In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq discuss whether China’s ‘cyber militia’ make sense and what they could be good for.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

An Iranian security firm is behind an airline hacking spree, Chinese hackers breach Singapore’s critical infrastructure, new SharePoint and CrushFTP zero-days are being used in the wild, and Japan releases free ransomware decrypters.

In this Risky Business sponsored interview, Thinkst Canary CEO Haroon Meer chats to Casey Ellis about the company’s impressive growth over the past decade, and how it approached that path a little differently to other firms. Haroon’s advice for young startup founders: Is your problem worth solving? And can you actually solve it? And… Love your customers.

Hackers bypass FIDO keys with a new phishing technique, a mobile surveillance vendor deploys an SS7 exploit, ransomware hits South Korea’s largest insurance provider, and law enforcement agencies dismantle a pro-Kremlin DDoS group.

Tom Uren and Amberleigh Jack talk about Huawei’s contract to manage storage for Spain’s lawful intercept system. News broke this week that Spain had signed a €12 million contract, but it turns out Huawei has been involved in the system since 2004!

They also discuss arrests in the UK of four individuals associated with Scattered Spider. The criminal resumés of two of the suspects support the idea that there are key individuals with outsize impact. But they also reinforce that the online communities they are involved in act as training grounds for cyber criminals. Arrests will slow hacks, not stop them.

This episode is also available on Youtube.

Salt Typhoon breaches a US state’s National Guard, Ukrainian hackers wipe the servers of a Russian drone maker, the UK relocates Afghans caught up in a data leak, and Microsoft outsources some US government work to China.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq examine whether US cyber operations are too stealthy. Could they get more bang for the buck if they adopted a devil may care attitude to getting busted?

This episode is also available on Youtube.

A radio equipment vulnerability can bring trains to sudden stops, researchers prevent a Lazarus crypto attack, Spain hands Huawei control over its phone wiretapping system, and CISA warns of ongoing CitrixBleed 2 attacks.

In this Risky Business sponsored interview, Zero Networks Field CTO, Chris Boehm discusses the everyone-gets-an-AI future with Casey Ellis. Zero Networks makes network microsegmentation achievable without simply handing an AI control of the network. Will generative artificial intelligence ever be trusted to make hard access control decisions?

Two billion eSIMs receive crucial security patches, China’s cyber militias go on the offensive, four Scattered Spider members detained over UK retail attacks, and a Russian basketball player is arrested in a ransomware case.