This is Startup at Storefront. Eat your own dog food. It's a simple phrase designed to convey the notion that if your product is good enough for your consumers, it's good enough for you, too. For Carlos Bryant, founder of Las Maris Vegan Food Truck, his initial menu didn't fit with his diet. Las Maris wasn't always vegan, and when customers would ask how the food tasted, all he could offer were referrals to other people. Let's just say it didn't exactly inspire confidence. But Carlos was quick to recognize the dissonance, and soon made a switch to vegan offerings. The rebranded food truck was a much more authentic and personal venture, one that allowed him to combine his startup with his virtues. What followed could be considered a runaway Sacramento success story, but Carlos has plans for expansion far beyond a single food truck in a single metropolitan area. So listen in as we cover everything from the problems of scaling your business too quickly, how his rap career instilled in him the grit that he later used in entrepreneurship, and why life is like a game of twister. Now, on to the episode. All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to Carlos from Las Maris Vegan. Thank you for coming on. People don't know. What does your company do? What are you doing? So what we have right now is a vegan food truck in Northern California area, Stockton, California to be exact. We service the Sacramento and Modesto area. So that whole corridor there, like in the valley in between the Bay Area and like I guess Bakersfield Fresno, like in the middle right there, that valley, not, you know, San Fernando Valley, but the other valley. Right. So that's kind of what we're doing now, and then hoping to expand hopefully within the next nine months or so into a brick and mortar in the Bay Area or Sacramento area.  So that's something we've been kind of scouting out. That's kind of why we're here today as well. We can't help you do that. You think so? Yeah, that'd be amazing. That's what I do. Oh, that's make happen. So you can begin a lot of good press. I've seen it on your Instagram, a lot of news, local channels. It sounds like you have an amazing product. Yes. What made you want to start the whole thing? What was like the thing for you? You said this looks interesting and then and then also making the food you do, but vegan. What was, walk me through sort of that educational process for you. So the cool thing is this, it's actually crazy because when we started out, we weren't necessarily, we weren't a vegan truck.  And so this is getting a little ahead of myself. But so basically, I can't remember. I came home one day, I was working at UPS part-time and I came home. Which is a good job. It's a good job. They pay well. A lot of people don't know UPS pays really well. Yeah, it pays well. When I left there, I was making six figures, but it wasn't it was just 14, 15 hour days. I just couldn't do it and I wasn't working training. Yeah, it's draining. You need to mess with your relationships, but that's a whole other story. So anyways, I came home one day and I proposed it, man. I've been seeing food trucks around. I've been wanting to do something to like, I guess, monetize my time that I was putting it somewhere else. I put it somewhere else and actually make a profit. And I knew that my fiance was a good cook, my business partner, Brett, his wife was also a good cook. And we kind of got them kind of infused and we came up with this concept. And it started off as an original, like I said, like a Mexican food truck. And then fast forward about a year after that, we get into the general processes, the general functions, we're doing okay, but we're having a lot of like pitfalls, I would say a lot of issues, hiring issues, drama with the food truck breaking down. Because we're starting off, we don't have the finances to go buy a new truck. We're renting an older truck at the time, things are breaking apart. And I'm wondering why these things are happening. So then I was watching a podcast. I forget who it was, but they were, I know, are you guys familiar with Pinky Cole, the slutty vegan out of Atlanta? No. So she's like, like super big vegan restaurant out of Atlanta. And she's like, crazy. She's like killing it out there. Is it slutty vegan? Yeah, slutty vegan. It's like, it's popping. It's like, it's like a big deal. So we got some free game, we watched the podcast. I watched the podcast and it was saying that she was talking about her story about how she was vegan, but she owned a jerk chicken restaurant, right? So she was compromising her life. And at the time I was vegetarian and people were asking me all my taco truck food. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I don't even, you know, that talk to my fiance, but I don't really. And they're like, what? You know what I'm saying?  You know, I was like, well, you know, I've cut red meat for my diet. It's actually been better for my health. And they're like, well, so you're saying that you don't do it for health reasons, but you're selling it to people for profit. And that's something that kind of snapped. And that's something I picked up in that podcast as well. It was like, you got to walk on your purpose. And it doesn't matter if you make, for me, at this point, we've actually done better. But even if we did worse, I'd feel better about it, I think. Why do you think you did that? I see it all the time with entrepreneur. It's like the one thing I noticed over and over and over and over again. It's like, people are willing to leave their jobs, take the biggest risks, to do the thing that they see with the world that needs fixing. But they're not willing to unapologetically do that.  It's a, you know, a term they use in tech. And it's always like, I really want to figure this out. Like, I'm like, why? Why would you take all the risks, but not do what I view as like the easy part?  Exactly. And we have a team, you see it, the studio. And we're doing all the things, and we're really in your face about that. But a lot of people, I'm just wondering, do you think it's something like you were just early in the journey? I think we were early in the journey. And you think about it, it is a compromising thing because I know entrepreneurs are both spectrums, like you're saying, like, well, I know people that are franchisees of a McDonald's, but won't eat at McDonald's. But then I know people, seriously, I know a lot of guys, gym rats, and they like, I don't even, but it's like, they make money for the money. It's like, it's cool.  They're like, I will not do something that I don't believe in.   You can't justify that. No, you can't justify that. You're living good. I think you can. Stripper needs, stripper's these. They need saving. Stripper needs Jesus, bro. But we know what I'm saying, though. Why are you judging strippers? No, but I'm saying, Monday through Friday, you can't preach that that's not good or whatever.  So that's why, and I feel better, and I feel like I'm more adamant about doing things like this, this podcast. Like, if it was an all meat truck, I probably wouldn't even be here with you guys because I know somebody would ask me, like, well, how's your food? And I would either have to lie or be like, oh, I'm a vegan. They're like, well, how does that work?  So I feel like it works way better this way. But in that, in that, so at the beginning you started and then at some point you're realizing like what your bangers are, right? So you're like, all right, people love, so you're getting, at least you're getting a lot of good data. Exactly. And so now you're like, okay, cool. We got these things. They smash, now let's just make them, right? Yes. Okay, so then I really want to understand that. So at some point you go, okay, let's start experimenting with different options and it's probably, it probably didn't taste as good at the beginning or maybe it did. Like maybe you were surprised by the timing of the market. What was that leap like from substituting meat? I think there was, so we did it, right? And in the beginning we didn't like, we just made an Instagram post like, hey, we're looking to change, we're gonna change. Like it was spur of the moment. Okay. I think we were like close for- You told Instagram. Yeah, we told Instagram and like social Facebook were like, hey, we're gonna be, we're made a transition. Like wrote like one of those long note posts, hey, made a transition, yada, yada, yada, vegan. A lot of people were mad in the comments. I was gonna ask you. I'm sure you had a customer base at that point. Yes, we had a customer base and they were upset. But then at the same time, I think we put together another 1,000 or 2,000 followers over that week of actual people that were fully plant based living that kind of lifestyle as well. So it was a give and take. Some people were upset. Some people came to the truck unknowing that we went vegan, still ordered, you know, a chicken burrito, not knowing it's a vegan chicken burrito and they still liked the same. You know what I mean? It was just, we didn't feel like a hidden camera show in a way that you're like, did you know that you're not eating actual chicken? I know. I've always wanted to do like one of those. Like that's a good marketing idea.  Like chicken burrito and just that side. No, my mind's always going. But yeah, so people were upset at first, but I feel like, man, it didn't bother me at all because of that reason. I felt like I was walking 100% and I see worse. Like I see local news stations. PETA had posted us just this last week. I see these things starting to come from press. There's a Berkeley Vegan Festival. We're going to do in July in San Francisco. And then we're looking to do, hopefully, like get into like a Rolling Loud or like a Coachella or like outside land. Some of the festivals, because that's a big place and they're trying to really market towards having one or two vegan options. Coachella killed it this year. They had like three vegan vendors there and their business has skyrocketed since. So I think that's a good way to go as well to test the market or wherever you want to go. It's scary though, man. But I think for me, I feel like I'm the poster child, right? So that's why I like take my health really seriously. I'm not the typical vegan. You know, I'm not super scrawny. You know, I got a little bit of size on me. So, no, seriously. So people, when I tell them, I feel like they're more inclined to like actually believe when I'm like, oh, wait, really? I'm like, yeah. And then they kind of like, okay. I mean, I've met some overweight vegans. No. Just because you're vegan doesn't mean you're healthy. No, yeah. I've met some overweight vegans.  I tell people if you can't because people are going to... You're quite shaming, Nick. No, no, no. People are going to eat you up, man. If you're an overweight health person or like I'm an overweight. If you claim anything and you're overweight, people are like, come on, man. Like I'm not trying to...  It's hard to believe. And then I know you work with daring chicken, daring foods, Ross. Yes, Ross is dope. So that's another one. And we've been like, I think I've become like a king of like just hacking, man. Like I will like figure it out whether like in LinkedIn, everybody watching this, LinkedIn is the key to growing your business. Like you could find anybody on there. Any company you want to work with, you want to work with daring and you want to get the inside inside. You know what I mean? That's how you really work. Give us a story. What'd you do? So for PETA, reach out to their marketing team through there. And then that's how they found us. You know what I mean? Like they are, they were following us.  