The Backup Wrap-up
The Backup Wrap-up podcast turns unappreciated backup admins into cyber recovery heroes. After a brief analysis of backup-related news, each episode dives deep into one topic that you can use to better protect your organization from data loss, be it from accidents, disasters, or ransomware.
Recent Episodes
July 6, 2026
What Is Data Deduplication? (Encore)
What is data deduplication, and why does Curtis call it the single most important development in backup over the last 30 years? In this encore episode, W. Curtis Preston and Prasanna Malaiyandi break down exactly how dedupe works, why it's not the same as compression, and why the fine print of your dedupe domain determines how much storage you actually save. This episode originally aired as part of the Backup to Basics series, and it's back because listeners couldn't get enough of it — not just
June 22, 2026
The REDCap Attack that Phishing-Resistant MFA Could Have Stopped
Phishing-resistant MFA could have stopped a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor from spending over a year inside North American academic and medical research networks — and we're going to tell you exactly how it happened and what you need to do about it. A group called UNC5608, tracked by Google's Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG), exploited a vulnerability unique to REDCap — a research data platform that allows multiple software versions to run simultaneously. They got in via stolen admin crede
June 15, 2026
California Election Fraud? (Pt 2)
California election fraud claims are flooding social media — and most of them fall apart under basic scrutiny. In this follow-up episode, longtime San Diego County poll worker W. Curtis Preston tackles the wave of viral fraud allegations head-on, with sources so you can check his work yourself. Topics covered: the LA mayoral race "statistically impossible" surge for Nithya Raman, the AP reporting error that got blamed on fraud, claims that Spencer Pratt voters were having ballots rejected for si
June 8, 2026
California Election Counting Explained by an Actual Poll Worker
California election counting has confused — and frankly ticked off — a lot of people, and I get it. I'm W. Curtis Preston, I've worked every California election since the 2016 presidential primary, and I've managed the polls at multiple elections here in San Diego County. This episode, I'm going solo to explain exactly what's going on, why it takes so long, what the "red mirage" actually is, and why none of it is fraud. Sorry to disappoint some of you. If you've ever had a family member call you
May 25, 2026
Stop 90% of Ransomware Attacks with Basic Cyber Hygiene
Basic cyber hygiene — patch management, password management, and MFA — is responsible for stopping roughly 90% of the ransomware attacks that could hit your organization. This episode is the overview: what those three things are, why they matter, and what happens when you skip them. WannaCry infected over 200,000 systems worldwide. A patch existed. People just hadn't applied it. Rackspace lost an entire business line — not because the attack was sophisticated, but because a workaround gave them
May 18, 2026
Claude Deletes a Company — But It's Not Really Claude's Fault
Claude deletes a company — and the internet immediately blamed the AI. But this story is really about backup design, credential management, and least privilege. An AI coding agent running Claude via Cursor deleted PocketOS's entire production database and all its backups in nine seconds. One bad design decision at a time, a startup built itself a disaster waiting to happen. Claude just happened to be the thing that set it off. Here's what you need to understand: the AI violated the principles it
Listen On
