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content/podcast/2026-07-20-the-powershell-podcast-jake-hildreth-on-psconf-eu-stepper-updates-and-taking-the-day-off.md

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+---
+title: The PowerShell Podcast Jake Hildreth on PSConf EU, Stepper Updates, and Taking the Day Off
+author: Andrew Pla
+authors:
+  - Andrew Pla
+  - Jake Hildreth
+date: "2026-07-20T14:00:00+00:00"
+podcast_url: "https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/gc2ywy5rrdjk2zdd/The_PowerShell_Podcast_episode_238_Jake_Hildreth78xdh.mp3"
+episode: 238
+youtube: Rqkuaeps_jM
+guid: powershellpodcast.podbean.com/950e53f7-e949-3914-9df5-f0f7d04dc416
+aliases:
+  - /2026/07/the-powershell-podcast-jake-hildreth-on-psconf-eu-stepper-updates-and-taking-the-day-off/
+---
+
+Jake Hildreth, Principal Security Consultant at Semperis and Microsoft MVP, is back on the podcast fresh off a trip to PowerShell Conference Europe, where he and Andrew co-presented a session on securing PowerShell. Jake also gave his own talk on Stepper, his open-source module for building resumable, step-by-step scripts — a tool that's grown considerably since his last appearance on the show. The two dig into what makes PSConf EU such a standout event, the refreshing lack of elitism in the PowerShell community, and the updates Jake's been shipping, including named steps, built-in logging, and secret suppression. The conversation winds into burnout, the importance of actually taking your vacation days, and how the same mindset that drives good automation — knowing when to stop and reset — applies to taking care of yourself.
+
+Key Takeaways:
+
+- Stepper has gotten some meaningful quality-of-life updates since Jake last appeared on the show, including named steps, automatic logging, and the ability to suppress secrets from logs — making it more practical for real-world production scripts.
+- PSConf EU punches above its weight as a conference experience: technically deep but genuinely welcoming at every skill level, with none of the elitism that can creep into security-adjacent events.
+- Your vacation time is a benefit, not a backlog item. Jake makes the case that getting good at separating your work time from your off time isn't a soft skill — it's a sustainability practice.
+
+Guest Bio:
+
+Jake Hildreth is a Principal Security Consultant at Semperis, a Microsoft MVP in both PowerShell and Identity/Access, and a recovering sysadmin with 25 years of IT under his belt. He's probably best known for building Locksmith, the open-source AD CS auditing and remediation tool, but he's also the creator of Stepper, Deck, BlueTuxedo, and PowerPUG! — a suite of tools designed to make identity security a little less painful for the admins who live in it. When he's not untangling Kerberos or chasing down ADCS misconfigurations, he goes by "horse" in the PowerShell Discords.
+
+Resource Links:
+
+- Jake Hildreth's Website: [jakehildreth.com](https://jakehildreth.com)
+- Jake's GitHub: [github.com/jakehildreth](https://github.com/jakehildreth)
+- Stepper (Resumable PowerShell Scripts): [github.com/jakehildreth/Stepper](https://github.com/jakehildreth/Stepper)
+- Locksmith (AD CS Auditing & Remediation): [github.com/jakehildreth/Locksmith](https://github.com/jakehildreth/Locksmith)
+- Locksmith 2 (Next-Gen AD CS Toolkit): [github.com/jakehildreth/…](https://github.com/jakehildreth/Locksmith2)
+- PowerShell Conference Europe: [psconf.eu](https://psconf.eu)

content/podcast/2026-08-03-the-powershell-podcast-engineering-ad-from-the-ground-up-so-security-is-not-an-afterthought-with-evgenij-smirnov.md

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+---
+title: The PowerShell Podcast Engineering AD from the Ground Up So Security Is Not an Afterthought with Evgenij Smirnov
+author: Andrew Pla
+authors:
+  - Andrew Pla
+  - Evgenij Smirnov
+date: "2026-08-03T14:00:00+00:00"
+podcast_url: "https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/raz5xyccz46k5g8i/The_PowerShell_Podcast_episode_239_Evgenij_Smirnov8tqdc.mp3"
+episode: 239
+youtube: EQb7H6vBOtg
+guid: powershellpodcast.podbean.com/77dd4bcd-aa10-3047-b5a2-9284516686ac
+aliases:
+  - /2026/08/the-powershell-podcast-engineering-ad-from-the-ground-up-so-security-is-not-an-afterthought-with-evgenij-smirnov/
+---
+
+Andrew sits down with Evgenij Smirnov, a Berlin-based IT veteran with 30 years of experience in Active Directory and security consulting, to dig into what actually gets organizations popped. Evgenij walks through the most common escalation paths he sees in real-world AD environments, including over-permissioned accounts, exposed certificate authorities, and unencrypted domain controller backups, and explains how attackers chain these together to produce golden tickets and gain god-mode access. The conversation covers why these misconfigurations keep happening (bad defaults, lazy vendors, and a long history of "just click next"), how PowerShell fits into both hardening and attack scenarios, and what proper tier isolation actually looks like when you implement it with both authentication policies and user rights assignments. Evgenij also introduces his book, Building Modern Active Directory, and makes the case for treating security not as a chapter you can skip, but as something baked into the design from day one.
+
+Key Takeaways:
+
+- The most common Active Directory escalation paths are not sophisticated. Over-permissioned accounts with ACL chains to DC sync, exposed certificate authorities, and unencrypted backup tapes are consistently the entry points attackers exploit. If you can find these first, you are already ahead of most threat actors.
+- Tier isolation done right requires both authentication policies and user rights assignment policies working together. Either technique alone leaves a blind spot that a determined attacker can walk through.
+- Cybersecurity is a team sport, and bad cybersecurity is too. Microsoft ships AD with questionable defaults, vendors demand domain admin for service accounts, and administrators make shortcuts under pressure. The fix is not one heroic hardening sprint; it is a culture of least privilege built into every decision from the start.
+
+Guest Bio:
+
+Evgenij Smirnov is a Principal Solutions Architect at Semperis and a Microsoft MVP in both Security and PowerShell since 2020. Based in Berlin, Germany, he has spent more than 30 years in IT and security consulting, with deep expertise in Active Directory, identity security, and hybrid infrastructure. He is a longtime community leader, running the PowerShell User Group Berlin and the Windows Server User Group Berlin, and a regular speaker at conferences including PSConfEU. He is the author of Building Modern Active Directory, published by Apress in 2024.
+
+Resource Links:
+
+Building Modern Active Directory (book site): [ad2049.com](http://ad2049.com)
+
+Evgenij's personal blog): [it-pro-berlin.de](http://it-pro-berlin.de)
+
+Evgenij on LinkedIn: [linkedin.com/in/evgenijsmirnov](https://www.linkedin.com/in/evgenijsmirnov)
+
+ADMF (Active Directory Management Framework) on GitHub: [github.com/ActiveDirectoryManagementFramework/ADMF](https://github.com/ActiveDirectoryManagementFramework/ADMF)
+
+ADMF documentation and project site: [admf.one](https://admf.one)
+
+Attack Scenario To Go: [https://github.com/HerrHoZi/AS2Go](https://github.com/HerrHoZi/AS2Go)