Malicious Life

Oמ May 23rd, 1989, Karl Koch - a 23 years old West German hacker who worked for the KGB - took a drive, from which he would never return: Nine days later his charred remains were found by the police in a remote forest. Was Koch assasinated by the US or the Sovient Union, or is there another, more 'mystical' explanation for his death?

Four decades ago, three quarters would’ve gone a lot further than they do today. With that kind of loose change you could’ve picked up some milk from the grocery store, or over half a gallon of gas, or a bus ticket. But that doesn’t explain why, on one fateful day in 1986, a systems administrator at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California made such an issue over 75 missing cents.

You may have heard of the cyber operations performed by Russia. You definitely heard about the missiles being fired by Russia at Ukraine - but how about the propaganda being distributed through the different media platforms? In this B-Side episode, our Senior Producer Nate Nelson interviewed Dr. Bilyana Lilly - CISSP, a leader in cybersecurity and information warfare with over fifteen years of managerial, technical, and research experience, and author of "Russian Information Warfare" - about...

In the early 1970's, US intelligance pointed at the possibility that the Russians have laid an underwater communication cable between two important naval bases in the Far East. The dangerous mission of installing a listening device on that cable was given to the navy most secretive and unusual submarine.

What happens when an NFT marketplace goes under, and disappears? You would imagine that the users’ NFTs are perfectly safe: after all, the blockchain itself is still there, right? But that’s not how things work in the real world. Jason Bailey is the co-founder and CEO of ClubNFT, a company building the next generation of tools to discover, protect, and share NFTs. Jason is an early collector and proponent of CryptoArt, and he spoke with Nate Nelson, our Sr. producer, about the risks facing...

Physical artworks in museums are usually well-guarded - but digital artworks are something else entirely: in 2021 alone, scammers successfully stole 100 million dollars worth of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. Yet blockchain technology, where most NFTs live - is one of the most secure technologies in history. Why, then, are NFT collectors keep getting hacked?

Today we’re bringing back Haseeb Awan, the founder of Efani Secure Mobile - a bespoke cybersecurity-focused phone service, protecting high-risk individuals against mobile hacks. Haseeb will delve into the technicalities of SIM swapping, explaining the various techniques that hackers use to carry out this fraudulent activity. He will also provide insights into what telecommunication companies can do to prevent SIM swapping and what steps individuals can take to protect themselves from falling...

If SIM swap stories ever make the news, almost uniformly, they focus on people who lost a lot of money. But SIM swaps also take a psychological toll. Getting cut off from the grid all of a sudden, not knowing why, not being able to call for help. Even when it’s over, you never know if your attackers -- whoever they are -- will come back again.

A year ago we told you the story of Kaseya: an IT solutions company that was breached on July 2021, and its servers were used to spread ransomware to an estimated 800 to 1500 small to medium-sized businesses. Nate Nelson, our Sr. producer, spoke with Rich Murray, who leads the FBI’s North Texas Cyber unit, about how the Federal Bureau of Investigations dealt with another attack by REvil - this time against the Texas government - and how they managed to figure out who was behind it.

Spamhaus's decision to add Cyberbunker to its list of Spam sources led the Stophaus coalition to initiate a DDoS attack later dubbed “The attack that almost broke the Internet.” The fallout from this attack led to Cyberbunker relocating to a bunker in Germany - but it was the involvement of an Irish drug lord known as 'The Penguin' that led to the bullet-proof hosting company's downfall.

Sven Kamphuis and Herman Johan Xennt are quite dissimilar: one is young, the other is old, one is a Freedom Fighter, the other a businessman. In 1996, their unlikely partnership coalesced around a mutual deep hatred towards authority - and around a very unusual building: a Cold-War era nuclear bunker.

2011 was a pivotal year for Netflix: the now hugely successful company was then in the midst of a formidable transformation, changing from a mail-based DVD rental service to the modern streaming service that it is today. It was at this crucial point in the company’s history that Jason Chan, our guest in this episode, was hired by Netflix to lay the foundations for its cloud security protocols. Nate Nelson, our Sr. Producer, spoke with Jason about the decade he spent at the company, what he...

In his 1984 seminal paper - "Computer Viruses: Theory and Experiments" - Dr. Fred Cohen not only introduced the name ‘computer virus’, a term invented by his mentor, Leonard Adelman, but was also the first to analyze computer viruses in a rigorous mathematical way, proving that computer viruses were not only practical - but that they were in fact inevitable. Nate Nelson, our Sr. producer, spoke with Dr. Cohen about his early research into computer viruses, his work with the US army, the...

Thamar Gindin is an Israeli scholar whose research focuses on the Persian language. For the past seven years (at least) Thamar has been a target for an endless stream of spear-phishing attempts by the Iranian regime, trying to take over her email account and lure her away from her country's borders. Her family, friends, and colleagues have also suffered numerous attacks. So, how does it feel to live for years with a virtual target mark on your back?...

Nobody likes cheaters, especially in video games: we play games to have fun, and nothing hurts the joy of playing a good game more than losing to a cheater. That is why EA is not the only publisher to implement kernel-mode anti-cheat software in their games: League of Legends and Valorant, for example, use similar software. Yet some people warn that installing such kernel-level systems is extremely dangerous. So, what's the problem with kernel-mode anti-cheat software?

When it was founded in 2011, Norse Corp. - which described itself as "the world's largest dedicated threat intelligence network" - had everything a promising startup could wish for: a charismatic and experienced founder, a rare and valuable technology, and few tens of millons of dollars from investors. Less than six years later, it all came crashing down in the most horrible death a business can experience. What went wrong in Norse Corp.?

John Deere, an American agricultural machinery manufacturer, has recently enraged many farmers and digital rights activists due to the restrictive fixing policy of its tractors. Now, an Australian white hat hacker named Sick Codes has demonstrated not only how he was able to jailbreak the company’s tractors and run Doom on them (because why not) - but also hack into its global operations center, demonstrating how hackers can easily take over a huge number of farming machines all over the...

In 2006 the Russian Business Network pivoted its business: the once legitimate ISP became a ‘bullet-proof' hosting service, catering to the needs of cybercriminals. It quickly became the largest player in the Russian cybercrime landscape, with ~60% of all cybercrime activity related to Russia connected to it in some way. Following the Russian government’s years-old tradition of collaborating with organized crime, it's no wonder that the Russian Business Network quickly became Putin’s...

Sports is not something that you usually hear mentioned when people talk about cybersecurity - but Chris Cochran and Ron Eddings, co-founders of Hacker Valley Media, believe that cyber professionals can take inspiration from MMA wrestlers and Chess Grandchampions to get to their own version of Peak Performance.

One day in 2008, Michael Daugherty - CEO and owner of LabMD, a cancer detection lab - got a call from an executive of TiVera, a cybersecurity company. The caller said that a file containing private medical data of some 9000 of LabMD's patients has been discovered online. When Michael refused to pay for TiVersa's hefty "consultation fee", it reported the incident to the FTC. This was the beginning of a ten-year-long legal battle that ultimately destroyed LabMD - but cost the Federal Agency...