BSidesCharm 2023 - Hack Your Brain: Using IR skills to help recover from grief - Marc Muher

foreign [Music] thank you very much for coming my name is Mark Moore I'm giving this presentation current title is using IR skills to learn about the brain I may have called it hack your brain too it was the best I could come up with so so thank you um let's see a little bit about me how am I why am I qualified to come up here and say anything I'm really not but but I do have a couple qualifications I I have a master's in social worker mastered in cyber security I have a lot of unearned confidence and I and I have a cissp so you know that kind of explains the whole deal oh sorry okay no no okay so um oh and why am I given this talk honestly the look The World is kind of crappy right now there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff going around I mean I'm I'm speaking myself but I feel like we could all use a little bit of patience sometimes is this better okay um also I'm getting cus for doing this so it's just a never-ending never-ending battle so okay so the basics so we're going so the pickerel response framework it's you know the basic framework we all learned about you know it's in every book it's in everything um you know it it involves six stages I've made this one a little realistic and turn prevention down to very tiny because nobody you know that's all the stuff that we're supposed to do as you know as cyber security people that we don't you know it never really happened so so we're gonna start with you know the the other part of the uh the pick or else and system most seriously isolation containment eradication recovery and Lessons Learned so you know basic steps so in in dealing with grief and dealing with the human mind there's we you know we we have other Frameworks too so so one of the Frameworks this is one of the other Frameworks to use for for grief are the Kubler-Ross stages of grief so five stages here and frankly if you thought that it had bad acronyms look at dabda so so you know you have a denial anger bargaining depression and acceptance so the thing with stages of grief is you know it it's nice they they look real nice here on the on the on the page but you know there's no rule that says it has to go in this order you know you can stuff gets out of whack all the time it's normal you know so if so you don't have to start with denial if you can start with something else but so um and a little and here's a little bit more just about grief in general because you know because we say grief you know and and that's a big word and you know and like many things you know it's a word that needs needs a real definition so we're talking about the causes of grief the causes of loss you know we're talking death of someone important to you and and I just want to put here that means important to you not important to other people because you know that it's a loss is a loss um what else you know what other what other things can cause grief just illness you know I mean this is you know that I mean kind of one of the classic presentations of this is you know when somebody gets you know that diagnosis you know and you go through those stages you know that's that's an illness you know money and career obviously huge stressors Life Changes like moving and graduation those can cause those can trigger a grief response um love or lack thereof always you know always a stressor and of course holidays always terrible stressor but you know there's normal grief and then when there's time to get help and I do want to make sure that you know we clarify when people that need to get help you know you don't want to if you if you're injuring yourself or others if you're really negatively affecting your life not just changing things but you know Burning Bridges um also if you're already prone to depression um you have other major stressors going on because you know stuff doesn't normally happen once at a time and also if this goes on for a really long amount of time like not we're not talking a week you know of of going through this we're talking in months we're talking year I mean a really long amount of time so so those are things when you really need to get help you really need to seek a professional so which I am not by the way um so so the stages so so my basic premise here is these stages do correspond to each other so so what we know about the pickerel system can help us help us remember what stages of the Kubler raw system we're in you know the we start off isolation you know that's when we're you know that's you're getting you first get the alert you know you're you're verifying you're you're gonna scope you know excuse me um you know you're this is where you know this is where you get an alert and you're checking it out you know is it's you know is it an actual virus or is it you know somebody running a weird script you know uh in in the in in the grief stage that kind of corresponds to denial denial is you know that first what do you mean the you know that first um no that can't be happening no no if that's the wrong person no check again you know and you know that's denial it's shock it's confusion it's avoidance sometimes it's even it does present as some relief though because the brain is weird um next stage containment so containment you know that's where we you know okay you verified the alerts correct okay now we gotta quarantine now we gotta limit the spread we got we have to find out exactly what we need we're scoping out you know what what our changes are or what we what what has happened and and that's what we're gonna you know and that's what we're gonna focus on in the stages group that corresponds to anger so anger that middle stage is grief you know we're all pretty familiar with that you know it's it comes out you know it's that frustration it's you know it's irritation it's anxiety but what you you know it's it's the it's the mind it's taking that pain and attempting to put that pain elsewhere it's it's directing it externally that's anger you know and look that's a it's a pretty hard stage to get through sometimes next we're down to eradication in our system eradication is is where we removed uh you know we removed the virus or removed whatever sort of you know and you know incidents happening and we're working on remediating you know we have a scope we know what we're doing and now we're just getting rid of it so that kind of corresponds to depression in the in the kubler-rah stage where you know where the depression you know where where the eradication you know where you're doing something but you're really just kind of trying to maintain the status quo so so the depression it's the same thing you're you're in that stage of helplessness you're overwhelmed you know you I mean there's hostility here and sometimes there's just there's running you know because because you know again the brain's trying to avoid that pain you know it's trying to move on so then finally or not finally uh next is the recovery stage of of the uh pickerel system you know and that's where you're getting back to prod you know you're getting you're getting people working again you know computers work and you know whatever the business is ongoing so and that's and that's just what you're trying to do is get back there and and that leads to and that corresponds to bargaining there's a bargaining stage to to the stages of grief and you know and again it's you're making deals you're making deals with yourself you're making deals you're you're trying to figure out a way around this your brain is trying to process this you're you're trying to find Alternatives you're getting a second opinion you're and you're trying to find meaning and all you're trying to find what it what it does what it means then finally we have Lessons Learned you know the the other part of the pick are all thing that most people just avoid because you're too busy but but Lessons Learned that's where you're like okay this would this is what happened how we're going to stop it from happening again what you know what did we learn what improvements can we make you know do we need do we need a new antivirus do we need to make sure you know that that we're vulnerability scanning something like that you're you're you're doing you're making improvements and you're trying to avoid going through this again and that's where you get to Acceptance in in the stages of grief you know that's where it's where you know you kind of make peace you know at some stage at some point with the grief you know you're creating a plan for the future you're you're creating realistic options you know you're you're moving forward you know but with you know but with full knowledge that you're dealing with that grief so so what does this all help us I mean you know I mean I kind of talked about it but but we do have to you know this does kind of we do have to deal with this you know both with ourselves and other people so so kind of it there's different at different stages of the of the grief process the person is more or less you know is more receptive to certain talks like like so here so and go so as you go down those stages of denial anger bargaining depression and acceptance you know you're you're going to change what you can do you know at first you're only going to be able to listen you're going to be able to you're going to be able to be like man you know that that's really tough that's that's tough you know I mean you know you know what whatever you say to somebody who's going through grief however you're dealing with it yourself too so and notes and listening and info you know and as the person kind of gets into that bargaining stage gets into the in the depression stage where they're they've gained a little perspective you know and that's where you know and that's where they really need the emotional support that's where you know and that's and this goes for yourself too I mean you know you need to know yourself that that's where you're going to need some emotional support and then you know once that final once a person's in the acceptance stage that's when you can start you know with guidance you know but but you know it's more like you know if you you know you don't want you know let's say somebody gets in a bad car accident you know you don't want to show up at the hospital and be like hey let's go get you in a new car right now you know while they're still hooked up to tubes you know you're you know you don't have that guidance you know you you need to move that on to the into the longer stages into the later stages of the uh of the of the grief process so okay now there's problems so you know the coupler Ross stages grief look it's possibly all just made up or I mean it is all made up I mean it was in you know somebody invented uh Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in the late 60s early 70s I think you know said hey you know based on you know based on their you know their knowledge their experience they said hey here's what I've been seeing and you know and it and it you know resonated so maybe it works but look you know psychological theories come and go all the time you know it's that's just how it is the you know there's also and also anytime you're talking about psychological theories you you really have to acknowledge the gigantic cultural bias that that that goes into that goes into creating these theories okay so so think about it like like how do you develop how do you develop psychological theories okay well you need you to get therapists who deal with their patients and stuff also you deal with a lot of college students you deal with a lot of uh affluent people or more affluent people who can afford therapy you know you get college students also who are going to take you know they'll be like yeah I'll take a couple hours worth of standardized tests for 10 bucks I mean you know that's just what you do in college you know when they do labs and stuff and so but that does give you a pretty self-selecting population you know so so you do have to you know decide you know does this really cars does this really work for everybody or does this work for you know people who were in college in the 70s and 80s when they were developing these things so also all psychological models are flawed because you know everyone's different you know in you know it's a everything's so granular that you know no two people are the same you know end of the you know it can all be it can all just basically be made up you know but but generally when you have a when you have one that resonates there there's at least some Val validity to it so that's why I chose the uh the Kubler-Ross here um finally any questions so that's it for my presentation thank you all um yeah I'm happy to take any questions apparently we don't have a microphone so if you just shout it out and I'll repeat it if if there's any questions cool awesome hey everybody thank you very much for for coming and listening to me I I do appreciate this just just getting this idea that's been in my head getting it out of here and into well everybody else's heads but so so thank you all