You find the marketing person. It's Courtney, whatever his name is. You send him a DM. Yep. And I'm just like, Hey, my name is Carlos. I'm the owner of Los Martis Vegan. I've had a whole like spreadsheet. Hey, we've garnished this many followers. We've done this. We've done like all of our schematics. And I said, Hey, we want to create content for you guys or whatever. And that's how it started. And I think I said you said you want to create content for them. That's what I said. Interesting. So what was the content you were trying? You were trying to. So like like recipes or things like anything like vegan based that they can share onto their platform for their followers. Because that was missing. Exactly. Because they're like more like all animal research. You're not sending these messages blindly. No, you need to research who you're talking to and what they need in their niche. Right. So I send the message. November of 2021 when I messaged her. And it just happened like last week. Like it finally came through. So like you got to like and I just would follow up like every month or so. Hey, how's it looking to die? And she, her name is Brittany. She got it all through. And then she hooked me up to Melanie, hooked me up to Melanie. And then she plugged us in, liked what we were doing. And then they actually like did a cover on us. Like actually did a video more than what we expected. We thought it was going to be something else. So they actually did a whole cover, posted it up as a collaboration post. And we garnished a lot of followers from that. Did they pay you or was it just like? It was just straight clean through. So, and I appreciate that a lot. Yeah. I actually bought the young lady a bottle of wine. I sent it to her. I was like, thank you so much because that really changed the trajectory of our business. Right. Like our catering for like that day where like anybody in that area that follow that page is like, Hey man, you guys do parties. You guys do whatever. And that's where you clean house too because it's like a guaranteed thing. Like a lot of parties, weddings, things like that. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I know you guys got a lot going on. I've been watching your page the last couple of days. There's guys everywhere. There's stuff going on. Yeah. Let me know, man. I'm ready to go. I want to rewind a little bit. Yes.  You said you were making six figures. Was this all bootstrap between you, your wife, your partner and his wife? And what was like the process of getting that first truck? You said it was breaking down a lot.  Have you upgraded? Like what's tell us the story of that. So yeah. So everything so far has been just because when we started, man, it's been what, you know, I'm 27.  Like when we're getting the ideas together and you know, we spent the whole year just saving up a couple thousand between all of us to like throw into a pot because we didn't understand the concept of like, you know, leveraging your credit, like financing, things of that nature. And we're barely, honestly, business credit takes a while to build anyways. Like we've barely got decent business credit to actually now we can finance on behalf of the business and not have the personal guarantee. Takes a while though. Seriously, because the banks don't play. You got to be like legit. So for in the beginning, it was like all just cash we saved up from working our jobs.  He's still working at Amazon. He's a high level manager over there. So it was an Amazon UPS kind of weird. My best friend and he was saving some money. I was saving some money. We put it together, started renting out a truck to leverage it. You know what I mean?  You know what I mean? But it was an older truck from another gentleman. And it was just not it. But that taught me the business. I feel like and I think getting into business when you're not 100% certain on what the terms of the business are without a maximum amount of financing, I think it makes you appreciate the business more and learn the business. Instead of getting into something, $100,000 into something immediately and not being able to either perform or not liking what you're doing. And then you get into this kind of weird space where you're trying to sell your business. So I think we learned the best way. We bumped our heads early on and now we're in a position to where we built a relationship with our banks locally, a community bank, a bank of Stockton and Stockton. And now we're able to be like, okay, we want to do this. We want to leverage this or we want to secure this or you know. How many trucks do you guys have now? So we just have the one. Okay. We tried to do two. We tried to do two. We had that messed up truck with another truck and we're like, we're just going to make it happen. But we try to grow too fast. And then we were getting some bad reviews because the systems weren't in place. And that's what I've learned this last year of 2022. It's like the standard operating procedure. Just like, if I make sauces or if I have a manager or a supervisor on a truck doing things a certain way, it has to be all detailed and documented. So when I open another truck, it's easy to transition. If not, there's going to be a difference. Everybody knows like a chain or like a Chick-fil-A or like a Chipotle you go to and one on one side of the street takes different than the one on the other side of the street because it just doesn't translate. Something's not right there. And I don't ever want that to happen. I think that's where food businesses do fall apart when they try to scale. I'm also curious about, so this food truck out here, this coffee truck, for them during the pandemic, they all of a sudden lost their crowds, which meant that they lost their business. And I can imagine for just about every food truck everywhere, that was also the case. I mean, so what was that like for you guys and that loss of revenue all of a sudden? Like how did you pivot to get through that? So you know what, there was a time, I think there was like a month and a half where we were just closed for a while. Like we just had to pay everybody, whatever's on payroll, tell people what was going on. Some people left, never came back and I understood it because they got to make their money, but I just gave people heads up and we had to shut down. The cool thing was though, it was my fiance and my partner's wife that were the main people working. So we were kind of financing, like they were on payroll, but you know, sure, you know, you know those, right? They were kind of like honestly like, Working for free. Yeah, basically, because we're financing it through our personal checks. He's Amazon, UPS, we're putting that money in. They're getting paid from there, but it's just the money we're putting into the business, you know what I'm saying? It's coming back to the account, right? That was the cool part that we, you know, there was two other young ladies that ended up, one came back and then one ended up going somewhere, like to work at like a work Tesla or somewhere because you know, and I understand, I mean, I don't ever want to hold anybody back from life. But I think it's just like the resilience you have to have, the grit and tenacity. I think, man, I feel like nothing can stop me and I feel like we're not even where we need to be, but I don't think anything can stop me because I feel like I'm just that creative. You know what I mean? And I'll do whatever it takes. Like I'll do whatever it takes. I'll work the thing by myself 120 hours a week if I had to, like some crazy number, I'll make it happen because it's just my baby. I think you guys talked about that before, the business is just like a baby.  And so like every location does this thing, this thing, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so you start to understand that. And so then, like the way I think about entrepreneurship journey is at the beginning, you start off as a visionary, but you don't know where you're going. And so you're also just like map making as you go. And then it shifts to, okay, cool. And now I have a team. Now there's like eight of us. Yes. And now your skill set has to shift to visionary plus system maker, system creator. Yes. Or you hire someone that's really good at that, like a COO. And then, but the vision has to grow. And so instead of one truck, it's got to go to 10, it's got to go to five locations. It's got to go, you know, seasonality, kind of what you're touching on in terms of food, partnerships. And so now you grow in a completely different way. But I think as you grow, you become more of an artist. I actually really believe that. I believe you become less of a businessman, more of an artist. It sounds crazy, I think. No, you're right. Because at the beginning, you got to be sharp in business, right? Because it's like, you don't have that much money. And so you have to be right about money. And so it's like, you're playing Monopoly. And the only, the only game there is dollars. It's not opening stores, it's dollars. It's like, because you don't have any. It's all crazy, man. And so then it changes. What's the roadmap look like for you? What are you trying to do? Yeah, yeah. And I know I skimmed through a bunch of this stuff earlier, so forgive me. I'm just excited to be here with you guys. Like, man, the whole ride here at five-hour drive, I'm like, man, I can't wait to sit down with you guys. So. And you can ask us stuff, too, as we jump into this. Yeah, I want to pick you guys brand a little bit, too, because I'd also like some insight from you guys, because we want to, like I said, by before February, March of next year, we want to have hopefully have the truck still. Or just see how it goes, but keep a truck, because it just makes sense for the caterer. It's just the easiest convenient thing. We were, you know, there was one point, we were just like how to U-Haul with freaking tables and a grill on the back. And that was horrible, man, lifting off there with five guys. You know what I mean? Like, so the truck's convenient.  Winery, whatever they want. So for us, like I said, I want to do the ghost kitchen thing. Where do you want to do that? So there was a place in Santa Monica that they, I had been talking to the gentleman, but he never sent me over the specs of like what they were doing and like the pricing and everything. It was, I forget what it's called, Main Chick and all these different places. I don't know if you guys ever heard of these places.  I mean, they're everywhere. Yeah, there's one I talked to. I forget what it's called, Colony. Colony. So I talked to them, and that was something we talked about last month. And we were trying to get that done by like July, August, but I just got to see the parameters of it and see, because it would probably entail me coming down here for just a little bit. At least, you know what I mean? So I had to make sure my life's in check right now. So there were some personal things that happened where I had to kind of stay home a little bit, you know, family, you know. But I'm looking to get out here. One of the main goals is to move out here and then start something like that. And then my partner, he's adamant about staying up there. So we're thinking about doing a restaurant in Sacramento. It's way cheaper to start. And that community is booming with Sac State, the college right there. Downtown Sacramento started to look like... Like LA? Yeah, it is. It's popping. But it's less populated, you know what I mean? It doesn't take you 14 minutes to go a mile. Also, they take all the lessons learned of LA and they bring them to Sacramento. They're like, oh, LA did that wrong. We're not going to do that. Yeah, Sacramento is looking beautiful. Like even like the areas that you couldn't go in 10 years ago without, you know, getting robbed are like looking amazing right now. It's crazy. I've seen the area around the new arena, the stadium. Oh man, that's amazing. It was the basketball area. The gold one, yeah. Yeah, the Kings are playing. It's incredible. Like they've completely revitalized. And we just had Leisure Town on the show. They're from Sacramento. West Sac. West Sac. He's actually running. Doug is running for mayor of West Sacramento. Really? Yeah. It's funny. Yeah. Oh my God. Part of it's a publicity stunt. Part of it's for real. But yeah. That's pretty dope actually. Oh my God. It actually is pretty cool. I like the commitment. It goes back to like the unapologetic commitment to making change at every level. At every level. So he has a CPG, he has a CPG product and now he's trying to do that. So your ghost kitchen, would it be like so Uber? You're basically Uber Eats that grub hub? Uber Eats. That would be the model. But also have a, I think the outside seating area does really well as well. I know Colony has that where it's like an outside. That's why it was lucrative because it's like DoorDash Uber, cool.  