Mark, Josh, and Chris discuss two listener emails, Google's third party apps, Google's 10 year announcement on Chromebooks, and they talk at length about contracts, terms of service, and how to handle agreements. Listen Here or on all major pod platforms Join the K12TechPro.com Community. Buy our merch!!! SomethingCool.com Extreme Networks - Email dmayer@extremenetworks.com Fortinet - Email fortinetpodcast@fortinet.com VIZOR - 20% off Jupiter - Email Stuart at stuart.miles@jupitered.com Looking ...
Sep 22, 2023•51 min•Ep. 140
This is a special episode - We sat down with Alaina Clark, the Assistant Director of Stakeholder Engagement at CISA. We were very happy she agreed to come on and chat with us about all things CISA. She talked about what CISA can help your district accomplish related to your cyber posture, the White House event, and the newly announced Secure By Design Initiative for K12 . We really appreciate the time she spent with us and we hope to have folks from CISA on again in the future. Mark and I also q...
Sep 15, 2023•38 min•Ep. 139
Every week we say this, but here we go again... It's been a rough few days for Mark and Josh. Mark started school this week and is tired and worn. From power outages to heatwaves, Mark experienced it during his first day of school. Josh had 3 days in a row with major SIS outages ranging from a half day to 20 minutes. This caused him to edit his incident response plan and work through plans for attendance and food service. We also tease an upcoming interview with Alaina Clark, Assistant Director ...
Sep 08, 2023•39 min•Ep. 138
This is a wild one. We start out recapping our first two weeks of school, but quickly realize Josh is doing all the talking. We talk about a few news stories of cyber incidents at school districts in Connecticut and Maryland. While talking about these incidents, Mark takes offense that Josh and Chris thought Maryland was considered a New England state. The majority of this episode is spent on a topic we found on a Facebook group called "The Principals Desk." There was a post in that group recent...
Sep 01, 2023•48 min•Ep. 137
It was past Josh's bed time when this episode was recorded, so he let's Mark do all the talking. Mark shows off his Google Sheet skills by walking us through the CIS controls, specifically IG1. IG1 was mentioned at the White House Convening on K12 Cybersecurity a few weeks ago and we thought it was a good idea to delve into what that means and how to get started with implementation. Mark also talks about the CIS Workbook to help you rate your current security posted against CIS Controls. After c...
Aug 25, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 136
In this episode, we are happy to have a special guest with us, Josh from New Hampshire AKA "The Other Josh." He was one of approximately 15 K12 CIO's invited to last week's White House Convening. Josh gives us a bit of a behind the scenes look at everything from the e-vite to the event itself. We also have more "hot takes" on what we want to see from Google and other big players in the K12 product/service space. Side Note - This episode had some recording/editing issues. We're sorry. We're tryin...
Aug 18, 2023•53 min•Ep. 135
In this episode, Chris recaps his trip to the Annual ISAC Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah last week. We talk about a new Papercut Vulnerability , a study that shows 47% of schools paid ransom groups , and Zoom's abrupt change to their TOS and Privacy Policy to include AI training. However, the majority of this episode is about the White House convening that took place this week. They brought in big players in "Big IT" along with representatives from K12 school districts around the country to ...
Aug 11, 2023•49 min•Ep. 134
In this episode, Chris leads us off with sad stories about storms, power outages, dead UPSs, and dead servers. Mark leads us in a discussion about a new report from CISA titled " 2022 Top Routinely Exploited Vulnerabilities ." It is an interesting report on the top leveraged vulnerabilities for 2022 and methods to mitigate. Josh doesn't have any stories, but he talks A LOT. Listen here (and on all major podcast platforms). Join the K12TechPro.com Community. Buy our merch!!! KCAV Fortinet - Email...
Aug 04, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 133
The guys discuss the woes of new employees, employees changing positions, and employees leaving. They do a couple listener emails and discuss K12TechPro. Oh, and they try out a LIVE STREAM of the podcast via K12TechPro (more of that coming down the road probably!). Finally, Chris gives a bit more clarity on the vetting roadmap of K12TechPro and the k12sysadmin subreddit. Listen here (and on all major podcast platforms). Join the K12TechPro.com Community. Buy our merch!!! RTI Fortinet - Email for...
Jul 28, 2023•48 min•Ep. 132
We are tired and worn out! Mark and Chris spent the early part of the week at MidwestTechTalk and they are worn out. Josh is tired from working a full week after being gone for 2 weeks to ALASKA. Mark and Chris recap the MidwestTechTalk conference and Mark shares his observations about Missouri. We talk about the recent Class Action Lawsuit filed against Securly alleging that they sold student data to a 3rd party. We dream and brainstorm about what IoT devices we could see in classrooms over the...
Jul 22, 2023•51 min•Ep. 131
In this episode, Josh talks about Alaska. The guys talk about other things too, but mostly Josh talks about Alaska. Chris was probably supposed to post some additional links in the description, but he doesn't remember them... he only remembers Josh talking about Alaska. FCC Announcement about Cyber Security Funding AI generated images for every state (article referenced during the episode) Listen here (and on all major podcast platforms). Join the K12TechPro.com Community. Buy our merch!!! HPE/A...
Jul 14, 2023•39 min•Ep. 130
This is a special episode. We interview Christy Wyatt, the CEO of Absolute. Listen here (and on all major podcast platforms). Join the K12TechPro.com Community. K12 Tech Talk Absolute Resource Links Absolute Research Reports Absolute for Education/K12 Oh, and... Email us at k12techtalk@gmail.com Tweet us @k12techtalkpod Visit our LinkedIn page HERE...
Jun 30, 2023•29 min•Ep. 129
Chris, Josh, and Mark discuss the recent news that Fairfax County Public Schools sent teachers an appreciation email that ended up being a phishing test ( Washington Post article ), and they debate on if it was right or wrong to do. Too far maybe? Chris talks about setting up restricted Google access as well as doing the "under 18 third party apps" Google stuff, and the articles about both on K12TechPro, and Josh talks about some phrase he found on the internet that is thought provoking about cy...
Jun 23, 2023•36 min•Ep. 128
In this episode, we talk about the MoveIT vulnerability and the recent Fortinet SSL VPN vulnerability. The majority of the episode is spent covering the various versions of MFA, including a deep dive into what Passkeys are. If you are a Google Workspace school district, you should take note and enable the option for Passkey MFA. We talk about disabling IMAP for Gmail as a step to enhance email security. Josh talks about his fiber project that is now underway. BleepingComputer article about Forti...
Jun 16, 2023•41 min•Ep. 127
Josh is on vacation, so it's the Chris and Mark Show! We discuss Microsoft OneDrive being down , the upcoming MidwestTechTalk conference, and most of the episode is spent taking the K12 Six cybersecurity self-assessment . Listen here (and on all major podcast platforms). Join the K12TechPro.com Community. Buy our merch!!! Managed Methods - free Google Workspace and/or Microsoft 365 security audit Fortinet - Email fortinetpodcast@fortinet.com Extreme Networks - Email dmayer@extremenetworks.com NT...
Jun 09, 2023•41 min•Ep. 126
In this episode, we talk about the possibility of requiring Student MFA (thanks to a k12sysadmin post ). We also talk about Chris prepping for his network admin to retire and the "brain dump" process they are undertaking. Finally, we talk about the recently announced change to "3rd Party Apps" authentication with Google SSO. This change takes effect on October 23rd, 2023 and will cause issues. The time to act is now... DON'T WAIT! An article we wrote on K12TechPro with 3rd Party Apps instruction...
Jun 02, 2023•49 min•Ep. 125
Chis is off napping somewhere so it is the Mark and Josh show. They recap the recently released " CoSN 2023 State of EdTech Leadership Survey " that was released this week. They go over 11 key findings and trends that came out of the study. Some might surprised you. Mark talks about figured out how to block international logins to Google Workspace accounts. Hint - he made a full writeup on the K12 Tech Pro Community The guys also talk about the newly refreshed #StopRansomware Report from CISA/FB...
May 26, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 124
We quickly talk about the SchoolDude breach and Keepass's newly announced CVE. The majority of the episode is an interview with Lucas from PIRG. Lucas is the author of the study we referenced a few weeks ago in the episode "Chromebooks are Evil?." The study looks at "Chromebook Churn" and e-waste created by device usage. After that episode a few weeks ago, Lucas reached out to us to clarify a few points of the study. So, we invited him on to make those clarifications to our listeners. We had an ...
May 19, 2023•51 min•Ep. 123
🎶Together and it feels so good...🎵 We are all together for the first time at the New Hampshire CTO Clinic! First and foremost, we thank Barbara and the committee for inviting us and making the trip possible - We had a blast! We got to hang out with the fine folks of the "Live Free or Die" State and talk all things K12 technology. The key topics were cybersecurity and data privacy. We had a chance to interview Pam and Josh, two of the driving forces behind New Hampshire's outstanding Student Da...
May 12, 2023•35 min•Ep. 122
This is a bit of a special episode. We are in New Hampshire for the NHCTO Clinic, so we prerecorded a few interviews. The first interview you will hear is with Andrew and George from Lakota Local School District. George is a student in high school and is completing their Cyber Academy program and gaining Industry Recognized Certificates (Including Security+ and CEH pro). This has opened doors for George and he is currently working as a cybersecurity professional for a company in his area while g...
