Darknet Diaries

ZeuS is a banking trojan. Designed to steal money from online bank user’s accounts. This trojan became so big, that it resulted in one of the biggest FBI operations ever. Sponsors Support for this show comes from Axonius. Securing assets — whether managed, unmanaged, ephemeral, or in the cloud — is a tricky task. The Axonius Cybersecurity Asset Management Platform correlates asset data from existing solutions to provide an always up-to-date inventory, uncover gaps, and automate action. Axonius gives IT and security teams the confidence to control complexity by mitigating threats, navigating risk, decreasing incidents, and informing business-level strategy — all while eliminating manual, repetitive tasks. Visit axonius.com/darknet to learn more and try it free. Support for this show comes from Keeper Security. Keeper Security’s is an enterprise password management system. Keeper locks down logins, payment cards, confidential documents, API keys, and database passwords in a patented Zero-Knowledge encrypted vault. And, it takes less than an hour to deploy across your organization. Get started by visiting keepersecurity.com/darknet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode tells the stories of some of the worlds biggest spamming botnets. We’ll talk about the botnets Rustock, Waledac, and Cutwail. We’ll discover who was behind them, what their objectives were, and what their fate was. Sponsors Support for this show comes from Juniper Networks (hyperlink: juniper.net/darknet). Juniper Networks is dedicated to simplifying network operations and driving superior experiences for end users. Visit juniper.net/darknet to learn more about how Juniper Secure Edge can help you keep your remote workforce seamlessly secure wherever they are.  Support for this podcast comes from Cybereason. Cybereason reverses the attacker’s advantage and puts the power back in the defender’s hands. End cyber attacks. From endpoints to everywhere. Learn more at Cybereason.com/darknet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TeaMp0isoN was a hacking group that was founded by TriCk and MLT (twitter.com/0dayWizard). They were responsible for some high profile hacks. But in this story it’s not the rise that’s most interesting. It’s the fall. Sponsors Support for this show comes from Thinkst Canary. Their canaries attract malicious actors in your network and then send you an alert if someone tries to access them. Great early warning system for knowing when someone is snooping around where they shouldn’t be. Check them out at https://canary.tools. Support for this podcast comes from Cybereason. Cybereason reverses the attacker’s advantage and puts the power back in the defender’s hands. End cyber attacks. From endpoints to everywhere. Learn more at Cybereason.com/darknet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the story of Marq (twitter.com/dev_null321). Which involves passwords, the dark web, and police. Sponsors Support for this podcast comes from Cybereason. Cybereason reverses the attacker’s advantage and puts the power back in the defender’s hands. End cyber attacks. From endpoints to everywhere. Learn more at Cybereason.com/darknet. Support for this show comes from Linode. Linode supplies you with virtual servers. Visit linode.com/darknet and get a special offer. View all active sponsors. Sources Court records and news articles were used to fact check this episode. However Marq requested that links to his full name not be made available. https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/19/ring-doorbell-passwords-exposed/ https://www.wired.com/2010/03/hacker-bricks-cars/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alethe is a social engineer. Professionally she tries to trick people to give her passwords and access that she shouldn’t have. But her journey to this point is interesting and in this episode she tells us how she became a social engineer. Follow Alethe on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AletheDenis Sponsors Support for this show comes from Skiff. Skiff is a collaboration platform built for privacy from the ground up. Every document, note, and idea you write is end-to-end encrypted and completely private. Only you and your trusted collaborators can see what you’ve created. Try it out at https://www.skiff.org/darknet. Support for this show comes from Blinkist. They offer thousands of condensed non-fiction books, so you can get through books in about 15 minutes. Check out Blinkist.com/DARKNET to start your 7 day free trial and get 25% off when you sign up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How much online abuse are you willing to take before you decide to let your abuser have what they want? Unfortunately, this is a decision that many people have to ask themselves. If someone can threaten you physically, it bypasses whatever digital security you have in place. Thanks to https://twitter.com/jw for sharing this harrowing story with us. Affiliate links to books: The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593276486/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593276486&linkCode=as2&tag=tunn01-20&linkId=0a8ee2ca846534f77626757288d77e00 Extreme Privacy:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0898YGR58/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0898YGR58&linkCode=as2&tag=tunn01-20&linkId=575c5ed0326484f0b612f000621b407f Sponsors Support for this show comes from IT Pro TV. Get 65 hours of free training by visiting ITPro.tv/darknet. And use promo code DARKNET. Support for this show comes from Ping Identity, champions of identity for the global enterprise. Give your users a loveable login solution. Visit www.pingidentity.com/. View all active sponsors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joseph Cox (https://twitter.com/josephfcox), Senior Staff Writer at Motherboard (https://www.vice.com/en/topic/motherboard), joins us to talk about the world of encrypted phones. Books Affiliate links to books: The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593276486/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593276486&linkCode=as2&tag=tunn01-20&linkId=0a8ee2ca846534f77626757288d77e00 Extreme Privacy:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0898YGR58/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0898YGR58&linkCode=as2&tag=tunn01-20&linkId=575c5ed0326484f0b612f000621b407f