Risky Business News

Authorities dismantle the KillSec hacking group, South Africa thwarts a ransomware attack against air traffic control systems, the US sanctions Venezuelan ATM hackers and a Chinese APT targets AI experts. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Authorities dismantle KillSec group, arrest members across Europe

Amberleigh Jack and James Wilson chat about OpenAI agents' recent escapades into Australian government websites. OpenAI has promised to “rebuild trust with Australians” but we're likely getting a glimpse into the new normal, here. They also discuss how the ShinyHunters hacking group has found itself on law enforcement's target list after breaching FBI systems. The group played some stupid games and they appear to be in the “stupid prizes” stage. This episode is also available on YouTube Show notes

A ShinyHunters suspect has been arrested in the Netherlands, Apple fixes an iOS zero-day found by Meta, recent Citrix zero-days see mass exploitation within hours and NVIDIA launches an AI sandboxing platform. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Sanctions force CAs to revoke TLS certs in Iran, Russia

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about the rise of fully automated LLM-driven hacking campaigns among criminals and even state hacking groups. For those with the right risk appetite, a move fast and break things hacking approach using AI can pay off. This episode is also available on YouTube. Show notes Autonomous AI Agents are breaking into hundreds of Online Retailers A Single Operator, Two AI Platforms, Nine Government Agencies

Intel removes cash rewards from its bug bounty program, OpenAI agents probed dozens of organizations, Fraudsters scam €95 million from an Italian bank and Bitget is hacked for $350 million. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Intel ends paid bug bounties

In this Risky Business sponsored interview James Wilson chats to Kieron Hughes and Andrzej Matykiewicz from PortSwigger about the company's latest AI pen-testing product, Burp AT. The model has different levels of autonomy modes and is natively integrated with Burp Suite so once it finds vulnerabilities it can spin up intruder attacks, configure everything and brute-force the code. The three also chat about the experiences of beta trial users, including one that found a vulnerability that disclosed reports from the company's anonymous whistle blower platform. Show notes

A major vulnerability has been found in the ancient TACACS+ networking protocol, Australia's Prime Minister claims an OpenAI agent hacked the country's Medicare website, OpenAI gives Ukraine access to its Daybreak cyber-defense program and the UK will establish an anti-disinformation center. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Major vulnerability found in ancient TACACS+ networking protocol

Tom Uren and Patrick Gray talk about US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ruling out liability exemptions for AI companies. Its a good move. Leaving the companies on the hook keeps the pressure on them to do better with their cyber security and testing controls. They also discuss a Russian AI-powered cyberespionage campaign run by a group known as Midnight Blizzard. It used AI workflows to run the entire campaign so they got a lot more hacking done and accepted AI mistakes. This makes sense given that they want more intelligence from Ukrainian targets and don't care at all about getting caught. This episode is also available on YouTube. Show notes

A network of 10,000 AI servers is masking malicious Chinese AI activity, Ukrainian hackers leak Russia's naval secrets, ShinyHunters hacks the FBI, and the EvilTokens phishing service is disrupted by tech companies. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Team Cymru unmasks shady Chinese proxy network

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about whether there is such a thing as real-time cyber defence. Will agentic AI save us from hacking AI? This episode is also available on YouTube. Show notes Clem Delangue | X

Google's Gemini hacked three companies, hackers claim a breach of Russia's election commission, OpenAI was behind RubyGems' May incident, and the Coast Guard and FBI board two ships to investigate cyberattacks. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Gemini hacked three companies too

In this Risky Business sponsored interview, Catalin Cimpanu talks with Justin Kohler, Chief Product Officer at SpecterOps. Justin explains how Entra Agent ID can introduce new identity relationships and potential attack paths. Show notes Justin Kohler on LinkedIn SpecterOps, Introduction to BloodHound

Anthropic agents went hacking again, South Korea increases its data breach fines, Apple notifies three Turkish ministers of mercenary spyware attacks, and CISA is ready to hire 250 staff. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Anthropic agents went hacking again

Tom Uren and James Wilson talk about how Chinese intelligence services will take advantage of a massive breach of 150 million American drivers licences. They also discuss the steps the US military is taking to counter adtech device tracking. It's too slow and not enough. Finally, they talk about how often cryptocurrency hackers claim to be white hat hackers. Its ludicrous, but suprisingly often it is a successful strategy. This episode is also available on YouTube Show notes

Ukraine's top prosecutor resigns amid a scam call center scandal, the US accuses Chinese AI companies of industrial-scale distillation, a cyberattack hits medical practices in Luxembourg, and the Liquid Network attacker returns some stolen Bitcoin, but keeps a $50 million bounty. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Ukraine's top prosecutor resigns amid scam call center scandal

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about whether AI will help cyber defence in critical infrastructure and organisations that are below the cyber poverty line. This episode is also available on YouTube. Show notes Heather Adkins X post Clem X post Secure connectivity principles for operational technology | NCSC

Hackers steal €35 million euros from French notaries, OpenAI agents hacked a German wiki, a new bill will allow the Pentagon to use cyber contractors, and the Five Eyes members tell hacked companies to drop PR spin. Show notes Risky Bulletin: BEC campaign steals €35 million from French notaries

In this Risky Business sponsored interview, James Wilson chats with Authentik Security CEO Fletcher Heisler about how AI is driving a need for privileged access management to adapt. Fletcher explains Authentik's approach: each agent has its own identity, begins with no permissions and is tied to a human. They also discuss transferring ownership when employees leave, mitigating risks of agents creating identities for each other, and whether task-based access could eventually be a better fit than clock-controlled access. Show notes

Russia tells data centers to deploy drone defenses, Dropbox discloses a security breach, a new spyware wave hits Serbia, and CISA scraps six free cybersecurity assessment programs. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Russia tells data centers to deploy drone defenses

