Security, IT
Jason MIller
EDR Testing and Evaluation is a PITA
General, Security
Jason MIller
If you don’t have IAM(Identity Access ...

IAM (Identity and Access Management) is important because it helps organizations control who has access to their resources, and what actions those users can perform. This is essential for maintaining the security and integrity of sensitive data, and for complying with regulatory requirements. IAM also makes it easier for organizations to manage user access across multiple systems and services, and to quickly revoke access when necessary. Additionally, IAM enables organizations to implement a "least privilege" model, where users only have the permissions they need to do their jobs, which can help prevent accidental or malicious breaches.

If you don’t have IAM(Identity Access Management system) get one!
Culture
Jason MIller
Angry, hurt, and sad

Black lives matter and these are a few of my thoughts

Image credit:[George Floyd’s Death At The Hands Of Police Is A Terrible Echo Of The Past: Code Switch: NPR](https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865261916/a-decade-of-watching-black-people-die)

Angry, hurt, and sad
Recaps, General
Jason MIller
2018 A year in review

A 2018 review of my year.

General
Jason MIller
Be wary when traveling

Macbrained

JNUC 2015 - Day 1

I am writing today from JNUC 2015, in Minneapolis, MN. JNUC stands for Jamf Nation User Conference. It's a 3-day conference centered around everything Casper Suite. JAMF Software model is "Helping the enterprise succeed with the Apple platform." This motto greatly aligns with my personal vision for helping an IT organization. Over 1,500 people have come from all over the world to share the experiences with Casper Suite, Casper Focus, and Composer. I am excited to be afforded the opportunity to share, explore, and learn about new ways to utilize the software. Today there were talks on System Integrity Protection, by Rich Trouton, JAMF Software Security, and Vulnerability Assessments, by Daniel Mayer, and Novel Solutions with JAMF IT, by Byron Terrell of JAMF Software. The agenda had plenty of other talks, but those were the three that caught my eye and attention. For a complete listing of talks navigate to the JNUC 2015 Sessions schedule.

One final note, I attended a talked "Culture Matters: Casper Suite for People Who Fear Going Corporate." This was an interesting talk because it centered around the idea of managing a people who aren't used to be being managed. It is an interesting idea of how to get everyone "on board" while ensuring IT is ensuring a safe environment. Four statements stood out from the talk:

  • Things they'll be able to do
  • Things we'll be able to do
  • Things we won't be able to do
  • What will they say at lunch?

These are all value points to consider when dealing with any users/staff/engineers etc...When managing or providing services to client devices ensure you explain the top three items and think about what people are saying about your service during lunch because it may not be the right thing.

Lastly, Macbrained threw an awesome, or what I think was awesome, event at Day Block Brewery. Well Over 140 people showed up to have beers, food, and great conversation centered around tech and life. As a disclaimer I do help organize the Macbrained events. Overall it was a great day and I look forward to all the sessions and conversations on day 2.

We are stronger as a Whole

Macbrained's November meeting was held at Salesforce. This meet up was a bit different from the events we've held previously. Normally we have a guest speaker talk about a topic of their choice, then we network. This time around we still networked however we held to panels: General I.T. and Security. We took questions from the the community via Google Moderator and Macbrained FB page. Here is a sample of the questions the community submitted:

  • AV Software on a Mac, is it there for legit reasons, or just for compliance?
  • What are the top security threats for OS X right now?
  • Binary white listening is becoming a thing on OS X, rolling it to a mac user base is likely to cause bigger waves than a Windows based userbase that is used to having restricted rights etc. Anyone have a plan?
  • What type of aggregate syslog collection/analysis is everyone using?

These are some of the questions that were answered during the panel. There were followers on Twitter who chimed in with responses as well. Answers consisted of AV is for compliance more than protection, check out Google Santa Open Source program, and users should attempt to utilize Facebooks OS Query. 

Communities help expose people to resources to help them accomplish their goals and gives people a chance to give back. Those goals can entail scripting, new ideas of how to implement or solve a problem, someone to bounce ideas off of, or just someone to lean on. 

Do you belong to any communities? Do you give back to the open source community? Here are some images from the Macbrained November Meet-Up. 

Security Panel, General I.T. Panel, and the Macbrained Family 

Hackathon

User communities are really important to me. It is like a tight nit village of people who want to see one another succeed and are willing to help whoever comes into village. Macbrained had a community event called a Hackathon. We tasked people to create a tool that the community will benefit from and is open source. There were some amazing entries into the competition. The group that won were the members from the Linde Group. They created a tool called autopkgr, which is a GUI application for autopkg. For those who don't like the terminal or scripting, autopkgr has nice automation tools built-in, that can make the life of a sysadmin a bit easier. It was a great event at Square Up who have an amazing space in downtown San Francisco. I again recommend user groups for those trying to get into the field because there are plenty of people who are willing to teach. Which user groups do you belong to?

The Linde Group & Autopkgr

The Linde Group & Autopkgr

The Travel Guys & Radar

The Travel Guys & Radar

Midnight Marauders & IT Health Manager 

Midnight Marauders & IT Health Manager 

Macbrained & Evernote

Evernote....Eernote California Remember Everything

In my post last week I talked about finding a user group that can help you and allow you to contribute to the group as well. Well I went to an event on Wednesday March 6th with the user group called Macbrained.

We were lucky enough to have Evernote sponsor our get together. For those of you who do know what Evernote is, it is a note taking application, on iOS, Android, Windows, and OSX. It does way more than take notes but that is one of the core features of the application. I use Evernote on a daily basis for work, school, and personal business. If you have not had a chance to check it out I would suggest heading over to their site and checking it out. 

On this night the subject of conversation revolved around autopkg + jss importer tool. These tools are open source projects that help a sys admin and client platform engineers life easier because it allows you to download dmgs that automatically get imported into your JSS. Autopkg helps a you download installers from companies like Google, Firefox, Adobe, and Java without having to visit a website, and it is scriptable. Galen Richards from Evernote provided us with insight into how he utilizes both tools and explained how you can implement them in your environment if you please.

Once the Galen had finished demonstrating how to use autopkg + jss importer tool people are begin to socialize with other friends, colleagues, and newly met individuals about work, life, and anything technology related. User groups are a great way to get involved in your community to educate yourself and set up a support network.

Which User Groups do you belong to?

The Co-Found Arek Sokol and Galen Richards the Presenter

This was the question box. Very cool by Catch Box

The Assembly