Sponsors Support for this show comes from IT Pro TV. Get 65 hours of free training by visiting ITPro.tv/darknet. And use promo code DARKNET. Support for this show comes from Ping Identity, champions of identity for the global enterprise. Give your users a loveable login solution. Visit www.pingidentity.com/. View all active sponsors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Arya Ebrahami has had quite a personal relationship with darknet marketplaces. In this episode you’ll hear about his adventures on tor. Arya’s current project is https://lofi-defi.com. Sponsors Support for this show comes from Linode. Linode supplies you with virtual servers. Visit linode.com/darknet and get a special offer. Support for this show comes from Blinkist. They offer thousands of condensed non-fiction books, so you can get through books in about 15 minutes. Check out Blinkist.com/DARKNET to start your 7 day free trial and get 25% off when you sign up. View all active sponsors. Sources https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/27-arrested-in-prince-william-county-narcotics-investigation/58441/ https://patch.com/virginia/manassas/undercover-narcotics-operation-nets-27-arrrests-xanax-distribution-ring Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fabio Viggiani is an incident responder. In this episode he talks about the story when one of his clients were breached. Sponsors Support for this show, and for stretched security teams, comes from SOC.OS. Too many security alerts means alert fatigue for under-resourced SecOps teams. Traditional tools aren’t solving the problem. SOC.OS is the lightweight, cost-effective, and low-maintenance solution for your team. Centralise, enrich, and correlate your security alerts into manageable, prioritised clusters. Get started with an extended 3-month free trial at https://socos.io/darknet. Support for this show comes from IT Pro TV. Get 65 hours of free training by visiting ITPro.tv/darknet. And use promo code DARKNET. Sources  https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-cyber-cloudhopper  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-cyber-cloudhopper-companies-exc-idUSKCN1TR1D4  https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/apt-10-group  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=277A09ON7mY  https://www.wsj.com/articles/ghosts-in-the-clouds-inside-chinas-major-corporate-hack-11577729061  https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/20/239760/chinese-hackers-allegedly-stole-data-of-more-than-100000-us-navy-personnel/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank Bourassa had an idea. He was going to make money. Literally. Listen to the story of a master counterfeiter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2014 the Puerto Rico Lottery was mysteriously losing money. Listen to this never before told story about what happened and who did it. Sponsors Support for this show comes from IT Pro TV. Get 65 hours of free training by visiting ITPro.tv/darknet. And use promo code DARKNET. Support for this show comes from Linode. Linode supplies you with virtual servers. Visit linode.com/darknet and get a special offer. Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_Lottery https://www.justice.gov/usao-pr/pr/10-individuals-indicted-drug-trafficking-and-money-laundering https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2014/07/22/caribbean-corridor-strike-force-arrests-10-individuals-indicted-drug https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-delfin-robles-alvarez-7 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The NSO Group creates a spyware called Pegasus which gives someone access to the data on a mobile phone. They sell this spyware to government agencies around the world. How is it used and what kind of company is the NSO Group? Thanks to John Scott-Railton and Citizen Lab for investigating this and sharing their research. Sponsors Support for this show comes from Detectify. Try their web vulnerability scanner free. Go to https://detectify.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=DARKNET Support for this show comes from Ping Identity, champions of identity for the global enterprise. Give your users a loveable login solution. Visit www.pingidentity.com/. Support for this show comes from Blinkist. They offer thousands of condensed non-fiction books, so you can get through books in about 15 minutes. Check out Blinkist.com/DARKNET to start your 7 day free trial and get 25% off when you sign up. For a full list of sources used in this episode and complete transcripts visit https://darknetdiaries.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Igor works as a private investigator in NYC. He’s often sitting in cars keeping a distant eye on someone with binoculars. Or following someone through the busy streets of New York. In this episode we hear about a time when Igor was on a case but sensed that something wasn’t right. Sponsors Support for this show comes from Exabeam. Exabeam lets security teams see what traditional tools can’t, with automated threat detection and triage, complete visibility across the entire IT environment and advanced behavioral analytics that distinguishes real threats from perceived ones, so security teams stay ahead and businesses keep moving — without fear of the unknown. When the security odds are stacked against you, outsmart them from the start with Exabeam. Learn more at https://exabeam.com/DD. Support for this show comes from Blinkist. They offer thousands of condensed non-fiction books, so you can get through books in about 15 minutes. Check out Blinkist.com/DARKNET to start your 7 day free trial and get 25% off when you sign up. View all active sponsors. Sources Article: The Case of the Bumbling Spy Podcast: The Catch and Kill Podcast with Ronan Farrow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zero day brokers are people who make or sell malware that’s sold to people who will use that malware to exploit people. It’s a strange and mysterious world that not many people know a lot about. Nicole Perlroth, who is a cybersecurity reporter for the NY Times, dove in head first which resulted in her writing a whole book on it. Affiliate link for book: This is How They Tell Me The World Ends (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1635576059/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1635576059&linkCode=as2&tag=tunn01-20&linkId=0aa8c966d98b49a7927bfc29aac76bbe) Audiobook deal: Try Audible Premium Plus and Get Up to Two Free Audiobooks (https://www.amazon.com/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00NB86OYE/?