AppSecBloke

InfoSec

Closing Time

Seven years, four conferences, myriad gigs and podcasts, and a lockdown remedy during COVID. In one way or another life changing for everyone concerned. Oh and thousands raised for various charities. Not bad. On that note, this post is to announce that The Beer Farmers are no more. They have

InfoSec

The Times They Are A Changin'

I like my music references. Some are subtle. Some aren't. In this post I'll talk about 2022, in the context of The Beer Farmers. I chose the cover photo (of the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, UK) for a few reasons. One reason is that I crept

InfoSec

We're Back! Sort Of.

2020 was all about the theme in this cover image. 2021 was a slight improvement for everyone, although that thing still lurked. COVID, of course. For those that remember, and let's face it we all do, when signs like the one above started to appear in places like

InfoSec

2020 - Cave Life: Part III

This is the last of the 'Cave Life' series, but it contains some important stuff that I and my fellow Beer Farmers got involved in, that brought us towards the end of lockdown and into more familiar territory. Having wound InfoSec Happy Hour down and all that stuff,

InfoSec

2020 - Cave Life: Part II

I like the cover image, because yes it's a cave, but also because the contributor is Kiwi Thompson. Our Leopard Gecko is called Kiwi Thompson. So, that's nice. Anyway, this post will focus on InfoSec Happy Hour and the material impact it had during the darker

InfoSec

2020 - Cave Life: Part I

2020 started a bit like 2019 ended. Weird. The Beer Farmers had completed our first BeerCon event and that was cool, on the back of a busy year gigging and podcasting. I'd been quite ill before we rocked BeerCon1 and it's not really got much better

InfoSec

From Safety To Where?

Earlier today, The Beer Farmers shared a post I wrote way back in 2019. It was a sort of retrospective of that year, and it covered our and my own adventures in cyber. You can read it here. I say "way back", because it is a long time

Mike

Media Things

This post contains various links to press articles I've contributed to, as well as other media, including recordings of talks I've been involved in.

InfoSec

Being There (Tales of A Beer Farmer)

A meandering review of six months of being a member of The Beer Farmers.

Mike

Adventures In Music: Episode II

In the first follow up to my reflection on my time in the music industry, I talk about late 2008 and the amazing experience it was.

InfoSec

Everyone, Everywhere

In this post, I talk about my experiences in the information security community, particularly focusing on characters and behaviours. It might be interesting, so read on.

Mike

Adventures In Music: Episode I

I did say that at some stage I'd write about my relatively brief career in the music industry, so here's where it started.

Cons

(AppSec) Bloke On Film!

I've now done a few public talks, and finally I can prove it.

Cons

From Punter to Speaker: BSides London

My journey began back in August 2017, when I attended my first InfoSec conference. 10 months later I delivered my first talk. This post covers that story.

GDPR

Achieving GDPR Compliance: Episode VII - Business As Usual

So, we made it. May 25th arrived and we're all exhausted. But, we're all still here!

InfoSec

Killing Bad Encryption

If your run a website, early TLS is bad. If you run a payment service, early TLS is about to be outlawed. Read on.

Cons

Nae bother. Another BSides!

I've written before about my experiences at InfoSec conferences, and last week I attended another. Here's my take on BSides Scotland.

GDPR

Achieving GDPR Compliance: Episode VI

As we're now just a few weeks away from May 25th, here's a fresh update on where we're at on our journey towards GDPR compliance.

AppSec

If You Make It, Don't Forsake It

When you build something, you want it to stand the test of time, right? In this post, I'll examine why that actually doesn't always happen.

GDPR

Achieving GDPR Compliance: Episode V

In this post, I talk about the goings on since our independent audit in November and the new date in our diaries.

Cons

(Not Just) Another InfoSec Conference

So, I've written before about attending InfoSec conferences, how they roll and make me feel. Here's my take on BSidesLeeds.

InfoSec

Patch All The Things

In this post, I'll argue the case for ensuring that as much as is physically possible, systems and underlying platforms and infrastructure are kept as up to date as possible.

AppSec

Monitoring the Baddies

In this post, I provide some insight into how I keep tabs on the bad actors hitting up the web applications I care about.

GDPR

Achieving GDPR Compliance: Episode IV - A New Audit

I know, it's a rubbish Star Wars pun, but I couldn't resit. In this post, I talk about the mechanics of our external audit and how it went.

Cons

InfoSec Conferences - Attending versus Speaking

I shoved in a speculative submission to BSidesLeeds to give a talk about web application firewalling (WAF). Here's how it went.