Risky Bulletin (risky.biz)

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about how ungoverned spaces on Telegram result in increasingly toxic and antisocial communities.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about what cyber weapons really are and why use of the term is counterproductive.

They reference Defining Offensive Cyber Capabilities, a paper authored by Tom.

Show notes

• Defining offensive cyber capabilities

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about different views on attribution and why it still matters for sophisticated state-backed groups.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about how the opportunities for hackers have changed and how that has altered the pipelines that turn kids into criminals.

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• This Kid Wouldn't Stop Hacking Rappers

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about how states have very different approaches to controlling cyber operations.

At the very beginning they refer to this Microsoft Threat Intelligence post.

Show notes

• Frequent freeloader part I: Secret Blizzard compromising Storm-0156 infrastructure for espionage

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about the evolution of Russian cyber operations during its invasion of Ukraine.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

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In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq discuss the opportunities in phishing and why it is both easy and difficult.

In this edition of Between Three Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk to Alex Joske, author of a book about how the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) has shaped Western perceptions of China. They discuss the MSS’s position in the Chinese bureaucracy, its increasing role in cyber espionage, its use of contractors and the PRC’s vulnerability disclosure laws.

Show notes

• Spies and Lies (Joske book)

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq dissect an FBI advisory about North Korean groups targeting cryptocurrency firms with social engineering.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about new reports saying that Russia is creating new cyber groups made up of cyber criminals.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about various Southeast Asian countries investing in cyber forces, the drivers behind these decisions and what kind of actions make sense.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about ‘cyber persistence theory’. They cover what it is, why it is increasingly popular amongst America’s allies, why we think the theory is right and also cover some critiques of the theory.

They refer to the article in CyberScoop ‘America’s allies are shifting: Cyberspace is about persistence, not deterrence’ in CyberScoop.

Show notes

• America’s allies are shifting: Cyberspace is about persistence, not deterrence

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about how criminals are using deepfakes… but it is not the end of the world.

Show notes

• OpenAI's October 2024 Influence and cyber operations update report
• Rest of World's 2024 AI election tracker
• A UN report on the adoption of technology by transnational organised crime

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about a new attempt to measure cyber power, the International Institute for Strategic Studies Cyber Power Matrix.

Show notes

• Project Raven
• The Council on Foreign Relations Cyber Operations Tracker
• The IISS Cyber Power Matrix

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq discuss what the Russian state gains and loses from hosting a ransomware ecosystem.

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Kaitlyn Sawrey.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: After botched comms, there's now a timeline for the Azure mandatory MFA rollout

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Kaitlyn Sawrey.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: New Android malware evolves fraud tactics with NFC cloning

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Kaitlyn Sawrey.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Digital wallet apps, the new frontier for card fraud

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Kaitlyn Sawrey.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Volt Typhoon returns with a new zero-day

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Kaitlyn Sawrey.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Iranian APT moonlights as access broker and ransomware helper

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Kaitlyn Sawrey.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: US charges swatters who terrorized government officials

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Kaitlyn Sawrey.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: White House recommends prioritizing RPKI ROAs

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Doppelganger gets a kick in the butt from Uncle Sam

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Two security enhancements coming to Windows (ActiveX, CLFS)

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: UK NCA "on its knees," bleeding staff, seriously underpaid

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Vo1d infects 1.3 million Android TV boxes

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: US says RT moved into cyber and intelligence-gathering territory

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: US Treasury piles more sanctions on Intellexa

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Tor Project plays down deanon attacks in Germany

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Stealer devs bypass Chrome's new cookie protection

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: China says Taiwan's military is behind a hacktivist group

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Three years later, US charges Joker's Stash carding forum admin

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Attackers are on the hunt for the new UNIX CUPS RCE

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: New EvilCorp sanctions and LockBit arrests drop on Counter Ransomware Initiative summit week

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Russia arrests Cryptex founder a week after US sanctions

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Smart TVs take snapshots of what you watch

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: EU adopts new sanctions framework to cover Russia's cyber warfare and disinformation

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Dutch government to physically replace tens of thousands of hackable traffic lights

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Pro-Kremlin disinfo cluster disrupted ahead of Moldova's election

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: China says the US is framing other countries for espionage operations

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

Show notes

• Risky Biz News: Anonymous Sudan's Russia Links Are (Still) Obvious

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

Show notes

• Risky Biz News: The EU will make vendors liable for bugs

This episode previously referred to a 10 day limit, but we read the wrong bit of a table. This has been corrected in the title to 45 days, but the podcast audio still refers to the incorrect 10 day maximum age. Sorry!

