TCA Podcast Episode 73: Persistently Vulnerable

Exchange Server 2013 officially reached its end of support on April 11, 2023. What exactly does end of support mean? What should you do if your organization still relies on Exchange 2013 for email? In this episode I’m joined by Microsoft MVP Jeff Guillet, and we attempt to answer these questions and more. We also discuss the recent Microsoft announcement to throttle and block email from persistently vulnerable Exchange servers to Exchange Online

Be sure to check out the following resources:

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TCA Podcast Episode 72: Cyber Readiness

We’re Back! Happy 2023 to all - and yes, I realize that it’s February. We often talk on this podcast about cyber readiness and the important of having a plan but, felt it would be important to unpack that a talk about what is means in practical terms. In this episode we welcome back our friend Fran Donoso to explain what cyber readiness entails and provide some great advice to help you and your organization get ready for when you have to deal with an incident.

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TCA Podcast Episode 71: CISO

A CISO, or chief information security officer, is a senior-level executive who oversees an organization’s information, cyber, and technology security. We recently had a fun conversation with our friend and CISO Sachin Surajbali about what is means to be a CISO. Sachin gave us a glimpse into a day in the life of a CISO, how to delicately balance all the technical and non-technical aspects of the role and why it is important to not be a hindrance to the business. Sachin also offers some great advice for any aspiring CISOs.

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TCA Podcast Episode 70: All about Teams

We recently had a great time talking to fellow Microsoft MVP Tom Arbuthnot about all things Microsoft Teams - covered some of the great community work Tom is involved with and discussed Teams call quality, meeting etiquette and how work from home has brought about a massive increase in meetings for many of us. Warren also gives some interesting financial advice (Not intended to be taken as real financial advice..).

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TCA Podcast Episode 69: Exchange Server - Fine wine or Swiss cheese?

We love Exchange Server! No, really - I’ve personally been working with Exchange Server in some form or fashion since Exchange Server 5.5 in the late ’90s and in some circles that makes me a late bloomer. It is difficult to ignore what seems like an endless list of day-zero vulnerabilities that have plagued our old friend over the last 12 - 18 months. These vulnerabilities have seen security researchers pointing the finger and the tech press calling Exchange Server a security liability. It’s 2022, should you really still be hosting your own email? In this episode, Nic and I discuss the relevance of Exchange Server and attempt to answer this question.

During this episode we refer to a couple of recent articles, here are the links:

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TCA Podcast Episode 68: In the kitchen with Chef

We apologize for the poor audio at the beginning of this episode - we’re not sure what happened, but it does improve as the episode progresses.

What is DevOps? The answer will often differ depending on who you ask. In this episode we asked Prashanth from Chef that question. He shares some great insights with us, including how DevOps practices can be used in an infrastructure and IT operations context. We also delve into Infrastructure as code (IaC) and its usefulness for provisioning and configuration management.

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TCA Podcast Episode 67: PSA - The end of Basic Auth in Exchange Online (no, really!)

Microsoft first announced the deprecation of Basic Authentication in September 2019 with the intention of starting the retirement process in October 2020. Those plans were subsequently postponed and needless to say it’s been a long journey for many organizations to prepare for the inevitable. Sadly though, it seems not everyone received the memo and there are many organizations that still use basic auth extensively. Our old friend, Greg Taylor has been examining the telemetry and shared some interesting insights with us. We talk more about this change, what it means for you and how you can prepare for it (if you haven’t already!) The clock is ticking..

Not sure if and how this affects you and your organization or interested to know more? Check out Deprecation of Basic authentication in Exchange Online

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TCA Podcast Episode 66: Use your dongle

In this episode we chat to James “UCMadScientist” Arber. Some of you may know him as the guy who ran Doom on a Sonus/Ribbon SBC 1000 or set fire to a Polycom CX series phone, but James is also extremely knowledgable when it comes to all things Microsoft Teams. We had a lot of fun talking about the current state of Teams, room systems, devices, and the importance of using your dongle.

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TCA Podcast Episode 65: ISO 27001:2022, say what?

As an IT professional, governance and compliance have never been the sexiest of concepts. For many of us, these are things that distract us once a year when they require the yearly tick-in-the-box. It is important that we face the reality of the world we live in though and understand that we do have a responsibility of bridging two worlds. In this episode we had the opportunity to sit down with Rufaro Warinda to talk all about compliance, ISO 27001, CIS and a whole bunch of other acronyms. Rufaro does a fantastic job of explaining various concepts like the difference between Legislative and regulatory compliance and we take a look at how Microsoft technologies map to the new ISO controls.

Here’s a link to Rufaro’s really handy reference New ISO 27001:2022 controls & How Microsoft Saves the Day.

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