Cybersecurity podcasts
Learn by listening
When I’m moving, I want to listen to something, and often, it’s keeping up with some of my favorite podcasts. This habit started years ago when I commuted to and from New York City and has helped justify my personal iPhone upgrade program (getting the latest odd-numbered iPhone). These are some cybersecurity-focused podcasts I’ve followed and regularly listen to.
How can listening to podcasts fit into your continuing education program? Unfortunately, most certification programs expressly prohibit listening to podcasts for continuing education credits. My view is that ignoring podcasts is short-sighted as they represent learning by listening. I believe that certification programs not allowing continuing education credits for listening to podcasts is likely to change in the future.
I’ll start with Recorded Future’s Click Here podcast. This is an excellent podcast for those interested in learning about and entering the cybersecurity field. Many episodes include an intelligence segment drawn directly from the Recorded Futures Threat Intelligence team. New episodes debut on Tuesdays and Fridays, each lasting less than one hour. You can often connect your learning with this podcast's reporting if you’ve completed an entry-level certification like CompTIA Security+, ISC2 CC, or SSCP. My unscientific research shows that the podcast delivers about 3 hours of content per month and that, if well documented, you might be able to claim one hour per month for continuing education.
A newcomer is the Official U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) podcast titled No Such Podcast. It features presenters from and interviews with the U.S. Intelligence Agency. Debuting in September 2024, No Such Podcast exposes and explores various aspects of the agency's work. In the first episode, the podcast introduces listeners to signals intelligence and how they were able to track down 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden. While they are just getting started, No Such Podcast seems to introduce new hosts to each episode. The 26-minute 9/5/24 episode '“Cybersecurity is National Security” (episode 2) provides listeners with a fascinating view from a government employee’s perspective.
I don’t know how I first happened upon the Risky Biz podcast but after listening to Patrick Gray and Adam Boileau I thought they were Silicon Valley cybersecurity tech types. They are definitely not citizens of California and the range of topics is global. I enjoy the technical depth that their discussions and interviews go to. The weekly format has changed over time from business news, tech news, discussions, and interviews. The news (and intelligence) portion has been moved to a second, often shorter podcast Risky Biz News that comes out more frequently. Their vendor ‘Snake Oilers’ interviews are really honest, no fluff vendor interviews.
The Security Detail is a brand new podcast from the strategic security team at Splunk. The level of technical depth in this podcast is excellent and I’ve been impressed with the range of topics from law to AI and LLMs to browser security.
The last podcast I’ll mention here is Jack Rhysider’s Darknet Diaries. Jack is an amazing story teller and that’s the draw of this monthly podcast. With episodes ranging from 45 to almost 90 minutes my only issues with Diaries are that once I start I can’t stop listening and new podcasts only drop monthly.