Podcast Episode 4: Roombas, Guns, and Money - Pornhub, in Splendid Isolation

Podcast Episode 4 show notes:

This week we learn about the website that will keep humanity sane and safe during this worldwide quarantine, and beyond.

Absolutely not sponsored by PornHub.

Before the episode, Robin mentioned that she found a great certification for n00bs and career-switchers, IT Fundamentals+ (ITF+):

--CompTIA website: https://www.comptia.org/certifications/it-fundamentals 

--Free full ITF+ course with ITProTV: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc6zqGSJMvCSQ3djLlfS_2LnliS-Q-FKV

Terms used:

DDOS Attack: a malicious attempt to reduce the target system's availability; often involves the use of botnets (see below)

DNS: Domain Name Service; aids Internet users by resolving plain-language URLs (such as www.securityzed.com) into the IP address of the machine hosting the intended content (the securityzed blog and podcast)

Botnet: a group of machines, often quite large (sometimes, thousands of devices), used to perform some less-than-legitimate activity (DDOS attacks, reporting inflated ad clicks/link calls to generate ad revenue, performing mathematical work to try to crack password/credentials/content that has been encrypted, etc.); typically, the owner of each device in the botnet is not even aware that their device is participating.

Internet of Things: Current trade name for consumer products that have an IP address but main purpose is to function in the physical world, not as compute/storage devices.

If you are a nerd and like physics, cats, and weaponized vacuums, check out William Osman on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7haDZWR3MYU

Brian Krebs, INFOSEC rockstar and the target of the giant Mirai attacks (as well as his hosting service, DYN), discussing all the topics associated with Mirai: https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/mirai-botnet/

SecurityWeek article about the Mirai attacks, which includes PornHub's DNS redundancies/mapping: https://www.securityweek.com/whats-fix-iot-ddos-attacks

A good background on what DNS is and how it works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_hosting_service

Holiday Tidings

In the United States, where I live, it is that time of the year when we celebrate our culture by honoring one of our most-loved traditions: the government issues a vague, amorphous, threat about how terrorists are plotting imminent attacks meant to destroy our way of life.

Happy holidays, everybody.