And that’s a wrap for 2022!

Things returned a lot more to normal down in Sydney, with pretty much all restrictions being lifted. We have seen a bit of an increase in COVID cases recently, and it seems almost everyone is getting it now (or again) – thankfully almost all the cases seem to be quite mild and people are able to bounce back pretty quickly.

We saw the return of international travel and live conferences and training. I didn’t get out of Australia this year, but I was able to hang out with some folks that got to make the trip down which was great. I am going to get out and about a bit in 2023 – so far Japan is confirmed for next month, and a trip to Singapore is on the cards for May with possibly other places in the second half of the year.

It’s all very exciting and while C19 is still very much around, I’m hopeful that it’s becoming less severe and people aren’t getting as sick with the newer variants.

Site Stats

Views were about the same this year as the last few years, but interestingly despite me lacking with the podcast (meaning a few less posts), there was a 10% increase in visitors. Approximately 125K views across 44k visitors which isn’t bad!

Forensafe took top spot again with the most number of link clicks. They put out short posts on a fairly regular basis about a different artefact – Putting out regular content gets people to your site, and if your site is personal then treat it like your portfolio.

That being said – there were some excellent posts that won’t get as many clicks as putting out short regular content. There was a boatload of clicks across the board so even if you don’t post every week that’s ok! Set a goal, and stick to it. Personally I get the most out of the in-depth posts on a topic – and those are also the ones we tend to reference.

Special shout out to Magnet Forensics who regularly shoot me a list of links that were released during the week since their RSS feed is a bit funky sometimes (and not eveything makes it up there sometimes). They even sent me a cool hat!

2023 Plans

Pretty much the same! As this site enters its 8th year I’ll continue the way that I’ve been going – I’m not going to be able to go back to the days of writing the summaries unfortunately. Time has disappeared and I’ve got a few other projects that are taking priority (two of them will only be little for so long and can’t take themselves to the park :D). I didn’t really put out many podcast episodes this year – same reason, time is tough and I’m making a more concerted effort to look after my family/social/health (how good is sleep amirite??).

I have noticed a drop this year in Patreon subscribers, which is a bit unfortunate. I’d prefer to not get advertising on the site, but I may consider it because of the amount of time it takes to put this together every week (~6-8 hours is my estimate and then a few hours extra if I do the podcast).

Thank you to the 50 odd folks that contribute the $200USD a month and the handful of folks that went through ‘Buy me a coffee’!

I did make some adjustments to the tiers of the Patreon, adding in a couple of goals with the intention of bringing back the podcast. If we hit the first goal then those that made that happen will get a Patreon-exclusive feed. If we hit the second goal then I’ll open it up again. Each episode gets around 1000-2000 downloads, but I don’t get much feedback about whether people are listening, and no one’s really complained that it went away, so I’m guessing we won’t get to either goal.

Hope everyone has had a good break and a happy new year – if you’ve had to work through because threat actors aren’t taking a break, then I hope that your organisation gives you a well deserved break in January!