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

Show notes

• Risky Biz News: Apple wants to reduce the lifespan of TLS certificates to 10 days

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: US offers reward for suspected Tortoiseshell APT members

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Russia sentences REvil members to prison. Yes! Really!

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Two arrests in Operation Magnus

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: US removes Sandvine from sanctions list after pinky promise

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: The mystery at Mango Park, and the Cambodian government's shady reaction

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Windows to get a new admin protection system

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Russia blocks Cloudflare ECH connections

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: EU warns Temu to respect consumer protection laws

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Most of 2023's top exploited vulnerabilities were initially zero-days

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: MSS now dominates China's cyber activity

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Unpatched zero-day in Palo Alto Networks is in the wild

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Microsoft announces Quick Machine Recovery, a feature to fix future CrowdStrike disasters

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: US charges five Scattered Spider members

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Four PR firms are behind a Chinese propaganda network

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Banshee Stealer shuts down after source code leak

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Tor Project has "urgent need" for 200 new bridges to avoid Russian censorship

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Russia arrests WazaWaka

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Poland arrests former spy chief in Pegasus scandal

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Declassified documents reveal Russia's election info-ops in Romania

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Greece is close to burying its Predatorgate scandal

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast here.

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• Risky Biz News: Improperly patched Cleo bug exploited in the wild

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

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• Risky Bulletin: Germany's BSI sinkhole BADBOX malware traffic

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

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• Risky Bulletin: Secret ransomware campaign targeted DrayTek routers for a year

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

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• Risky Bulletin: CISA sent 2,100+ pre-ransomware alerts this year

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

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• Risky Bulletin: The growing influencer problem to national security

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

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• Risky Bulletin: Looking at Biden's last cyber executive order

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

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• Risky Bulletin: Threat actor impersonates FSB APT for months to target Russian orgs

In this Risky Business News sponsor interview, Catalin Cimpanu talks with Haroon Meer, Founder and CEO at Thinkst, about the company’s evolution over the past 15 years, its focus on hacker-like internal culture, and the UK NCSC’s new deception network.

Show notes

• Building a nation-scale evidence base for cyber deception
• Hacking as a pathway to building better Products

In this Risky Business News sponsor interview, Catalin Cimpanu talks with Andrew Morris, founder of security firm GreyNoise. Andrew introduces Plasma, a new GreyNoise product that can allow customers to deploy custom GreyNoise sensors anywhere they want—on perimeters, on internal networks, on DMZs, or anywhere else.

Show notes

• GreyNoise Plasma

In this Risky Business News sponsored interview, Tom Uren talks to Josh Kamdjou, founder and CEO of Sublime Security, about the spectrum of attacks that are taking advantage of generative AI. These range from taking basic attacks with a pinch of AI pixie dust to more complex attacks where AI is used to construct message threads with multiple personas.

Josh also talks about how different AI models can be used to identify these attacks even when they are novel.

In this Risky Business News sponsor interview, Catalin Cimpanu talks with Resourcely co-founder and CEO Travis McPeak about some of the hard and uncomfortable truths about the role of security teams inside a company.

Show notes

• Hard Truths your CISO won’t tell you

In this Risky Business News sponsored interview, Tom Uren talks to Benny Lakunishok, CEO and cofounder of ZeroNetworks, about network microsegmentation, why it is important, how to do it, and what the NSA gets wrong about it.

In this Risky Business News sponsor interview, Catalin Cimpanu talks with Airlock Digital founders Daniel Schell and David Cottingham about other things Microsoft can do to secure and harden Windows.

Show notes

• A new world of security: Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative
• Microsoft's makes "new platform" promises after closed kernel summit

In this Risky Business News sponsored interview, Tom Uren talks to Dan Guido, CEO of Trail of Bits, about post-quantum cryptography. The pair dive into what it is, why it is needed now and how organisations are dealing with its adoption.

In this Risky Business News sponsored interview, Tom Uren talks to Brett Winterford, Okta’s APAC Chief Security Officer. Brett has mined Okta’s data and finds strong evidence that organisations invest in phishing-resistant authentication methods once they know they’ve been targeted by groups that excel at social engineering (such as Scattered Spider).

Brett discussed this research at Okta’s conference, Oktane, which was held in Las Vegas on 15 to 17 October 2024.

In this Risky Business News sponsor interview, Catalin Cimpanu talks with Adam Dudley, Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives & Alliances at Nucleus Security, on how the company works with partners and customers to constantly improve its service. Adam also touches on how executives are now inquiring about vulnerability management more than low-level practitioners.

Show notes

• Technology Alliance Partners

In this Risky Business News sponsored interview, Tom Uren talks to Mike Wiacek, CEO and founder of Stairwell, about the occasionally dysfunctional relationship between IT and security teams. Mike talks about how security vendors need to reach out to turn IT teams into allies.

In this Risky Business News sponsor interview, Catalin Cimpanu talks with Jacques Louw, co-founder and chief product officer at Push Security, on the company’s new stolen credentials detection feature, how AitM phishing can be spotted in the browser, and how Push deals with customers needing help with MFA.

In this Risky Business News sponsor interview, Catalin Cimpanu talks with Proofpoint senior threat intelligence analyst Selena Larson about the rise of Attacker-in-the-Middle phishing and ClickFix social engineering campaigns.

Show notes

• Security Brief: ClickFix Social Engineering Technique Floods Threat Landscape

In this Risky Bulletin sponsor interview, Travis McPeak, the CEO and founder of Resourcely, explains that companies are now realising they have a ton of cloud-related technical debt because of the success of cloud posture management products. Travis talks about different approaches he has seen to tackle rampant cloud misconfigurations.

Show notes

Brian A. Coleman, Senior Director for Insider Risk, Information Security, and Digital Forensics at Pfizer, talks to us about how his security team is experimenting with AI to improve their insider risk detection systems. The system Brian and his team put together can detect sensitive information or documents handled by unauthorized accounts, but can also spot documents moving around and ending up where they shouldn’t be - either by accident, malice, or as a result of a security breach.

Show notes

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about the Snowflake hack after the person allegedly responsible was arrested in Canada. Telegram is involved at all sorts of levels and Tom wonders if this crime would have occurred if Telegram didn’t exist.

They also discuss the impact of the Chinese hack of US telcos and Sophos’ five-year cyber knife fight with Chinese APT crews.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about what to expect from President Trump’s second term. Trump is an activist president who believes in using state power, so intelligence agencies will be pushed to conduct more audacious or even outrageous covert operations.

They also discuss concerns about a new UN cybercrime treaty that is set for a vote at the General Assembly and the Canadian government’s curious decision to force the closure of TikTok’s local offices.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about what the People’s Liberation Army cyber operators have been up to. They used to be China’s most visible cyber operators but have since disappeared.

They also discuss the shift towards widespread exploitation of 0days, particularly in enterprise perimeter devices.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about the Australian Government’s extraordinary legislation that will retrospectively ensure that warrants used for the An0m crimephone sting operation are valid.

They also discuss a sterling CISA red team report and the naiveté of Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President Brad Smith.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Adam Boileau talk about the continued importance of hack and leak operations. They didn’t really affect the recent US presidential election, but they are still a powerful tool for vested interests to influence public policy.

They also discuss the police bust of MATRIX, yet another encrypted messenger that is marketed to criminals and designed to resist police surveillance. The crimephone landscape is splintering due to the constant drumbeat of police success.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about the US Federal Communications Commission effort to get US telcos to lift their security game and compares it to UK and Australian efforts. The US is very late to the game, and improving security is a huge job.

