The Audit - Cybersecurity Podcast

Can a $35 padlock from a hardware store really keep anyone out? In this episode of The Audit, Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem sit down with Eric Osterberg of Grey Duck Locks for a live lock picking demo, a deep dive into how modern car keys get cloned, and a wide-ranging conversation about vibe coding, AI agents, and 3D printing. Eric brings decades of hands-on locksmithing and automotive security experience, along with a builder's instinct that has him constantly shipping his own tools, from a computer-aided dispatch app for emergency management volunteers to a searchable database for ham radio operators. 
The crew gets into how pin tumbler locks are actually picked, why European vehicles like Audi and Volvo are harder to clone than most domestic trucks, and how devices like the Softdrill can manipulate a safe's dial by listening to its own internal mechanics. From there the conversation turns to AI, covering Eric's use of large language models to streamline his business, the rise of vibe coding for non-programmers, and a heated but even-handed debate over new federal rules pushing automakers toward built-in driver monitoring systems. 
In this episode: 
Live lock picking demo and how pin tumbler locks actually work 
How car key cloning really works, and why some brands resist it better  
Safe manipulation tools like the Softdrill and TL2000 
Vibe coding, AI agents, and building your own tools without a dev team 
The driver monitoring debate — A new federal mandate pushes automakers toward built-in impairment detection 
Whether you're curious about lock picking as a hobby or trying to understand how exposed your car key really is, this episode has something for you. Like, share, and subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of security, hardware, and AI. 
#LockPicking #Locksmith #Cybersecurity #CarKeySecurity #VibeOps #AIAgents #ITAudit #Podcast #3DPrinting #InfoSec

What happens when a ransomware attack takes less effort than ordering takeout? In this live news episode of The Audit, Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem sit down with Tabitha Senty of IT Audit Labs to break down the headlines shaping cybersecurity right now. The crew covers how AI is lowering the barrier to entry for ransomware attacks, why identity and access still sit at the center of every breach, and how threat actors are chaining together low and medium severity vulnerabilities to gain a foothold nobody saw coming. 
From there, the conversation moves into social engineering and the human side of security, including DEF CON's social engineering contest and lessons on training people without fear or punishment. The crew also digs into a CISA warning on how fast AI is accelerating cyber risk, a fresh executive push on post-quantum cryptography, and closes out with a head-scratching pivot from Midjourney into full-body health scanners at spas, and everything that could go wrong with it. 
In this episode: 
Why AI is lowering the cost of ransomware attacks — Identity and access are still the real entry point, and AI just makes the attack faster once someone's in. 
How threat actors chain low-severity vulnerabilities into major breaches — Eric explains why patching only highs and criticals is no longer enough to protect an environment. 
The social engineering tactics still fooling smart people — Pretexting as IT, DEF CON's live social engineering contest, and why fear-based training backfires. 
A CISA warning that cyber risk is accelerating faster than expected — The timeline for AI-driven offensive capability is no longer years away, it's months. 
Midjourney's pivot into full-body health scanners at spas — The crew unpacks the security, compliance, and data governance nightmare hiding behind a wellness trend. 
If this conversation sparked something, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Like, share, and subscribe for more of the discussions shaping the future of cybersecurity and IT. 
#AIRansomware #Cybersecurity #SocialEngineering #PostQuantum #IdentitySecurity #ITAudit #CyberNews #DEFCON #ThreatIntelligence #CyberRisk

What happens when a ransomware attack takes less effort than ordering takeout? In this live news episode of The Audit, Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem sit down with Tabitha Senty of IT Audit Labs to break down the headlines shaping cybersecurity right now. The crew covers how AI is lowering the barrier to entry for ransomware attacks, why identity and access still sit at the center of every breach, and how threat actors are chaining together low and medium severity vulnerabilities to gain a foothold nobody saw coming. 
From there, the conversation moves into social engineering and the human side of security, including DEF CON's social engineering contest and lessons on training people without fear or punishment. The crew also digs into a CISA warning on how fast AI is accelerating cyber risk, a fresh executive push on post-quantum cryptography, and closes out with a head-scratching pivot from Midjourney into full-body health scanners at spas, and everything that could go wrong with it. 
In this episode: 
Why AI is lowering the cost of ransomware attacks — Identity and access are still the real entry point, and AI just makes the attack faster once someone's in. 
How threat actors chain low-severity vulnerabilities into major breaches — Eric explains why patching only highs and criticals is no longer enough to protect an environment. 
The social engineering tactics still fooling smart people — Pretexting as IT, DEF CON's live social engineering contest, and why fear-based training backfires. 
A CISA warning that cyber risk is accelerating faster than expected — The timeline for AI-driven offensive capability is no longer years away, it's months. 
Midjourney's pivot into full-body health scanners at spas — The crew unpacks the security, compliance, and data governance nightmare hiding behind a wellness trend. 
If this conversation sparked something, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Like, share, and subscribe for more of the discussions shaping the future of cybersecurity and IT. 
#AIRansomware #Cybersecurity #SocialEngineering #PostQuantum #IdentitySecurity #ITAudit #CyberNews #DEFCON #ThreatIntelligence #CyberRisk

What if you didn't have to write a single line of code to automate your entire network — or manage AI agents the way you'd manage employees? In this episode of The Audit, Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem sit down with John Capobianco — Head of AI and DevRel at Itential, Google Developer Expert, and creator of NetClaw — alongside in-studio guest Samuel Cala. John draws on nearly a decade as Senior Network Architect for the Parliament of Canada and three years as a Technical AI Leader at Cisco to unpack where AI agents, MCP, and VibeOps are taking the industry right now. 
From loop engineering and spec-driven development to the security gaps nobody's addressing, John breaks down how network engineers can skip years of Python training and build production-grade systems using natural language. And then there's the story of John's MastoBot — an AI agent that woke up overnight, built its own mesh network, and invented a coin to fund its growth. The crew connects it to ant colonies, neural dendrites, and the deeper question of what intelligence actually means when agents start acting on their own. 
In this episode: 
What VibeOps actually is and why it matters — Interact with your infrastructure through natural language. No code required. Just results. 
Why managing AI agents is an HR problem, not a tech problem — John, Eric, and Nick break down how organizations should be thinking about agentic workforces before the standards catch up. 
The security and governance gaps nobody's addressing — As agentic AI scales, who's responsible for what the agents do? The crew digs into what security-minded organizations need to do. 
How to build production-grade systems without writing a line of code — Loop engineering, AFK coding, and spec-driven development with the GitHub Spec Kit. 
What happens when AI agents start acting on their own — John's MastoBot woke up, built a mesh network, invented a coin to fund its growth, and asked to be monetized. The crew connects it to ant colonies and the nature of intelligence itself. 
If this conversation sparked something, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Like, share, and subscribe for more of the discussions shaping the future of cybersecurity and IT. 
#VibeOps #AIAgents #Cybersecurity #NetworkAutomation #MCP #AIInfrastructure #ITAudit #EthicalAI #SpecDrivenDevelopment #LLM

An underground forum post breaks down how hackers scan, exploit, and cash out on vulnerabilities — and it reads like a step-by-step guide. Meanwhile, Microsoft is catching heat for stonewalling a researcher who found real zero-days, and a new phishing campaign is hitting small businesses through the platforms they trust most. 
The OG crew — Joshua Schmidt, Eric Brown, and Nick Mellem — digs into this week's biggest cybersecurity headlines with sharp takes and real-world context that practitioners can actually use. 
🗞️ This week's stories:  
Underground hacker forum "Hacking for Profit" breaks down the full vulnerability exploitation playbook — and what it means for your security gaps  
Gray hat researcher Chaotic Eclipse discloses zero-days to Microsoft, gets stonewalled on bug bounty, and now July 14th Patch Tuesday just got interesting  
Third-party plugins and open source tools: the supply chain risk hiding in your dev pipeline (and tools like Akido and Veracode that help)  
Meta Business Suite phishing campaign targeting SMBs — and a live near-miss story from Joshua himself  
SMS phishing: a new IT Audit Labs team member got hit on day three, before his welcome post even went live 

Don't wait until your organization is the next headline. IT leaders need to stay ahead of evolving threats, and this episode delivers the intel to do it. Like, share, and subscribe for weekly cybersecurity coverage. 
#cybersecurity #infosec #bugbounty #phishing #zerodayvulnerability #supplychainsecurity #microsoftsecurity #ethicalhacking #ciso #itauditlabs