 minutes, let's boil it down into 15 seconds. That's Alright.
Bryan:Well, my key takeaway is always just, when it comes to cybersecurity, when it comes to everything, to do with IT, just go look at it as a journey. Look at it as a it's not gonna be you can't do everything all at once. So just, take take one chunk at a time and and and chew it and and, just improve every single day. And, yeah, that's that's all I can I can say? Just just work towards improving everything.
Bryan:Learn, always be learning, and always be improving. Me too. Signing off, Brian.
Mario:So I'm Mario. Yeah. So, I mean, pretty much like what we said. Like, you know, if you're anything like me, when when it's travel time, you're you're it's a high stress time for me, you know, making sure everything is done and, you know, everything is secure. I've clean turned on the alarm, and I've done you know, turned on the lights, and I've packed this, and I've packed that.
Mario:It's already stressful. You know? So you wanna the last thing you wanna do is come back to a disaster, a cyber breach, or, you know, your your assistant now thought, you know, she can wire some, you know, people, like, all this money because they knew you're away. Just prepare, you know, try to get everything in line before you go, before you travel. Make sure your computer is up to date.
Mario:You know, antivirus, all that stuff is secure before you go. So that way, you can relieve some of that stress before you go and enjoy enjoy your trip.
Justin:Alright. And and my last piece of advice is try not to get robbed when you're out of town because getting on an airplane when you don't have an ID really sucks. In fact, it can't I I guess it can be done, but I didn't know that at the time. Had to rent a car and and drive home. Anyways, guys, checklist, checklist, checklist.
Justin:That's, that's kinda my sign off. I that's how I do it. Brian, I love your 1% better. And the way I do that is through, repeatable processes.
Bryan:Yeah.
Justin:So I do the same thing every time the same way. It annoys the shit out of people around me, but I haven't forgotten anything when I travel for a very long time. So and and make sure that security is at least on your mind when you're traveling and and take pick pick 1 or 2 of these things. If you can't do them all, just just pick a couple things where, you can you can make that small improvement. So that's what I've got guys.
Justin:Next week, we are going to talk about how to keep Mormon crickets out of your garden. And I'm looking for advice. I don't have any there. Are you guys familiar with Mormon crickets? No.
Justin:God, this here's another story that I shouldn't be telling, but, these little motherfuckers, they're monsters. I think they're, like, dinosaurs. They're they're probably, and I'm not kidding, 2 plus inches long. Brian, that's at least 5 centimeters. These these things I don't really know the con I know it's 2.54, but I'm not gonna do the math in my head.
Justin:But these things are beasts, and they invade by the 1,000,000. In fact, I've got pictures of them just coming down our road covering the road. The road looks like it's moving. We planted our garden this week, And listen, I've got a lot of stuff going on, a lot of stress, a lot of problems. And then we planted our garden on Tuesday night.
Justin:And Wednesday morning, we woke up to, crickets just eating the entire thing.
Bryan:Oh my god.
Justin:And then I jumped on a meeting and I snapped at Brian, and I had to apologize later because I was just like, it was for whatever reason, that was my tipping point, and I just lost my shit. I hate Mormon crickets so bad. I don't know why I
Mario:told you. I'm looking at these pictures. I mean, these things are like
Justin:They're they're beasts. And look up Northern Nevada because that's where they're at right now. It they make headline news. They just destroy everything in their path. It is an absolute nightmare.
Justin:They take over your house. They, like, climb the walls. Oh my god. It's it's disgusting. Okay.
Justin:So on that happy note, guys, we're gonna wrap up. We're not really gonna talk about Mormon crickets next week, probably, except I will bitch about them. And and I don't even have our topic for next week, so I'm looking for, feedback if you guys have any. Hit us up on LinkedIn or not LinkedIn, Facebook. We've got a a Facebook page there where you can chat with us.
Justin:Go to unhacked dot live. All of our social media links are there. Schedule an appointment. Just guys, if if you just seriously wanna talk about any of the points that we've discussed on any of these podcast episodes, we're all willing to do that. No strings attached.
Justin:So, we always have the offer of the free assessment. We have free consultations. We really yes. We all wanna grow our businesses. We wanna make money.
Justin:This is not philanthropy, but we do genuinely want to help people out. So that is my sign off on hacked dot live. We will see you guys next week. Brian, Mario, thanks for joining us. See you guys.
Justin:Thank you. Bye, guys.
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