Risky Business News Podcast

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq look at reports that try and distil a country’s cyber power into a single number so that they can be ranked and compared. Do these reports say anything useful and have any value?

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast click here.

In this podcast Patrick Gray talks to Tom Uren about investigations into the disinformation industry. One election interference for hire company, known as “Team Jorge”, provides a huge variety of dirty tricks services, but we think its claims of massive influence are overblown. Despite that, however, these companies are still corrosive for democracy and a scourge worth tackling. Patrick thinks they’re the “new internet villain” and will replace NSO as a target of hate.

They also discuss Google’s new report that covers Russian cyber operations in its invasion of Ukraine. On the whole a good report, but both Tom and Pat think some of it is problematic.

Finally, they talk about Patrick’s interview with the head of the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence. It’s great to have intelligence officials explain how they see the cyber threat landscape and get their take on war in Ukraine and what that means for cyber operations in future conflicts.

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast click here.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq look at the differences and similarities between signals intelligence and cyber operations. Why did Five Eyes Sigint organisations end up ‘owning’ cyber operations and does that make sense, or should there be a separate cyber intelligence organisation?

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast click here.

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Patrick Gray, who’s filling in for Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast click here.

In this podcast Patrick Gray talks to Tom Uren about North Korea’s foray into state-sponsored ransomware targeting healthcare organisations. There’s reasons to be concerned — North Korea has pulled off some sophisticated hacks and the responses that maybe “work” against cybercriminals might not work at all against the DPRK. Tom thinks that the international community can do a lot more around sanctions that will help.

They also look at President Biden’s talk about privacy at his recent State of the Union speech. Does this mean that the US will finally get meaningful federal privacy and data security legislation? We hope so.

Finally, Tom and Patrick revisit the Chinese spy balloon saga. Even though a single balloon is not a huge threat, an uncontested balloon surveillance program would be and the US is responding strongly. It’s sanctioned six Chinese firms and the US is looking for balloons and finding them. Three more have been shot down since last week, but it looks like they are all just errant balloons rather than more surveillance craft.

A short podcast updating listeners on the security news of the last few days, as prepared by Catalin Cimpanu and read by Claire Aird.

You can find the newsletter version of this podcast click here.

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq compare and contrast the way Russia and the West project power with cyber operations.