Host vs Host: Get to Know Nic and Wendy

Nic Fillingham: Since 2005, "Blue Hat" has been where the security research community and Microsoft come together as peers.

Wendy Zenone: To debate and discuss, share and challenge, celebrate and learn.

Nic Fillingham: On the "Blue Hat Podcast," join me, Nic Fillingham.

Wendy Zenone: And me, Wendy Zenone for conversations with researchers, responders, and industry leaders both inside and outside of Microsoft.

Nic Fillingham: Working to secure the planet's technology and create a safer world for all.

Wendy Zenone: And now, on with the "Blue Hat Podcast." [ Music ] Welcome to the "Blue Hat Podcast." We have a different episode for everyone. We thought it would be fun to give a little introduction into the world of who your hosts are. So, Nic and I are going to be interviewing each other and shedding some light on who we are beyond the podcast and what brought us here. Nic, let's start.

Nic Fillingham: Hello.

Wendy Zenone: With you. Welcome to the podcast.

Nic Fillingham: Yes.

Wendy Zenone: Tell us a little bit about yourself. Let's start with Microsoft and how long you've been here and what do you do?

Nic Fillingham: I've been at Microsoft basically my entire career or my entire career. Before joining Microsoft, I was a chicken butcher, that's [multiple speakers].

Wendy Zenone: Really?

Nic Fillingham: That was my first job out of-actually; I was still in high school. That was my first part-time job. In which, a chicken butcher is basically a butcher shop where you go to buy meat that we only sell chicken. So, I was like chopping up chickens and stuff, so that was the first thing I did that I got paid money for. And then I'm a music person, I'm a musician and so I went and worked in a music store and that fun, selling CDs and guitars and all that kind of stuff. And then, I got the opportunity to become a part-time Xbox demo guy and this was just before the original Xbox, the first ever Xbox was launching and they needed someone who was a gamer and could essentially sort of play games, but then also explain what was going on. And that happens-these people would have careers doing that on Twitch and Stream and all that kind of stuff right now, but yeah, my first ever job with Microsoft was to-we had a prototype prerelease Xbox and I think it was a devkit at the time and it had some demos on there, it had like a Halo demo and Rally car, and Project Gotham Racing and Fusion Frenzy and we would take that around and we would show like journalists, and we would show the buyers for the stores that we're going to be selling the Xbox and we would try and get them-introduce them to it and get them really excited about it. That was a great job! That was fun. And yeah, just from there I found my way over to Singapore with the Xbox business working on games and launching Xbox 360. That was cool. And then, I can't even remember how I found my way to the U.S. I think I like started a little blog where I was just publishing sort of tips and tricks that I would find for like Windows and stuff, like how to do a screen recording and I don't even remember, but its sell on the desk of the folks at Channel 9, MSDN Channel 9, I somehow came across their radar and they said, "Do you want to come over to Redmond, Washington," which is on the West Coast of the U.S, the Pacific Northwest at the top near Canada just outside of Seattle, did I want to come over and work for them doing stuff for Channel 9, and I said "Yes please." And move over and gosh, that was maybe 15 years ago, something like that. Yeah, and bounced around, by doing a bunch of interesting things over in the MSDN world and developed a division and DPE, and then went over to Windows for a bit, and the Microsoft 365, and then a few years ago heard about an opportunity to come and work in MSRC and work on the "BlueHat" program, and I had been very lucky to go to a BlueHat. Maybe that tour 7 or 8 years ago, I only got to go for one day, I think I was supporting someone who was presenting at BlueHat and I remember being just in awe of everyone that was there and the whole idea that these hackers-and I didn't really think of them as hackers at the time, I just thought of them as the smartest of the smart when it came to security, that they were all coming together in this hotel really to just talk about the things that they were hacking and what they were finding and how they were doing it. And this whole idea that you could go and break stuff, but you could break stuff with the right reasons and even the blessing of the person that makes that stuff, although the company in this case, was Microsoft, so that you could make it better and I just thought that was so cool, and yeah, an opportunity came to come over to MSRC and work on BlueHat and here I am.

Wendy Zenone: I love it.

Nic Fillingham: Is that the an--?

Wendy Zenone: Is that the answer you were hoping for? That was very long and winded. No, it was great answer. For those listening, Nic and I are on the same team and we started right around the same time, I think it was within a month of each other, and I knew some of this, but I didn't know that you enjoyed playing videogames. So, that was new for me. I also didn't know that they have stores that just sell chickens. I've never heard of that [laughter].

Nic Fillingham: Well, so I'm from Australia. That's my accent. I personally think that I don't sound Australian anymore, but everyone tells me I very much still do.

Wendy Zenone: You do. You do.

Nic Fillingham: But, but yes, I don't know. I mean, we live just outside of Seattle here in the Pacific Northwest. I know of butcher shops.

Wendy Zenone: Yeah.

Nic Fillingham: That I can go buy steak and pork and all that kind of stuff at a butcher shop, but I don't think I've ever seen a just chicken butcher shop here in the.

Wendy Zenone: No.

Nic Fillingham: U.S. So, maybe that's uniquely Australia, I don't know.

Wendy Zenone: Yeah. I mean, I did meet someone in a parking lot and bought chicken from them, but that's a totally separate thing-that is a local farmer, but I've never seen like an actual shop that just sells chickens and [multiple speakers].

Nic Fillingham: Hang on, hang on wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How-so you're in a parking lot.

Wendy Zenone: Yeah.

Nic Fillingham: And someone comes up to you and says, "Hey, do you want to buy some chicken?" Is that?

Wendy Zenone: No. It wasn't as xxx as that, it was I saw a sign on the mailbox that said, "Do you want some chicken?" So, yeah I emailed this email and said I would like some, and so then when the chicken was ready, let's fast forward about a month, then I got a text that said, "Meet in the parking lot." So, I.

Nic Fillingham: No, no so you saw a sign on a mailbox that says "do you want chicken?"

Wendy Zenone: Right.

Nic Fillingham: And like what mailbox? Where are you seeing random signs on mailboxes offering chicken?

Wendy Zenone: It's in our neighborhood. So, there is-we don't have an individual mailbox. We have a group mailbox and there was a sign there and apparently they weren't allowed to do this, they had to take them down, but I saw it before it was taken down and I went to this email and then it's a small farm, so I think they were trying to figure out how to do some marketing, but it-when you present it like this it sounds really funny [laughter].

Nic Fillingham: So, maybe you-you like a community notice board, something like that, right?

Wendy Zenone: Right, right. Yeah, but I guess you're not allowed to put signs on mailboxes, but I was able to catch the sign before it was taken down and it's a local farm, a family that had chickens.

Nic Fillingham: So, a legitimate local farm.

Wendy Zenone: Yes, yes.

Nic Fillingham: They grow and they farm chickens. This is.

Wendy Zenone: Yes.

Nic Fillingham: This is meat birds, this is poultry.

Wendy Zenone: Right.

Nic Fillingham: And they put up a sign to try and advertise to their neighbors saying, "Hey, we're a local farm. We sell chicken. Would anyone like to buy chicken from us?"

Wendy Zenone: Yes.

Nic Fillingham: And you decided that you would take them up on that.

Wendy Zenone: Um-hmm, yes.

Nic Fillingham: And they just decided to conduct the transaction in a parking lot?

Wendy Zenone: Right, yeah, but it just sounds way worse, but you just explained it much better.

Nic Fillingham: Well, that's all the time we have for today's episode. Is there anything else we should know about you-when do you-or just that you like to procure meat from strangers in parking garages?

Wendy Zenone: I don't want to say that it's not the first time that I've done it, because it is not the first time that I have done that, but that is a whole other episode. But I was told I'm not allowed to buy anything from strange people anymore. So, you've been at Microsoft for a lot longer than I have. I have been here coming up on 3 years. What brought me to Microsoft was I was originally working in the PR space and then transitioned to security and that is by way of a all women software engineering school. Fast forward, I worked in application's security. Then I worked, during the application's security job, I did a lot of security where I was in training. I'd organize internal training sessions and I ran a bug bounty program. It was a very small bug bounty program, nothing like we have here at Microsoft. Then I moved on to Netflix and I worked in corporate security. I managed the third-party security program there, so for example, if you are working at Netflix and you want to use air cable or something of that sense, then it would come through me, we would do a security review and I would work with legal to ensure that the appropriate language is in there and the DPA, and so on and so forth. I did that for about 4 years and moved over to Salesforce. I was TPM there for a little bit, and then someone that I was working with had met with our current manager and said, "Hey, there's this job and maybe you're interested." I'm like, "Ah, I'm not really looking, but I'll give it a go." And I met our manager, Stephanie Calabrese, and once you meet Stephanie it's the personality, the job; there were a couple different programs that were open, it was what you're working on Nic, and there was Strike which is the Security Internal Awareness and Training Program and that resonated with me, because that's what I had done before. And here I am working on Strike and buying chicken in parking lots.