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1485906643682&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=tunn01-20&linkId=31042b955d5e6d639488dc084711d033) Sponsors Support for this show comes from IT Pro TV. Get 65 hours of free training by visiting ITPro.tv/darknet. And use promo code DARKNET. Support for this show comes from Privacy.com. Privacy allows you to create anonymous debit cards instantly to use for online shopping. Visit privacy.com/darknet to get a special offer. View all active sponsors. Sources Nicole’s Book: This is How They Tell Me the World Ends https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/technology/chinese-hackers-infiltrate-new-york-times-computers.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if someone wanted to own your Instagram account? Not just control it, but make it totally theirs. This episode tells the story of how someone tried to steal an Instagram account from someone. Sponsors Support for this show comes from Linode. Linode supplies you with virtual servers. Visit linode.com/darknet and get a special offer. Support for this show comes from Blinkist. They offer thousands of condensed non-fiction books, so you can get through books in about 15 minutes. Check out Blinkist.com/DARKNET to start your 7 day free trial and get 25% off when you sign up. View all active sponsors. Sources Vid: The $5 Million Phone Hack 📱True Life Crime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nicole Beckwith wears a lot of hats. She’s a programmer, incident responder, but also a cop and a task force officer with the Secret Service. In this episode she tells a story which involves all of these roles. https://twitter.com/NicoleBeckwith Sponsors Support for this show comes from IT Pro TV. Get 65 hours of free training by visiting ITPro.tv/darknet. And use promo code DARKNET. Support for this show comes from Exabeam. Exabeam lets security teams see what traditional tools can’t, with automated threat detection and triage, complete visibility across the entire IT environment and advanced behavioral analytics that distinguishes real threats from perceived ones, so security teams stay ahead and businesses keep moving — without fear of the unknown. When the security odds are stacked against you, outsmart them from the start with Exabeam. Learn more at https://exabeam.com/DD. View all active sponsors. Sources https://www.secjuice.com/unusual-journeys-nicole-beckwith/ Talk from Nicole: Mind Hacks – Psychological profiling, and mental health in OSINT investigations Talk from Nicole: Who’s guarding the gateway? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jon and Brian are penetration testers who both worked at a place called RedTeam Security. They’re paid to break into buildings and hack into networks to test the security of those buildings. In this episode they bring us a story of how they prepare and execute a mission like this. But even with all the preparation, something still goes terribly wrong. Sponsors Support for this show comes from IT Pro TV. Get 65 hours of free training by visiting ITPro.tv/darknet. And use promo code DARKNET. Support for this show comes from Ping Identity, champions of identity for the global enterprise. Give your users a loveable login solution. Visit www.pingidentity.com/. View all active sponsors. Sources Video: Jon and Brian on ABC Nightline Video: RedTeam Security breaks into a power station https://www.redteamsecure.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chris Davis has been stopping IT security threats for decades. He’s currently running the company Hyas that he started. In this episode he tells a few tales of some threats that he helped stop. Sponsors Support for this show comes from Exabeam. Exabeam lets security teams see what traditional tools can’t, with automated threat detection and triage, complete visibility across the entire IT environment and advanced behavioral analytics that distinguishes real threats from perceived ones, so security teams stay ahead and businesses keep moving — without fear of the unknown. Learn more by visiting exabeam.com/dd. Support for this show comes from Blinkist. They offer thousands of condensed non-fiction books, so you can get through books in about 15 minutes. Check out Blinkist.com/DARKNET to start your 7 day free trial and get 25% off when you sign up. View all active sponsors. Sources https://www.zdnet.com/article/hacker-curador-pleads-guilty-to-credit-card-theft/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hackers/ https://archive.org/details/frontline_202009/Frontline-+Hackers/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB https://defintel.com/docs/Mariposa_Analysis.pdf https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/03/french-firms-rocked-by-kasbah-hacker/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kik is a wildly popular chat app. Their website says that 1 in 3 American teenagers use Kik. But something dark is brewing on Kik. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Pirate Bay is a website, a search engine, which has an index of torrent files. A lot of copyrighted material is listed on the site, but the site doesn’t store any of the copyrighted material. It just points the user to where you can download it from. So for a while The Pirate Bay has been the largest places you can find pirated movies, music, games, and apps. But this site first came up 2003. And is still up and operation now, 18 years later! You would think someone would shut this place down by now. How does the biggest source for copyrighted material stay up and online for that long? Listen to this episode to find out. Sponsors Support for this show comes from Linode. Linode supplies you with virtual servers. Visit linode.com/darknet and get a special offer. Support for this show comes from Blinkist. They offer thousands of condensed non-fiction books, so you can get through books in about 15 minutes. Check out Blinkist.com/DARKNET to start your 7 day free trial and get 25% off when you sign up. View all active sponsors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices