Echo in Ramadi: The Firsthand Story of US Marines in Iraq’s Deadliest City

Echo in Ramadi: The Firsthand Story of US Marines in Iraq’s Deadliest City by Scott A. Huesing

Echo In Ramadi details the hell on earth faced by Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment during 2006.  This book is very dear to me as this was my brother’s (Cpl Dustin J Libby) final tour.  Continue reading “Echo in Ramadi: The Firsthand Story of US Marines in Iraq’s Deadliest City”

Out of the frying pan and into a better fire…

A great deal has changed in the last two months for the better.  My family has completed our move to the South Carolina and we are loving all of it.  There is still a good amount of adjustment to do, but we are getting by.  My only regret at this point is not being able to get my boat in the water just yet. Continue reading “Out of the frying pan and into a better fire…”

Career update

I’ve made a great deal of progress with my personal goals over the last few months. My CISSP is currently in review waiting for final approval, and my GPEN is in progress. I’ve even managed to post semi-regular blog posts.

We are steadily making progress on our family goals as well. A child enrolled in college, one property sold, another on the market, and an offer placed on our new property. If things keep moving at this pace, 2018 is going to be a great year.

More to come!

Fixing SSL weak cipher & hashing issues in Windows

One of my biggest annoyances with my regular Nessus scans are the continuous medium risks related to weak SSL ciphers. Nartac Software created a simple tool to help admins fix these issues: ISSCrypto.  Simply download the tool, then run it as an administrator on your Windows box. I recommend you take the “Best Practices” template and apply those settings first. Always back up your current settings before changing anything!

Why I’m ditching Google

A few months ago, I had moved almost all of my storage into Google Drive, OneDrive, or iCloud depending on the usage.  This allowed me to turn down my old Dell FreeNAS server in an attempt to save on my electric bill.  I’ve never been completely on-board with this model, even though I know I’m keeping some physical backups for emergencies.  It could be that I spend too much time listening to Michael Bazzell and Justin Carroll or the control freak in me, but not having control of my data really bugs me. Continue reading “Why I’m ditching Google”

Multiple Cisco IOS/IOS XE vulnerabilities posted

Folks – it’s time to tick everyone off with network maintenance windows!  Cisco PSIRT released 30 vulnerabilities in their router firmware across multiple versions of IOS and IOS EX.  Three critical vulnerabilities include one hard-coded credential affecting all IOS XE routers running IOS XE v16, and two which affect v15 under certain conditions.  Fifteen high risk vulnerabilities run the gamut from denial of service, buffer overflow, and privileged escalation. Continue reading “Multiple Cisco IOS/IOS XE vulnerabilities posted”