Nic Fillingham: So, I think you and I are, one, sort of similar-well, maybe not. I was going to say you have been a software engineer there, right, but you were a security engineer, is that correct?

Wendy Zenone: I was trained in school. I learned how to make software, the full-stack and backend, frontend, the whole thing. But what I wanted to do was not to be a software engineer, I wanted to be able to speak to software engineers, to understand what that meant and my intention was always to go into security. So, at the school that I went to, Hackbright, no one went into security. So, they weren't really sure how to guide me on that, but it was fine. I was fortunate enough to have my husband who's been in security for like 400 years, so he was able to kind of help and assign me mentors and then I kind of progressed that way, but never have been a software engineer, but I did want to be able to speak to software engineers. So, that's the path I went on. It was enlightening and like, "Hey, you're making your project and you got to use an API," and I was like, "What does that even mean?" So, that was really great to be able to understand what all that means, but sitting behind-I think I'm just too social to be a software engineer, but I love being able to talk to folks about it and be able to know what they're talking about when they're talking to me. And Nic.

Nic Fillingham: Yes.

Wendy Zenone: What made you want to transition to BlueHat? I mean, you worked with researchers and saw it from that perspective, but were you interested in security? Did that make you interested in security? Was it BlueHat, the conference that made you interested in security, like what was the job there?

Nic Fillingham: Yeah, so I too-well, I was going to say, I'm also not a security engineer. I'm not even an engineer. I did not know what I wanted to study. I did not know where I wanted to focus. I knew I was attracted to bright shiny objects. I knew that, and that was everything from as computer work, like what's all the bits inside of a-let's take the case off this computer and like remove things one by one and see what happens and then see if we can put it back together again. That was me. I did that kind of stuff. And I really didn't know what I wanted to do, so I-I am not an engineer, not a security engineer, not a security response person, like you though in some ways, I really love talking to people that are experts in this field and the ones who are doing the physical and the virtual let's take the case off and pull this thing apart and see how it works. I can do a little bit of that in my spare time, or I should say nonprofessionally, but no I've never been trained to that professionally, but what I love doing is I love talking to people, and I love talking to people especially in this field. And, I got a chance to attend a BlueHat in support of, again, I think it was either a keynote presenter or a general session presenter a number of years back, and that was the first time I had ever sort of been exposed to this industry or this sort of subset of the industry and I just remember-I just remember being really sort of, you know that giff of-I say "giff" by the way, it's not a giff.

Wendy Zenone: As a gift.

Nic Fillingham: Gift. And I will die on that hill. And there's a gift that I use it all the time, so this could be incredibly a nuance to no one knows what I'm talking about, but it's from, I think, Tim and Eric's show or Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim and it's someone is doing a mind-my mind is exploding and it's like a guy, he's mimicking his brain exploding and then it sort of.

Wendy Zenone: Yeah.

Nic Fillingham: Turns into, yeah. So, I had one of those. I'm glad I explained that giff. I had one of those moments at BlueHat, because I had only ever heard the word hacker in its negative context. To me, I was still in that vein of people that hear hacker and they just think "hoodie criminal." And this was the first time that I sort of got exposed to the ethical side and the sort of productive and sanctioned and glorified and celebrated side, and I just remember of sort of being really taken by that, but I was actually working in the security marketing team and I had an opportunity to work with Satya-Microsoft's CEO, Satya's team who were preparing a presentation he was going to give where he wanted to talk about a security researcher. And this was someone who lived in quite a remote part of like Southeast India, in a very small village. I remember the story. It was a security researcher who-this was a southeast part of India, a very, very small village, quite remote, but because the world is so connected now, this person was just able to have such a significant impact on a very particular field, a sort of subset of sort of vulnerability research and discovery, and I was sort of lucky enough to reach out to this person and talk to them and learn a bit about them and I got to sort of profile them and pull all that information together which Satya's team then used to sort of present at I believe several conferences that he presented at, and I just remember being sort of struck by that idea that-well, so not only were hackers not evil criminals all wearing hoodies and only working between the hours of 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., but here you had a guy who, I believe he was also relatively-he might have been self-taught too, I think if I'm remembering correctly, but rural part, Southeast India and yet he was having this massive impact on arguably one of the biggest companies on the planet and certainly a company of one of the biggest technological footprints. And that was sort of another moment that really struck me. And so, yeah when I heard about the BlueHat job, it was a bit of a no-brainer, and like you, I met Stephanie Calabrese and.

