Nate Nelson speaks with Rich Murray, who leads the FBI’s North Texas Cyber unit, about how the Federal Bureau of Investigations dealt with dealt with another attack by REvil

January 24, 2023 /

Spamhaus's decision to add Cyberbunker to its list of Spam sources led the Stophaus coalition to initiate a DDoS attack later dubbed “The attack that almost broke the Internet.”

January 20, 2023 /

Sven Kamphuis and Herman Johan Xennt are quite dissimilar... and in 1996, their unlikely partnership coalesced around a mutual deep hatred towards authority...

January 11, 2023 /

2011 was a pivotal year for Netflix: the now hugely successful company was then in the midst of a formidable transformation, changing from a mail-based DVD rental service to the modern streaming service that it is today

January 3, 2023 /

Dr. Fred Cohen not only introduced the name ‘computer virus’, a term invented by his mentor, Leonard Adelman, but was also the first to analyze computer viruses in a rigorous mathematical way...

December 19, 2022 /

How does it feel to live for years with a virtual target mark on your back?… Malicious Life discusses the story of Thamar Gindin.

December 13, 2022 /

Nobody likes cheaters, especially in video games. That's why EA and other publishers are implementing kernel-mode anti-cheat software in their games. Yet some people warn that installing such kernel-level systems is extremely dangerous. In this episode of Malicious Life, we examine why.

December 8, 2022 /

When it was founded in 2011, Norse Corp. had everything going for it, but the startup blew up in smoke less than six years later. Malicious Life explores what went so horribly wrong.

November 29, 2022 /

An Australian white hat hacker demonstrated how easily hackers can take over farming equipment and the risks this creates for global food supplies.

November 28, 2022 /

Find out how the Russian Business Network, a once legitimate ISP, became the largest player in the Russian cybercrime world and a key component of Putin's attacks on democracy and misinformation campaigns in this episode of the Malicious Life podcast.

November 25, 2022 /

Find out what cybersecurity professionals can learn from MMA wrestlers and Chess Grand Champions about peak performance in this episode of Malicious Life, featuring Chris Cochran and Ron Eddings, the co-founders of Hacker Valley Media.

November 24, 2022 /

Information security executives explain how media companies can be hacked and why we, as consumers, should care in this Malicious Life BSide podcast.

November 22, 2022 /

One day in 2008, Michael Daugherty got a call from cybersecurity company TiVera, saying private medical data of some 9000 LabMD patients had been discovered online. When Michael refused to pay for TiVersa's hefty "consultation fee", a ten-year legal battle began that led to the demise of LabMD, but also cost the FTC dearly.

November 18, 2022 /

Financial markets make good targets for criminals - after all, that's where the big money is. Surprisingly, many of these criminals are not your run-of-the-mill black hat hacker, but brokers registered with the SEC: genuine finance industry professionals – check it out...

October 18, 2022 /

Rachel Tobac is a hacker and CEO of SocialProof Security, where she helps people and companies keep their data safe by training and pentesting them on social engineering threats like Vishing and the many psychological tricks attackers employ to hack people – check it out...

October 11, 2022 /

Some stock traders are willing to go to great lengths to get information before anyone else, even hacking into trading technologies to gain an unfair advantage and make a fortune along the way–check it out...

October 4, 2022 /

The Malicious Life Podcast Team is excited to announce that we won the This Week in Tech Technology Category honor at the 17th Annual People's Choice Podcast Awards...

October 3, 2022 / 1 minute read

As their name implies, LulzSec was known for trolling their victims:, and while their childish behavior might have fooled some people into thinking that LulzSec was harmless, the story you’re about to hear will show they were anything but – check it out...

September 28, 2022 /

The US government says that Kim Schmitz, better known as Kim DotCom, is the leader of a file sharing crime ring. He sees himself as an internet freedom fighter: a fugitive on the run from vindictive overly-powerful governments. Can King Kimble escape the wrath of the USA? Check it out...

September 19, 2022 /

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is usually considered a better solution for authentication – but Roger Grimes, a veteran security professional and a Data-Driven Defense Evangelist claims that the sense of security current MFA solutions provide us is false - check it out...

September 13, 2022 /

Language models are everywhere today, and most interestingly they are available via several experiential projects trying to emulate natural conversations such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 and Google’s LaMDA. Can these models be hacked to gain access to the sensitive information they learned from their training data? Check it out...

