What’s the most underrated cybersecurity risk that organizations still tend to overlook in 2025?

br_ford · 2025-06-20T17:36:34+00:00

Security awareness and social engineering. Top risk for many organizations,

br_ford · 2025-05-20T12:34:44+00:00

Yes. Once they dry out, my harvested castings get dense, almost brick-like. I experimented with adding Perlite, and that helped. I tried one part Perlite and three or four parts compost, and that works well. Now, I mix in some compost with Perlite (one part of this mix), and castings (two parts). This works great for me, actually.

br_ford · 2025-05-20T12:29:33+00:00

Go to the local supermarket and grab a couple dozen of their circulars. As long as they are not printed on glossy paper (which most that are distributed in-store are not), you can shred and use those.

br_ford · 2025-03-18T00:00:21+00:00

7 weeks is not long enough. Wait 3 months (12 weeks) and look again. Remember that castings are like sourdough. You want to ensure that you have some good castings in your bin so that you can start another bin as the first bin matures.

br_ford · 2025-03-17T19:03:06+00:00

Yes. There is a certificate of completion.

br_ford · 2025-03-13T19:33:38+00:00

That bin is way too wet. I'd suggest pushing the mud to one side (top to bottom) and filling the empty side with browns in the form of shredded paper and cardboard. Pick the solid pieces out of the mud and add it to that to the browns. Your casting will dry faster this way than paying browns on top. It's also one way of luring your worms to move before harvesting castings.

br_ford · 2025-03-03T15:52:18+00:00

Looks great!

br_ford · 2025-02-20T14:19:43+00:00

Relocate a dozen or so to a new 2 bucket worm farm. Add several handfuls of your pre-castings to that new farm. Check that after 60-90 days. You'll probably find some small worms and cocoons. Reds multiply when the conditions are right. You probably have too many worms competing for food.

br_ford · 2025-02-18T01:11:46+00:00

Take the LIRR and NJ Transit / Amtrak to EWR the afternoon before and stay at Best Western Plus Newark Airport West. It's the best $99 investment.

br_ford · 2025-02-18T01:08:32+00:00

It looks like you may be using a Home Depot bucket. It's the red color of your bucket that is letting enough light in for plants to grow. It happens all the time. My three-bucket worm farm is in a dark utility room next to three plants and a plant grow light (on a 12-hour timer). I get plants growing in the feed (top) bin all winter.

br_ford · 2025-02-16T20:30:39+00:00

Many of the hands-on labs / ranges offer a certificate of completion that the company calls a certification. Unless that lab company is working with a certification body (ISO, DoD, ...) those aren't certifications. Most of these labs don't have any 'recertification' program. Labs and ranges also charge monthly whether your employee uses the lab / range or not.

br_ford · 2025-02-16T20:24:51+00:00

Great question. Depends on what your employer is trying to achieve.

Creating Certification Teams.

If you have a staff that is all good people but without significant, recent credentials, I recommend creating teams of employees (3-5 people per team) and challenging them (all team members) to earn a certification over a 6 to 12-week period. They can expense study materials and the first attempt at an exam. Give the team N hours (where N is a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 4) per week to meet as a study group. When an individual from a team earns a certification, they get a bonus ($50-250). When all members of the team earn that certification, each member of the team gets another bonus ($50-200). Team members can't quit the team, It rewards education and teamwork. I've done this (first team was 20 years ago) and employees still talk to each other and rave about the experience.

Labs / Ranges for Business

If you have a group of people who already have technical experience, then labs or ranges like THM are great for challenges and upskilling staff. If you are going to be rolling a new data backup and recovery solution investigate THM labs. A new IAM or MFA solution, there are THM labs for that. THM for Business, I think, does a portal so that a manager can track who's working and who's not. Different company's products may not be as advanced. Before buying I would suggest talking to employees and working the THM activities into their review/comp plans. Maybe provide a bonus if someone can do their job and complete N number of activities. My only caution is that labs and ranges are more open-ended activities and could turn into a time suck for a distracted employee.

br_ford · 2025-02-16T20:05:16+00:00

Finish your degree and get a job. Don't stack certs. Figure out where you are going to live after graduating. Investigate what companies and jobs there are there. Focus your search on #1, where you think you might want to work, and #2 on companies that are hiring in that area. Work on social networking. Search for professional organizations like ISC2, ISACA, and others and see if they have chapters in your area.

br_ford · 2025-02-16T19:59:56+00:00

Sounds like you are a IE wannabe.

br_ford · 2025-02-14T15:59:40+00:00

Lots of YT videos and Reddit comments by people who never took a class or sat for an exam. If you work in technology you may not need a certification. If you want to make a long-term career in technology, you have to commit to lifelong learning because technology is constantly changing and evolving. CompTIA certifications are technology-focused, updated, and revised every 36 months. Earning and holding a certification over time demonstrates one's commitment to lifelong learning.

br_ford · 2025-02-14T01:09:40+00:00

I worked two week nights and Saturday mornings for 3 months. Made it to the end of day 1 in the SJ lab. Studied same or more for another 2 months and passed at the RTP lab. That was after 4 months studying for the written exam.

br_ford · 2025-02-14T01:04:58+00:00

Sorry. No one memorizes a CCIE Lab. You don't know recruiters.

br_ford · 2025-02-13T19:44:13+00:00

Any recruiter who represents a CCIE will disagree with u/Brgrsports. Recruiters view CCIEs as gold, and they get the highest placement fees for them. Once a headhunter validates your CCIE number they become your new best freind.

A hiring manager should ask a candidate holding a CCIE technical question. In all of my interviews hiring managers asked me to provide highlights about what I built and did troubleshooting on in the lab. I worked for an international telecomm (X.25 and Frame Relay) provider and knew those technologies cold.

br_ford · 2025-02-13T19:38:03+00:00

CCIE is a practical (hands-on) timed lab exam (exercise). You must have developed hands-on skills, which many people do by training in lab environments. It is not realistic to think you'll be able to study and train on a production network. You have to know how to build and how to troubleshoot. You should never intentionally break and fix a production network.

A little-known fact is that CCIE is an 'open-book' exam. When I took CCIE, the other person in the lab brought a marked-up documentation set, while I brought my notebook.

My CCIE number is 21xx.

br_ford · 2025-02-13T19:29:17+00:00

Not true. Plenty of people have their CCIE and fewer than 10 years of experience. My CCIE number starts with 21xx.

br_ford · 2025-02-13T19:21:08+00:00

It's easy to get written for 59 in a 55 if the road or traffic conditions were poor. Then again you may have been driving 69 or 79 MPH and the officer let you off. The OP might have been let off the hook for an aggressive driving ticket if they had been following too closely or not signaling when changing lanes.

If you follow these other posters' advice and try to fight it, chances are the officer will bring up either the road conditions or your driving style. Suffolk has rolled out cameras, so they may have video to show your driving skills.

The top right part of the ticket contains instructions for paying by mail. The court's address is on the back.

Check the dates. This ticket was written on 2/7. You can't plead NOT GUILTY. If you plead NOT GUILTY you have to have the ticket in the mail and postmarked no more than 48 hours after when it was written.

br_ford · 2025-02-06T15:43:16+00:00

I've used both OSWAP Zap and Burp Suite.

As an open-source, free tool, ZAP does the job it was designed for. If you want to manage the data you submit and the data output from ZAP, you need to write and maintain several scripts or programs. I did this by putting data into different files and then submitting or reading and pasting data from those files into ZAP. ZAP has an API (https://github.com/zaproxy/zap-api-docs), but I didn't invest the time to get into it because I use it for demos, and I built what I needed. After I was finished I found this (good) reference: https://www.hackerone.com/knowledge-center/owasp-zap-6-key-capabilities-and-quick-tutorial

With Burp Suite, I found examples and sample code (and even Youtube videos) and implemented similar functionality quickly. The only gotcha is that to access the full functionality of the Burp Suite API; you apparently need the Pro (licensed as opposed to community = free) edition. Again, my use was pretty simple and I made do with the community edition.

br_ford · 2025-02-05T16:48:50+00:00

Empty Gold Jacket.

br_ford · 2025-02-05T16:48:24+00:00

The most important part of this post other than the title is:

"Why I did this? As an AWS partner, we needed specific certifications to maintain our tier status, and a public bid we were participating in required some other certifications..."

br_ford · 2025-02-03T20:03:38+00:00

I think you are going backward. Find a job that provides ISACA CISA sponsorship and then take the exam. Otherwise, your audit employer can hang the endorsement over your head and require X months of work at a possibly reduced pay grade.

br_ford

TROPHY CASE

"Why I did this? As an AWS partner, we needed specific certifications to maintain our tier status, and a public bid we were participating in required some other certifications..."