Wendy Zenone: Yeah.

Nic Fillingham: The first thing she asked me was what was my favorite Taylor Swift song? And um.

Wendy Zenone: Did she really? No.

Nic Fillingham: No she didn't. No she didn't. But.

Wendy Zenone: That does track, but I.

Nic Fillingham: That does track, but not. I mean, did I even answer your question? What was your question to me?

Wendy Zenone: I don't remember.

Nic Fillingham: I don't remember either. So, when you're not podcasting and running the Strike program Wendy and you're not trolling-well, not car parks for people who are selling protein out the back of a van, what do you like to do?

Wendy Zenone: Oh, man. I have been kind of in a home phase lately. I just love being at home. We live in a beautiful area. So, I like doing that, but when I'm not at home, as you know with the listening-I do a lot of traveling around the world going to electronic music concerts and it's kind of a little hobby that my husband and I have. We support a DJ and so that brings us to all these different places I've never been, like I would never have gone to Minneapolis if it wasn't for this. So, we've been doing that. It's been a little quiet, so it's kind of nice just being at home, but otherwise I like hanging out with our two dogs. We have two Siberian Huskies, so if we're not hanging out with the dogs I'm vacuuming. That's pretty much a constant with them. I like plants, and I know this doesn't sound very exciting doesn't it?

Nic Fillingham: Not really.

Wendy Zenone: As I'm verbalizing, I like plants. I like to hang out with my dogs.

Nic Fillingham: No, who does, but I want to ask about-I want to ask about the EDM. So, when did you get EDM or what came first? Were you like a massive EDM head? Like, how did you get into it and who are some of your favorite artists?

Wendy Zenone: Oh, gosh I hated it. I'll be honest. I didn't like it. My husband's been into it forever, but then COVID came and we're like trapped in this house, right, you can't go anywhere. So, he's like this is my opportunity. So, he started playing a bunch of music and I was like, "I don't like this." But then every so often I would be like, "Well, that's a good song. That's a good song." You know, we had nothing else to do. We have watched everything, so he keeps playing it and then I started to like it. And there is one particular artist, Gareth Emery that there was some songs I really liked, so I started watching videos on YouTube, again, stuck in the house, COVID. COVID kind of became a little bit more lenient and we were able to go places. So, this particular artist had a concert down in San Diego or San Diego, if you.

Nic Fillingham: San Diego.

Wendy Zenone: San Diego, where they had.

Nic Fillingham: Discovered by the Germans.

Wendy Zenone: Yes [brief laughter]. They had these barricades, so you got your tickets and you had to stay in your little-it was like a cow pen almost and you couldn't leave your cow pen, but you could watch the show. So, we were just the two of us with our blanket in this little pen; some people had hammocks and whatnot, but anyway that was my husband had been communicate.

Nic Fillingham: Oh, this is because they were-it was-this was for social distancing.

Wendy Zenone: Yeah, so.

Nic Fillingham: Oh, got it. Okay.

Wendy Zenone: So, people setup hammocks and whatnot and we weren't that sophisticated and just brought a blanket, we were like darn we should have at least brought a chair, but whatever. So, my husband had been in communication with Gareth Emery, because they bonded over their love for crypto currencies and that world. So, at the end of the show, I ended up going to meet the artist and it just snowballed from there, and then I have to say Gareth Emery is one of my favorites, but there are so many that I like. I mean, obviously there is Cosmic Gate. I like Cosmic Gate. I'm drawing a blank right now and I can't believe I'm doing that, but Cosmic Gate, Armin van Buuren, the big ones. Oh! Above and Beyond, they're amazing. I love the connection with more of the spiritual side. So, yeah.

Nic Fillingham: Before EDM what were you listening to? What was on high rotation?

Wendy Zenone: I'm a country music fan.

Nic Fillingham: Ooh.

Wendy Zenone: I say that quietly. How about you? What do you, I mean, okay first of all, instruments do you play and then what do you listen to? And then, you're in a band, what do you play in that band?

Nic Fillingham: Yeah, so music is a big part of my life as well.

Wendy Zenone: And it's always been right since you were little?

Nic Fillingham: Always been. Yeah, when I was a kid I probably should have been diagnosed with ADHD, but this was the 80s in Australia and maybe that.

Wendy Zenone: Wasn't a thing.

Nic Fillingham: Well, maybe not so much a thing or I don't know, we didn't get doctors until the early 2000s, so that could have been it. That's not true. But one of the things my parents did is like oh my god this kid has so much energy, let's put him in a lot of afterschool activities to get him out of the house and see if we can keep him occupied, and one of the things they put me in was the Suzuki Music School which is where they give you like a keyboard that's got a piano keyboard and I think it's color-coded or something and.

Wendy Zenone: I've heard of this. I know this.

Nic Fillingham: There's like an instructor and it's a big classroom and you're also going through and sort of learning things together and I really don't remember much of that, but clearly it had an impact. And then, I think I got kicked out of Suzuki Music School because I was too disruptive and that continued for quite a while, but I eventually picked up guitar and had a couple of teachers, but usually got booted; tried my hand at piano, had a couple of teachers got booted; trumpet. But, yeah when I was in high school I got my first electric guitar and I remember that I would sit at the-so my two prize possessions were my electric guitar and my cassette radio recording stereo, right? So, it was a little sort of boombox thing where you could record from the radio. And so, I would sit there, I would put, you know, a tape in the tape deck and I would listen to the radio and especially to like the charts and when a song was coming on, and in those days they would sort of preannounce the song where they would say like, "Coming up next it's Throwing Copper by Live," or Even Flow by Pearl Jam." And you could be ready. You could hover over the record and play button which you had to press at the same time in order to start recording. And so, I would try and record these songs and then I would listen to them and I would work out how to play them. And that was sort of what I did and I developed a pretty good ear actually for being able to pick-up a song just from sort of listening to it. And then, yeah you know, found a few mates and started a crappy covers band doing Rage Against the Machine and Australian punk rock, but yeah no I just never stopped and very fortunate to have a really good bunch of mates here in the area where I live just outside of Seattle in a couple of bands. I'm in a Grateful Dead cover band which is called Long and Strange, which is a lot of fun. I play guitar in that. I'm in a pop sort of funky sort of party band called Vibemind. I play base guitar in that and my partner Sally is a magnificently beautiful singer, songwriter of her own original stuff and so I back her up as part of her backing band when she performs. And, yeah, music is a big part of my life.

Wendy Zenone: I need to hear you sing and why haven't we had your band play at BlueHat at any time? I mean, that just feels like a no-brainer.

Nic Fillingham: I used to play in an AC/DC cover band, which we called American Thighs which is a line from an AC/DC song, and so Microsoft has this developed a conference every year called Build and one year; I think they had booked a band. They had booked like a really well-known cover band, like maybe like a heavy metal or something like a really well-known cool party band and at the 11th hour they had to cancel. And someone messaged me who was on the organizing sort of committee for the event, and they're like "You play in a band, right?" And I was like, "Yep." And like, "Are you any good?" And I was just like, "Yep," which we weren't. And they said, "Are you free to play on Friday night" or whatever it was "for this big Microsoft event?" And I, "Yep." I didn't even know if we were free. I just said yes three times. So, one of my fun little cover bands actually has played a big Microsoft stage, because someone pulled out, but that was a ton of fun. But yeah, we might-I don't know, maybe we could play at BlueHat, we'll see.

Wendy Zenone: Yeah.

Nic Fillingham: If there is-if someone pulls out maybe we could be the backup.