September 6, 2022 /

In May 2021, following the SolarWinds and the Colonial Pipeline attacks, the Biden administration published a presidential Executive Order mandating the use of SBOMs - Software Bill of Materials - in all government agencies. What are SBOMs and how useful are they in cybersecurity? Nate Nelson talks to two experts: Allan Friedman (CISA) and Chris Blask (Cybeats) - check it out...

August 31, 2022 /

A ruthless person for whom the end truly justifies the means, Leo Kuvayev was very successful as a cybercriminal. But even a genius criminal can go just one step too far - check it out...

August 22, 2022 /

Railway systems are a mess of old systems built on top of older systems, running ancient operating systems. Why are railway systems so difficult to defend, and what are the most probable attack vectors against them? Israel Railway's first ever CISO discusses why - check it out...

August 15, 2022 /

The Anom was the holy grail of dark, illegal communication: a mobile phone that could send encrypted messages that even included a secret Kill-Switch to foil attempts by law enforcement agents to get to its contents. Thousands of criminals used the Anom, certain that they were completely safe from the police - they were wrong - check it out...

August 8, 2022 /

Ken Thompson is a legendary computer scientist who also made a seminal contribution to computer security in 1983 when he described a nifty hack that could allow an attacker to plant almost undetectable malicious code inside a C compiler. Surprisingly, it turns out a very similar hack was also used in the SolarWinds attack - check it out...

August 1, 2022 /

Silk Road’s success did more than bring the site more sellers and buyers, it also brought it more attention from law enforcement agencies as well as malicious hackers and other shady characters. Some of these shady characters, it turns out, were part of the task force aiming to shut down Silk Road - check it out...

July 25, 2022 /

Your organization was hit by ransomware, and it is now time to negotiate the terms of a deal that will bring back your data and (hopefully) won’t leave the company’s coffers empty. But are you sure you know what you’re doing? Are you certain that you won’t screw up the negotiations and do more harm than good? Check it out...

July 18, 2022 /

Ross Ulbricht always had a thing with testing his limits. He was also an avid libertarian who wanted to change the world. So, in 2010, he came up with the idea to build a truly free market: a website where anybody can buy and sell anything anonymously - including illegal drugs - check it out...

July 12, 2022 /

Will Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies be able to replace money as we know it today? Will governments embrace a future where they have no control over their currencies? Jacob Goldstein (Planet Money, What's Your Problem) talks to Nate Nelson about what the future holds for Bitcoin - check it out...

July 5, 2022 /

Years before credit card transactions gave banks and data-brokers free access to our private financial information, a man named David Chaum became the first person to really, materially grapple with the problem of privacy in money. His ideas inspired a movement of "Crypto Anarchists" who aspired to change money forever - check it out...

June 27, 2022 /

This special Malicious Live Ask Us Anything event celebrates the 5 year anniversary of the show: How did Malicious Life come to be? How do we choose the stories we tell? Who was Ran's most memorable guest? And why does Nate keep inserting weird names into the scripts? Check it out…

June 21, 2022 /

Hector - better known as Sabu, the ringleader of the LulzSec hacking group - knew the FBI was on to him. But it turned out that of all the people who broke or disregarded the law in this particular story, only one man had a reason to be worried: Jeremy Hammond - check it out…

June 17, 2022 /

George Friedman and Jeremy Hammond are two very different people: the former is a capitalist middleman, the latter an anarchist-communist hacker. A spy and a hacker; but in certain respects, they’re actually quite similar in what lines they are willing to cross to get to their goal - check it out…

June 13, 2022 /

AbdelKader Cornelius, a German Threat Researcher and an expert on the cybercrime ecosystem, shares a story about how he helped German police put a sophisticated cybercriminal behind bars by uncovering tiny mistakes the hacker made in the past. - check it out…

May 31, 2022 /

An anonymous hacker posted a list of 6.5 Million encrypted passwords for LinkedIn users on a Russian forum. These passwords were hashed using an outdated and vulnerable hashing algorithm and were also unsalted. Lawsuits followed shortly… can we trust big organizations to keep our secrets safe? Check it out…

May 24, 2022 /

We delve into a recently discovered cyber-espionage campaign targeting the Defense, Energy, Aerospace, Biotech and Pharma industries conducted by the Winnti Group (APT 41, BARIUM, and Blackfly) - a Chinese state-sponsored APT group known for its stealth and sophistication...

