Talos Takes

Feb 26 2025 205 ep. 12 mins 77

Talos Takes Podcast artwork

Every week, host Hazel Burton brings on a new guest from Talos or the broader Cisco Security world to break down a complicated security topic. We cover everything from breaking news to attacker trends and emerging threats.

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A blueprint for protecting major events

Feb 26 2025 13 mins

Have you ever wondered what it takes to put on a major event like a World Cup or the Olympics, and all the cybersecurity and threat intelligence that needs to be done beforehand? Today’s episode is all about that. Hazel is joined by one of our global Cisco Talos Incident Response leaders, Yuri Kramarz, who has helped some of the biggest events around the world take place securely

Why attackers are using hidden text salting to evade email filters

Feb 12 2025 9 mins

In this episode Hazel chats with Omid Mirzaei, a security research lead in the email threat research team at Cisco Talos. Omid and several Talos teammates recently released a blog on hidden text salting (or poisoning) within emails and how attackers are increasingly using this technique to evade detection, confuse email scanners, and essentially try and get phishing emails to land

How to establish a threat intelligence program (Cisco Live EMEA preview)

Feb 05 2025 16 mins

It's an European takeover this week, as Hazel sits down with Talos EMEA threat researchers Martin Lee and Thorsten Rosendahl. They're heading to Cisco Live EMEA next week (February 9-14) to deliver a four hour session on how to establish a threat intelligence program. If you can't make it - here's a 15 minute version! Thorsten and Martin provide best practices for threat intelligen

Web shell frenzies, the first appearance of Interlock, and why hackers have the worst cybersecurity: IR Trends Q4 2024

Jan 31 2025 13 mins

Joe Marshall and Craig Jackson join Hazel to discuss the biggest takeaways from Cisco Talos Incident Response's latest Quarterly Trends report. This time the spotlight is on web shells and targeted web applications – both have seen large increases. There’s a brand new ransomware actor on the scene – we’ll talk about the new Interlock ransomware and how we’ve seen this gro

Exploring vulnerable Windows drivers

Jan 15 2025 15 mins

Hazel sits down with Vanja Svajcer from Talos' threat research team. Vanja is a prolific malware hunter and this time he's here to talk about vulnerable Windows drivers. We've been covering these drivers quite a bit on the Talos blog over the last year, and during our research we investigated classes of vulnerabilities typically exploited by threat actors as well as the payloads th

It's the 35th anniversary of ransomware - let's talk about the major shifts and changes

Dec 11 2024 23 mins

Ransomware is 35 years old this month, which isn't exactly something to celebrate. But in any case, do join Hazel and special guest Martin Lee to discuss what happened in the very first ransomware incident in December 1989 and why IT "wasn't ready". They then discuss how ransomware evolved to become the criminal entity it is today, which involves looking back on the likes of SamSam

Unwrapping the emerging Interlock ransomware attack

Nov 14 2024 15 mins

Chetan Raghuprasad is our guest today as he breaks down the relatively new Interlock ransomware attack. Cisco Talos Incident Response recently observed this attacker conducting big-game hunting and double extortion attacks. Chetan talks about the initial access tactics, deployment of the ransomware encryptor, and how Interlock communicates with its victims using their “Worldwide

It's Taplunk! Talos and Splunk threat researchers meet to put the security world to rights

Oct 31 2024 50 mins

What happens when two sets of threat researchers from Talos and Splunk's SURGe team meet? Aside from some highly controversial opinions and omissions about the best horror movie, the team discuss what security trends are FUD, and what's actually fearful/ most challenging at the moment. Also, what is the security industry not aware of enough, and also too aware of? Plus some thought

The biggest takeaways from Talos IR's new report: New ransomware variants, EDR tool uninstallation, and password spray attacks increasing

Oct 25 2024 15 mins

The Talos IR Quarterly Trends Q3 2024 is out now! In this episode Hazel Burton, Craig Jackson and Bill Largent discuss three big themes: some new ransomware players, the 'Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver' trend, and why password spray attacks are making a comeback. Check out the full report at https://blog.talosintelligence.com/incident-response-trends-q3-2024/

How Talos IR and Splunk are teaming up

Sep 13 2024 21 mins

Hazel Burton steps in as guest host this week to talk to Brad Garnett, the head of Cisco Talos Incident Response, and JK Lialias, the head of cybersecurity product marketing for Splunk. Brad and JK share two exciting in which Talos is being incorporated into Splunk now, and what that means for the ways we can keep users more secure. They also talk about what better visibility into