Zero Trust World 2025 - After the Show (EP 772)

Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast. This is the Wednesday live show, February 26, 2025. Oh, we are in the midst of a fan-tastic week.

Let me tell you all about it. Of course, we're going to recap what happened last week while I was in Orlando at Zero Trust World 2025. And then I'm going to give that preview that some of you have been waiting for, the Florida Man Games, coming up this Saturday, March 1st, and it is going to be a doozy.

Let me first of all say thank you to Danny Jenkins and the folks over at ThreatLocker for allowing me to attend as a member of the media. It was a great event. It was fantastic. 

And I've got some swag we're going to talk about in just a little bit, but I wanted to get that out of the way at the top of the show so that I don't forget. And I also want to say I'm quite pleased with the number of people that walked up to my podcast table while we were there. If you were not at the event and you did not see any of the pictures, I did have my usual booth and it was in the Solution Pavilion with all of the in-between a new vendor and some TV show and where the food got put out.

So if that gives you any indication of where my status was in the group, that's where it is. So half of the show, there's people walking in front of us, grabbing food and eating, but it was great. Most of the audio and video came through just fine.

We had one little snafu with Scully where the camera just decided not to show him at all. And that's no shade on Scully folks, just what happens out in the field when you're trying to do live stuff. And let's see here. 

There's a couple of rough starts to the audio, but they kind of cleared up and went away real good. So the other thing I wanted to say is I was quite pleased with the people that came up to the booth because some of you have kept up with the show. And I know that I put out a lot of shows, folks. 

I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on in our channel here and it's not just news stories and, hey, let me get the latest vendor on trying to keep up with MSPs. There's a new MSP 500 out. It's going to be crazy. 

But some of the people that came into the booth, I think that there was probably five of you that asked me how my 365 migration was going. So let me tell you, it's still going. Yes, it is a 14 box migration with about 1.1 terabyte of SharePoint migration. 

We're not migrating all of the SharePoint stuff, but if you have not kept up with the story, it's basically getting into the end of month two with this. Now, this is not a client of mine. This is a referral client and there is a junior involved. 

So I'm actually just kind of doing stuff at their request when they get to certain points where they give me the information to move on. And we had to work with a hosted provider. And so their entire environment was hosted, their server, their desktops, and then they were using hosted exchange, which it took a little time to get the other provider to realize that, yes, we can do a migration in the background. 

They were going to force the users to literally download their mailboxes into PST files and then re-upload them into the new system. And I said, no, that's not how we're going to do it. And I worked with them to do the 365 PowerShell scripts.

That was a show that was, I think, four episodes ago now that I did the research for that to help them extract information out of those mailboxes so that we could do that. So that was a fun time. So you may ask, Marv, why are you still doing this migration? Well, turns out that when the client realized that as they were setting up the new portal, they found a domain that they had purchased a while back that they actually wanted to use, but they were using another one instead.

And so I said, yeah, you can use that domain if you want. So they went through all of the steps to activating the domain to get it hosted, set up the MX records, do all of that. And that took a while. 

After we found out that four of the mailboxes were over the 50-gauge limit, which is what stopped the migration at one point. And I'll hold another story there. Go back and listen to those shows. 

They're fantastic about that. But here's where we are. So I talked to them after I got back from Zero Trust World, and we said, yeah, we can wrap up here. 

All I got to do is a last Delta migration to pull over any mail that we had not migrated over. The last migration was February 8th. It was the 7th Friday night, and then it went into Saturday the 8th. 

And so that was the last mail that they had saw. People were logging into the portal, checking the files and stuff, and everything was good. But they were wondering when they could see their new mail.

I said, well, as soon as you're ready, let's do the last migration, and then we'll flip the domains. I did not know they had flipped the domains. So I'm like, oh, we are not using the onMicrosoft anymore. 

You've got your domain over. Well, they're like, no, we did the new domain. So I had actually spent a day and a half trying to push this migration only to find out that it was pushing to the wrong place because I'm using code 2, by the way, to do the migration. 

And as part of the migration, you set up the source ID, the source mailbox, the target mailbox, the target ID, blah, blah, blah. Well, the emails were set up to the onMicrosoft side, and they didn't tell me they flipped the domain. So then I had to go back and put in the new domain, which, by the way, I did that today. 

That's how far behind we are. So I got the new domain showing up now as to where the target mailboxes are. So we are once again in the final migration, and hopefully we will get that done by Friday. 

And on Saturday, while I'm at Florida Man Games, this tech should be flipping their stuff and having them move over to the new portal. So that's where we are. And yes, several of you asked, and I said, still, still, still going. 

So it is fun. And great there. Let's see here. 

I actually let me do this because I've got somebody waiting in the green room. So let me bring them up and get them onto the show here. Brian Weiss from iTech Solutions. 

Brian, how are you? Doing great. Long time, no see. All right. 

I'm sorry. I'm reading the chat here. Frank writes, I would be happy to be seated next to the food. 