May 17, 2022 /

In 2007, Estonia suffered a large-scale DDoS attack which crippled many organizations and digital services. Joseph Carson, a Security Scientist and adviser to several governments discusses the lessons learned from that event and how Estonia became 'A Cloud Country' - check it out…

May 9, 2022 /

In May 1990, a massive operation carried out by hundreds of Secret Service and FBI agents was focused on a new type of crime: Hacking. But every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and the reaction to Operation Sundevil was the birth of a new power in the cybersphere: the Electronic Frontier Foundation - check it out…

May 2, 2022 /

The MITRE Attack Flow Project is a new way to visualize, analyze and share knowledge about sequences of adversary behavior. Ingrid Skoog, Ass. Director of R&D at the Center for Threat-Informed Defense, and Cybereason CISO Israel Barak discuss the benefits of the MITRE Attack Flow project to Defenders and executives alike - check it out…

April 25, 2022 /

When 24-year-old Aaron Swartz was caught scraping millions of science articles off of JSTOR, he faced up to 35 years in prison plus a fine of up to 1 million dollars. Did Aaron's crime justify such a harsh punishment? Check it out…

April 19, 2022 /

Several weeks after the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, and the lights are still on and other important infrastructure is still operating. Cybereason CEO Lior Div, CTO Yonatan Striem-Amit, and CSO Sam Curry examine what we know so far about the cyber aspect of the conflict...

April 11, 2022 /

Due to some controversy in the community over the airplane hacking episode, we have decided to remove it from the playlist...

April 5, 2022 /

DIE, an acronym for Distributed, Immutable and Ephemeral, is a framework for designing secure systems where we should treat our precious data less like pets and more like cattle. Sound confusing? New paradigms always are - check it out…

March 28, 2022 /

We usually count the damage from a cyberattack in Dollars and Euros, but the psychological damage to the victims is rarely discussed. Can scams, hacks, and breaches lead to Cyber Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Check it out…

March 22, 2022 /

What is the most critical of all critical infrastructure? According to Jeff Engles, it's our Banking and Finance systems - Jeff joins us to discuss the resilience of our financial system and potential worst-case scenarios - check it out…

March 16, 2022 /

This final episode of the series is going to explore how the Crypto AG spying operation was kept secret for over 70 years from governments, military and intelligence services, and even the company’s own personnel - check it out…

March 10, 2022 /

Quantum Computing is a revolutionary technology, but what's the threat posed by Quantum attacks on encryption, and is the first major attack even closer than most of us think? Check it out…

March 7, 2022 /

How did Boris Hagelin succeed in selling compromised cipher machines to half the world over more than 50 years? Was there some kind of backdoor - or it was more clever than that? Check it out…

February 28, 2022 /

Threat Research lead Assaf Dahan discusses new discoveries about Iranian APTs Moses Staff and Phosphorus that blur the line between state-sponsored attacks and criminal activity - check it out…

February 22, 2022 /

General McArthur, Egypt's Anwar Sadat, and Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini: these are just a few of the dozens (likely hundreds) of targets in the biggest, most ambitious hacking operation ever - check it out…

February 14, 2022 /

Attacks against Small-to-Medium size businesses (SMBs) accounts for 40% to 50% of all data breaches. Josh Ablett, founder and CISO of Adelia Risk, discusses security for SMBs - spoiler: it's not a pretty picture - check it out…

February 7, 2022 /

In this episode, we go back to the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to discover how a national trauma and an intelligence failure paved the way for Israel to become a cybersecurity mini-empire - check it out…

January 31, 2022 /

Pete Herzog, co-founder of ISECOM and Hacker Highschool, wants our kids to learn about cybersecurity - especially the more advanced stuff like security analysis and hacking - check it out...

January 24, 2022 /

A cryptic message posted on 4Chan in January 2012 started thousands of crypto-lovers competing to be the first to crack the puzzles created by the mysterious Cicada 3301. Who is Cicada3301, and what are their goals? Check it out...

