Bare Metal Cyber

This narrated edition of “Multi-Cloud Mirage: More Providers, Same Fragile Backbone” digs into the gap between the slideware story of multi-cloud resilience and the reality of how most environments are actually built. You will hear how identity, connectivity, automation, and data paths quietly converge into a single fragile spine, even as logos multiply. We walk through why adding providers often does less for concentration risk than boards, regulators, and insurers believe, and why the real conversation needs to shift toward failure domains and control planes instead of marketing diagrams. This audio is developed from my Wednesday “Headline” feature in Bare Metal Cyber Magazine.
In the second half, the narration takes you through the key sections of the article in practical, leader-focused language. We explore hidden shared backbones, failure domains that are not truly independent, and the way centralized control planes turn into elegant single points of failure. From there, we move into what real isolation looks like in architectures and operations, and how to own the trade-offs honestly in the boardroom. By the end, you will have a clearer mental model for deciding where multi-cloud genuinely adds resilience, where single-cloud plus strong recovery is enough, and how to explain those choices with confidence.

This audio episode explores Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) as a practical, everyday part of how your organization works with vendors, cloud platforms, and service providers. In clear language, it walks through what TPRM is, where it fits in your governance and technical stack, and why “we’re secure” is never enough when a third party wants access to your data or systems. You will hear how TPRM turns vague assurances into specific questions about data flows, access paths, and incident responsibilities before any new connection goes live.
 
Building on that foundation, the episode then walks through how TPRM works in practice, with real-world use cases that range from approving new SaaS tools to managing high-privilege service providers and renewals. It unpacks the major benefits and trade-offs, the limits of what you can realistically know about a vendor, and the failure modes that turn TPRM into paperwork instead of decision support. The narration is developed from my Tuesday “Insights” feature in Bare Metal Cyber Magazine, giving you a structured but accessible way to strengthen how your organization plugs vendors into its world.

This week on Certified, we break down CompTIA IT Fundamentals (ITF+), the gentle on-ramp for anyone who feels “tech-curious” but not yet “tech-confident.” Developed by Bare Metal Cyber, this episode walks through what ITF+ actually covers, who it’s built for, and how it can help you decide whether a path into IT or cybersecurity makes sense for you.
You’ll hear how the exam turns everyday technology into a structured skill set: basic hardware and operating systems, simple networking, data and databases, and the security habits that protect people at home and at work. We talk about how long to study, what kind of prep is realistic for busy adults, and how ITF+ can support a career change, a first job in tech, or better conversations with your IT and security teams.
 
If you’re standing at the edge of the field wondering whether you belong in IT, this Certified episode gives you a clear, honest look at ITF+ as a low-pressure test of your interest and potential next steps toward A+, Network+, or Security+.

Cloud promises agility, savings, and simplicity, but for many organizations it has quietly become a walled garden with only one gate. In this audio edition of “Platform Captivity: Life Inside a Single Cloud’s Walled Garden,” we walk through how “all in” decisions on a single provider turn into deep architectural, commercial, and regulatory dependencies. You will hear how comfort and standardization evolve into structural lock-in, and why platform captivity should be treated as its own risk domain, not just a technical complaint. This narration is based on my Wednesday “Headline” feature from Bare Metal Cyber Magazine.
 
We then move through the key decision points leaders face: the lure of integrated native services, the difference between decorative multi-cloud and real strategic options, and what it means to negotiate from inside the fence. Along the way, we explore practical ways to recover leverage without launching an unrealistic great escape project, and how to design new systems with exit in mind from day one. If you are responsible for cloud strategy, resilience, or security, this episode will help you see where your organization is truly benefiting from focus and where it is quietly giving away future freedom.

When secrets leak into source code, they rarely announce themselves with flashing lights. In this audio companion to Bare Metal Cyber’s Tuesday “Insights” feature, we walk through what “secrets in source code” really means for working teams: the keys, tokens, passwords, and other sensitive values that quietly end up in repositories and stick around for years. You will hear where these secrets tend to hide in real environments, how they move through developer laptops, branches, and pipelines, and where secret scanning and better handling practices actually fit into your existing stack.
 
The episode then turns to day-to-day use: how secret scanning flows through CI/CD pipelines and code reviews, what realistic quick wins look like for smaller teams, and how more mature programs tie scanning into central secrets management and ownership. Along the way, we unpack the benefits, trade-offs, and limits of these approaches, and spend time on the failure modes and healthy signals that show whether your efforts are really working. The narration is based on the Tuesday “Insights” feature from Bare Metal Cyber Magazine, adapted into a clear, story-driven walkthrough you can listen to on the go.