They never really left — they just got quieter, faster, and bolder. In this episode of the Adversary Universe podcast, Adam and Cristian trace the resurgence of SCATTERED SPIDER, one of today’s most aggressive and sophisticated adversary groups.

Once known for SIM swapping and gaming community exploits, SCATTERED SPIDER has evolved into a high-speed, high-impact ransomware crew targeting the retail, insurance, and aviation sectors. Adam shares CrowdStrike’s front-line insights into how the group operates, from conducting help desk social engineering and bypassing multifactor authentication (MFA) to hijacking hypervisors and exfiltrating data via software as a service (SaaS) integrations.

Tune in to learn:

Check the show notes for CrowdStrike’s latest guidance and technical blog on SCATTERED SPIDER.

You asked, and we answered. This episode of the Adversary Universe podcast takes a deep dive into questions from our listeners.

What did you want to know? Well, a lot about adversaries, but also about career paths and the threat intel space. Tune in to hear the answers to questions like:

•        How did you break into the threat intelligence space?

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions. We’d love to continue hearing from you. 

💼 Careers at CrowdStrike: https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/careers/

Physical security and IT security have gone hand in hand for a long time. While cybersecurity teams are rightfully focused on protecting their virtual environments, they should also have an eye on whether an adversary is walking through the front door.

“Anytime there’s a physical boundary, an adversary is going to look to cross over that — whether it be in person or using some technology to get over that boundary,” Adam says in this episode on physical security threats. 

Not too long ago, it was common for someone to walk into a business, slide behind the counter, and insert a USB device into a point-of-sale system to deploy malware or remote access tools. Now, this type of activity is less common, but it still occurs; China-nexus threat actor MUSTANG PANDA, for example, is dropping USB sticks to gain access to targets across the Asia Pacific region.

This conversation is full of twists, turns, and interesting stories. Tune in to hear about adversaries physically breaking into target organizations, Adam’s adventures in pen testing, the physical security implications for internet of things (IoT) and operational technology (OT) environments, and what organizations should know about protecting their physical environments. 

Would you rather have an adversary profile you based on your AI chat history or tell your AI chatbot to forget everything it knows about you?

That’s one of many questions Adam and Cristian explore in this episode on how adversaries are integrating AI into cyberattacks. These days, it seems AI is everywhere — and that includes the adversary’s toolbox. Adam and Cristian describe multiple forms of malware that use AI in different ways, from identifying text in photos to writing code. And while these attacks still require humans to stitch all the pieces together, there is a growing concern that adversaries will continue to improve.

Tune in to learn how adversaries are baking AI into their tools, and about Adam’s latest adventures in baking bread, in this episode of the Adversary Universe podcast. 

Today’s adversaries are increasingly operating in the cloud — and Sebastian Walla, Deputy Manager of Emerging Threats at CrowdStrike, is watching them. In this episode, he joins Adam and Cristian to dive into the latest cloud attack techniques and the adversaries behind them.

So, who are they? SCATTERED SPIDER and LABYRINTH CHOLLIMA are two of the threat actors targeting and navigating cloud environments, but they have distinct methods of doing so. This conversation explores the different ways they slip into organizations undetected, some of the tools they rely on, and how they operate under the radar. It also touches on the future of cloud threat activity and AI’s influence on how these attacks are evolving.

Of course, no Adversary Universe episode is complete without guidance. Adam, Cristian, and Sebastian share best practices for protecting enterprise cloud environments from these threats as adversaries continue to take aim.

Latin America has become a hotspot for cyber activity. Threat actors around the world, particularly eCriminals, are targeting organizations operating in Central and South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Latin America-based cybercriminals are emerging as well.

The CrowdStrike 2025 Latin America Threat Landscape Report provides key insights into this activity. In its pages, the CrowdStrike Counter Adversary Operations team details the eCrime, targeted intrusions, hacktivist disruptions, and cyber espionage targeting organizations that operate in Latin America. And in this episode of the Adversary Universe podcast, Adam and Cristian give listeners a snapshot of the key findings. These include:

Tune in to learn how this report came to be and understand some of the critical trends shaping the Latin America threat landscape. And of course, check out the report to learn all the details.

Links:

Read the CrowdStrike 2025 Latin America Threat Landscape Report:

https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/resources/reports/latam-threat-landscape-report/

Listen to our full episode on OCULAR SPIDER, referenced in this episode:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3gJMkVKuSfKhqSAHwMb7NX?si=cf2e453ebc0843a5

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1ZYDiiBuJvTx7YsvuCenEZ

🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/adversary-universe-podcast/id1694819239

🎧 Our site: https://lnkd.in/etSAySBb

Ransomware has become more difficult for organizations to defend against, but easier for adversaries to deploy. The rise of ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) — a model in which ransomware operators write the malware and affiliates pay to launch it — has lowered the barrier to entry so threat actors of all skill levels can participate and profit.

OCULAR SPIDER is one such operator. This adversary, newly named by CrowdStrike, is associated with the development of ransomware variants including Cyclops, Knight, and RansomHub. They targeted hundreds of named victims between February 2024 and March 2025, according to CrowdStrike intelligence, and they focus on industries such as professional services, technology, healthcare, and manufacturing in regions including the United States, Canada, Brazil, and some European countries.

But OCULAR SPIDER is one of many operators in the ransomware space. Adam and Cristian take listeners back to the early days of ransomware and track its evolution, variants, and key players from the mid-2010s through the launch of RansomHub in 2024. They explain how RaaS works, why it appeals to adversaries and complicates attribution, and how defenders can prepare to face today’s ransomware threats.

Come for an update on Adam’s adventures in bread-making; stay for a deep-dive into the RaaS evolution and the threat actors driving it.

To anticipate threat actors’ behavior, we must understand them. That’s why CrowdStrike closely tracks the evolution and activity of 257 named adversaries, including the eCrime actor LUNAR SPIDER.

When an adversary wants to target an organization, they want to make it look like they’re coming from a regional or local internet service provider. This makes their activity seem more legitimate and buys time until they get caught. Proxies, which adversaries can use to conceal the origin of malicious traffic, are essential to this process.

NSOCKS is a residential proxy provider that CrowdStrike researchers dug into to learn more about how it was constructed and proactively identify how adversaries were using it to mask their attacks. They found that a range of internet of things (IoT) devices, such as home routers and network-attached storage (NAS) devices, are targeted by proxy providers to build out infrastructure and provide access to residential internet connections. Many of these devices have basic misconfiguration issues that make them accessible to attackers, but the CrowdStrike team was also able to identify a range of zero-day and n-day vulnerabilities being used.  

Joel Snape, Senior Security Researcher at CrowdStrike, is part of that team. In this episode, Joel and Adam get into the details of the researchers’ findings, from how NSOCKS works to its takedown in late 2024 and the steps listeners can take to identify suspicious activity on their networks. Joel has presented this research at multiple security conferences — and now he brings it to the Adversary Universe podcast.

China’s cyber enterprise is rapidly growing: China-nexus activity was up 150% across industries in 2024, with a 200-300% surge in key sectors such as financial services, media, manufacturing, and industrials/engineering. CrowdStrike identified seven new China-nexus adversaries in 2024.

“After decades investing in offensive cyber capabilities, China has achieved parity with some of the top players out there, and I think that is the thing that should terrify everybody,” Adam says.  

China-nexus threat actors aren’t the only ones evolving their cyber operations. As the CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report shows, nation-state and eCrime adversaries spanning regions and skill levels are gaining speed and refining their techniques. They’re learning what works and what doesn’t, and they’re scaling their effective tactics to achieve their goals.

So what works? Voice phishing (vishing) skyrocketed 442% between the first and second half of 2024 as adversaries leaned on vishing, callback phishing, and help desk social engineering to access target networks. Generative AI played a key role in social engineering, where its low barrier to entry and powerful capabilities help adversaries create convincing content at scale. Compromised credentials also proved handy last year, helping threat actors enter and move laterally through organizations and operate as legitimate users. 

What doesn’t work as well? Malware. 79% of detections in 2024 were malware-free, indicating a rise in hands-on-keyboard activity as adversaries face stronger security defenses. 

Tune in to hear Adam and Cristian dig into the key findings of the CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report, which also examines the latest on cloud-focused attacks, vulnerability exploitation, and nation-state activity around the world.