May 04, 2023•32 min•Ep. 121
Mark is worked up this week, but first... Chris asks us how to keep printers from getting to bad websites, we talk about the big PaperCut vulnerability announced last week, we compare Chris' personality and mannerisms to Ted Lasso, we talk about the new pending Federal Legislation to enhance K12 Cyber Security, and Mark talks about Domain Doppelgänger from KnowBe4. The majority of this episode is spent talking about a "study" that was published last week about how Chromebooks are evil. The study...
Apr 28, 2023•47 min•Ep. 120
In this episode, Josh is really confused about the artist known as SZA and CISA, Mark reads a listener email, Chris talks about the tabletop exercise he did with his district administration team, and the guys banter about Missouri's proposed Senate Bill 4 that could affect website access. Listen here (and on all major podcast platforms). Join the K12TechPro.com Community. Buy our merch!!! Absolute - Email oschmidt@absolute.com Strengthening Security and Compliance Posture through Cyber Resilienc...
Apr 21, 2023•48 min•Ep. 119
We have a number of listener emails that we address tonight. One is about shutting down SIS during off hours in an effort to protect it from attacks, one is about the Chrome net-export exploit, and the final one is about our retrospective on the COVID Years. We talk about CISA's new tabletop exercise template and how it would be fun to treat like it D&D: School Edition. We also talk about Black Hills Information Security's "Backdoors & Breaches" card game. We also talk about how "testing...
Apr 14, 2023•42 min•Ep. 118
In this episode, the guys talk about key things to keep in mind when working with vendors to get Student Data Privacy Agreements signed. They also talk about the Clever outage on 4/6/2023. Josh also talks Chris into changing a Google Admin WiFi setting while riding in the car. Listen here (and on all major podcast platforms). Join the K12TechPro.com Community. Buy our merch!!! Absolute - Email oschmidt@absolute.com Absolute Audit Support Video Fortinet - Email fortinetpodcast@fortinet.com Someth...
Apr 07, 2023•48 min•Ep. 117
Chris is back after a suspension and traveling to the CoSN conference. He recaps some of the discussion and overall trending topics from the CoSN conference. He also discusses the fact that he did not appreciate Eric the Intern's love for walking everywhere in Austin (and other Eric antics). Josh talks about the 3CX phone system vulnerability that was published 3/29/2023 by CrowdStrike and Red Canary. Hint - If you have a 3CX phone system, you will want to look this issue up and mitigate it righ...
Mar 31, 2023•50 min•Ep. 116
On this special episode (brought to you by ClassLink), Chris and Eric the Intern take a trip to Austin and spend the week at the CoSN conference! Because they interviewed so many and got such good content, we’ll be breaking this into two parts. You’ll hear from: -Eric Nicklas, Program Manager, MOREnet -Don Ringelestein, CTO, Maine Township High School District 207, CoSN Board -Evangelina Mendoza, CTO, San Antonio Independent School District, CoSN Board -Tim Clark & Monica Watts, 1EdTech -Mel...
Mar 23, 2023•52 min•Ep. 115
On this special episode (brought to you by ClassLink), Chris and Eric the Intern take a trip to Austin and spend the week at the CoSN conference! Because they interviewed so many and got such good content, we’ll be breaking this into two parts. You’ll hear from: -Eric Nicklas, Program Manager, MOREnet -Don Ringelestein, CTO, Maine Township High School District 207, CoSN Board -Evangelina Mendoza, CTO, San Antonio Independent School District, CoSN Board -Tim Clark & Monica Watts, 1EdTech -Mel...
Mar 23, 2023•53 min•Ep. 114
In tonight's episode Josh, Mark, and Eric the Intern chat about CISA's new K12 Cyber Report and their 3 fundamental items that all districts should be tackling... *hint, hint* one is MFA. Josh talks about his 3 internet outages that took place in the last 10 days and how that is causing him to look at backup WAN connections. The guys also spend time talking about the 3 year anniversary of when schools first shut down for COVID. It's hard to believe that was 3 years ago this week! Listen here (an...
Mar 17, 2023•52 min•Ep. 113
Chris is on leave again this week, so Mark and Josh do their best to proceed without him. Mark recaps the K12 SIX Conference that was held in Austin, Texas. Josh talks about trying to change a SSID over to WPA3 and it did not go well. They also talk about a new method students are using to attempt to crack WPA2 passphrases on Chromebooks using the chrome://net-export page. The majority of this episode is an interview that Chris and Mark conducted with Mr. Doug Levin, founder of K12 SIX. Doug sat...
Mar 10, 2023•57 min•Ep. 112
This is the second part of the interview with Soheil Katal, the CIO for LAUSD. In Episode 108 Interview Part One, we set the stage and talk through the first few days of the cyber incident that took place in September 2022. Go back and listen to Part One if you have not already. In this episode Soheil talks about bringing in the FBI and how their goal was not necessarily the same goal that Soheil and his team had. We also crack a few jokes about the news stories that said LAUSD "picked up the ph...
Mar 03, 2023•47 min•Ep. 111
