Risky Bulletin

Payment service provider executives arrested over a credit card fraud ring, Meta makes a fortune showing scam ads, South Korean telco KT tried to hide a second breach and five more scammers are sentenced to death in China.

Tom Uren and Amberleigh Jack talk about aggressive US cyber operations targeting the Venezuelan government in President Trump’s first term. These were narrowly successful in that they achieved their immediate operational goals, but they didn’t achieve Trump’s broader policy goal of ousting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

They also talk about why the adtech ecosystem is a national security problem all round the world and how cybercriminals are collaborating with organised crime to steal cargo from logistics companies.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

The US indicts two cybersecurity employees over ransomware attacks, hackers extort customers of South Korean massage parlors, another crypto firm gets hacked for $128 million dollars, and cargo thieves collab with hackers to target freight companies.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq discuss the futility of using aggressive cyber operations to send messages between states.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

Norway finds remote control features in its Chinese electric buses, the US CyberCorps program may saddle students with debt, Edge and Chrome get AI-based scareware blockers, and a Conti member has been extradited to the US.

In this sponsored interview, Casey Ellis chats to Sublime Security CEO and founder, Josh Kamdjou about how Sublime is seeing a massive surge in ICS or calendar invite phishing and how the email security platform can help.

Russian police arrest the Meduza-Stealer trio, a Former L-3Harris manager pleads guilty to selling exploits to Russia, the US hacked Venezuela in 2020, and Windows 11 Administrator Protection goes live.

Tom Uren and Amberleigh Jack talk about Peter Williams, the general manager of vulnerability research firm Trenchant, who has pleaded guilty to selling exploits to the Russian 0day broker Operation Zero. It’s a terrible look, but it doesn’t mean the private sector can’t be trusted to develop exploits.

They also discuss a new report’s recommendations to empower the Office of the National Cyber Director. It’s a good idea, but it won’t make up for the cuts in funding and personnel across the Trump administration’s cyber portfolio.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

HackingTeam’s successor is targeting Russia and Belarus, X users must re-enroll their security keys, Chrome will put HTTP behind a warning dialogue, and 15 people are expected to plead guilty in an Italian hacking scandal.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq dissect a recent Chinese CERT report that the NSA had hacked China’s national time keeping service.

This episode is also available on Youtube.