So it's great until they start clanging the plates as you're trying to do an interview. And this was one of the most ridiculous things I'd ever seen. The lady that comes out to put the plates on, instead of just taking a stack of plates and moving it from the cart to the table, she would take one plate, clank, one plate, clank, one plate, clank, the most retarded thing I had ever seen. 

And so I've got an interview where literally there's clanks going on all over the place. Tim Golden's out there. Hello, sir.

Tim Golden, because I know your stream doesn't always display my name. Actually, this time it did, Tim. Looky there. 

You are good to go. So Brian, you were at Zero Trust World, and you were actually one of my interviews. And I knew I didn't have a whole ton of content today, so I reached out and said, hey, anybody want to come on and either heckle me or ask questions? And you said, absolutely. 

So here you are. Yeah. I actually just got set up in my new office here, too. 

So in a way, I'm testing all my equipment. Yeah, looks nice. You got the red microphone cover there? Yeah, this is the 50th edition Rode. 

That's the USB Rode mic with the plastic cover, right? No, it's the NT. No, it's not the NT-USB. It's the standard pod mic.

Standard pod mic. Oh, the regular pod mic. Okay. 

But the 50th year edition that only came from B&H. That's the only place you could order it from. And it's got the iTech red and black colors.

Of course. I bought four of them, because I've got this other table here I'm setting up to be able to do a podcast with three people. All right. 

It'll be nice and matchy-matchy. All right. So we'll be dueling at some point. 

I don't know if I'd call it dueling, but, you know, definitely helping promote each other and share the love, you know. All right. So let me do this, Brian.

Let me go through a couple of the things that I was going to chat about with the folks, because of course, at every major conference, the big announcements is what everybody waits for. And of course, we had those this week, this past week there. And just to let everybody know, if you had not seen it yet, if you're not a ThreatLocker person, here's what they have added to their stack. 

Now, they've always had the application whitelisting, the ring fencing, network control, storage control. But they have now given you the ability to say goodbye to the headache of software updates, because they have now added ThreatLocker patch management, where you can do your patches. And then, of course, the Cyborg Hero team can help you as well, because they're going to regularly test each update in a controlled environment before deployment. 

So that's a big thing is where you don't have to do your own testing. ThreatLocker will do that for you. The other big thing that they added, well, they added like five big things. 

But the one that actually caught my attention the most was the ThreatLocker user store, a catalog of pre-approved applications that users can run without jeopardizing your organization's security sponsor posture. And so basically, what will happen is if somebody is trying to download, let's say, a PDF program that's, not Adobe or Nitro or whatever, and they, of course, get the pop-up, there's going to be an option where they can actually hit user store. I forget what the name is exactly, but they can click on a button, and it'll show all of the approved PDF programs that your customer has allowed for that environment. 

And they will be able to just simply click on that, download it, and again, great innovation to where it's not something where they have to, you know, click for support, wait for somebody to approve it. It's already going to be in the store, ready to go. And they will actually have pre-approved temporary elevation.

And then the allow listing and ring fencing policies are automatically created. And then three other things that they've added. I mean, one is going to be ThreatLocker web control, because, of course, web access is crucial. 

And web control is going to include a browser extension that lets users easily request permission to block sites. ThreatLocker will have a dynamically updated library of website categories. And the same controls can also be applied to unmanaged devices, which that is really what I want to see. 

And then let's see, they've got a ThreatLocker dashboard, ThreatLocker insights, but then they also have ThreatLocker crowd control. And this will be for anyone using Microsoft 365. It is designed to protect against threats, uses built-in intelligence to analyze connection patterns, and identify trusted networks, so that only users from IP addresses and networks deemed trusted by ThreatLocker can gain access, automatically blocking unauthorized attempt. 

So there's a lot there. And can't go into everything, but I know, Brian, you and I chatted about that after the big announcement. And I don't think I asked you, what caught your attention the most? What were you most excited to see? I mean, really, I like all of them. 

I'm on the partner advisory board with ThreatLocker, so we've been talking about a lot of these kind of features or upgrades we'd like to see. And it's amazing. It's really, I'd say ThreatLocker has rejuvenated my excitement to be on a partner advisory board, because we're actually seeing things happen that we want to happen versus lip service, which is sometimes what you get, depending on how fast the roadmap's moving. 

But I could speak on each one quickly, what really attracts me to them. You know, starting with the patch management and kind of the user store combined, you can imagine that when you're running ThreatLocker, because it is a default deny approach, you really have to have policies built out to allow applications to install an update. So when you think about an application that's not installed yet, but approved to be installed, or you think about an application that is installed, but has an update, those are two areas where for the end user, they can't really move forward without ThreatLocker's blessing.

So the fact that ThreatLocker has realized, you know, hey, there's a missing piece that's causing extra work for both, you know, IT teams out there and then, you know, maybe even users that have to wait, you know, how can we really make this more of a seamless experience? And so the idea of, you know, patching, being part of the policy build out to allow the patch all under one roof is really going to help. And then the user store idea, right? I mean, hopefully, we've identified the applications that our end users need. We've got them installed ahead of time for them, but that's not always the case. 

And so when you think about, you know, even looking at a CIS security framework, there is application control and application policies that are supposed to be built out as far as what's allowed and not allowed to run as an application. And ThreatLocker is an amazing tool to lock that down and have a good understanding, you know, around what is able to run versus not run. But not everyone has the applications they need installed. 

And so this gives them a quick way to install an application that's already even going to have a policy built out for it. So there's no slow down there. The insights, you know, what's amazing about that is you can imagine with a default deny approach, there is going to be more work up front, right? Because you're shaping a policy of only what's allowed versus the traditional method for EDR is kind of like, we're going to build a perfect mousetrap to hopefully catch what's not allowed, but we're not necessarily locking everything down, right? So with insights, it really gives you extra information, really crowdsourcing, right? You know, all the data that ThreatLocker collects around what apps are being allowed and that people are creating policies for, or are they denying them? Are they blocking them? Also, what's the risk of the app? And so you can imagine if you're using CyberHero support, this gives us extra metrics now that we can really direct CyberHero support with where it's, you know, hey, we want you to fill these requests for us, and you're allowed to approve things that meet these metrics, right? Low risk, very common. 

Everyone and their mom is approving it. It's rarely not approved. You know, is that something that we really have to waste our time as an IT team with, if we've already got all that great information about what's trying to be used, you know, short of understanding whether or not it's an application the client wants to allow to be run, right? That's another aspect to look at. 

But love that extra insight data. It really gives you that peace of mind. One item you didn't mention is the policy linking too, that I love. 

And this really- Yeah, you saw me trying to rush through that. I mean, I've got three pages of stuff. There's a ton. 

I can't keep up with it myself. It's exciting to keep up with, though. Policy linking, you know, when you think of traditional EDR, it's typically what traditional EDR does to build out that perfect mousetrap.

They want to look for a series of events that are happening that are typically related to some sort of threat actor playbook that's commonly used. And should these series of events happen, that's when they trigger, you know, they detect and they respond, essentially. Well, because ThreatLocker takes a default deny approach, there's less of a need to build out those series of events, because a lot of times they'll get stopped in their tracks anyway. 

However, that doesn't- that's not to say there's not a perfect storm out there. You know, if you've got individual policies being allowed on their own, right, and you're able to reverse engineer how to potentially get into an environment because you actually know what's allowed or not allowed, or you have the ability to test that, you could potentially do a series of allowed policies that ThreatLocker's not blocking, but it's the combination of those that then create the concern. Now, a good example would be DLP, maybe, right, data loss prevention. 

And, you know, ThreatLocker has storage control, they've got network control, they got, you know, ring fencing, all this stuff that you can use. But if there is a series of events where someone was, you know, downloading X amount of files, then connecting to Dropbox, and then uploading X amount of files, while those two things individually might be allowed, the minute you chain them together, you realize, wow, this could be data exfiltration that's happening. So really, that idea of bringing that extra EDR capability into the product, and now I look at it as it really outshines any EDR product out there. 

Well, it certainly, you know, makes it more robust within one package that you're able to do all this. And here's the other things, you know, you still need a detect feature, because what about machines that are not ThreatLocker controlled that get into the environment, that can still happen where somebody plugs in a cable with a laptop from, you know, outside the office, you got a junior that, you know, knows how to connect the right way, you know, bypassing domains or whatever. But of course, if you've got your network, clearly secure, that may, that should not happen, but it happens. 

I want to go back to the user store that you, you know, talked about. So between the user store and the patch management, I see that as probably, let's, I'm going to throw a weird number out there, I'm going to say probably 70% of us that do patching using a product like Ninite or Action1. And I'll be honest, I hate trying to do those with ThreatLocker on the machine. 

And what I'll end up doing is turning on learning mode for an hour so that I can run all the Ninite patches, all the Action1 patches, because I don't want to have to go through and approve every new iteration of those. If that's already been being done inside of ThreatLocker, that takes a lot of that mess away. 100% Yeah. 

So sweet. That's a great point to bring up. You know, I was talking more that the end user is using the user store, but you know, the minute we've got something baked in there as an application, it's naturally going to have a policy built around it. 

So it kind of gives that extra hand holding to get all that set up and be ready to go out of the gate. Yeah, it'll be interesting. So I really only have one client that ThreatLocker is a headache for, for them. 

And it's a law firm that has to use all of the surveillance footage, x-ray stuff, and they're doing all of the DICOM software. And of course, you know, every hospital has their own version of DICOM, for whatever reason that is. And it's just interesting that you can't blanket that in a nice, secure way. 

Even if you, you know, put in a policy to allow all files from this drive to always run, well, that's not what you want. So I want to see how the user store can help with that. If there's a way that we can, you know, do a bulk upload of all the DICOMs or something, which would really make this client happy. 

Yeah, I think a lot of the struggle that we see out there is not everything's signed. You know, so you've got all these unsigned files that a threat actor could be impersonating that aren't real or aren't what they're meant to be. And in the process of signing everything, it's not necessarily the answer either. 