Wendy Zenone: You just reminded me of a memory of something that I did that was connected to Microsoft and that was there was some massive conference in San Francisco at the Mascone Center, and I was really into swing dancing and I worked contract every so often with a company called Work That Skirt, and we were hired to go to this conference and we taught all these people that came for this Microsoft conference how to swing dance. And I remember we were like in the back, we were just waiting and there was some guy, I can't, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was playing.

Nic Fillingham: Oh, I love Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

Wendy Zenone: Yeah. So, they brought us out. They did a little lesson and they were like, "Okay, now go dance with people." And I remember it was the most awkward thing of my life. Because you have to-you don't know anyone, but I, you know, you try and teach these people to dance and they were so great. They were trying and you couldn't hear anything so you couldn't really tell them that what they needed to be doing, so it was just kind of like trying to push people through the motions, but I remember thinking this is the biggest company ever seen in my life. Like, I didn't this thing existed. This was, I must have been man 19 or 20 years old, so I had no idea that fast forward here I am working for the same company, but that was something that totally [multiple speakers].

Nic Fillingham: Oh, hang on. So, you were trying to teach swing dancing to Microsoft?

Wendy Zenone: Yeah.

Nic Fillingham: Employees?

Wendy Zenone: Oh, yeah.

Nic Fillingham: At the Mascone Center?

Wendy Zenone: Yeah. I was paid a $100.00 and we taught people. It was like a-it was a conference, but people from all over the world were there. And so, they had a bunch of us come out, we were dressed in our retro dresses and outfits and yeah, I taught people how to swing dance at this Microsoft event and that was kind of a big deal. I thought it was so exciting. It was such a big conference. I don't even know what conference it was.

Nic Fillingham: And the live band was Big Bad Voodoo Daddy?

Wendy Zenone: It was.

Nic Fillingham: Oh, my gosh, that's awesome.

Wendy Zenone: How do we get these events again? Who-this was big.

Nic Fillingham: I don't know. Let's-we're going to have look at how to [laughing]. That reminds me of a story, in that I taught The Rock how to play himself in WWE Raw on Xbox.

Wendy Zenone: Wait, did you say make sure you do this with your eyebrow? Lift it up, yep just like that. Did you teach him that?

Nic Fillingham: I don't know. And so, the story is a little less impressive when I tell you that I didn't actually realize I was talking to The Rock until sort of afterwards.

Wendy Zenone: No.

Nic Fillingham: Because we were there for a wrestling event that was in Australia of all places, I think the wrestlers were touring for something and, yeah, there was going to be some sort of big press conference thing or something to announce that some big official opening or launch and I was on-hand to show people how to play the game. And this giant man just sort of appears next to me and grabs the controller. And I was like, "Oh, would you like me to show you how to play the game?" And this person says, "Yes." And I remember saying, you know, "Don't use H as your character." And yeah, he was like "I want to be that guy." And pointed to who was The Rock and I was like, "Oh, that's a good choice." I actually didn't probably sound like that, but it's funny to do it like that.

Wendy Zenone: You might have.

Nic Fillingham: Yeah, and then he chose The Rock and I chose I don't know triple H or something and we had a match and I don't remember who won, but at the end he was like "Oh, that's cool. Thanks." And he sort of walks off and then I was like, "Hey, he looks a lot the person that was-oh my god! That was The Rock!" Yeah.

Wendy Zenone: You should tell the story saying that you won. I mean, who can really validate that besides The Rock and if he does let's get him on the show.

Nic Fillingham: So, this is a podcast. What podcast do you listen to Wendy Zenone when you aren't on the BlueHat Podcast? Do you want to share some or is that too personal of a question?

Wendy Zenone: No, no. Honestly I kind of have quieted down my podcast listening, but I have been listening to a lot of Andrew Huberman. He is a neuroscientist and he has a lot of really good information around biohacking and just how to optimize your health, and for some reason, I have been really liking his stuff lately. I've been watching the videos of it, because if I listen to it I get distracted, I'm easily distracted. You know, you talked about being kicked out of music classes, I was the kid that was put in the corner a lot because I like to talk and I like to do things that didn't include staying focused at school. So, I have to watch the videos because that helps me, but if I do listen to it it's when I'm cooking or something, but that's what I've been listening to. How about you? What have you been listening to?

