Now that I’m home and I’ve had a good night of sleep, I wanted to follow up on my impressions from the conference.
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who was able to join me on Tuesday in the Automating IT Operations with Tanium and PowerShell session. This was my first speaking engagement and the reception and feedback was legitimately overwhelming. Your questions and engagement only served to motivate me to work harder and get some more content out there to the community that you can use and likely improve. I’ve got some big ideas in development that will make the basic functions shown here seem relatively quaint by comparison. I also have to follow up on one of the questions I was asked during the session which boiled down to what resources I might recommend for those who are beginning their journey with PowerShell. The most sacred text on this topic in my mind is Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches written by Don Jones and Jeffrey Hicks. This is the recommendation you’re generally going to get from any source because it’s just that good. There are also books in the “Month of Lunches” family for PowerShell scripting and toolmaking that build upon that foundation and many video series across the major tech education streaming services that cover PowerShell.
Second, David & Orion Hindawi killed it on the mainstage. Their sober assertion that the current way to approaching InfoSec with dozens of disparate, disconnected tools resonated with me on a very personal level because it’s something I’ve been talking about for a long time. When a security team has an unwieldy arsenal of tools that don’t play nicely with each other, I see technical debt rather than technical capability. That isn’t an indictment of the skilled practitioners of InfoSec either; it’s simply an acknowledgement that even professionals can only be proficient in so many things with an 8-hour workday and a life away from computer screens. Tanium is advocating for a different way and, to my mind, doing a great job of delivering on the promises they’re boldly making.
Last but not least, I’ve spoken to some friends within Tanium about doing a joint webinar so that we can expand upon the content and discuss these concepts with a wider viewership. The audience response to the session was very positive and I would love to speak with you all again since doing so the first time was an honor and a privilege.
Stay tuned and keep automating.
P.S. – I fixed the subscription functionality. Anyone who subscribed and didn’t get a confirmation email will need to do so again.
