Recorded Future - Inside Threat Intelligence For Cyber Security

In a recent conversation on WAMU’s nationally syndicated show 1A, we talked about lessons learned one year into the world’s first truly hybrid war. The conversation happened amid a report from Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center that found new worrying signs on the Russia-Ukraine cyber front. They believe Sandworm, a cyber military unit of Russia’s intelligence service, has been launching new phishing campaigns, cyber espionage operations, and is stepping up coordination with hacktivists groups. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

We follow up last week’s episode on spyware and the Mexican military with a look at Guacamaya, the hacktivist collective that helped provide key documents that showed the army purchased Pegasus spyware used on human rights advocates and local journalists. Guacamaya isn’t just targeting Mexico, though. The group has been hacking into military servers all over Latin America, and its efforts have people asking: ¿Quién es Guacamaya? (Who is Guacamaya?) Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A new report has published classified documents and internal memos that make clear the Mexican Army bought Pegasus spyware and systematically deployed it against journalists and activists in Mexico. R3D, a Mexican digital rights group, and University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, also found evidence of a formerly unknown military intelligence unit whose sole focus appears to be secret surveillance and deployment of spyware. Some of the sensitive material published in the report came from a massive hack into the Ministry of Defense by the hacktivist group Guacamaya last year. Click Here was part of a small group of journalists given early access to their findings. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Russia has deployed the Iranian-built Shahed drone to wreak havoc on Ukraine’s infrastructure. We speak to a man who is a kind of drone whisperer. After years of taking these Shahed drones apart, he says if you listen, they have amazing stories to tell. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case that will consider a 1995 law that shields social media companies from liability. Gonzalez v. Google could allow people to sue tech companies that use algorithms to sort through their content. Plus, we check in with Alexander Martin, The Record's UK editor, about his takeaways from the Munich Security Conference. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In a special Valentine’s Day episode, we look at the evolution of romance scams. They aren’t just about bilking lonely people out of their life savings anymore – scammers have diversified, and they’re making victims accomplices in a roster of cyber crimes from email scams and check fraud to money laundering. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

At a time when an errant spy balloon has raised new questions about President Xi Jinping’s absolute control over all things Chinese, we take a look at how his regime quelled last year’s Covid protests and how an arsenal of digital weapons helped tighten his grip on power. Plus, facial recognition’s latest nemesis: knitwear. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

“Shoot The Messenger” from Exile Content Studio and PRX looks at what happened to the murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The first weapon used against him was digital - a sophisticated spyware called Pegasus. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, Axon, the company that developed the Taser, is hosting a conference in Las Vegas called TaserCon. The event is billed as an opportunity to talk about law enforcement and public safety. Axon is expected to use the occasion to reintroduce a controversial plan: to put the company’s gun-equipped drones in police departments and schools to prevent mass shootings. And, cybercriminals’ new best friend: ChatGPT. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

After spending more than a year undercover with the notorious ransomware gang LockBit, one researcher explains how the group revolutionized the business of ransomware. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Genshin Impact put the Chinese video gaming industry on the map. While the game has delighted players, it begs the question: Can China’s Communist Party and a massively popular video game peacefully co-exist? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

We take a deep dive into a corner of the cryptocurrency economy that hasn’t (completely) tanked yet: Bitcoin mining. It is part cryptography, part math, and part luck. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

An episode from “Exile” from the Leo Baeck Institute and Antica Productions. At the height of his fame, a shirtless, barefooted Albert Einstein escapes the bustle of Berlin for a simpler life. The best thinkers of the time gather at his beloved summer house in Caputh to laze by the water, swap ideas, and gossip. There, he can escape the pressures of global fame, but his summer haven can’t keep him safe from the growing Nazi threat rising in Germany. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

At a time when Vladimir Putin is attempting to redraw the Iron Curtain, we revisit an earlier episode in which we take a trip back to the Soviet Union circa 1985 when four American musicians smuggled messages in and out of the Soviet Union — with music. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Sharing a special episode of another podcast, The Last Archive, a show about the history of truth -- or the lack thereof. Harvard historian Jill Lepore uncovers the secrets of the past the way a detective might. In this episode, Jill chats with Anna Kijas, a co-organizer of SUCHO: Saving Ukrainian Cultural History Online. Lepore and Kijas talk about her effort to preserve online resources that are at risk of disappearing because of the war in Ukraine.You can hear more episodes of The Last Archive at https://link.chtbl.com/clickherearchive  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

We go back to an episode we did earlier this year about a gang of SIM swappers who are behind something called violence-as-a-service. Doxing or defacing websites, they told us, just doesn’t send enough of a message. So, they are throwing molotov cocktails or slashing tires of their rivals instead. Trouble is – it is getting more popular and commonplace and is bound to affect the rest of us. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

“Big Brother: North Korea's Forgotten Prince” from School of Humans and iHeartPodcasts introduce you to the person who should have been North Korea’s leader – had he not been on the receiving end of what may be the 21st century’s most bizarre assassination plot. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

North Korea has launched an unprecedented number of missiles this month. So we bring you an encore episode about a team of researchers using open-source intelligence to track the hermit kingdom's nuclear ambitions. Plus, the Yanluowang ransomware group finds itself the victim of a leak. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Washington and the tech world have been talking about public private partnerships in cyberspace for decades. The NSA and Cyber Command have intelligence about attacks; cybersecurity companies have the means to block them. It looks like they are finally working together — not in the U.S, but in Ukraine. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Vice Society burst on the ransomware scene in early 2021, attacking a roster of government offices, hospitals and, notoriously, schools. But cybersecurity experts say the group isn't your typical ransomware operation: they're some of cyber crime's biggest posers, using old exploits on easy targets to give the illusion of greatness. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices