20 for 2020: “Beer & Cybersecurity”

In Milwaukee for a live taping of the fabulous Manufacturing Happy Hour with Chris Luecke, and had to take advantage of being right at the historic Pabst Brewery.

So, what do beer & cybersecurity have in common?

Well, honestly, mostly nothing. But not entirely nothing.

In 1516, Germany passed the Reinheitsgebot; this law ensured that any beer brewed in Germany would be made with only four ingredients: water, barley, hops, and yeast.

You see, wayward brewers had been ‘hacking’ the brewing process by trying to alter the taste & color of the beer with harmful additives like sawdust, dirt, or even manure.

The German law drew a boundary around what was acceptable practice and filtered out the things that weren’t approved.

Today’s episode is about network boundary defenses. Fundamentally, they do the same thing: they ensure the “purity” of your network traffic, and keep harmful additives (like malware) out of your network.