To open the 224th episode of the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast, Ahmed, Dave, and Jeff discuss the targeting of researchers by some state-backed hackers. We first mentioned this story a few months back, but this week we’re rekindling the debate on researchers being targeted after Twitter banned some phishing accounts. From there, we head into our first quiz — spoiler alert, Dave and I fall victim to Ahmed’s trickery. We then welcome Maria Namestnikova, head of GReAT Russia, to discuss how parents can educate their kids on using social media securely. From there, we move on to some REvil weirdness. The gang has seen the keys for its Tor sites stolen and some signs of instability. It’s since gone offline — again! For our third story, we stay with ransomware, for which US financial institutions report having paid about $600 million in the first six months of 2020. Then, it’s on to another quiz. We just can’t get enough. The next item on the docket is a teaser to a podcast coming this weekend with Allison Pytlak of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) to discuss the need for more gender diversity in infosec. To close out our podcast, we discuss a Wales school system that is enabling facial recognition for kids buying lunch.

Transatlantic Cable Podcast

Transatlantic Cable - Episode 224

We kick off the Transatlantic Cable podcast this week with the recent Twitch data breach. Details are still scarce, but the topic is on the collective lips of the infosec community. From there, Jeff, Ahmed, and Dave move on to Facebook’s decision to crack down on its marketplace sales of Amazonian rainforest plots. How that will work in practice remains to be seen. Moving on, we talk about Google’s recent decision to send out authenticator keys to more than 10,000 people it identified as hacking risks. Our final story involves the FBI, submarine plans, and cryptocurrency.

Transatlantic Cable - Episode 223

We kick off episode 222 of the Transatlantic Cable podcast with a discussion of the recent Facebook outage, including possible causes. Sticking with Facebook, we delve into the whistle-blower story and details being leaked about the social media behemoth. From there, we move on to concerning news about a recent CoinBase hack involving some 6,000 accounts. Details are scarce, but if you use CoinBase for your crypto, it might be wise to check your account. Following that, we look at a story about leveraging iCloud to spy on Britney Spears, and a troubling one about hackers hitting a hospital with ransomware and the death of a baby.

Transatlantic Cable - Episode 222

Welcome back to the Community Podcasts, a mini-series on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast. As always, my co-host for this series is Anastasiya Kazakova, a Senior Public Affairs Manager who coordinates global cyber diplomacy projects at Kaspersky. As a reminder, the Community Podcasts is a short series of podcasts featuring frank cyber diplomacy conversations with cyber-heroes who unite people despite everything – growing fragmentation, confrontation, and cyber threats – there are people who build communities and unite people to work together for the common good. Why are they doing this? And are their efforts working? Our third episode includes a chat with Kate Stewart - co-chair of one of the working groups within of National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s cyber-security multi-stakeholder process for Software Component Transparency. NTIA has years of experience in conducting open, multi-stakeholder processes to help make progress on issues such as finding common ground on cyber-security vulnerability disclosure, developing clear policy guidance on the secure update of IoT devices, and providing more transparency about data collected by mobile apps. But today we will focus on this multi-stakeholder process for Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) or software component transparency. During our extended conversation, we discuss a wide array of topics from the need for collaboration between the public/private sector, what working with governments has been like, what the future holds for FIRST and incident respondent in general, how to make sure that they remain neutral in cyber ‘firefighting’, and more.

Community Conversations Podcast - episode three

This week on podcast, Jeff, Ahmed and I start off by looking at how Facebook have apparently shelved the idea of an Instagram for children, after mounting pressure from privacy advocates. From there we look at a bizarre story about involving a hamster and crypto-currency, quickly followed by news from China that crypto is effectively banned in the country. Moving from there we take a look at two stories from the Washington Post, the first talking, quite concerning story about office workers being put under increased surveillance on their work laptops due to the pandemic, and the second takes a look at why the FBI held back a decryptor key to the recent REvil ransomware attacks. Also included in this week’s episode is two interviews with GReAT, the first looking at the Story of a Modern Day Rootkit with the research team Mark Lechtik, Aseel Kayal, Paul Rascagneres, Vasily Berdnikov and the second about a possible connection between DarkHalo APT and Kazuar.

Transatlantic Cable - Episode 221

This week on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast, Ahmed, Dave, and I kick things off with some ransomware. No, it is not another company getting hit, but rather some good news. In this post from Graham Cluely, victims of REvil ransomware attacks may find some relief — in the form of a universal decryptor for the ransomware. Some victims can breathe a sigh of relief. From there, we jump to a tale involving unlocking AT&T cellular phones. It might seem like a weird news item, but this isn’t a story about unlocking a phone for use on any network; it’s about defrauding a company of more than $200 million. After a brief quiz that leaves Dave and me stumped, we jump into a conversation about Amazon and the controversial AI in its delivery vehicles. To close things out, we revisit our discussion of El Salvador’s move to roll out Bitcoin as an official currency. Sadly, a lot of our trollish predictions did come true.

Transatlantic Cable - Episode 220

To kick off the 219th edition of the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast, Ahmed, Dave and I head to Australia. You see, the app that our friends down under have in place for their Covid Passports is able to be spoofed and the researcher who found it has been ghosted by government officials he reached out to. From there, we jump into the world of gangs and how they are using Instagram for a variety of illicit activities – spoiler many involve guns that would make a Warzone player envious. After a brief quiz intermission, we get back to the stories and one that involves an interesting mix of crypto and a press release. In this segment, we look at how a press release noting that Walmart would accept Litecoin as a payment method. This news set the price soaring, unfortunately this surge was caused by fake news. Seems that the press release company will need to enlist Mystery Inc as to how it got onto their wires. Our fourth story heads back to Texas for the second week in a row. In this story, it seems that the Texas Right to Life website has inadvertently leaked the resumes of job applicants. Sticking with the theme of leaking info, we jump into the world of fast food in the UK. You see, McDonald’s seems to have accidentally exposed the password to their VIP winners of the Monopoly contest. Surprisingly, no interns were hurt in their statement on what went wrong. We then close out the podcast debating the toys in Happy Meals

Transatlantic Cable - Episode 219

With David on holiday, Ahmed and I are holding down the fort for this week’s Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast.   We open the show with a pair of stories about Apple. In the first, the company is holding off on the rollout of its controversial CSAM — for now. Then, we look at the aftermarket for iPhone chargers, which includes the OMG Cable, a charger with a built in hotspot that steals credentials, and Ahmed continues his habit of making me look dumb with his obscure trivia.   Getting back to our slate of stories, we discuss a new vulnerability in Confluence that further bolsters our “updates are important” stance. (Despite the patch being available, criminals are exploiting this PoC for those who have yet to update their servers.)   From there we head to the infosec drama story of the week, with the ransomware-as-a-service gang. In this story, a former member of the group has leaked the source code for Babuk Locker on a criminal forum. The note attached to the leak is one for the ages, including terminal cancer and the phrase “I will have time to live like a human.”   From there, it’s over to Latin America, where El Salvador has become the first country to embrace Bitcoin, including issuing $30 in the cryptocurrency to users who install the government-backed wallet.   To close out the podcast, we discuss NFTs and a fraudulent Banksy NFT that sold for more than $330,000. In a happy turn of events, the buyer was refunded most of the money.

Transatlantic Cable podcast, episode 218

If you scroll through the headlines in cybersecurity, you will often see topics that grab the readers’ attention. Correct me if I am wrong, but you’ve probably read a lot about State-sponsored APT attacks, ransomware, bug bounty programs, disclosure of 0Days, zero day usage, what color hat a hacker is. While I could go on with topics, I think that we are on the same page. One of the things that we often don’t discuss when it comes to this topic is what is and what is NOT ethical. Subscribers to the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast may remember that this was a topic that David and I tapped into with Ivan Kwiatkowski discussed on a podcast a few weeks ago. Over the past few months, Ivan and I have been discussing this quite regularly and decided to hop into the topic in some more depth. After crossing all the T’s and dotting the I’s with our internal stakeholders, we were able to pull together a crew to discuss and debate some of the topics that play into this space. Our guests included my usual co-host David Buxton, Aseel Kayal and Runa Sandvik – make sure to follow these folks on the Twitter. During our near 2-hour conversation, we discuss a wide ranging of topics, including: • Competetive collaboration between infosec vendors • Disclosure • Role of government and private companies for user security • Attribution • Does threat intelligence help adversaries? • Governments hoarding 0days There is much more in there and will definitely help pique the interest of anyone working within the space.

Ethics in Cybersecurity

This week on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast, Ahmed, Dave, and I start out in the Far East with a look at South Korea’s investigation of the fees Google and Apple charge vendors for in-app purchases. The article spurs some debate; we three have pretty distinct opinions about the platform-versus-developer situation. From there, we head to California, where a man has been arrested for hacking into iCloud accounts for profit. Our third story takes us to the United Kingdom, where David’s people are looking to remove themselves from the GDPR. Is that a good thing? A pair of stories with a similar theme — adult entertainment — closes out the podcast. The first story examines TikTok users battling a Texas “whistleblowing” website where people can anonymously report abortion patients and anyone who helps them. Users who object to the site have been flooding the submission system with videos, including some, ahem, questionable Shrek content. The second considers OnlyFans’ course corrections on allowable content.

The Transatlantic Cable - Episode 217

This week on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast, Ahmed, Dave, and I discuss a number of topics that really run the gamut — from spy ships to the robot apocalypse, Bitcoin, and more. Kicking things off is a story from Tom Spring on Threatpost about how Microsoft Power App configurations have led to the leak of more than 38 million sensitive records. We also debate why private is not the default option and actually invites user error. From there, we jump into some cell-phone-battery myth-busting. (For the record, we all get angry at one time or another.) Then, a Russian spy ship is hovering around the transatlantic cables. Comrades, we are flattered, but you can download the podcast on your favorite platforms, no need to launch a ship — it is 2021, after all. Following that tongue-in-cheek story, we head to the UK for a look at PayPal and its new embrace of cryptocurrencies. To close things out, we discuss the new robots Elon Musk and Tesla are pondering.

The Transatlantic Cable - Episode 216

This week on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast, Ahmed, Dave, and I discuss John Oliver’s recent monologue on ransomware and why it’s a good PSA to share with friends and family. We then take a look at the world of malicious social media influencers — in this case from the United Kingdom, where an investigative reporter identified an “influencer” who was selling phishing texts through his social networking accounts. From there, we jump into the world of crypto and a hacker stealing a boat-ton of coins … and then giving most of them back. The individual says it was to help with security. We debate the level of BS in that statement. Next, it’s back to the United Kingdom, where a commission has said people should not have to give up all of their personal data just to buy a beer at a pub. Ahmed and I had some trouble grasping that issue, so Dave filled us in on this UK peculiarity. In our next story, T-Mobile investigates an alleged data breach affecting more than 100 million users. Finally, we discuss a city in Louisiana that is using garbage trucks and Raspberry Pi units to help determine which areas are current dark spots for high-speed Internet connectivity.

Transatlantic Cable - Episode 215

Welcome back to the Community Podcasts, a mini-series on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast. Joining me again as our co-host for this series is Anastasiya Kazakova, a Senior Public Affairs Manager who coordinates global cyber diplomacy projects at Kaspersky. As a reminder, the Community Podcasts is a short series of podcasts featuring frank cyber diplomacy conversations with cyber-heroes who unite people despite everything – growing fragmentation, confrontation, and cyber threats – there are people who build communities and unite people to work together for the common good. Why are they doing this? And are their efforts working? For our second episode, we are joined by Serge Droz, Member of the FIRST Board and a senior security engineer at Pronton Technologies. FIRST is a global Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, the premier organization and recognized global leader in incident response. During our extended conversation, we discuss a wide array of topics from the need for collaboration between the public/private sector, what working with governments has been like, what the future holds for FIRST and incident respondent in general, how to make sure that they remain neutral in cyber ‘firefighting’, and more.

Community Conversations Podcasts, episode two

This week on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast, Ahmed, Dave, and I confirm once more how bad I am at trivia and then also cover a handful of some serious security related stuff. To kick off the podcast, we discuss Apple’s new photo scanning practice meant to battle child pornography with AI. We stay in the realm of photography to look at Instagram shutting down a like farm. For our third story, we discuss the dark market for COVID-19 vaccination cards. We have some strong feelings on the topic, so this story gets a bit heated. Moving along, our fourth story takes a dive into the criminal world for some good ol’ crook-on-crook crime. In this story, a shortchanged affiliate of the Conti ransomware-for-hire syndicate retaliates by leaking the group’s playbook. We then take a break to offer a teaser to the second episode of our Community Conversations podcasts with Serge Droz of FIRST. The full episode will run over the weekend. We close out the podcast throwing some mud at the Internet of Things.

Transatlantic Cable - Episode 214

In this week’s episode of the Transatlantic Cable podcast Jeff, Ahmed, and I look at some of the more interesting stories to come out of the cybersecurity space this week. We start on a sombre note, with a story of a woman who found a video of herself on Pornhub. After getting the content taken down, she began working with a team to create an app that uses AI to help women find content that includes their faces. Following that, we discuss some recent news about Instagram, which is defaulting all teen accounts to private, and an upcoming Android update that privacy advocates should appreciate. From there, we have two additional stories: the first about an Instagram influencer convicted of money laundering and BEC (business e-mail compromise) scams, and finally, what an art teacher did with a dead cat (yes, really).

Transatlantic Cable - Episode 213

Kaspersky Lab’s security experts discuss recent news and give their advice on the topics of computer and smartphone protection.

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Transatlantic Cable Podcast

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