KickSec.IO

02/02/2026

It's not you, Generative AI is making you dumber.....

ok not for some of you who use your favourite LLM to engage and to reason with, going into deep research mode, taking notes and using the outputs to further your own learning - for you, Gen AI is aiding and assisting your brains neuron's to make connections and become smarter - congratulations!

For those of you who use Gen AI to do your work for you, answer emails, complete RFPs, or make answers easier, its worth stopping and thinking, because before the advent of the GPS you knew how to get many places easily, before Mobile phones you remembered the phone numbers of everyone who was important to you, before the advent of Tick Tock you could watch a video longer than 60 seconds and before Teams and email you were productive! (Ok I made this one up!).

WTH happened to us, well, as with the thing my parents used to tell me, "if you don't use your brain you will lose it" (always because I'd done something stupid!) this statement was also the reality.

I can not deny that reading has become harder, navigating is easier using a device and my attention span is fried.
I'm no psychologist but I know when I don't have to write something or study it, I don't learn from it very quickly either. There are now several studies that are showing that cognitive decline happens when not using your brain to achieve outcomes, relying on a Large Language Model instead to do your answering for you.

My real concern is our children not able to learn topics deeply anymore, because the answer can be (often incorrectly) gleaned from an LLM instead of taking the time to understand the topic and have those neurons in your brain working making long term connections, consider how to use the platforms to help you think and learn, and I don't mean because you need to go through and fix all the mistakes (because you will have to if you know anything about your subject).

My final thought, is that we as humans in our 70s and beyond suffer from cognitive decline and die earlier when our brains are not working to their capacity. Tools are great, convenience is awesome, but each step we take is a step further away from being fully self able.

There’s growing concern that an over-reliance on AI could lead to apathy and cognitive decline. So, what can we do to stay sharp in an AI-driven world? A University of Melbourne expert explore the effect of artificial intelligence on our brains.

09/02/2025

Regional Australia has different needs to the cities, but the many businesses here still need supporting:

Ever thought to yourself how the big businesses just do not understand the needs of your business, ever mentioned some application or system that you use where your IT supplier says “WTH?” (What the Hell) is that and can not proceed, or tries to sell you something you don’t need or want. That ...

18/11/2024

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Defender for Business are best in class Endpoint security solutions, I created a short video to introduce these here: https://youtu.be/aqwb7ZDhyEY?si=5oQtFsNXuLeQ1-UR

Microsoft Sentinel is a Security Information and Event management solution for businesses. Microsoft XDR or Defender 365 is a free solution from Microsoft to...

11/11/2024

Microsoft Business Premium and Microsoft Sentinel can be configured to work together well, I have written about it here to help MSPs and SMBs who want to ingest log data from BP into Sentinel:

Microsoft Sentinel Log ingestion from Business Premium, Microsoft Sentinel is Microsoft's Cloud native SIEM solution and has been available for several years.

24/07/2024

Many of you may not know but in 1997, a man by the name of Alan Metcalfe discovered Artificial Intelligence whilst perusing his bible……

Between the years 2008-2014 he managed to secure $49 million from Australians for his dream to be bigger than YouTube, PayPal, EBay, Amazon and Google with his AI discovery he termed universal logic (sarcasm off from now)

Unfortunately he was a scammer, I spent considerable effort to try and stop people investing money with him a few years ago.

In 2023 Alex Turner-Cohen picked up the story and has created a podcast that is absolutely worth following, I appear in episode 3 and even feature in the linked article.

Introducing The Missing $49 Million – news.com.au’s first ever eight-part investigative podcast series.

15/07/2023

There has been a number of supply chain attacks recently including MoveIT and 3CX, these cyber attacks can be immensely costly and at the lest distressing for the businesses involved. For the software provider though these breaches can and often do have disastrous impact on their business, which could have been avoided by following a secure software development programme.

There has been a number of supply chain attacks recently including MoveIT and 3CX, these cyber attacks can be immensely costly and at the lest distressing for

12/07/2023

In the Beginning

From Backup to resilient cyber security: Best practises for Information Technology such as “Least privilege access”, “Admin account segregation”, “Operating system patching”, “Multi-factor authentication”, even “Patching and updating applications” have been around for many years, undertaken as ritual by many Information Technology departments within businesses across Australia

From Backup to resilient cyber security: Best practises for Information Technology such as “Least privilege access”, “Admin account segregation”, “Operating

11/07/2023

From Backup to resilient cyber security: Best practises for Information Technology such as “Least privilege access”, “Admin account segregation”, “Operating

29/03/2023

Four actions for protection with Defender for Endpoint:

Introduction

Often I am asked the question, “Why should I use Defender for Endpoint, I use product ‘X’ and Product ‘X’ is the best endpoint detection and response platform in the market”.

My

Four actions for protection with Defender for Endpoint: