Risky Bulletin

Russia tells data centers to deploy drone defenses, Dropbox discloses a security breach, a new spyware wave hits Serbia, and CISA scraps six free cybersecurity assessment programs.

Tom Uren and James Wilson talk about China’s long-term shift to getting private companies to build botnets for cyberespionage. A disruption effort from the US this week is good news, but China has been using these networks for a surprisingly long time and will rebuild.

They also discuss a hack at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). It looks like the Qilin ransomware group might have stolen data from the ATF’s CALEA, or lawful intercept system. That’s a big deal!

Finally, they discuss efforts to fix US water sector security. Sprinkling free tools on the problem will have limited impact.

This episode is also available on YouTube

A BGP hijack delivered malicious Virtualizor updates, the White House launches Project Watershed 250, Indian authorities take down a Telegram doxing bot, and Composer packages deliver iOS badness.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about how AI is the perfect hacker, but what makes it perfect for states is the opposite of what makes it perfect for criminals.

This episode is also available on YouTube.

Dutch intelligence services will get new powers, a security expert has been arrested in Israel for hacking, the BTS hacker gets a 20 year sentence in South Korea, and an AfD politician in Germany has been linked to a Russian cybercrime hosting service.

In this Risky Business sponsored interview, James Wilson chats with Dropzone AI’s founder and CEO Edward Wu to debunk the adage, “an attacker only has to be right once”. Modern intruders need to be successful across multiple steps before actually reaching an organisation’s “crown jewels”.

The pair chat about where AI helps attackers, why autonomous post-compromise agents aren’t quite here yet, and how AI can bolster the capacity of security teams when investigating alerts and reducing response times.

Two members of TeamPCP arrested in Australia, Qilin hits the US firearms agency, America seizes two more Chinese botnets, CISA says most cyber activity is opportunistic.

Tom Uren and James Wilson talk about evidence that Chinese APT groups are using AI in a really sensible way, to beef up their malware arsenal. This will make it harder for threat intel firms to cluster activity for attribution.

They also discuss the US disrupting Iranian hackers by revealing that some of them are hacking the country’s own firms. That’s a new tactic, but making that information public in a Treasury Department sanctions package doesn’t really make sense.

This episode is also available on YouTube

Russia begins blocking the DoH and DoT protocols, Russian hacktivists leak Spanish police and military personnel data, China and South Korea detain a vishing gang, and AI malware is not that common.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about whether the increasing use of AI will make it harder for forensics teams to determine who is responsible for a hack.

This episode is also available on YouTube.