Risky Bulletin

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Patrick Gray, who’s filling in for Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast click here.

In this podcast Patrick Gray talks to Tom Uren about North Korea’s foray into state-sponsored ransomware targeting healthcare organisations. There’s reasons to be concerned — North Korea has pulled off some sophisticated hacks and the responses that maybe “work” against cybercriminals might not work at all against the DPRK. Tom thinks that the international community can do a lot more around sanctions that will help.

They also look at President Biden’s talk about privacy at his recent State of the Union speech. Does this mean that the US will finally get meaningful federal privacy and data security legislation? We hope so.

Finally, Tom and Patrick revisit the Chinese spy balloon saga. Even though a single balloon is not a huge threat, an uncontested balloon surveillance program would be and the US is responding strongly. It’s sanctioned six Chinese firms and the US is looking for balloons and finding them. Three more have been shot down since last week, but it looks like they are all just errant balloons rather than more surveillance craft.

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 click here.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq compare and contrast the way Russia and the West project power with cyber 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 click here.

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 click here.

In this podcast Patrick Gray talks to Tom Uren about the bizarre Chinese spy balloon story. There may be incremental intelligence gains for the PRC but they were far outweighed by the diplomatic fallout.

They also discuss an Iranian operation attacking French satiricial magazine Charlie Hebdo. States use cyber operations to pursue vastly different goals and most of them make sense for a state’s point of view. But some operations, like this one, and like the North Korean attack on Sony Pictures, are “vanity projects” that cater to the whims of the “dear leader”.

Finally, the Conti ransomware attack on the Irish public health system (HSE) is turning into the best ransomware case study. It brings together a detailed examination of the management failures with stories from staff, patients and also from inside the Conti group.

You can read the newsletter this podcast is based on here.

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 click here.

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 click here.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq examine how states have different thresholds for compelling companies to act on their behalf. Where do those thresholds lie and is one approach better than another? Why do states have these different approaches?