You know, I'd rather walk in a close proximity or just go get food. But I know it's different here.  They just walk or they Uber everywhere. I didn't know that. Certain areas. Well, it's different. Some people, they don't. They know they just, you know, they might bike everywhere. That's how San Francisco is. People don't have cars. Not everybody has a car. Right. And then in Stockton, you know, about an hour and a half from San Francisco, everybody, you know, if you don't have a car, it's like, it's a smaller town. Yeah. It's like, why are you not have a car? It's kind of, you know. I would say LA is more like that than San Francisco. Yeah. Yeah. Like people don't walk here and they don't bike here. There's not the public transportation infrastructure and there's not the density that San Francisco has to my virtue of being there. We're so close. Yeah. Like when I lived in San Francisco, I didn't have a car. I just rode my bike to the office and back. When he first moved to LA, I was driving him around everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. I was Ubering around when I first moved here too and it was like $200 a day because LA is massive. Oh, man. So it would be like you living in San Francisco, and Ubering to Berkeley, Ubering to Oakland, Ubering to, you know, somewhere in the mission. That's a fault. Yeah, I know. Right? And it happens quick. And so that's a problem with LA. LA is like that. And most of it's highway to get to these places, just like Berkeley. Okay. So maybe I'm wrong with that. So I got more research to do. It just depends. Like if you're in like a coastal city, like Santa Monica or Venice, you will get some people who just bike everywhere or walk everywhere. But they don't leave. But they don't leave. They don't come to West Hollywood. Yeah, that's the issue. Yeah, they don't go downtown. And if they do, it's like a trip. It's like, oh, okay, I got, let me make sure. So what are you doing today? Let me make sure my family's okay for the next six hours. So you know what? That's the question I have for you guys. LA is so confusing with that, like these small, like it's like some New York type boroughs type. They're not really cities. It can be. It's not really cities. Are they? No, like what's Hollywood right now? Some are incorporated, but yeah. So like what's Hollywood right now? This is probably where you find a lot of people from like New York or Massachusetts or Boston. And so why do they do that? They do that because everywhere, people there like to walk. And so everyone, at least for like for us and a lot of people from the east coast, move to West Hollywood first. Wow. Because they can walk places. Yes. So then you start exploring LA. So now you're here in West Hollywood, very walkable, cool, cool community, young hip, blah.  And you realize that's like eight miles, but it's 40 minutes.  And the whole COVID thing with masks, like people hate it or love it. It gets a little metro zero, zero public transportation right now. That's changing a little bit with the Olympics. And so then you find pockets. And then like I live in the Hollywood Hills. And so it's like, it doesn't feel like you're in a city at all. Like it feels like you're kind of hidden from everything.  It takes way too long. And they're expensive. Yeah, it's expensive. Yeah. Whereas in San Francisco, like if I didn't want a bike, for whatever reason in my office, it's a $3. It was like three to six bucks Uber ride as quick. And they show up like in seconds, you know? Whereas like if you're in the Hills, the driver's coming from density, going all the way up there 20 minutes later, you're coming back down. It's annoying. You're not getting there till the hour later. Yeah. And so you lose time. And so that's why everyone ends up having a car. And then like there's areas to explore like Pasadena. There's just, it's just like, you really just need a car in Los Angeles. It's crazy though. Because like, I saw all these cities. So what is Los Angeles then? What is it? What is it? Well, what is that classified? Yeah, it's a good question. You know what I mean? Los Angeles is not a city. It's like a... As a real estate developer, like the way I look at it, I look at it as like it's whatever I want it to be. And that's like by fresh tick, like personally. At the same time, it's also like the most collaborative place I've ever been. And so like for business, like for you, like if you have a food truck, every brewery in the world is going to be happy to have you. And it's like, it's just a DM. Like it's not, it's not even sales. It's just like, hey, I don't know. Here's, this is what I do. This is my product. They're gonna be like, cool. When can you show up? And it's like quick, you know what I'm saying? And then what you find out is, if the brewery hits, like if they crush every night, then you're making money. And that's it. And you'll find that out quick. Like you'll just do a bunch of trial runs. You'd be like, oh, I got my spots.   Now you have like a... Now you have stops. I know, I got stops, got two trucks at two different breweries. But it's like, it's that easy. Like it's like, it's that lightweight. If the product is good, sounds like it's amazing. And also it's like in LA. And this is kind of the interesting thing I like about your business. So you have a food, but within your food, you're using like daring. Yes. Who has their own massive following. Yes. And then they're reposting and... Exactly. And then you got pita. And then you got probably other ingredients. Yeah. And so the whole thing about being like in the vegan space is like, let's say you work with Kite Hill. Let's say you work with daring. It's like all of a sudden, you have three legit brands that are willing to be like, hey, go try our blah at this brewery. Today. And because they're all here, it hits. Yes. The vegans here... You know what I'm saying? That's crazy. It's hardcore. And so like that, to me, makes your lift. It's not like you're climbing a mountain. Like it's really just like a molehill. Like it's not that hard. Yes, 100%. I love it.   Because the money's there. Here in the credit card. Like the money, you know what I'm saying? Like it's not a... It's not a... You've done the hard part. The hard part is the product. Yes. That's the hard part. 100%. I like this guy. But you have the part. I mean, because you have it. I like it. You've done it. 100%. You've done the hard part. Man, I love it. And it's true to you. I love it. And LA is so much better than they eat. Yeah. No, no, no. NorCal. No, well, yeah. I know for this type of business... Maybe not Sacramento. I've never been there. Sacramento and... Well, I know San Francisco for this type of business. There's a guy, vegan mob. That guy's killing it, man. That guy's killing it. Vegan mob? Vegan mob, dude.  It's crazy, man. But he kills it. And he's looking... He did a wee funder. He did crowdfunding. I think he did like $700,000 on there. And he's going to use that to open up his LA location. That's another thing, too. Like, if you do that here, it's really easy for you to get endorsement of a celebrity in the sense of like, this is where they are. Yeah.  And if you look like them, then it's like even more of a partner. It's easy. You see what I'm saying? So that's a real thing that can only happen in LA. That's a real deal. Yeah. That's a real deal. Because that's what I tell everyone, like they just moved here from LA, oh and in Lexi. I've seen that. Congratulations. So we got the squad here and it's just like, this is where it all happens. This is where like the collaboration really, it takes off. 100%. It's an economy built on collaboration. You'll be here and be like in Starbucks with like Dr. J or something. Like it'll just be, it's just different. Yeah, totally. It's different than anything. That's what people tell me all the time. It's just a different world. Funny story. Yesterday or like maybe last week, I mean, I'm like taking the trash out.  He's 17 years old and he puts his window down. He's like, hey man, you know where the rappers live around here? And I just started laughing, right? And he's like, no dude, for real, like I'm 17. I'm from Norfolk, Virginia. This is my Instagram. I just want to meet a rapper right here. I want to go to their house, knock on their door and like freestyle to them. That's so dope. And I was like, one, I love this. I'm like, I love everything about this. I love that you're driving around the neighborhood thinking like this is the way. I was like, the reality is, yeah, they live in this area. Like I know two of them live in this area. Yeah. They're not going to be home. And if they are home, they got security.  Like it's just not happening. Yeah. I'm like, so your best bet is probably to DM them. And he's like, what other neighborhood? And so I was like Beverly Hills, Bel Air. I'm like, but it's all gated. But yeah, you're gonna be. And he's like, where does Drake live? I'm like, Hidden Hills is gated. I'm like, it's all gated. I'm like, Kanye is over there. I'm like, but you couldn't. You'll never get close.  But I just love that he that he flew here to drive around, shoot some cool. Like he obviously shot a couple of music videos while he was out here. That's dope. But I just loved that. You see what I'm saying? That's dope. Like he was touching on something. And I was like, that's it. That's even even like just vibes with me. I'm like, yes, that's the energy man. Even the content, like even if you have content of him trying to do that, totally. Like if I go viral just gonna do it. I wanted to start filming him with this crazy idea. Yeah, it actually reminds me of the little Dickey video about the nods. You know, what was it? Save that money or? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's going around asking people. That whole video was so brilliant because you were there following that hustle. How they put it together. And you saw, OK, it's a crazy idea at first, but he pulled it off.  Yes, sir. What made you want to do that? Rap visionary, according to your Instagram. You gotta kind of hit him with the point. You know, you gotta let him know. So actually, it's kind of a, not a dark story, but you know, my father passed away. I was about 11, 12 years old. Sorry. And you know, it's all good. That was my transition. I think I got into poetry, got into music. And that really helped me a lot. I think keep my head straight and help me develop. Because kids were going to like parties and stuff and I would be in the studio. I'd be working. And I think that's what started the passion and the tenacity to like even with business, right? Because people my age right now. What did it teach you? What did it teach me? Yeah. Dedication that you're going to get disappointed a lot, that you can't expect anything. Kind of like the Gary Vee mantra, where it's like you're going to do something for maybe 10 years and not see anything of, you know, and don't expect anything from it. And that's changed my business mindset too, to where like, I don't expect anything. When I post something on Instagram or whatever, I don't expect a certain amount of likes. I don't expect, if I message Darien, I don't expect him to message me back. Like, because when you do live in that realm, I feel like you get disappointed and that's when people quit. Because you live in that realm of always expecting things to happen. You're like, oh well, it's going to happen. You know, we just dropped the best product we're going to sell out and you don't sell out that day. And you take a couple punches like that. It's the worst feeling. No, but I have a lot of friends that just give up.  But the thing is, is like, I think Nipsey said it. He said, never let a hard time humble us.  You know what I mean? Still, but some people aren't, you know what I mean? You don't have to always tuck your tail. You still can be like, you know. You still have to believe at the end of the day that you're the right person for this, that you're going to make it happen. 100%. $0 in the bank account, whatever. Whether you have a million dollars or $0, you got to have that same energy. And that's what I've always told people. I'll walk in the room, whether my business is down 20k or we're up 80k, I'm going to be, you're not going to be able to tell. And especially when you have staff under you, right? My employees don't need to know that we're not doing as good as we should be. Because that uncertainty passes to them and they're like, oh, I don't want to be here. Like, I'm going to start looking for another job. So you got to have that kind of, you know what I'm saying? Some people can do it. I have friends that are like, I love it. So the problem I've gotten so far deep down that rabbit hole where for me it's like, the less money I have in my account, the harder I work. And so I just hack it. If I have money in my account, I start making investments in startups. I start getting that thing to zero. That's why. Because once it's zero. You back that grind mode. I love it. You be grinding, man. I'll be watching you. I just love it. You can manufacture a loss. You see what I'm saying? And so if you make all this money, spend it all, do the next building, invest all of it. And now you have like barely enough to pay rent. No one can pull off the magic tricks that I can pull off when that's in my account.  But it's also a problem, right? Because it's like, but do I really need to do that to myself again? Yeah, every all the time. You know what I mean? People are looking at you crazy. Like, come on, man. Why are you putting yourself through the struggle? Yeah, but it's fun. It's like, I don't know. No, it's amazing, man. It's a bad point. No, it's amazing. I love you guys' mindset 100%. It's like, and that's super refreshing because where I come from, not a lot of people have that mindset, man. You know what I mean? And I'm trying to like, I'm trying to influence people. Like all my friends. Where do you come from? I come from Stockton, the south side of Stockton. Not the best place in the world, you know what I mean? But you know, it's crazy. I've gotten, it's a sidebar. I've gotten to a point where I think I have a very good upbringing story. I think I've been like, most people in this room, we've all been through a bunch of stuff. And I've gotten, I've like, hacked myself where I don't even talk about it anymore. Because I don't ever want to be like, that victim mentality. You know what I mean? Like, I know it's there and that's my driver. But like I go up against these my wealthy friends that haven't had those same things. And I don't, I just look at them like, I don't think like that. Some people are like, well, you know, I've had it rough so I won't be able to accomplish. I'm like, no, like, no, let's go. I'm ready. I'm down for it. And I think that's, it's also kind of negative though. You know what I mean? Because I've kind of like, blocked out my past like to like, not even be consumed with it of like why I'm not where I need to be. Oh, well, my parents weren't these people. Or you know what I'm saying? Some people are like that. I go the other way. So like we were like members of a really fancy tennis club. Right. So I have this every time we do something pretty epic. And I'll tell my wife, I'm like, if people knew what I had to do to get in this place. So I felt like that the first time I was in Equinox sauna. So that's like not even high level. That's like Equinox sauna. I was like, if people knew what I had to do and where I came from. And then that turned into like the podcast that turns into tennis club. I was at a gala last weekend.  And I won. And I was like, people had any idea. I literally I was like, people have any idea what I had to do to win these diamonds earrings for my wife in this gala.  Yeah, I know. But I like so I just use my story. And I like, you see I'm saying like it's that's your energy. It's the energy of like, that's what's that. Let's go do more of that. Like let's go because there's levels to it. Right.  When I was running with my buddy Xavier the other day, we ran 10 miles. We're training. And he was just like, I was like, I think mile nine. I hit like a little bit of a wall. And he was like, man, you said, you said you're Carlos Brian, man.  He said, what's three more miles? Or whatever. You know what I mean? I was like, and it's like, but sometimes you got to remind yourself. Like, yeah. And I love I love all these motivational speakers. You know, I try not to don't buy into motivational speakers too much. Some people like are all about the like sayings, but don't ever put the action. Like you got to kind of, you know, but I like I like there's a lot of there's a lot of people who who like to regurgitate the info. And they don't know what you're doing. Like nothing. But I think I like, I like Goggins a lot. David Goggins. Yeah. He talks about like that cookie jar.  We didn't have lights. We didn't have, you know, I mean, like all these things that you went through, just pull from it. Because it's like what we're going through now, yeah, it's an inconvenience, but it's probably not as bad as some things you've seen back in the day. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like for real, for real. So it's funny that you mentioned David Goggins, because I was going to equate this to the seal mentality where they always talk about that your mind will quit far before your body.  And it's like this revelation. It's this wave that washes over you that it's like, Oh, if that was possible, what else is possible? What else can I do? You know, because my body is not going to give out my mind. It's here's a funny story. So there's an apartment back here and we're renovating it right now for my mom. So I'm moving my mom. No, this is a good story. So my mom's moving here from Massachusetts. But my mom's moving here from Massachusetts. And so I was like, oh, we're just going to, we're going to redo the apartment. You know, so I bring her back there and I'm thinking like, this is it for a mother. This is it. Like this is the moment like your son has taken care of you. I know, right? That's dope. That's in my head. See, you're with me. That's dope. Oh, yeah. Okay. Here's what happens. So here's what happens. Single parent also. So here's what happens.  That's the right reaction. Then she goes, you're going to change that light fixture, right? You're going to change that. She hit you with it. And I was like, and a part of it was so mad. And then a part of it was like, that's what it's like. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And I love the fact that she demanded it. Cheela, you need to fix this. Yes. This isn't me. Yes. And I love that. I was like, that's what's up.  Never. It's never over. I just told my buddy Adam, he's a contractor in North California. And we're talking about, I feel like life is like playing a twister. You know what I mean? It's like when you think you got every like your hands here, you're good.  Like you always are trying to like with everything, your relationships, like with business, relationships, family, personal health.  It's like, but you got to figure out how to ride that wave because life, it does that to you. Sometimes you got to be more family-oriented. Sometimes your relationship needs you. Sometimes you got to be more in your business for a couple of weeks or something. You know what I mean? So it's crazy. I love it though too. I love not, not living the same day every day. I feel like there's always a new task. You know what I mean? Instead of like the 90, that's what I used to hate about the UPS grind. It was like, it was an easy job pretty much, but it was just so time-consuming and it was the same thing. You know, you're always the same thing.  It's crazy. They're stealing your goals. And what killed me is this. I would talk to guys that are my age, you know, mid-20s, and they're like, yeah, this is it. They're like, this is it. They say, yeah, I got a good job. I'm making 100,000 a year. I'm like, what? They're like, yeah, I'm just gonna retire here, man. We got a pension coming in. I'm like, I'm like, but you don't even like, he said, yeah, I don't like the job, man, just 30 more years. And I'm like, just 30 more years. I'm like, 30? It's a big mess. Part of me dies inside every time I hear something like that. What?  And they, they don't get it. And some of them really, they just, they really do not get it.  They just don't believe that's the right way to live. They're like, bro, this is safe, bro. Like, you're at your 401k, man. You can just max it out. They matched 3%.  There has to be work. You can dig on them. No, but I'm to quit their job. No, I can't call them out by name. Dylan, quit your job. No, no, no, no. Marcus, quit your job.  They're not quitting. They're not doing anything. They can quit with kids. They don't want to. Those guys don't want to. These, it's just an example for these guys. So I'm not close friends with them or anything. But yeah, with these guys, it's nice to the UPS Stockton. I know, right? They're gonna be like, man, we're gonna start writing off this. We're gonna send them a package. Press play. No, but it's just, I don't know what understand how people's mind is like that. And I feel like I go deep, right? So I look at like, okay, let's look at like the family tree, right? I look at my family generations before, right? They did not, like my grandma, great grandma, like if we go back, back, right? They did not have the opportunities that I have today.  To where it's like, they didn't have the opportunity to, you know, take off on a Wednesday at noon or to go to a podcast. And you know what I mean? They didn't have those opportunities. They didn't have the opportunity to learn about business. Seriously. Yeah, yeah. See, they did not have that. You know what I mean? They were working my grandma told me, she was working, she was like nine years old. Like it's just how it was. Had to. Yeah, you had to. There was no, I'm going to be an entrepreneur because they didn't really release that information like that as it is now. Like you can learn how to start a LLC in different things off the internet. You couldn't do that. So whatever. So I just feel like I owe it to my family that to do what they weren't able to do. 100%. You know what I mean? Yeah. I like it. You also never have that problem. That's another reality. Yeah. Right. You'll never have that problem. Yeah. And so that means you have a responsibility to do 100% some cool stuff or at least try at a minimum. Right. Some people don't. I have friends that, like I said, they come from wealthy families and they just don't try at all. And I'm like, bro, nothing's wrong with coming from, you know, a little bit of money.  And now you're chilling and sleeping in until like 2 p.m. on a Tuesday. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? I asked some friends like that from me. And it's funny because I tell them, I said, we're friends because of high school, right? We're friends because I've known you so long. Like if I met you today, I wouldn't want to be around you because you're just, you're slacking, bro. And that's facts. You have friends like that too where it's like. I look at it different. So there's like, it's like a cycle. So it's like tough times create tough people. Yes. Right. And then tough people create easy times. Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of people that made it. And they'll, no matter what you tell them, no matter the fact that they know this, they just want to spoil their kids. And they don't care. They don't, they know the consequences. But their whole worldview is, I never want my kid to struggle. And like as a parent, yeah, I'm not a parent, but I can understand why that happens. But in that, like to me, like my kids will never have that because my kids will always know that they're poor and I'm rich.  That's my money. Kevin Hart, all of them say this.  Like they'll never know. Yeah. That it's like, I'll be like, you're on my vacation. Otherwise you go from rags to riches to rags in the span of like two generations.  Yeah. But then, you know what, so this is a question for you guys, but then let's look at these like, these rich families that have been rich for generations. How do these guys do that? Like, you know what I mean? Because I feel like, I do feel like, I feel like if I'm rich enough, your money just makes more money. But they, I feel like there's, well, they got those like, was it all those trust and things set up? Yeah. To where it's like, you have to meet certain metrics before you can access the money.  It all depends. The people that I know that have done it well, it's their high, their parents don't hide the struggle from them. And so yeah, they might be in a 10 million dollar home. Yeah. They might be on the red carpet. Yeah. They might be doing some really cool stuff, but they don't hide the struggle from their kids. You know what I'm saying?   And so when they win, they win big and they celebrate big. But when they're losing, they also communicate that to their kids. And I think if you, there's transparency there, the kids understand it. You know, and I think the people that are willing to share the struggle or the journey, that's what I'm going to do. That's I feel like it's it's also like sports. Like it plays a variety of things. It goes like the David Goggins thing, I think is true in business, true in life. It's all about your mind.  And so if you can get a child to switch their mindset in like tennis or soccer or business or in school, that's that's it. That's the secret. It's not, I'm not good at business because I'm good at business. I'm good at business because I understand failure and I love risk. And I know how to, my mindset is there. That's what's required to be great. That's it. And so because I understand that it makes sense. That's the game. I think one of the people that's a good example is like Kobe Bryant, right? Kobe is not necessarily a razz rich is, you know what I mean? His dad had some bread, you know what I mean? But he is that guy's work. I think it was crazy, bro. Yeah, he was hungry. He was out working guys that did come from the struggle like that, like that. I think it's in you too, man. I feel like you're kind of almost born with it, but it also takes a facilitation from your parental figures as well. Yeah, like I say to this to my wife all the time, I don't think our kids will have jobs. I think they're going to either, they're going to know how to invest in startups and why they're going to know how to do real estate development projects and why. And like they're going to realize that their secret sauce is not either one of those things. Their secret sauce is picking winners, knowing what horse to bet on and like being part of culture, betting on culture. And if I'm 50, I've lost touch with culture in some way. But if I'm 20, right? My secret actually is the fact that I'm young and in the know. And you can know what's going on. And that's becomes their superpower. So it's not business and money. Their superpower becomes culture and where it's going. So that's, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so that also like imagine, like I'm 50, I'm saying that to you.  Yes, I never say. Gary, you always say that. And I think if you bet on culture, you win. And if you understand that, and there's several different forms. There's music, there's fashion, there's food, being in the vegan space is a real thing. And so you can create culture or just be on the winning ride and you got to be motivated. I'm like, I'm gonna make a call right now. No, you should. Look, I look, I'll be honest with you. Call the bank right now. I tell people all the time. So yesterday, like the other day, we were at the restaurant. We make friends with the person serving. Cool. So you're at the, we open up a brewery. She's at the brewery. She's like, hey, I want to do a pop up here. Cool. Two emails later, four days later. Now she has a menu and she's doing a pop up. And it's like that easy. You see what I'm saying? And she doesn't even, like it's not a full time job. She's just like messing around in the culinary world and seeing people like it. So she's like, were you where maybe years ago? Yeah. Just trying to see like what's going on. She's already in the brewery. But that's the collaborative nature of LA. And so it's like, it's easy. And as long as you have a good product, which the world has told you you do, then the hard part's over. Man, that's exciting. You guys are super motivational. I love that, man. No, it's easy. I vibe off.  And I got to do this stuff. I know, man. So every time I go into like a business meeting with the right people, that's how it is. I come out with a checklist of things I'm not doing or things I need to improve on. Yeah. I love it though. But also like, you know, and in that, there's a moment of gratitude where it's like, but you're in that room for a reason. You're getting that advice for a reason. Exactly. And so just don't lose sight of the fact that, you know, you got a lot of happy problems ahead of you. 100%. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to make it happen. You guys are stellar, man. I just want to, I see all the businesses you guys highlight and it gets me motivated. Like the, even some people in the vegan space, like all just everything you guys are doing is it's nothing like it. Like, you know what I mean? For like you guys bringing on like, you know, smaller businesses, even bigger businesses and like really collaborating people from the Ukraine. Like all this crazy. That was crazy. I know. It's super dope, man. Super dope.  You'll never have that problem. Yeah. Oh shoot. Oh, hopefully. Yeah. Oh man. Oh my God. What's the biggest, who do you think maybe came on and maybe has grown the most since you've interviewed? That's a really good question. Like grown themselves personally? Yeah. Like, or like their business.  That's a really good question. Maybe TheraBotty? Yeah. TheraGun. TheraGun. TheraBotty. TheraGun? TheraGun. Yeah. You know that gun that like. We had them on at like. Yeah. So we had that founder's song. 2020 and. That's a plug. And they were. They're huge. Yeah. That's the thing. So we got them right before they sponsored their first, no, they had just sponsored their first athlete, Colin Maraco, who's the tenant, a golfer. He was 18 out of UCLA or something. So he wins like three weeks after this interview. And now they have Cristiano Ronaldo. Right. They have all the F1 teams. They're everywhere. And so from the moment we spoke to them, where they were just getting into like the professional athlete space to where they are today. Yeah. I mean, bananas. But if you ask in another year or two, could be a different answer. Could be you. Could be that guy. It's gonna be, keep this for the tape. I'm gonna lose. Absolutely. We gotta scale up. I mean. So that's a good, that's a good before and after. Right. You guys should maybe, and I'm sorry for throwing ideas out, but maybe, maybe it should be like a little segment where it's like, you know, what are you gonna be doing on two years from today? And you have the business person say it, and then maybe you can send them the clip. What are you doing a year from now? Exactly, a year from now. I'm so small. We got you. Right here. Year from now, we'll have at least two trucks in the restaurant going. I think that's a realistic goal. Where? Swann. I guess. L.A. L.A. I think L.A. But I want to keep one up home. I gotta keep one up. Of course, of course. You gotta get roots up there. You have a business partner out there. You know, and we got a good fan base up there. But I want to get to L.A. I think we need, if we go to L.A., I think we can get like three and then keep one up there. We should have like four things. May 18th, 2023. We're checking back in. Goodness. Tell everyone where they can find you, where they can follow your journey. Okay. So you guys can follow us on Instagram at Los Marti's Food Truck, L-A-S-M-A-R-I-S-F-O-O-D-T-R-U-C-K. I had to test my spelling right there. Food Truck or LosMartisVegan.com. Same thing, L-A-S-M-A-R-I-S-V-E-G-A-N. Or you can follow me personally and just keep up with me. Carlos Bryant, 209. 209 is the area code of Stockton, California area. I will wear that proudly. A lot of people are really ashamed of where we come from and I wear that. I love it, man. I love it. Some people know it, but some people are like that. They're kind of uppity. They're like, oh, well, I'm from Beverly Hills, but you're really from like Englewood or something. No, seriously. I know people like this. You know people like this. Well, we're all like that in some way. Yeah, but it's like, I feel like you got to... I like being... I don't know where you came from. There's no harm in it. Some people just are ashamed. They want to be like, I love it. I feel like it makes my story even better because when you win, it's like, okay, this guy, this guy's not from Beverly Hills. This guy's from wherever he's from. That's what you can tell them. Do you know what I had to do to get out of the 209? That's my new one. People will never believe it. 100%. But no, I appreciate you guys so much, man. Thank you, Carlos. Thanks for coming on the show. Anything else from here at all. We're going to check in a year from now. We're going to do it again. Oh my goodness. I hope so. I hope I can be at the... You got the brewery, right? Yeah, you can be there whenever you want. We're going to... The food truck's going to be there. I'm ready to go. LA, we're coming. Here we go. Thank you, Carlos. Love it, man. Appreciate you guys so much, man. That was our conversation with Carlos of Las Maris. Recently, we started putting out a five-monthly newsletter. It's our way of summarizing and highlighting certain moments in our podcast episodes that you may have missed along with little tidbits behind the scenes information about the recording or things that just didn't make it into the full episode. It's a great newsletter with a lot of thought that goes into it, so if you're a fan of the show, you'll be happy that you signed up for it. You can find the newsletter at our website, startupstorefront.com. We are found at Startup Storefront on every social media platform, except for Twitter, where we are found at STS Podcast LA. The team consists of Diego Torres Palma, Natalia Capolini, Lexie Jamison, Owen Capolini, and me, Nick Conrad. Our music is by DoubleTouch. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.


Good morning Las Vegas. It's not really morning, but I always wanted to say this. My name is Gil Cohen and I will be your host at this almost last lecture. I want to thank you all for attending this lecture. It's not trivial that all of you stayed. I know that many went home or just staying out at the pool. So a big shout out to you for coming. And today I'm going to talk about remote vulnerabilities in named pipes. So let's begin. First I'll start off with some introduction of myself. I'm going to tell you about my past or the thing that I can't tell you at least. Then we're going to talk about some key terms of Windows named pipes in general and interest process communication. Then I'm going to show you how to connect to named pipes, named pipes access control list and in the world, enumerating and sniffing named pipes, fuzzy named pipes exploitation. Then we'll move on to the audience favorite part which is live demos and then I'll show you some mitigations and the conclusion of my talk. So let's start. My name is Gil. I'm 34 years old and I'm a CEO of Comsec Global. I'm going to tell you a little bit about my company at the end of this lecture. This is the biggest company in Israel and most veteran one 30 years, 150 consultants. And I've been a hacker for about 13 years now. I started in the Israeli military. I was a penetration tester of all kinds application and infrastructure and I even worked with some Israeli security agencies.  So I'll just spare the details. So I've been hacking to a lot of stuff including Windows application and during one of my penetration tests and my hacks I came across this vulnerability technique that I'm going to show you that was completely unknown or forgotten by penetration test and this was the motivation for my talk. But before talking about the vulnerability itself let's start with some key terms just in case you are not familiar with it. So inter-process communication this is an operating system mechanism that allows processes and application to manage shared data. You can either use for example internal sockets which probably most of you know and you have different kinds of inter-process communication as well. Each and every participant in this communication is considered either a client or a server and it can be both and you can have multiple clients and multiple servers and to end communication. And of course both clients and servers can be defined together. So Windows namepipes is one of the methods to perform inter-process communication in Windows. It can either be half one way or two way or four duplex and it utilizes a unique file system that is called NPFS, name pipe file system. It can be accessed by any process in your local operating system subject to security checks which is obviously ACLs. So all instances of the same name pipe a connection to a name pipe is called an instance have the same name. If you have a name pipe called GIL then everyone who talks to this name pipe will create an instance with the same name. So there are many many configurations and variants of name pipes half the half duplex or full duplex byte oriented or packet oriented local or network and this is what people miss. So inter-process communication unlike its name is not only internal it's not only internal interface in your operating system it can be it can be used remotely. Name pipe communication is not encrypted so if you have any name pipe that is connected remotely it would use either SMB port 445 or RPC which is port 135 and it is totally unencrypted so you can obviously just sniff it and replay it and in some cases even perform a man-in-the-middle attack. RPC some of you most of you must probably know it but i'm going to tell it anyway this is a protocol that allows one program to invoke services from program located in another computer you just call or another service another process you just call it from one computer to the other it uses port 135 and DC RPC is just a variant or subtype of RPC which allows the programmer to think that the process that he's calling is actually local when in fact it is a remote one so it just makes the programmer's life a little bit more convenient. SMB or server message block this is a famous protocol it can be used for file sharing and printers serial port etc it's mostly used for file sharing and probably most of you know it through links like this URLs that looks like this you can see 192.168.11 slash c$ this is an SMB connection or slash slash file server this is the famous SMB protocol it uses port number 445 so if you have any of these ports open you can connect to named pipes as well but there are actually two kinds of named pipes not only the regular named pipes you also have unnamed pipes or anonymous pipes not the famous anonymous that you see on the right but a named pipe with a random name this named pipe is used only between a parent process and each child process and it cannot be used for communication over the network and this is why I haven't focused it during my research because I wanted to show to see which named pipes can be connected remotely so how can you connect to a named pipe all pipes are placed in a root directory of NPFS which is slash slash slash the IP address of the computer can be dot for example if it's the local computer slash pipe slash pipe name this is how you connect to a pipe but you cannot just open your windows run command and just connect to it you need a special connection you can you either need to do it using programmer's code or using dedicated tool that I'm going to show you in the next slides so here's a URL for example for connecting to a named pipe you can see slash dot slash pipe slash foo this is a connection to a local pipe and if you want to connect to the same pipe remotely and the ACL allows it you just add the IP address instead of the dot character so the best tool in order to connect to named pipes is io ninja this is a commercial tool it used to be free for a non-commercial usage but they just changed their license agreement so now it is paid only and you can have a non-registered copy of it and this is like the Swiss army knife of communication in general and named pipes specifically you don't necessarily need to use it for regular TCP IP communication because you have net cut and end map and many other great tools but this is the only good tool for named pipes communication and this this is the tool I was using during my research so how does the communication looks like when you open wireshark because I told you that named pipes can be remotely accessed so this is how it looks like you can see here a wireshark window and you can see that the name pipe is using SMB communication and here at the bottom you can see that this is total clear text so whatever is being transferred to a remote named pipe can be sniffed but there are some limitations if you are a programmer and you start your own name pipe you you listen to a name pipe you can protect it so how can you do it using ACLs named pipes are implemented by file system drive in Windows and this started from Windows 18 in fact and they follow the ACLs or the ACLs discriminatory access controllers permissions that are but the default value is that the permission is set to anyone or anonymous login so if you create your own name pipe and you know you don't set the ACLs specifically anyone can connect to it so many named pipes allows either anonymous access or only domain user access but obviously it's still a lot of users that can exploit vulnerabilities in it you can modify ACLs to make only specific users access named pipe but this is not the default behavior and unfortunately I witnessed a lot of named pipes that just didn't do it and I'm going to show you some examples so here is a name pipe for example it this is a windows built-in named pipe it is called init shutdown and you can see that the permissions for this name pipe is everyone anonymous and administrators which actually has no effect because everyone can access it so anyone can access init shutdown and name pipe and this is a built-in windows operating system named pipe and named pipe unlike any other interface you know either regular SMB files or sockets have an additional feature which is which is called maximum instances a connection to a named pipe is called an instance a name pipe instance and on the left you can see the different named pipes and their current number of instances and on the right you can see that there there is a maximum volume for some of them if the value is minus one there then there is no limitation but if this is not minus one then there can be a number a maximum number of connections or instances to these named pipes so you can see here several named pipes with the value one or the value seven so it means that you cannot just connect to it without any limitation so let's talk about named pipes in the wild most of you probably heard about the configure war or configure virus that was detected in November 2008 it used flaws in windows operating system and it used dictionary attacks on administrator passwords to propagate while forming a botnet and it used advanced malware techniques similar to the recently discovered not petia and wanna cry run some else and and malware's so it infected a lot of computers millions of computers in 190 countries and it had several variations this is how it looks like very nice one variation which is that name variation c creates a named pipe over which it pushes URLs for downloadable downloads or other infected computers in your line so if you have one computer that is infected and it gets the command from the command control center it just propagates this command through named pipes in order to make sure that the rest of the infected computer gets the same command as well and this is not only used by configure but by others as well such as mocker zedex search shells and even the famous now famous petia so how can you enumerate and scan for named pipes if you want to have a look at your own named pipes in your own windows computer you can just use the c internals pipe list this is the best tool for enumerating named pipes and you can just run it and immediately see what we just witnessed in the previous slide all of the pipe names the current number of instances and the maximum number of instances so this is what you should use if you want to see what named pipes are listening in your own computer there are multiple tools of checking the access control lists for named pipes this is a deprecated tool it is called beyond security pipe security editor but unfortunately it is un-maintained and deprecated because it only works in windows xp or older but you can see that this tool used to allow you to edit named pipes permissions in real time just like as you do with files so unfortunately there are no similar tools for newer versions of windows and this is a deprecated tool but for current windows versions you can use the c-sinternals pipe ACL it comes with the same package it's pipelist and once you activate it you see the output that we saw earlier which tells you which groups have permissions for the current named pipe that you're checking in this example i was checking the another windows operating system named pipe which is called lsa rpc and yet again anonymous access to everyone so how can you remotely enumerate named pipes there aren't many tools for doing it but there are several scripts in metasploit not very common scripts and not well known but you can use it nonetheless this is called pipe editor and you can use it in order to remotely scan for named pipes if you want to scan it using smb you use the original pipe editor script if you want to use it to scan it using rpc you use pipe dcrpc auditor so here you can see an example of executing pipe dcrpc auditor that allows you to scan remotely this script has their own database of named pipe names because it's not like scanning for ports you don't know all of the values of the valid values so you need to have a list of named pipes i don't know how this is well maintained or not but you can still try to use it so how can you sniff content of named pipes let's say you want to discover a new vulnerability a new remote code execution or a new denial of service the first thing that you need to do is to get the valid communication so how can you do it so ion ninja to the rescue yet again ion ninja as i told you earlier is the swiss army knife of named pipes you can use it both to connect to any pipes to listen to name pipes if you want you can even create a name pipe server and also to use it as a named pipe sniffer and this is a new model in ion ninja so you can see in my own computer i can start it it has some bugs because every now and then it finds name pipes i know it was named pipes that it cannot read but if we wait a little bit let's see if i see some named pipes communication as i told you it's a rather new model so it's not perfect yet but let's just wait for a second or two this is not me this is the windows operating system i went before come on bill gates now okay i'll just show you in the presentation sure so this is how it looks like when you see communication so you can see the open name pipes in this example it's mms server and you can see the entire communication totally clear text unless of course the protocol itself embeds encryption of any kind so a key process of finding vulnerabilities either if you want to jailbreak iphone or you want to find any unmanaged code vulnerabilities is fuzzing and this is what we're doing if you are not familiar with fuzzy let's just quickly go through the the basic terminal terminology and definition of it fuzzy no fuzzy testing is an automated software testing technique that involves providing invalid unexpected or random data you just bombard the interface with any unexpected values but it sounds a little bit like qa but this is done automatically qa is usually done manually you have the qa guy that just write the scripts and send it and fuzzles do it for you the automatic fuzzing tools do it for you in the fuzzing process you then monitor the program that you are trying to crush or to find vulnerability in and if anything is wrong you know that you can further investigate it usually fuzzles are used to test unmanaged code c and c plus plus because usually you want to find any sort of buffer overflows and for example microsoft embeds fuzzing processes in their in their development operation for any product they do for example if you have microsoft office they perform multiple fuzzing on each and every application of it and they found multiple vulnerabilities in their parses so this is a very useful technique in findings bugs but there are in fact two kinds of fuzzings dump fuzzing or black box fuzzing and smart fuzzing dump fuzzing is you just go over all the possible inputs without understanding the expected one you just bombard it with random data or sequential data and you don't understand what's the purpose of the parameter that you are trying to fuzz this is simple to implement very fast to implement sometimes impossible to execute because you have multiple multiple options and the code coverage is very poor you don't cover all of the different options in the programmers code on the other hand there is the smart fuzzing or white box fuzzing in this technique you understand the expected input you understand each parameter that is being sent to the interface in this example the name pipes and you modify slightly modify and test using in the edges of these the valid values to check for bugs and errors so this is smart data generation and if you have for example a file and you have a checksum field so in smart fuzzing you need to calculate and of course it is harder to implement we in Comstock we don't have a lot of resources like different companies that presented before before me so we weren't doing a lot of smart fuzzing mostly focused on dump fuzzing but still we found very very interesting vulnerabilities and the reason that i show you this presentation is i want others to move forward and use smart fuzzing as well to find new zero-days vulnerabilities so we also found like this nice little script that is called advanced pipe fuzzer you can download it from this URL and it was written many years ago but as i told you not many people know that name pipes can be accessed remotely so it was hard coded for local name pipes only so we slightly modified it and improved it a little bit and we used it in our research in order to find the vulnerabilities that i'm going to show you in our live demo so let's see some examples of exploitation and impacts so many pieces of software work with hidden or undocumented APIs this can either be a web server or a Windows application server that listens to a name pipe which is totally undocumented the forgotten nature of name pipes leaves uncharted territory of socket-like interfaces that contains vulnerability remote denial of service buffer overflows remote code execution and any kind of vulnerability that you can think of name pipes fall in between application penetration test and infrastructure penetration test if you are an applicative penetration tester you probably usually just use the normal ports which is obviously HTTP and many every once in a while you use other variants as well but you never look at RPC or an SMB in the first place if you see RPC or SMB you just skip it and most of the times you barely look at it or even don't know what it is so application penetration test doesn't look at it don't look at it and if you are in infrastructure penetration test whenever you see an RPC or SMB port which is open you try to brute force it you try to brute force credentials and you use your username password admin username password then you try to get valid credentials in order to hack into the system but you never look at the name pipes that listens behind these open ports if you are an EDR expert endpoint detect and response the multiple products that try to defend your your endpoint user station you probably don't take special notice to remote connections you know what name pipes are you know that you can use it in order to hack into stuff and to elevate privileges but you don't think a lot about remote the remote nature that is possible remote connection of the name pipes so if your software if your windows installed software reads data from name pipes without validation it's like any vulnerable application you can have multiple vulnerabilities including buffer overflow that can be can lead to denial of service or even in some cases remote code execution so if name pipe ACL access control list allow remote access then remote denial of service or remote code execution can be triggered research of cause behind the crash will allow the attacker to facilitate it as a zero-day vulnerability if you'll find vulnerability in one of windows name pipe interfaces that can be connected remotely and there are several such interfaces this can be used in order to spread malwares like wanna cry or not petya imagine the new not petya 2 or something similar that can utilize named pipes vulnerabilities and of course remote denial of service is game over so let's see a case study of some interesting vulnerabilities that we saw in three different windows application viber qb torrent and sugar sink you probably all know viber but just in case you just landed for math or from the moon this is a seller an endpoint social communication application the most common one is installed on your mobile device but there is another version that you can install on your windows operating system it allows you to uh to perform free calls text pictures this is a the major competitor of whatsapp and it had 800 million users worldwide qb torrent this is a torrent client probably most of you know what torrent is this is a cross platform client for a b torrent protocol free and open source written in c plus plus and sugar sink the last application that i'm going to show you demo for this is a cloud service that enables active synchronization of files across computers and other devices similar to dropbox using for file backup access syncing sharing supports variety of operating system including windows and this is what i found interesting and the three applications has one common feature they all use the the widely used qt framework as part of their application this is a cross platform application development framework for desktop embedded mobile it also supports windows and in the windows implementation of qt framework there were a vulnerability in the feature of functionality that is called qt single app this is responsible for writing temporary file probably to make sure that your application runs only once then you don't open multiple instances of the same application so by fuzzing name pipes we performed just a dumb fuzzing on this interface we found a remote denial of service or we could remotely crush the programs that i just show you and in qb torrent we also were also able to perform a remote command injection which i'm going to show you so i'm now silently prayed to the demo gods if you know the parade just join me i encourage you to so this is the virtual machine i'm going to do the demo with this is the ip address and first i'm going to activate viber oh but just a second before i activate viber viber let me just show you the different pipes so i activate pipelist which is the cc internal tool for enumerating name pipes and you can see different windows name pipes in each shutdown that we saw earlier elsas ntss vcs probably svc host and other services and once i start viber and execute it once again you would see that suddenly i have this named pipe which contains viber in it so obviously this is qt single app viber and now i'm going to exploit it so let's get back to my computer and now this is ion ninja i'm going to open a file stream that allows me to remotely connect to a named pipe and just put the right ip in here what was it again 31 132 pipe slash pipe name oh just a second i have some problems you need to be a domain user in this example so i need to put valid set of credentials to have access to any named pipe in this example so i'll just put username and password okay now i'm connected to viber's name pipe remotely and if i put just a single character this is all what is needed for this vulnerability if i hit the send button you would see that now viber is no longer responding and this is the case with sugar sink as well but this time i'm going to perform thumb fuzzing using the script i just showed you so it's starting and you can see that here i have a very similar name name pipe which is called qt single app sugar sink or sugar s and i'm going to copy it online this might look like random characters but this is in fact a fixed values so if you have viber and you have sugar sink you know that these name pipes are fixed so now i'm going to activate the fuzzer where we're using okay and you can see that just after two requests this is all it needed and sugar sink is also dead and the last example i'm going to show you this is the coolest example we found this is in cute bitter end so i'll just copy and paste the name pipes name but this time i won't just send a single character we witnessed a very interesting behavior in this named pipe for some reason they actually use values from this name pipe in order to perform commands so you can see that i sent two a characters with a space afterward and then i send defcon 25 and if i send it we will need this error torrent file defcon 25 does not exist and now i prepared this recoil torrent link and i just replace defcon 25 with the recoil link let me just reconnect to it and now qb torrent is never going to give you up so let's talk about the mitigation and the defense for the attack that i just showed you for the developer post point of view if you are a developer you should know the risk if you're using name pipes in your windows application you should create name pipes with access control list for specific users you should always follow the least privilege approach don't give any redundant permissions that are not needed in order for your application to act to activate correctly so just give minimal permissions the minimal number of users if it is not remotely if the name pipe should not be remotely accessed just block it all together and make it local only this is also an option and if you have the possibility just limit the maximum number of instances for your name pipe for users or third-party software clients know the risk just block all unnecessary smb and rpc services 135 and 445 obviously especially over the internet if you have rpc and smb open to the internet you have big problems unrelated to name pipes so just block it all together segment your network so at least if one computer is affected it won't be able to spread to other computers as well or if you have an attacker in one section of your network you won't be able to exploit these vulnerabilities in other sections as well and always install latest software security patches just in recent days it was found that in malware bytes the famous anti-malware software there were a similar vulnerability to the one i just showed you that allowed you to inject commands as a system user so they fixed it so you need to install the latest version and my favorite point of view which is the hackers point of view just know the opportunity and hack you should just use the technique that i showed you and in order to search for remote code execution and remote denial of service whenever you see open smb and rpc ports and just have fun you can use it and utilize it in order to find zero-day vulnerabilities that are completely uncharted so some closing remarks windows name pipes are forgotten remotely accessible socket-like interface you don't need to put your socket number you need to put the name pipe name this is a whole newly rediscovered potential word of local remote vulnerabilities increased attack surface and don't ignore it because it can lead to significant significant vulnerabilities if you liked the presentation i encourage you to contact us in comsec we are a small consultant company and we are not as big as the the companies that were presenting so in order to support our work and to work with professionals i encourage you to contact us i have my email in the end we are a small company so we pretty we have the speed and the agility in multiple services that includes penetration test of all kind security development lifecycle architecture design grc services is iso 2701 and pc i dss and also red team in deal simulation and offensive security services of all kind so if you have any question or you want to contact me following my presentation or of course if you want to to contact me regarding working with comsec you have my twitter and my linkedin and email and i want to thank everyone that participated in this research and also i want to take viber who are the only one to take this vulnerability seriously we try to contact other application owners as well but we couldn't so i want to take viber as well and adi happy birthday and masalto and thank you


وَأَقُولُ فِي القُرْآنِ مَا جَاءَتْ بِهِ آيَاتُهُ فَهُوَ الْكَارِيمُ الْمُنْزَالُهُ وَأَقُولُ قَالَ اللَّهُ جَلَّ جَلَالُهُ وَالْمُصْطَافَ الْهَاديِ وَلَا أَتْ أَوَّالُهُ الحمد لله رب العالمين له الحمد الحسن والثناء الجميل واشدوا الله إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك لأ يقولوا الحقا وهو يهدي السبيل واشدوا أن محمدان عبده ورسوله صلى الله عليه وعلى آله واصحابه والتابعين لهم بحسان إلى يوم الدين أما بعد أمي أحبت أمي والسيسة أردت أني أريد أن أتحدث عن اليوم هو هجر الإنسان من أجل الله وهجره من أجل حق نفس وماذا تشعر؟ هل تعتقد أنك أفضل؟ هل تعتقد أنك أفضل من الله عن هذه المسنجر؟  This was literally taken out of his face and the narration mentions عمار رضي الله عنه was an individual that whenever the boundaries of Allah were mentioned or the boundaries of Allah were set he would never exceed his boundaries so he heard the verse he penetrated touched his heart and now straight away he implemented it so he totally and utterly رضي الله عنه forgave him and turned away from him and that's how we should be as Muslims what should we be people who don't hold grudges we forgive يعني people do mistakes errors fault no problem as long as it's not the rights of Allah now i am no way shape or form saying to you that everybody who wrongs you still be friends with them the concept of being friends with people is a totally different thing who do you want to be friends with who do whose companionship you want to be in who do you want to be sitting with and that's that's not what i'm saying there are like there might be some people that you just have conflict with them excessively and a lot so i wouldn't encourage you to sit with them where it always cause problem but don't boycott boycotting is السلام عليكم السلام عليكم how are you is everything good yes no problem خلاص keep it moving companionship lacking is not necessary for everybody you can't be friends with everybody and not everybody are you going to are you going to see eye to eye with يعني the uh professor الله عليه وسلمه he said يعني the souls they connect sometimes people connect you see two people they've met each other for the first time they've never seen each other before this is the first time they're meeting each other and they sit together and guess what they blossomed and just the relationship it's just amazing you think yourself these two individuals have known each other all their life they've known each other all their life they've talked they laugh they have banter they يعني سبحان الله you said you have you guys ever met before no it's my first time ever meet here it's just there are people like that when you meet them you become like that and there's some people when you meet them you just don't feel it you just they're very you feel you feel repulsed towards them okay and because it's the so i'm not saying be friends with everybody and be in a companion ship of you know of everybody no no i'm not saying that but i'm saying boycotting you can't boycott people and not you know you're sure you don't shouldn't shouldn't come boycott anybody we don't boycott anybody and we believe that the concept of Islam is not to boycott anyone لكن if الله تبارك وتعالى's religion is wronged and crimes are committed in the dean of الله سبحانه وتعالى we don't we we we get upset for that and if it reaches a point where we have to boycott for Allah's really we would we would و لذلك ابن عمر رضي الله عنه he said in the hadith عمر رضي الله عنه mentioned عبد الله ابن عمر سعريه the son of عمر من خطاب عبد الله ابن عمر one day he said to his son do not stop the women from going to the masajids but the houses is better for them for them and he told them that this is what the prophet said يعني ابن عمر attributed this to the prophet عليه الصلاة والسلام he said i had the prophet عليه الصلاة والسلام say do not stop the women from going to the masajids for verily the masajids are permissible for the women but the houses are better now one of his sons he said i am going to stop them from going to the masajids and عبد الله ابن عمر became very angry like i told you the prophet said i told you رسول الله he said and it was said that عبد الله ابن عمر his son يعني until his death he boycotted him because of what he did and this is this shows you something that they were يعني if the dean of الله تعالى was wrong it was a different dealing but their rights they saw it to be insignificant so take that on board insha'Allah تعالى anything which i have said that was wrong or incorrect is from me and shaytan and allah his messenger are both free from it سبحانك الله وبحمد أشهد والله إله إلا الله أستغفرك واتوب إلي وبركاته how can you do a two second action right now that will give you a share of the reward of everything we're doing on this youtube channel simple like this video and click subscribe why it will allow youtube to recommend our videos to other users and imagine the huge amount of reward that could be waiting for you on the day of judgment if you did that with a sincere intention of spreading the dean of الله you'll be rewarded for every single person who benefits from one of our videos as a result of your like or subscribe that's an easy two second action that you definitely don't want to miss out on do it now click like and subscribe and don't forget to make that intention


Felly, dyna'r gwriad o'r gweithio gyda'r Gweithio Lundan ni'n mynd i ddiwedd i'r gwirioneddau sydd wedi'u gwirioneddau sydd yn oed yn gwybod. Mae'r cyflwyno 13% i ddweud o'r cyflwyno sydd wedi'i gwirioneddau sydd yn gweithio'n gwirioneddau a fyddwn i'r prosbyg ar y cwmwyng ymgylch gyda'r mwyaf mwyaf. A 31% wedi gwirioneddau sydd yn cael ei prosbygau ar y cwmwyng ymddangos mewn gwirioneddau. A gweld y gallai hynny'r ymwyaf yn y ffigur sydd wedi'i gwybod i'r economi a fyddai'n gwybod i'r gwybod i'n gwybod. Felly, 55% o'r ysgol o'r cyffredinol yn ddweud o'r llwyth am gyllideb yn y Sinoeddau UK o'r 12 yma, a 64% o'r ysgol o'r cyffredinol o'r gwybod i'r cyffredinol. Felly, mae'r cyfnod o'r cyflod i'r cyflod o'r economi UK o'r cyffredinol o'r 2012. Ond ydy'r cyfnod o'r bwysig, yn fwy o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod yma yw 59% debyd ymwysig yn cael eu gêmio'r ysgol a 42% o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r Llywodraeth. Ond mae yna bod yna cynnydd ymwysig yn ei gêmio, ond yn ymwybodol yma yw'r gêmio'r ymwysig yn eich gweithio. Well, the CBI takes its lobbying priorities for London largely from the findings of our survey. So if we look at what our survey tells us, the top three strengths of London, according to the capital's businesses, are access to skills and talent, access to international markets and proximity to customers and clients. Then on the negative side, the three biggest weaknesses are the high operating costs, the tax regime and the transport infrastructure. So that really shapes the CBI's lobbying priorities and in particular, we are lobbying to make sure that companies can continue to bring skilled and talented people to the UK through having a visa regime that supports businesses bringing talented people in. We're lobbying for greater aviation capacity in London and the southeast to make sure that London maintains its connectedness to the rest of the world and we're lobbying for a competitive tax regime in London that doesn't deter skills and talent from the capital. The top three priorities we think for all of the candidates going into the mayoral election in 2012 are firstly to make sure that they really promote London as a place to do business internationally. So we've got a fantastic opportunity next year with the Olympic Games, the eyes of the world are really going to be on London, so it's really important that the candidates for the mayor really promote how London is going to be an excellent place to do business and really showcase the amazing variety of business and talent that we have here in the capital. The second major priority is to continue to improve the transport infrastructure. We've seen some significant announcements with the progression of the Crossrail project and the commitment to funding the tube modernisation, but we still need to see a significant step change in our road network, for example, that continues to perform badly for business and greater aviation capacity to ensure that London can retain its centre as an international hub. And then the third key priority for the mayor or candidates has to be to focus on supporting SMEs through a difficult economic situation. The findings of the London Business Survey show that the majority of companies are now starting to turn their attention to the Olympic Games next year and are starting to think about what it is they need to be doing to get prepared, which is absolutely right. Our key messages to business has been you really need to start thinking about this now. It's not too late, there's still about eight months to go, so there's plenty of time to start thinking about these things, but business absolutely needs to start thinking about them now. And we've been working with a host of organisations such as Transport for London, the Olympic Delivery Authority and LOCOG to really make sure that their advice is out there for businesses and there's a huge amount of really detailed information now and more is coming out all the time. Transport for London has just put out some really specific information on specific roads, for example, or specific tube stations. So businesses should really be looking at all of that and thinking about how will this affect me and talking to their suppliers and their customers to make sure that they've got an integrated plan ready for summer next year.