Rick Gouin

CCSP Exam Thoughts

· Rick Gouin

I took the Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) exam from ISC2 a while back and wanted to share a few thoughts.  As you may be aware, both the CISSP and CCSP exams are managed by the same organization: ISC2.  After getting my CISSP in June of 2022, I started looking for another certification to tackle over the winter.  At that time, I had some AWS certifications that were expiring, and I was annoyed that AWS didn’t provide any way to maintain them other than to just re-take the same exam again.  I can see re-taking an exam when there are […]

CISSP Exam Thoughts

· Rick Gouin

I took the CISSP exam a while back and wanted to share a few thoughts.  I’ve long been a security practitioner, going back to my teenage years attending local 2600 meetings.  I got my Security+ back in 2004.  Yikes!  With the current ransomware driven technology climate, it seemed like high time to put some effort into that part of my background.  I’d say my primary interest was to validate my credibility when speaking at events or directly helping organizations deal with present day security challenges. About The Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) is an advanced security related certification managed […]

PowerStore 3.5 Gets Real Immutable Snapshots and More

· Rick Gouin

The latest code update for the Dell PowerStore (Dell’s Flagship Midrange Storage Array) adds a few cool new features that I think provide some additional value for people who are already using it.  Most of the details were released at Dell World 2023 in Las Vegas.  Several of the new features are focused around cyber security, so I want to take a moment to look at those features in particular. Immutable Snapshots I’m going to start with my favorite one.  Truly immutable snapshots.  Dell has long maintained that PowerStore snapshots were already immutable, such as in this article.  If that […]

Adding Status LEDs to Our Email Button Device

· Rick Gouin

After putting this email button device into service, I discovered that I really wanted some instant feedback to know if the email was sent successfully or not.  I decided to add some LEDs into the mix that would illuminate on success or failure. At left you can see a mock up of a version that used one LED.  You could use a single LED and have it perhaps blink of success or stay lit on failure.  You could also do a single LED build with an RGB LED.  I elected to build this with 2 separate LEDs, so that success […]

Build A Device To Send Emails At the Push of a Button

· Rick Gouin

I had a need for a device that would send an email at the push of a button.  I also needed it to send a different email when I push a different button.  My use case here is related to a Homeowners Association (HOA) that requires me to “check-in” on arrival and “check-out” on departure.  In this case, that is done via email.  So, I wanted a device with a “check-in” button and a separate “check-out” button, so I could just push those buttons to satisfy the requirements.  The the finished product is shown at left. What Does This Project […]