They also talk about Chinese cyber actors continuing to pointlessly sow chaos and how an influence campaign in Romania is an absolute disaster for TikTok.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about the likelihood that the incoming Trump administration will end the ‘dual-hat’ arrangement where a single officer leads both US Cyber Command and the National Security Agency. This would result in Cyber Command outranking NSA and could prioritise cyber disruption operations over intelligence collection. That would be a bad outcome.

They also talk about how changes to SEC disclosure rules have led to an outpouring of corporate drivel and how WhatsApp became an everything app.

This episode is also availble on Youtube.

Show notes

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray discuss an Australian government effort to bridge the gap between online and real identity across the whole economy. It addresses a real need, but Tom doesn’t think it will go smoothly.

They also discuss ongoing Chinese cyber espionage focussed on Russian targets. They may have a ‘no limits’ friendship, but spying between allies is remarkably common.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about Telegram’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov being bailed. They dive into the backstory behind the charges he’s facing and what it all might mean for other messaging platforms.

They also discuss a very handy list of straightforward ways to detect North Korean’s trying to sneak into remote work jobs.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray discuss Russia’s use of exploits from commercial spyware vendors. Bought through a front, or stolen with other bugs?

The also discuss Iran’s counter-intelligence innovations - if you apply for a job thats very clearly an Israeli front, then perhaps you’re not that trustworthy after all?

This episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about the structure of the spyware ecosystem. It’s concentrated, with lots of vendors in India, Israel and Italy. And its a small pool of talent, with many companies being founded by just a few individuals.

They also talk about the US government’s actions against Russia’s disinformation ecosystem. The US very clearly linked different ‘layers’ of that ecosystem directly to the Russian government. Employing influencers via cutouts also shows how Russian disinformation has responded as social media platforms have countered interference efforts.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about the possibility of deterring Volt Typhoon, the Chinese group that is compromising US critical infrastructure to enable future disruption operations in the event of a conflict with US. Tom thinks it is not possible to deter Volt Typhoon, but things might work the other way. If the US can neuter Volt Typhoon and take away the PRC’s magic cyber bullet, it could make conflict less likely.

They also discuss the lessons for all companies in Microsoft’s security turnaround and how X and Telegram have folded in the face of government pressure.

The video version of this episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Adam Boileau talk about how the US government’s response to Iranian election interference is proceeding at light speed. This allows other actors such as Meta to make decisions relating to interference with certainty.

They also discuss how Russian cybercrime group Evil Corp’s relationship with Russian intelligence was built on the founder’s marriage.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

In this podcast Tom Uren and Adam Boileau talk a new UN report that spells out the role Telegram plays as a massive enabler for transnational organised crime.

They also discuss China’s hacking of US telcos to possibly target of lawful intercept equipment and a remarkably entertaining account of North Korean IT workers being employed by over a dozen cryptocurrency firms.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

Show notes

• How North Korea Infiltrated the Crypto Industry
• UN report into technological innovation in transnational crime

In this podcast Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about the evolving relationship between Russian intelligence services and the country’s cybercriminals. The GRU’s sabotage unit, for example, has been recruiting crooks to build a destructive cyber capability. Tom suspects that GRU thugs are not so good at hands-on-keyboard operations, but excellent at coercing weedy cybercriminals to hack for the state.

They also talk about OpenAI’s report into malicious actor’s use of its models, and how Australia’s proposed cyber security law looks pretty sensible.

Show notes

• Influence and cyber operations: an update, October 2024

In this podcast Tom Uren, Patrick Gray and Adam Boileau talk about an EU directive that will make vendors liable for software defects. The directive sets a very high bar but is also limited in scope. It only applies to individuals and doesn’t cover professional use so it is a very practical way to start changing expectations about liability.

They also talk about Session Messenger app which has decamped from Australia and set up a foundation in Switzerland. The encrypted and metadata-resistant app is catnip for criminals, so we expect that it is on a collision course with state power.

This episode is also available on Youtube.