There are new cybersecurity events on a daily basis. There are companies getting hacked, new vulnerabilities that need to be patched, privacy laws being passed and much more. On average there is a new hack happening every 39 seconds. It’s impossible for one person to keep track of all this information. However, if you aren’t aware of the most important stories it can put your company in a bad position. It’s critical that you stay aware of the most important cybersecurity issues, trends and fixes so you can effectively do your job. This is where it’s beneficial to use podcasts. They act as summarized versions of the news, highlighting the most important news in less than 15 minutes per day and giving you longer content on specific topics that may interest you. Here I outline 7 good information security podcasts that you can use to stay informed:
7 infosec podcasts to follow
Daily Stormcast by Sans
Stormcast is a daily podcast series produced by the Sans institute. If you’re not familiar, SANS stands for SysAdmin, Audit, Network and Security and is a US company that specializes in cybersecurity training. Their training is expensive but very high quality, arguably the best training in the industry. They are particularly well known for their incident response and computer forensics courses. The stormcast podcasts are daily 5-10 minute episodes focused on security threat updates. They are released every afternoon (mon-fri). You can listen to them in the morning as a quick briefing on the latest news before starting work. You can find the episodes here.
Cybersecurity Headlines by CISO series.
Cybersecurity headlines is another daily podcast that creates short 5-7 minute episodes. Each episode features 8-10 headlines based on what is happening globally in information security. You can find the list of episodes here, you can also subscribe to listen to it on your alexa device.
Cyberwire Daily
This is the last daily podcast in this list. Cyberwire offers daily 5-10 minute episodes throughout the work week. In addition to the daily content, cyberwire also features interviews from security experts across different areas of infosec, academia and research organizations. This is done on their research Saturday podcasts. You can subscribe here.
Infosec unplugged on Youtube
Infosec unplugged is a weekly video show and podcast hosted by Davin jackson. Davin Jackson is an African American penetration tester and founder of Alpha cybersecurity. Infosec unplugged features different guests in cybersecurity and other areas of tech. The podcast focuses on how to get into the industry and advance your career. In particular, it focuses on how to get started in the area of penetration testing. Devin often talks about online resources for learning, best industry certifications, books and overall shares his past and current experiences as he continues to improve in his skillset. He mixes this with his own personal experiences within the workplace talking about work-life balance, workplace politics, the stress of the job and other interpersonal problems that other security professionals may experience. You can read more about the series here or find him on youtube here.
The Digital Empress
Tailor Herrarte (digital empress) is an African American women, cybersecurity consultant/ambassador, career coach, content creator and entrepreneur. She maintains a youtube channel centered around cybersecurity and career development. Her mission is to inspire more black women to enter the tech field, run a successful beauty brand for women in tech and to become a household name. Her channel is a mix of technical content, career advice and beauty tips for women. You can find her website here or her youtube channel.
Hacking Humans
Hacking humans is a weekly podcast that specializes in the social engineering aspect of information security. The name hacking human comes from the fact that many cyber attacks seek to deceive or manipulate people to accomplish their goals. This podcast looks at recent social engineering techniques, phishing campaigns and how this is affecting companies worldwide. You can find the podcast list here.
Darknet Diaries
Darknet dairies is a monthly podcast that discusses stories about hackers, malware, botnets, cryptography, cryptocurrency, cybercrime, and Internet privacy. The theme of this podcast is “True stories from the dark side of the Internet”. If you like to know what’s going on behind the scenes, this podcast may be a good option for you. Also, it gives you a wide scope of what is going on within the field of information security. You can find the episodes on their website here.
Recap
Podcasts are a good way to stay aware of the latest trends and news in information security. It can save you a huge amount of time on researching all of these topics yourself and for the most part podcasts are completely free. I would recommend listening to 1 or 2 of these podcasts everyday before or even during work so that you can stay well informed. Especially, if you’re in a position where you need to make strategic decisions on what security issues your company needs to focus on. In those positions it’s important that you stay informed of what the new security threats are.