January 18, 2022 /

Jeff Man was one of the first people at the NSA to make the transition from hardware to software, and he shares with us his experiences from that period - check it out…

January 10, 2022 /

When the FBI asked Apple to write code that would give the FBI access to a suspect's iPhone, Apple refused, arguing it violates the First Amendment - check it out…

January 4, 2022 /

Yonatan Striem-Amit, CTO & Co-Founder of Cybereason discusses the Log4j vulnerability and the unusual vaccine dubbed Logout4Shell that uses the the Log4Shell exploit to close the vulnerability - check it out…

December 27, 2021 /

Shawn Carpenter - an employee of Sandia National Laboratory - was at a crossroads: should he ignore a Chinese attack against U.S. targets as his superiors ordered him to do, or continue investigating the case on his own? Check it out…

December 20, 2021 /

Ken Westin, Director of Security Strategy, discusses the findings in recent report "Organizations at Risk: Ransomware Attackers Don’t Take Holidays" - including why ransomware attacks today are so effective and dangerous - check it out...

December 13, 2021 /

Microsoft Tay could tweet, answer questions and even make its own memes - but within mere hours of going live, Tay began outputting racist, anti-Semitic and misogynist tweets - check it out...

December 6, 2021 /

Black Hills Infosec founder John Strand discusses The Wild West Hackin’ Fest - a unique security conference that emphasizes diversity and lowering the barriers to entering the world of security...

November 29, 2021 /

To capture Alexey Ivanov and his business partner and bring them to justice, the FBI created an elaborate ruse: a fake company named Invita, complete with a fake website and a fake office building - check it out...

November 22, 2021 /

In 2016 communications between Canada and Korea were hijacked, and in 2017 traffic from Sweden and Norway was also hijacked - all routed to China. What is IP/BGP Hijacking and what are its security implications? Check it out...

November 15, 2021 /

Alexey Ivanov thought he had a brilliant idea: hack American corporations and then blackmail them to force them to contract his services as a security consultant - so what could go wrong? Check it out...

November 8, 2021 /

The NSA is one of the world's most formidable intelligence operations. We spoke at length with Ira Winkler, CISO, Skyline Technology Solutions, who started his career at the NSA - check it out...

November 1, 2021 /

Marcus Hutchins became a hero for stopping the WannaCry attacks despite his troubled past as the teenage hacker who created the dangerous rootkit KRONOS - should a criminal-turned-hero be punished for past crimes? Check it out...

October 25, 2021 /

Newly identified Iranian threat actor MalKamak that has been leveraging a new and sophisticated RAT (remote access trojan) dubbed ShellClient that abuses Dropbox for C2 (command and control)...

October 18, 2021 /

Smart TVs - equipped with microphones, cameras, and an internet connection - are the weakest link in smart home security. So, is a person's smart home still their castle? Check it out...

October 11, 2021 /

Cybereason CISO Israel Barak delves into the MITRE ATT&CK framework and explains how it can help organizations get better at detecting stealthy advanced attacks - check it out...

October 4, 2021 /

Every year there’s a new story of some software like 'Tik Tok' or 'FaceApp' from a hostile country that may be a security threat to us in the West - so what should be done in cases like this? Ira Winkler joins the discussion - check it out...

September 27, 2021 /

Jack Rhysider discusses the origins of Darknet Diaries and the effect the show’s success has had on his personal life - which you might be surprised to discover wasn’t always 100% positive - check it out...

September 20, 2021 /

A mysterious stranger approached an employee of Tesla's Gigafactory and offered him 1 million dollars to insert a malware-laden USB flash drive into a company computer - check it out...

September 13, 2021 /

Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Bill Hagestad examines how China's culture and troubled history of western colonialism influenced its government views regarding the internet and its interactions with western tech companies...

September 7, 2021 /

What do you get when you take a gun-toting cybersecurity pioneer and add a serious amount of money to the mix? You get John McAfee's unbelievable life and times - check it out...

August 30, 2021 /

So how far have security solutions and capabilities come in a decade? Art Coviello, former CEO of RSA Security, is joined by Malcolm Harkins, former CSO at Intel, to discuss the cybersecurity landscape 10 years after the RSA Breach - check it out...

August 23, 2021 /

Cybereason identified several attack campaigns targeting the telecoms industry across Southeast Asia that are assessed to be the work of multiple Chinese APT groups - Nocturnus Team lead Assaf Dahan discusses the implications...