Usually, you want to sign main components of an application, but you're not going to sign every single little file. But, you know, that's where the ring fencing comes into, you know, helps prevent applications do things that they're not supposed to do, should a threat actor get a hold of them. Yeah.

But we didn't talk about the web control yet. And that's a big one for us as well, not only to help consolidate a vendor, but I like, it's an issue I've been having with kind of DNS filtering in general, is that it's typically done one of two ways or a mix is you've got a proxy, you're sending everything through, or you're literally doing it at the DNS layer, maybe even with a browser extension, depending on the situation or what vendor. But those are kind of single points of failure that are getting introduced. 

And I feel like we blame DNS for so much already. Like, why are we then going to a DNS filtering product that just adds another, you know, in that same single point of failure area, you know, a third party vendor that we now have to hope works properly, versus just that layer working properly on its own by itself. Yeah, DNS is, I mean, I'll just say this, I had a client where we were battling with DNS, we've got, we've got a DNS filter through our RMM. 

And then I've actually got another layer on the physical networks where we have DNS built into the firewall. Because, you know, for, you know, you know, IoT devices and stuff like that, we want to put in policies for those. And we had for some reason, out of nowhere, Dropbox got blocked. 

Wasn't anything we did with our filter, wasn't anything we changed on the firewall. It was the DNS that we were using from the ISP. I had to go into the firewall, change that DNS, Dropbox started working. 

And then two days later, it stopped working again. I mean, between Google DNS, quad nines, you know, the 11111, you know, you're changing DNS all the time. So yeah, DNS is problematic. 

It's a pain in the butt. Yeah, they, you know, the only reason they have the browser extension with web control is really just for the end user experience to be able to request to unblock or whitelist something, but they actually use their network control module, right, which isn't technically a proxy to, to scan all that traffic or monitor all that traffic, and then understand what to block and not block based on your policy. So I'm really looking forward to that. 

I think the other thing that it introduced, as well, especially even on the insights relates back to insights. But when you think about learning an application, you know, it now has the ability to learn and store domain domains that the app, you know, DNS addresses, let's call them that, that the application is accessing to be able to do what it needs to do. So you can now build, you know, got that extra ring fencing capability and understanding, you can almost learn a cloud app, right, if you wanted to, they'll eventually have this built in, I'm sure. 

But if you wanted to block G Suite, like throw it in learning mode, and see everything G Suite needs to access to do everything, and then create a policy around blocking all that. And then all of a sudden, you're you've blocked G Suite from being able to run it, you know, at an organization. I find that to be beneficial when we talk about, for instance, Facebook, where they may want to have users be able to go to Facebook, but not use Facebook Messenger. 

And, you know, some of the firewalls have that application blocking where you can actually go in and do that. And it's cumbersome in the firewall. So we'll be all that. 

Brian, let me do this. I because I didn't know if for sure if you were coming, but I put together a couple of little things that I wanted to let people look at. So I did, I think it was eight interviews while I was there, actually nine, because I did an interview with Danny that was not videotaped and recorded. 

But I just want to run through real quick and let everybody know who I saw while I was there. And so Rob Allen, Chief Product Officer was my first interview that was there. Kieran Kuman, who is a Special Projects Engineer. 

We talked about rubber duckies. There's Don Sizer hogging the camera, as she always does. Wayne Selk, we had a nice, interesting chat. 

And then Degenerates there, Martin and JP. And it's hard to keep them on track. Oh, there you are, sir. 

And look at you smiling all pretty. And then this is Slava Konstantinov. And I had to work really hard to get that name. 

Because it was. And you know, what's funny is when we there's another picture of us that we pose for. And I had your swag sitting on the table, but it was pointed the wrong way. 

Oh, it was like this. I'm sure people like, who's that? So here's here it is. Now, dude, let me ask you, you brought your own swag to a conference. 

Why? I'm a nice guy. I don't know. You know, really, it's Threat Locker where, you know, they have awesome swag and I got those hats and a lot of the guys that saw them were like, oh, I want a hat. 

So I brought a lot of them to Threat Locker. And I don't know, they're I got a great deal on those hats. So they're not necessarily breaking the bank.

Kind of Threat Locker would check the quality on them to see like dollar a hat off the truck or something. No, they're you know, it's a Richardson 369, I think is the model if I remember correctly. It's a kind of a newer style hat they have. 

And it's got that cool material that can get wet and not stain and dry. Okay, I've got one hat that I literally wear in the pool, you can't even tell it's ever been wet. You know, I guess if you're wearing it out in the yard, and you get those sweat bands, you know, I don't wear hats. 

So I wouldn't know. Okay. So stain is easy. 

Okay, ultimately, so I'm working on a hat wall. And so this will this will go up on the hat wall here at the office. So I'm honored. 

Yep. That'll go. So speaking of swag. 

So it was very interesting to have people walk by the booth and you know, immediately asked me what's the best swag here. And I didn't have an answer. And there were two reasons. 

I did not do my customary day one swag run, which is what I usually do. solution store opens or vendor hall opens. While everybody's rushing to talk to the vendors. 

I use that as my time to go and grab swag. I can usually you know, get in there get out. Because there's tons of people trying to talk to the vendors, I can scoot in there. 

A lot of the vendors know me and they know that that's what I do. So I can get away with it. In this case, a lot of vendors that were there, there was only like 15, I think. 

But they did not send the usual suspects. So there were people that did not know me, even though I, you know, taken their swag for many years, they were they were kind of wondering what I was doing. So just to say I didn't get through my usual customary swag run. 

And I didn't grab everything because now I'm at the point where if I walk up to your booth, and you have the same swag that you've had the last five times I've seen you, I'm not going to grab a pin. Again, I'm not going to grab a Threat Locker shirt, you know, for the 20th time, although everybody did everybody get two shirts in their bag? Yes. Okay. 

So I will say this, this was probably the best swag there. Although you can't, I mean, it's not really swag. It's, I think every attendee got this. 

Yes. Yes. Okay. 

Because I saw a lot of people wearing it. So this is a backpack that I'm going to offend some vendors because I've gotten backpacks before. I've had them sent to my office. 

And listen, none of them are ever backpacks that I would take out and backpack with. No, I don't backpack in general, but I always like to acknowledge things that if I were, this would run out there with it. This is a nice, sturdy, rugged bag, everything, the zippers, quality zippers, metal, not plastic, lots of little gadget holes and things to put in through. 

It's got a nice feel on the material. I mean, I really don't ever really talk about bags, but kudos to ThreatLocker on the bag, man. Yeah. 

What, what I liked about the bag, that's probably different than some of the others too. I mean, it's, it's an OGO bag. You typically can't go wrong with that brand, but it's designed to where the smaller pockets in the back. 

Yep. Yeah. I don't even know if I said that right. 

Oh, Geo. That's what I'm not a bad connoisseur, but Oh look, hand sanitizer. Zero trust with germs. 

I lost my, Oh yeah, I was talking about the bag. So what's interesting, and it kind of threw me off guard because I went to put a bunch of stuff in it and I'm like, this thing doesn't hold much. Well, the biggest pocket is actually in the front part of it.

Right. Whereas the smaller pocket that you might put a laptop in, right. That's just in the back.

So the, so I thought that was an interesting twist. Yeah. But yeah, I would say the backpack, you know, what I, what I love about the event, you know, yeah. 

Could we have more, have had more vendors there with some better swag? Sure. But they had their own threat locker store there. They did with, with a huge variety. 

And, you know even, you know, you had an option to either get ahold of your account rep, if he was there or someone, you know, and they'll, you know, of course give you some for free and market on their tab. That was one thing I saw happening. Or if you buy, it goes to a charity and they match right. 

Ronald McDonald charity. Did I say that right? Yeah. I don't think that's the Ronald McDonald house. 

There it is. That's what I was missing. But you know, if you bought something for 20 bucks, threat locker would match that with another 20 and really put $40 towards the charity for your $20 spend.

So I thought that was a great way to, to kind of keep a control with swag, because when you've got a full blown store out there, if you don't put something to slow down, you know, people grabbing stuff, it'll just all be gone quickly. So I think it was a great kind of meeting in the middle of, Hey, not everything's free. But if you do buy something, it's really going to a good cause. 

You know, we're not here to make money in the apparel business, for example. Well, that was good for threat locker and for other vendors that are there. And I've been, you know, trying to appease vendors to let them know that, you know, not all swag is the same.

And that should not be the reason that people are, you know, going to conferences is to grab your free stuff, but it is nice to get swag. But if you're going to have swag, make it good. That's really the only thing I want to say, stop giving out cheap swag. 

And you know, when I grab, when I pick up a pen, for instance, and I start doing this and vendors look at me and they're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm checking the swag. I want to know that the pen is going to be a quality pen that holds up, feels good. And then of course passes the right test.

So that's what I do. That's what I do with swag. I'm there to evaluate swag and help you out because what you don't want is people taking your swag home and throwing it away or complaining about it. 

It wants to, it needs to be swag that people are going to take home. They're going to wear if it's shirts or socks, which some swag socks here in FEMA. And I don't know who this is, by the way, let me say that. 

So, uh, I don't know if the screen is going to show this properly. This is, uh, this is purple. I think it looks blue on the screen, but the, the, the, it says, it says vision, which looks like the brand name of the sock. 

And there's no mention of who the vendor is because I know vision wasn't the name of a vendor. Yeah. It's actually evasion, evasion and yeah. 

And formerly printer logic. So they've changed their name, which I know printer logic. I don't know evasion, so I don't know why they decided to change their name. 

Well, that, well, that's interesting. I'll have to do a deep dive on that. So I, I saw printer logic. 

So vision, well, that just doesn't even sound right. But I will say those socks are high quality. They're nice five minutes telling me about them and how they used to source it from this other place. 

And now they got this new one. And he's like, if you order socks, buy them from this company. And then I wore them and I was like, Oh, the guy knows his socks. 

Yeah. I mean, they're comfortable. They had a good fit.

Yeah. They feel good. Uh, there were, there weren't, there weren't as many shirts there.

And I think that it was probably a good idea because I mean, out of what 3000 people there 2,500 where we're wearing threat locker shirts, that was it. But here's, here's a shirt. That's the back front said, try to hack me. 

Look at you. You got it there. All right.

That's right. Hack me was there, which was really cool. Yeah. 

Um, they had a ton of media there too. I don't know if you've mentioned that yet, but, and then may the enforcer be with you. I did not get that shirt. 

Dang it. And I, and I sat there and I talked with Matei, uh, forever without realizing they had those shirts. I wish I would've grabbed one. 

Did you get one of these? I did get one of those, the, uh, tech degenerate, uh, cozy. So how I grabbed one of those, cause I normally don't grab those for some reason, they switched the coffee cups out like throughout the day. And the new ones didn't have insulation built. 

Oh, those first coffee cups out of your hand. Those first coffee cups. I actually meant to go back and look for those. 

They were, they felt like your regular paper cup, but they had the little insulation ridges so that you didn't have to get one of those, you know, uh, gas store paper rings to, you know, make sure you didn't burn yourself there. And I liked the feel of those coffee cups and they must've run out or something. Yeah. 

I could see that being one of the reasons the new cup was bigger. So I liked that it was a bigger cup, but it burned my hand. So I went and grabbed a few of those and yeah, that's the degenerates. 

It was great seeing them there as well. And yeah, they were there. And then of course the compulsory cyber QP hot sauce and the, uh, that's hot praise on it. 

And Ninja one got a little nice little luggage tag, you know, can't, can't go wrong. Luggage tags break all the time. I'll see how long this one lasts, but, uh, luggage tag from Ninja one. 

Did you see the threat locker luggage tag? Did they give you one of those with your backpack? I didn't see one. No. Oh, there it was kind of a cool idea because you're just handing out all these backpacks to everyone that all look the same, right? They were, they were given a, a metal, it was all metal, uh, luggage tags. 

So try breaking that one, but they were writing your name on it and then putting on your bag. So what's cool about that is if you accidentally leave your bag somewhere or forget it, it's literally got a luggage tag with your name on it. I was in the media line, so I guess we didn't get those. 

Yeah. They didn't care if you lost your bag. Yeah. 

Crappy little podcaster. So yeah, I had to actually had a different registration place, so I didn't go through, uh, the regular line there. All right. 

So let us move on because I have yet another presentation that I did. So let me get this ready. And one last thing on the zero trust world that was different. 

Yeah, go ahead. I love they had, they had the big night party and normally at the end of the big party, it's like the whole events over. So it's almost bittersweet. 

Like as you get to the end of the big night, you're like, Oh, we're going home. Or they had a whole half day the next day. Yes. 

So I liked that where you got to hang out at the big party. Right. And the next day have a little half day to kind of say your farewells to everyone, you know, before you went home. 

So I appreciated that. And the final keynote was that, uh, that morning as well. Uh, Mr. What's his name from Nintendo.

Although I Reggie, Reggie Miller, I think. Yeah. It wasn't Reggie Miller, the basketball player.

It sounded good. I know it's Reggie and I think I have his book back here. So I was going to look, he bought his book. 

Uh, I saw him at another event and got a signed copy. Um, and I can't remember where that event was, unfortunately. Oh, um, interesting, but this, it wasn't the same keynote, thankfully. 

Right. The last keynote I saw, he really went and dove into his book and what it was all about. Yeah. 

I, I, I'm going to hold my tongue so I don't say something. All right. That's good boy. 

All right. So let me, uh, let's, uh, go to our next video and that will lead us into our next segment. All right.

The Florida man games round two. Coming this Saturday, five words you pronounce wrong. Did you go to two years before your brain started? No. 

Oh, okay. But you're good. You are going to this one. 

Yeah. I, I like everybody else was like, what? Come on. That can't be right. 

But when, I mean, it, it was something to be seen in terms of popularity. Uh, they think that they could have had up to 10,000 people, uh, showing up to this event. And it's only going to get bigger, uh, so much bigger that, uh, they were in talks to actually have it televised. 

Uh, but it won't be live. I think it's going to go to something like, uh, Netflix or ESPN. So that, that will be interesting. 

But, uh, it is so big that it actually got moved from the location. It was at, it is now at the St. John's fairgrounds, which holds more people. Uh, they have added more events and among the events that they added was, there is now a hurricane prep party. 

Um, there is a, so the hurricane prep party, which is a grocery aisle brawl, and it simulates the chaos of preparing for a hurricane where participants will wrestle for supplies in a mock grocery store aisle. Uh, they have added mechanical gator riding so that participants will attempt to prove their Florida credentials by riding a mechanical alligator. They have a lawnmower race, but with a twist, it will feature NASCAR driver, Jeffrey Earnhardt as the grand Marshall. 

So yes, you heard that right. Jeffrey Earnhardt from the famed Earnhardt family will be attending Florida man games and they have added axe throwing and knocker ball, which is a new high intensity game where participants will slam into each other while encased in inflatable bubbles. Uh, it is going to be pretty funny. 

So Saturday, March 1st. So yes, I am going. Uh, I was quite surprised when I asked to attend as a podcaster and a member of the media. 

And they said, sure, come on. And so we're going to go. Uh, so me and my wife are going to drive up and attend. 

The only problem is, is I don't know how much gear they're going to let us in with because it's the fairgrounds and they don't want you bringing in like bags of stuff. Like the bags have to be like a sports game. They don't know if I can bring in like a table to set up my stuff. 

Uh, I even got a Florida man, uncle Marv banner where I'm going to be, you know, I hope to do interviews with participants in front of, you know, the uncle Marv banner. Uh, I wanted to have a camera. I wanted to take my rhythms internet box in live stream, but they said you can't live stream any of the events. 

So I won't find out until Saturday morning exactly what I'll be allowed to do, but it should be pretty interesting. It sounds like a blast. I mean, I met, I imagine they're going to have alcohol there. 

Yes, of course, of course it wouldn't be a Florida man if we didn't have alcohol. So, uh, some of your interviews are, are probably going to, this is probably going to get a pretty, uh, entertaining, right? Yeah, it should be, should be fun. So I will, I will hope to live stream from the event. 

If not, I will come back with pictures and put together a compilation of what interviews I do get. Um, but, uh, it should be fun. You know, it'd be cool is, I mean, I know you're thinking about setting up like a table or something, right? This, this seems to me like an event where you almost want to be mobile, be able to walk around and interview people throughout the whole event. 

Maybe even catch footage of some of the events as you're walking around. Have you thought of that at all? I was thinking of that, although I don't have a camcorder and I wasn't going to go and splurge on one. Uh, I, I asked a couple of vendors to be a Florida man sponsor, but of course that doesn't sound techie enough. 

So I have to figure out something. Um, but yeah, I, I, I do realize that it would be much better to walk around with the cam and do that stuff. But first year there, I'm going to go learn, find out what I can do and use that as motivation to come back bigger and beggar, bigger and better next year. 

So I've all right. So obviously not an it event, which means I think an imperative question for everyone is what's your occupation for what do you do for a living since you're at this Florida man event? Tell me more about that. It'll be interesting.

Cause yeah, I, first of all, I'm not going to fit in regardless. I mean, it's just, I'm not, I don't look like you for, let me, let me rephrase that. So the event for people who don't know Florida, the event is basically West of St. Augustine in the middle of the state where if you think that South Florida with the Everglades is Swampland, there's actually Swampland North of Orlando. 

And it is probably, and this is the one time I will use a political statement to explain something. It is in the deep red part of Florida. Do I'm wondering, do mullets grow out naturally in that? I don't think you can live in that area, part of the state without a mullet.

And so if you, if you came with a mullet wig, then you might fit in. Mullet wig, shirts without sleeves. Yeah. 

All that good stuff. So that's what I'll be doing this week. So the wife is trying to figure out what we're going to take and how we're going to survive and all of that stuff. 

It should be interesting. So I will have plenty of Florida man stories next week that will probably all come from the event and not from the news. You could probably save them up. 

They'll last you all year. Yeah, it'd be good. All right. 

So with that speaking, go ahead. I've got one other question for you. Sorry. 

I'm just putting, I'm picturing myself in your shoes at this event. Maybe you don't, you don't have to ask them their occupation, but what about asking them? What's the, what's the biggest Florida man thing you've ever done? Right? Like what's try to get history. Like what Florida man things have you done in the past? That's like asking him what'd you do last Tuesday? All right. 

See, I don't live in Florida. I'm a Californian. So they're going to be, I mean, you'll have people would be like, no, no, no, man. 

Me and Jimmy did that two months ago. That's old. It's going to be just like that. 

It'll be fun. That's fair. Yeah. 

So speaking of what's next. So of course, that's where I will be this week. And if you had been paying attention on the YouTube, I did put links in LinkedIn and the Facebook. 

I did a video with Diana Giles promoting her speaking engagement this year with ASCII edge and ASCII started today for 2025 in Costa Mesa. So she is there as well as of course, other MSPs are there. So if you are looking for where the ASCII events are, I will have a link to events.ascii.com. And you can see where all of the events are next month, March 26th and 27th ASCII will be in Orlando, Florida. 

I will be there and that should be good. Also happening in March. I did not talk to Paco, but it looks like the TechCon unplugged tour is starting and it will begin March 7th in Newark, New Jersey.

And it's only 50 bucks folks. It's basically a one day event instead of the customary two days. And there will be a three state tour that will take place. 

It is going to be in Newark, Chicago and Dallas. So if you are near any of those cities and I'm just pulling up the website to see if I can get you guys the dates for those other cities, but Newark is March 7th. Chicago is June 20th. 

I will not be able to attend either of those. And then Dallas, it just says fall of 2025. So no date yet for that. 

And just a warning folks, if you go there for the first time from a weird little web browser that you've not updated, you might get a security warning. Be sure to go through that, but it is the same techconunplugged.com and you'll find everything for the 2025 TechCon unplugged tour. And next week on the live show, I will have Tiffany Ricks from HacWare. 

So we go from ThreatLocker to HacWare. Should be good. All right, my friend, anything else? Did you want to go back? I don't know if you brought yourself a written list to go over all the ThreatLocker stuff, but let's do it.

I think we touched on it pretty well. As far as the Zero Trust event went, I think something I didn't touch on yet that I was impressed to see is it definitely wasn't a sales event. You weren't going to this conference feeling like you were being sold ThreatLocker. 

A lot of the content was educational. They had hacking labs. Really it was more around Zero Trust and helping educate you on why Zero Trust is important, different tactics, strategies, how it keeps threat actors from invading. 

I like that. I'm going to use that more often. Don't let the threat actor invade.

I mean, hey, there's aliens out there. You never know. So I'm definitely going to be going back again next year. 

I will say I was bummed that it's the same time as the Rite of Boom. I've not been to a Rite of Boom yet. And Rite of Boom was closer to you.

Yeah, in Vegas. I'm not a big fan of events in Vegas, but for Rite of Boom, I'd go. So I'm hoping next year they're spaced out a little bit better because I definitely am not going to miss a Zero Trust moving forward. 

Zero Trust. Yeah, it was a good event. I know that everybody's talking about events right now. 

Are they too big? Are there too many? I would say, yes, there's too many. That's for sure. You can only attend eight to 10 a year, I think, if you're sane and don't have the name Henry Tim, who I did see at Zero Trust. 

He was there. Some of those tech degenerate guys, they travel a ton. I commend them for being able to handle all that travel. 

Yeah, well, all you degenerates, you guys have big businesses and you got tons of staff that can take care of stuff while you're away. Me, I'm just a boutique MSP and a lowly podcaster. I can't afford to travel all that time. 

You go to a lot of events. You're lucky you're in Florida because I'm over here in California. It's rare there's an event near me.

That is true. If it's in Orlando or Tampa, I'll probably be there. Or, of course, Fort Lauderdale, like the IT MSP Expo right here in my home city. 

That was very nice. Then, of course, there's Florida Man Games here in Florida as well. Now that, I kind of wish I was going with you because it's definitely going to be entertaining.

There's no doubt about that. It will be. It will be. 

Maybe next year we'll do that. You can bring the life. All right. 

I don't see her hanging out at Florida Man. Yeah, I'll run that by her and let you know what she says. All right, Brian, hang out here while we end off the show here.

I just want to say thank you, folks, for hanging out here during the live show. If you are listening by audio and you want to go see the Florida Man trailer that I played, I will have the link in there for that. And then, of course, we'll have all the video stuff afterwards for the actual Florida Man Games. 

I'll have the links for the ASCII Edge events, the TechCon unplugged. And, of course, I'll have the links to Florida Man Games. If you're in Daytona, Jacksonville, South Alabama, South Georgia, I mean, it doesn't take you guys long, maybe an hour or two to get to the St. John's Fairgrounds. 

You guys might want to swing by. Tickets, 45 bucks. Have yourself a day and a heck of a time. 

But that's going to do it. We will be back to talk about more stuff. I am. 

Oh, you know what I was going to ask you? They were very careful not to call this a bundle. All the new features. Yes.

Isn't that the isn't that the thing is everything has to be a bundle. Yeah, they didn't announce they didn't announce some introductory price for 12 months. Yeah, I mean, definitely not a salesy approach kind of is what I think you're pointing out there.

But they do have ThreatLocker Unified. And I did ask Tate, my boy over at ThreatLocker, I said, so I'm paying for Unified. Does this stuff come with Unified now? Because Unified is supposed to include everything. 

Right. And, you know, there will be an extra charge for web control and patch management, all the other stuff, no extra charge for. And I guess after I talked with him about it a bit, he's like, well, you got the 2024 version of Unified. 

We've got a new 2025 version of Unified. I'm like, so we're doing that. All right. 

Well, I do that with my clients so I can understand that. You know, hey, you're on the 2024 plan or, you know, we usually try to not let clients go older than two years on a plan. You know what I mean? Before there's a renewal, something usually changes with it. 

So that is true. I was like, all right. I mean, they are going to be displacing patch management and web controller are designed to displace other products. 

Right. And there is a heavier lift with the fact that they're providing an extra service you didn't once have anymore that they've got. Absolutely. 

And I would expect that. Or I would expect that. So. 

All right. So Brian Weiss in the house from iTech Solutions, thank you for joining me for the show and having this chat after the conference. Zero Trust World 2025. 

And as I mentioned, folks, we'll be back next week with another live show. Tiffany Ricks from HacWare. And of course, I will have all of the interviews that I did at Zero Trust World coming out. 

They will be both video and audio versions. So be on the lookout for those in your favorite pod catcher on your favorite social medias. That's going to do it for this week, folks. 

We'll see you back here next week. And until next time, holla. Holla.