Security lessons from the Woofmutt

assuming you want those oh hell yes what is it do I ask I don't know sell it Cheers mmm I'm not I'm just this is getting drunker too civilized right oh this is good all right no don't do that I've got little weapons that I can have fun with I better shut up I'm gonna wait Kelly no do not drink all the damn whiskey all right I'll keep talking all right we're gonna little bit of fun this is a completely different talk I've I've showed me down for here and it's something that's non-technical and we'll go through some second in a minute so how many of you don't know who the heck I am on this one a couple so yeah put

your bloody hand down so some general talking notes I do come with a warning label mostly on certain airlines I am always distracted by shiny things there's a logical reason why the squirrel is on the screen for the most of the time as is noted with always I can normally be bribed with a good scotch no it is not bloody Australian accent and every now again people make Welsh jokes and it involves sheep and stuff so here is what the talk is about this year recently about a year ago ended up rescuing a couple of dogs this is Daisy when we rescued her she's a four year old she's now five this is Milo the

complete doofus he was four months old when we rescued him he's just turned a year Rob the reason I have these bracelets on is not to look cool I am the chew toy I am the only chew toy that's allowed and we'll go through the other stuff this is the snack size dog that's a hundred and fifty pound now that's 12 pound like a little chew toys like uncle and then that was the one that kicked it all off that was a friend's one that we looked at now why the hell are we talking about dogs at a hacker conference here's the logic this the world around us arguably is broken let's be perfectly honest there is

nothing that we can't break into there's nothing that we can't hack and there's very little that keeps us out of absolutely anything so what do we tend to do well we talk about this [ __ ] all the damn time and it's great and we stand up and go hey look I broke shedded sky like all know actually how about we fix it for a problem but this isn't about the technology and isn't about the industry today well this is and I'll put a disclaimer in here if you're looking for me to stand up and talk about basically turning ships over and talk to me afterwards about that we'll talk about how to go to SATCOM to navigation

to the ballast control system of shipping if anybody feels like having some fun with that but this isn't that talk this is a human talk and it's kind of started off with me in the last 12 months taking a bit of an introspective look at myself partly because of the dogs and partly because I'm just some other stuff that's going on in life and what I'm up to and quite honestly I sat down and I came up with these I'm broken I ually he had a lot of ugly arguably quite honestly a lot of us are probably feeling this way a lot of us in the industry are feeling this way especially those of us who have maybe got the extra

odd bit of gray hair or two and the challenge on it his most of us don't like the idea of somebody analyzing us most of us don't like the fact that somebody's going to come and ask us all sorts of interesting questions that maybe we don't necessarily want to answer so then the challenges is what do we want what do we need and how do we actually take that from an internal conversation to something else for me this is what I came up with now there's a caveat that gums with this getting a dog the reason to get a dog is just a cuddle bunny is not a very good reason to get a dog especially if you end up

getting Great Danes they poo the size of mountains and they do it regularly and you have to get a service to clean it up and they eat more than we do all the time and maybe boom or the other thing as well I've got a family I've got a daughter my fight with my inner demons is not her thing that she has to worry about I don't need her to be concerned about that only the rest of the tribe to be concerned about this is stuff I need to figure out and the same thing if I go woof mutts I travel a lot I put people in place to help out with this etcetera etcetera so let's take a look at the

lessons I've learned from the dog's perspective over the last 12 months some interesting stuff truth be true to who we really are this is something as an industry we're not very good at doing and it's something when we talk to organizations and companies that we're not good at doing from a woof mutts perspective there's no hiding they will look straight into your soul so the argument sometimes is when you look in the mirror and when you project yourselves out to organizations and companies how can you hold that truth to who you actually are other things I learn this is great I am off the regime that jumps off the cliff and figures [ __ ] out on the way

down I'd argue that some of us in the room are the same way but sometimes you do want to actually look before you leap point encase don't tweet on aeroplanes

we all talk about human and social engineering but there are some amazing people out there I mean you've got Nickerson you a hag Nadia there's probably some fantastic people here as well but my good grief some of the best social engineers I now have is a hundred and fifty pound slobbering puppy I'm pretty sure if I took them on some more of the engagements we have I can probably get into absolutely anything I want to because it's like who are that's so cute as you walk into they're building something else that I've watched and observed this is snow I don't know if you get this here no I figured as much all you get you get

moisture in the air and it just stays in the bloody air and then attaches to the clothing this is the first time Milo saw snow he came out of the back door out of the kitchen and went at full speed into the garden after the first ten yards he opened his mouth and he was like a snow plow and it was head down high through the snow to try and figure out what the hell this stuff was and just kept on truckin in human language it's all about trying new and different things as hackers we're very good sometimes they're doing that but there are other times when we tend to take a step back and we get very comfortable in who we

are what we are and we don't necessarily experience or we don't want to embrace different experiences my challenge here is challenge yourselves to do differ I'll make sure these slides are available I will however the hell I need to get them out there I'll make sure they're there for folks this this bugger has decided that my Vibrams make a good chew toy when they were on the ground in that room I closed the door he figured out how to open the thing so I put the Vibrams up on a shelf he figured out how to get up to the shelf then I put him up to the top and then one day I heard this

almighty crash because he'd managed to basically balance himself on one shelf and then turn and try to jump up and turn the entire Vibram pile on him head this is the result again sometimes in life we don't necessarily want the failure but there's some times we have to keep trying and keep trying and keep trying and this is my way of saying I look at him and I go you know not a bad way of doing it this is another one communications we are good at communicating amongst ourselves we're not necessarily good at communicating to businesses and to people around us and I'm not just talking about technical things I'm talking about life in general so how can

we learn to be better at communication dogs are simple wet-nosed a six o'clock in the morning means you need to feed me wet nose at midday means feed me again wet nose at 6:00 o'clock means you bloody well late feed me again it's simple by the door I don't bother with the dog we've got a dog door that I can fit through they can come in and out but simple easy communications now for those of us that have the military background there is another way of actually dealing with communications which is this one quite professional but always have a plan to kill everybody this one is what I love seize the moment this dumbass decided to play fetch and fight with an

old cardboard tube the dog was like hey that cardboard tube used to be inside a toll I can just help myself to the toilet rolls which is exactly what he did dude the toilet rolls to get to the car but you didn't care about the paper stuff wanted the cardboard out of it took an opportunity seize the opportunity owned the opportunity and then went with it in life we don't always do that sometimes we are a little too cautious responsibility this one's a biggie we all screw up I am the poster child for screwing up I have been yelled at by feds I've been yelled at by things I've done good with companies I've screwed up companies my job is to help

you figure out not to make the same bloody mistakes all of us in here need to do the same thing as you run into a mistake as you screw it up tell people around you it's the way we learn talking about people around you be yourself I turn up with a blue beard a freakin killed and vibrance I am a hot mess and I don't care I'm comfortable and I'm happy be true to who you are think about that adhere to that now this is the big one because even though you've explained to the dog you'd rather they didn't you [ __ ] up all the time occasionally they still do it from our standpoint in our industry this whole

get a plan is something that unfortunately we're not used to and we're not good at communicating what happens when something goes wrong we know it from the incident response plan how many of you are an incident response where you walk in here ie show me all your logs and they're like you know we wish we had some of those so that's from the dogs perspective let's take a look at it from the human's perspective this one is a biggie we have three dogs two piggies and the small snack sized one accordingly they'll think that the same size they'll act the same way when people come into the house they very quickly size them up and they're either happy or they sit

there and they will not take their eyes off of them but for me the big thing is we all need to be better accepting everybody for who they are look past the color the face and everything else this is a biggie we're at a security conference we know that there are challenges freaking respect boundaries it's all I'm going to say about that one this my dog doesn't care I have a whiskey tasting of the house like every six to eight weeks and I got people over all shapes sizes colors orientations I don't give a [ __ ] none of you should none of us in this industry should dogs don't whine oh hell don't we learn from them more

effectively this one's the biggie for me non-verbal communication this doesn't just go to social engineering goes to reading people around you this one has helped me a lot when I'm talking to industry and I'm talking to people around me and I'm trying to explain what's going on what's happening how are we doing the whole concept of nonverbal communication came home to me Daisy she was about four years old when we got her I can't explain to her that she's in a safe place now she has I have to listen to her cues that she doesn't give me after watch the ears the nose the tail the fur everything I had to learn an entire different language each one of

you in business and in industry should learn these nonverbal communication cues it will help you immeasurably get a dog and learn from them as well how many of you've got dogs or kids it's kind of the same thing really at some point awesome you although you can't cage kids all the time not all the time sometimes this one I am useless at and I'm trying to get better and all of us probably need to improve a little bit more on this one I can be ruled by emotion my emotions on a regular basis but sometimes we do need to sit down and figure out why take that moment take that pause and actually respect those

thoughts so and down to a minute so we're running through these we're running through them good the heart of the matter what do we care about this for me holy crap never underestimate the need for a bloody good hug that twenty seconds of being smothered basically I can't explain it I come back from a trip I come back from a crappy system I get to hug the wolf mud we each need to find what it takes for us to take a step away from the world sometimes it's music sometimes in my case it's the wolf mud each of you needs to find something where you can take that step away I do a lot of diving and I go there's a lake I

go to in the US where we got a house and I'll just hang out on the water for a couple of hours that's another quiet place for me so each of you I urge you especially given the complexities of this world that we have in the craziness that most of us are in find that happy time running low on time alright this how many of you actually think you get enough sleep yeah alright I'm in the same boat I suck at it this I I mean a he doesn't fit in the chair but he manages to fit in the chair we have to get better at looking after ourselves we suck at it but we've got to get away if we can't

look after ourselves how the hell are we meant to look after those around us our job as security people is to look after the charges that we are responsible for inside organizations that mill aside the dog off site it's our job we have to do a better job of it because you know what this is how I learn the lesson that is actually a six plus foot beanbag the daisy's just hanging out on another biggie never ever I mean I can't explain this one as easy as opposed to begun I don't know we all need to treat each other with a little bit more respect and a hell of a lot more compassion I can't

explain this one more this one's the interesting when nothing's forever live every single moment we in this industry have a hell of an attrition rate it's not good it's not helping us and we need to get better at figuring out how we can actually help each other more effectively and from my standpoint I look at the dogs Daisy has maybe a seven to eight year life expectancy I chose awesome big dogs because I can wrestle with them but it freaking sucks because their life span is so short my job and my responsibility is to give that animal the best life it possibly can for as long as you possibly can our roles is to look after each other

and help each other and make sure that all of those around us have the same attitude turn the [ __ ] electronics off sometimes step away and enjoy life says the people sitting there with their electronics on yeah working on it reality check I'm almost there they're worse things in life the muddy paws I learned this one first time that the dogs came racing through a muddy paws oh my god Mike oh [ __ ] now I just don't care I put the rumbles on I tell the girl fetch the muddy paws stuff during uncertainty I'll run through this one this one is a big one appreciate life sometimes we all have to stop and basically smell the

roses or in the dogs case smell the fire hydrant again a six and a half foot sofa so let's wrap it all up very quickly this has to be our future it's gonna take all of us it isn't just a security problem a safety problem it isn't it's going to take all of us to solve the issues and challenges we have therefore we all have to work more effectively together communicate more effectively work more effectively you get the idea why because this is the one breaking the [ __ ] is easy figure out how to fix it so I like this one we're all in this together we don't have an option we don't have a choice get over it

figure out how to work more effectively together and figure out how to look after each other please it's gonna take all of us because this is how it is we can't do this as individuals we can do this if we work together so I managed to do it in a little bit more than 15 minutes as always to Douglas Adams quote as I said not a technical conversation but very much one we need to think about as humans there's a whole set of discussions at Def Con that are talking about mental health please pay attention to them look after yourself please look after those around you look after the family that we are we're little

dysfunctional as a family but this is a family look after each other and with that thank you very very much [Applause]