August 16, 2021 /

The Jester is a patriotic, pro-American Hacktivist that since 2010 has waged a personal cyberwar against an array of targets. So, who is The Jester and what can we make of his reported exploits? Check it out…

August 9, 2021 /

When Albert Gonzalez was hacking the networks of retail chains credit cards were still very insecure. We are joined by special guest Sherri Davidoff, CEO of LMG Security, who discusses the past and present state of credit card security - check it out…

August 2, 2021 /

A fateful meeting between a U.S. Secret Service agent and a notorious European carder marks the beginning of the end for Albert Gonzalez and his 'All Star' crew of hackers...

July 26, 2021 /

Dave Kennedy, one of the founders of DerbyCon, talks about the unique vibe of the conference, his fear of clowns, and why he'll never listen to a Busta Rhymes album again - check it out…

July 19, 2021 /

Special guest Sherri Davidoff continues the story where we find ShadowCrew's Gonzales working with the Secret Service on orchestrating the largest cybercrime bust in U.S history - check it out…

July 12, 2021 / 1 minute read

Jeff Moss discusses the origins of DEF CON and its interesting relationship with law enforcement and the intelligence community over the years...

July 6, 2021 /

Special guest Sherri Davidoff has skillfully researched the fascinating life and exploits of Albert Gonzales, as detailed in her book Data Breaches - check it out…

June 28, 2021 /

How did a small-scale event in Chicago grow to become a major hacker conference? THOTCON co-founders Nick Percoco and Jonathan Tomek reveal all - check it out…

June 22, 2021 /

Special guest Lieutenant Colonel, USMC (retired) Bill Hagestad, a leading international authority on cyberwarfare and Chinese cyber operations and capabilities...

June 15, 2021 /

Threat researcher Assaf Dahan examines the DarkSide attack on Colonial Pipeline, and the implications for the security of critical infrastructure...

June 8, 2021 / 1 minute read

Nortel was positioning itself China's partner, not knowing it was China's primary target for corporate espionage and 'Unrestricted Warfare' doctrine...

June 1, 2021 /

No longer bound by NDA, former RSA execs share the untold story behind one of the most impactful attacks of all time - check it out...

May 24, 2021 / 1 minute read

No longer bound by NDA, former RSA execs tell how the infamous breach unfolded and share the untold story behind one of the most impactful attacks of all time - check it out...

May 20, 2021 / 1 minute read

Jack Daniel recalls how the BSides conference started and what 'community-oriented' events contribute that other events often cannot - check it out...

May 11, 2021 /

Special guest Bill Hagestad, a leading international authority on cyberwarfare, gives us a look inside Chinese cyber operations - check it out...

May 4, 2021 /

Andrew Ginter dives into cybersecurity challenges for Nuclear facilities - how secure are modern nuclear power plants from cyber attacks? Check it out...

April 27, 2021 /

Chris Wysopal, one of L0pht's founding members, talks about the group's 1998 Senate testimony and how they used shaming to force corporations to secure their software...

April 20, 2021 / 1 minute read

By the end of the ‘90s many of the L0pht hackers had quit their day jobs and incorporated under the name L0pht Heavy Industries...

April 13, 2021 /

'L0pht' was one of the most influential hacker collectives of the '90s: they were even invited to testify in front of Congress on the state of Internet security. In this episode of Malicious Life, four of L0pht's members talk about the beginning and influence of the L0pht on cybersecurity. - check it out...

April 6, 2021 /

The recent HAFNIUM attacks hit tens of thousands of organizations’ Microsoft Exchange servers. What happened, what were the vulnerabilities exploited in the attack, and what can we do to defend against such attacks in the future? In this episode, Host Ran Levi is joined by Israel Barack, Cybereason CISO

March 23, 2021 /

Listen as we break down the chain of events from the moment NotPetya began to spread around the world to the moment it was stopped by Amit Serper who was on his way to friends when he decided to take a swipe at the malware. Catch the latest episode of the Malicious Life podcast with guest Cyber Analyst Amit Serper

March 22, 2021 /

Host Ran Levi is joined by Amit Serper, the first researcher to tackle NotPetya and provide a solution when he was Principal Security Researcher at Cybereason...

March 3, 2021 /

Host Ran Levi is joined by attorney and privacy expert Ted Claypoole, and Andrew Maximov, CEO at Promethean AI who uses AI to fight Belarus's dictatorship, to explore the implications...

February 17, 2021 /