RunAs Radio

The risk of ransomware is real - are you ready? Richard talks with Heather Renze about her experiences dealing with a ransomware attack and how to get prepared when it happens to you. Heather talks about how ransomware has evolved into a business that has operators, affiliates, and even tech support. Making a plan is essential - involving finance, legal, and IT. Cyberinsurance plays a big role, as do regulatory bodies - it depends on the business you're in. But your plan needs to know three essential things: what breaks first, how long your company can function with it broken, and who can decide on what to do next in the first hour of the event. The plan may or may not work perfectly, but not having a plan is far worse. Get ready!

Links

Ransomware Guidance from NIST

Recorded June 25, 2026

More ways to use Azure Virtual Desktop! Richard chats with Travis Roberts about how Azure Virtual Desktop continues to evolve and provides more options for remote users. Travis talks about how AVD grew out of Terminal Services and so is still very much an IaaS offering - as opposed to Windows 365, which is more PaaS, with less flexibility, but easier deployment. But when you need control, AVD is the way to go, and today will operate in Azure, on-premises via Azure Local. And if you've got an existing virtual desktop infrastructure, AVD Hybrid opens the door to running in a hybrid environment across on-prem and cloud, or to providing a smooth migration path. Lots of choices!

Links

Terminal Services

Windows 365

Windows 365 Flex

Azure Virtual Desktop

Windows Enterprise Multi-Session

FSLogix

Azure Local

Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Local

Azure Virtual Desktop Hybrid

AVD Personal Desktop Assignment

Recorded June 22, 2026

Bringing new software or SaaS into your organization is a security risk - how do you assess it? Richard chats with Jessie Schofer about her experiences in HR software acquisition, which led to the creation of secureless.ai. Jessie tells the story of evaluating various SaaS and other software products and realizing that, while the website says they are compliant with GDPR and/or SOC 2, are they really? This leads to a conversation about the product procurement process and about actually understanding the security risk you take on every time a new product is added to your organization. At what point does security block an acquisition? And after being acquired, how often do you reassess? Supply chain security hygiene starts at procurement - are you part of the evaluation?

Links

Secureless.ai

GDPR Enforcement Tracker

Recorded June 23, 2026

How can Azure Policies help you? While at Techorama in Belgium, Richard sat down with Barbara Forbes to discuss how Azure Policies have evolved and the techniques sysadmins are using to improve security, cost controls, efficiency, and more. Barbara talks about how the default policies are designed to get folks started in Azure quickly - not necessarily optimally. And there are plenty of policy templates out there, but before you implement them, it's worthwhile to review each policy and ask the question "why?" Keeping good documentation on policies makes it easier to know intent, especially when it comes to changing them - and you'll need to change them! There are a number of ways to apply policies, but in the end, they are just more Infrastructure-as-Code, and so easily repeatable. Azure Policies are there to help you provide freedom with guardrails if you implement them carefully!

Links

Azure Policy

Microsoft Cloud Security Benchmark

Azure Management Groups

Azure Bicep

Terraform on Azure

Recorded May 12, 2026

How are supply-chain attacks evolving? Richard chats with Mackenzie Jackson about his work helping companies protect their software supply chains from malware attacks. Mackenzie discusses the vulnerability of developers to attacks, since their accounts are often highly privileged and invariably contain access to exploitable secrets. The conversation digs into the challenges of securing various code distribution mechanisms like npm and how you can protect your organization - starting with, don't install packages as soon as they are released! There are effective tools for detecting malware in code, but they take time. Waiting 48 hours can eliminate a lot of risk!

Links

Aikido Software

Trivy

Claude Mythos

OpenClaw

Shai-Hulud Guidance

ClawHub

Open Source Malware

Windows Update Management

Recorded June 15, 2026