Nic Fillingham: Well, I'm one of those people that just subscribes to a ton of podcasts and never really gets to listen to all of them. So, every now and then I go and sort of unsubscribe and then try and sort of startup again, but I still listen to maybe 3 different types of podcasts. I listen to news, so you know I like to get like world news and I listen to the-what's going on in Australia; listen to the Australian News Podcast. I listen to comedy podcasts. I like Comedy Bang! Bang! I like listening to-I like when comedy and news can be combined. So, I like to listen to Lovett or Leave It like the Pod Save America stuff. I really like Valley Heat. I don't know if you listen to Valley Heat.

Wendy Zenone: No.

Nic Fillingham: That's a great podcast. And then there is another amazingly awesome funny podcast in Australia called SIZZLETOWN, so I listen to that. So, comedy, news, and then of course Tech and Security, and I know it's the number one cybersecurity podcast or I assume it is, but Darknet Diaries.

Wendy Zenone: Oh, yeah.

Nic Fillingham: I love Darknet Diaries, and my kids love Darknet Diaries. We will be driving-whenever we're in the car, they either ask to listen to The Moth storytelling podcast or they ask to listen to Darknet Diaries. And I remember one of the first times I met Jack Rhysider and I was telling him the kids listen and they love it and he was saying that yeah, he's hearing that more and more. And I think-I won't claim any credit to this, but I will notice that more recently when I listen to a Darknet Diaries episode, I do hear Jack say like, "Oh, this podcast might not be good for kids, so this podcast might get a little-a little dark." And I greatly appreciate him doing that, because yes there's been a few times when the kids were a little younger where I've had to quickly "OOOH, dad what's a?" I won't even give an example, but yes.

Wendy Zenone: Great.

Nic Fillingham: Getting into the underbelly of cybersecurity is fascinating, but sometimes not the best thing to listen to with your middle school, as an elementary school on a 6-hour road trip, but love Darknet Diaries, Jack Rhysider, amazing human, amazing content creator, someone who I very much look up to and look to emulate as best I can.

Wendy Zenone: I love that you're getting your kids into security. That's great.

Nic Fillingham: I'm doing-it's just playing.

Wendy Zenone: They're getting themselves into security.

Nic Fillingham: It was just playing and they were like what's this? I think I went to change it and they were like "Well, what's this? Can we listen to this?" I'm like, "Okay." You know, they are naturally drawn to it. It's very cool.

Wendy Zenone: There is a website that my husband has been using that I want to get started with and it's called-I think the website is called Pod Next, have you heard of it?

Nic Fillingham: No.

Wendy Zenone: There are so many things-I have so many podcasts that I have subscriptions to that I don't listen to, because time. So, what you can do is that you configure it in the website and it will help kind of give like a digest of what each episode is that you can understand what it is that they talked about if you don't necessarily have the time to hear it, but you don't want to miss it. So, that's something that I need to configure, because I feel like I used to listen to so much more and then life happens or time seems-I don't know how we have less time. When I was a kid it seemed like so much time happened every day, but now it's like, well it's already 2 O'clock.

Nic Fillingham: Well, cool. Do you think we have sufficiently introduced or re-introduced ourselves to listeners?

Wendy Zenone: I do.

Nic Fillingham: What's a really pithy close to this? Is there a thing we should leave people with?

Wendy Zenone: I don't know. You know, I have an admiration for your creativity, you're creative constantly and I appreciate that, so what do you think?

Nic Fillingham: Favorite food.

Wendy Zenone: Favorite food, that's a good one. I am on a ramen kick and I'm not talking like a really nice restaurant ramen, I'm talking like instant ramen that you get from H Mart, you know, the Buldak?

Nic Fillingham: H Mart is the best.

Wendy Zenone: It is amazing. My sister just moved to Texas and my niece love ramen and I-I went and looked up on the map and I said, "Okay, 54 minutes from your house is an H Mart." She's like, "What the heck is H Mart?" I'm like, "You have to go." So, they went and I think they spent their whole life savings there, but my favorite soup has been Buldak ramen, but it's so spicy. I cannot handle it. So, I've been watching a lot of TikTok videos on how it's a common theme that people can't handle it, so you just put a little bit of spice in it with some cream, maybe some cheese and it's amazing. So, that's my-I can eat ramen every single day.

Nic Fillingham: You're adding cream and cheese to ramen?

Wendy Zenone: Yes. Trust me on this. So, there is a Buldak, it's Cream Carbonara and Alyssa on our team also is on the same page with me, that you put a little bit of the spice pack, you can't do the whole thing, I mean, maybe you can. I'd be actually interested for you to try it. And then you put a little bit of cream in it and cheese and it's amazing.

Nic Fillingham: What kind of cheese? What cheese do you add to ramen? That just seems so sort of culinarily antithetical.

Wendy Zenone: It does, because there was another flavor that I had that's for cheese and it's like a macaroni and cheese, but it's spicy, so it's like a twist on ramen, but I put any kind of cheese. I have cheddar, parmesan, mozzarella, anything to take the spice away, but it's so good.

Nic Fillingham: Wow. I'll go try that.

Wendy Zenone: Yeah.

Nic Fillingham: I haven't tried that. Okay, so ramen, pretty hot spicy ramen with only a dash of the spice and some cream and cheese.

Wendy Zenone: Correct. Yes.

Nic Fillingham: Wow.

Wendy Zenone: Or Japanese ramen. Japanese ramen without any spices, it's just amazing.

Nic Fillingham: I mean, Japanese ramen is ramen.

Wendy Zenone: Yeah. It's so good.

Nic Fillingham: No but, isn't ramen Japanese?

Wendy Zenone: Well, yeah but there is a brand that I get that is Japanese, because I also have Indonesia, I have Korean, so there's all sorts of ramen. There is a world out there of ramen.

Nic Fillingham: Wow, I did not know this. I mean, yeah I need to go and experience this world of ramen.

Wendy Zenone: I have a ramen cupboard and every time I order, my husband's like "Really? More?" "Yes, more."

Nic Fillingham: Well, my favorite foods are, yeah also things I get from H Mart. I love like exotic tropical fruit. So, I like to get jackfruit chips from H Mart. I like to get dried longans and lychees or litchi.

Wendy Zenone: But, what are longans?

Nic Fillingham: Have you ever heard of a lychee or a litchi?

Wendy Zenone: Yes.

Nic Fillingham: So, they're actually very similar but they're a little smaller and they have sort of almost a smoky quality to them, and they're yeah so they're like a sweet, but they have this sort of a smoky is really the way that I describe it sort of flavor to them, and yeah they're fruit. And so, I love lychees and litchis and I love longans and jackfruit. Yeah, so growing up in Australia-Australia, in my opinion, has the best mangos in the world. And so.

Wendy Zenone: Really?

Nic Fillingham: When I'm fortunate enough to be back in Australia especially sort of around Christmas time which is mango season, I will just gorge myself on mangos until I have to be taken to the hospital and have my stomach pumped. That's one of my favorite things to do. But, yeah Aussie mangos.

Wendy Zenone: Uh-that sounds-I want a mango now.

Nic Fillingham: Yeah, well an Aussie mango.

Wendy Zenone: I'm not going to get that. So, I'm going to get like.

Nic Fillingham: You got to get a calypso or Kensington Pride I think they are the two amazing ones.

Wendy Zenone: I'll just settle for subpar mangos.

Nic Fillingham: Yeah, yeah.

Wendy Zenone: Oh, I love that. I'm going to-next time I go to H Mart there's none near me, so when I am up in Redmond area I'll go to the one-I think there is one in Bellevue and I'm going to have to find out from you what to pick up.

Nic Fillingham: Maybe we can do it together. I can take you to the dried fruit aisle and show you my favorites and you can take me to the ramen aisle and introduce me to.

Wendy Zenone: Oh, my gosh.

Nic Fillingham: The world of ramen.

Wendy Zenone: Let's do it. That sounds amazing.

Nic Fillingham: Well, on that note, thanks Wendy.

Wendy Zenone: Thank you, Nic. That was great.

Nic Fillingham: So, it was nice meeting you.

Wendy Zenone: Nice to meet you too. Maybe I'll see you around. Thank you for joining us for the "Blue Hat Podcast."

Nic Fillingham: If you have feedback, topic requests, or questions about this episode.

Wendy Zenone: Please, email us at bluehat@microsoft.com or message us on Twitter @msftbluehat.

Nic Fillingham: Be sure to subscribe for more conversations and insights from security researchers and responders across the industry.

Wendy Zenone: By visiting bluehatpodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. [ Music ]