Tom Uren and James Wilson talk about China's long-term shift to getting private companies to build botnets for cyberespionage. A disruption effort from the US this week is good news, but China has been using these networks for a surprisingly long time and will rebuild. They also discuss a hack at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). It looks like the Qilin ransomware group might have stolen data from the ATF's CALEA, or lawful intercept system. That's a big deal! Finally, they discuss efforts to fix US water sector security. Sprinkling free tools on the problem will have limited impact. This episode is also available on YouTube Show notes

A BGP hijack delivered malicious Virtualizor updates, the White House launches Project Watershed 250, Indian authorities take down a Telegram doxing bot, and Composer packages deliver iOS badness. Show notes Risky Bulletin: BGP hijack targets Virtualizor to deliver malicious updates

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about how AI is the perfect hacker, but what makes it perfect for states is the opposite of what makes it perfect for criminals. This episode is also available on YouTube. Show notes Bitdefender Labs report on SilkParasite OpenAI on the Hugging Face incident

Dutch intelligence services will get new powers, a security expert has been arrested in Israel for hacking, the BTS hacker gets a 20 year sentence in South Korea, and an AfD politician in Germany has been linked to a Russian cybercrime hosting service. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Dutch intel services to get extensive new powers

In this Risky Business sponsored interview, James Wilson chats with Dropzone AI's founder and CEO Edward Wu to debunk the adage, “an attacker only has to be right once”. Modern intruders need to be successful across multiple steps before actually reaching an organisation's “crown jewels”. The pair chat about where AI helps attackers, why autonomous post-compromise agents aren't quite here yet, and how AI can bolster the capacity of security teams when investigating alerts and reducing response times. Show notes

Two members of TeamPCP arrested in Australia, Qilin hits the US firearms agency, America seizes two more Chinese botnets, CISA says most cyber activity is opportunistic. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Two TeamPCP members arrested in Australia

Tom Uren and James Wilson talk about evidence that Chinese APT groups are using AI in a really sensible way, to beef up their malware arsenal. This will make it harder for threat intel firms to cluster activity for attribution. They also discuss the US disrupting Iranian hackers by revealing that some of them are hacking the country's own firms. That's a new tactic, but making that information public in a Treasury Department sanctions package doesn't really make sense. This episode is also available on YouTube Show notes

Russia begins blocking the DoH and DoT protocols, Russian hacktivists leak Spanish police and military personnel data, China and South Korea detain a vishing gang, and AI malware is not that common. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Russia starts blocking DoH and DoT

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about whether the increasing use of AI will make it harder for forensics teams to determine who is responsible for a hack. This episode is also available on YouTube. Show notes Florian Roth X post Phrack issue 59, Defeating Forensic Analysis on Unix Phrack issue 62, Remote Exec

Expired credit cards can be used for malicious transactions, Iranian hackers shut down a UK power plant, the Lazarus Group hacks South Korea's Presidential Office, and an Android malware strain is infecting smart cars. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Expired cards can be used for new transactions

In this Risky Business sponsored interview, James Wilson chats with Luke Jennings, Push Security's VP of Research, about how stronger authentication is pushing attackers towards the authorisation layer. Device code phishing is on the rise. Luke explains how these attacks can survive passkeys and phishing-resistant MFA and, importantly, how defenders can check if their controls against these attacks actually work. Show notes

The US warns of AI-aided attacks against Siemens PLCs, hackers breach Latvia's road traffic agency, a new hacking tool enrolls an attacker's passkey to your account, and academics find source code overlaps between Geedge devices and China's Great Firewall Show notes Risky Bulletin: Academics find source code overlaps between Geedge and China's Great Firewall

Tom Uren and James Wilson talk about President Donald Trump's memo enlisting the US private sector to tackle cybercriminals. The initiative gets the big idea right: traditional law enforcement approaches have not worked against cybercriminals so the government has turned to disruption operations, but there simply isn't enough government capacity. So it is time to bring in the private sector. They also discuss Ukraine's combined cyber and kinetic strikes against Wildberries, the logistics company that is called the Amazon of Russia. These cyber operations didn't amplify the effects of kinetic strikes, but it is great propaganda to say that they did. This episode is also available on YouTube Show notes

Slovakia finds Russian backdoors on its speed cameras, French police used a public exploit to hack EncroChat, Microsoft delays Exchange updates due to a deluge of AI bugs, and a ransomware-affiliate poses as a data recovery firm. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Slovakia finds Russian backdoor in traffic speed cameras

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq discuss The Offense Death Cycle, a paper looking at how to take advantage of a defender's ability to control a network to discover intruders. This episode is also available on YouTube. Show notes The Offense Death Cycle: Proactive Environmental Control as a Method of Persistent Cyber Defense Between Two Nerds: Exploits are not cyber power

The EU publishes its upcoming cybersecurity standards, hackers breach France's tax agency, threat actors exploit a GeoServer zero-day hours after disclosure, and an exploit unlocks old AMD CPUs with one instruction. Show notes Risky Bulletin: The EU publishes its upcoming cybersecurity standards

In this Risky Business sponsored interview, Casey Ellis chats with Socket founder Feross Aboukhadijeh about npm 12's move to disable install scripts by default. Attackers are already shifting payloads into package source code, and Feross explains why teams need to understand what third-party code actually does before allowing it into their environments. Show notes

The White House will let private companies carry out offensive cyber ops, an AI hacking campaign breached Taiwan's government, a macOS bug was exploited over the internet to drop cryptominers, and Kenya orders internet cafes to store logs. Show notes Risky Bulletin: White House lets private companies carry out offensive cyber ops

Tom Uren and James Wilson talk about the cybercrime ecosystem shifting towards data theft extortion, stealing sensitive data and extracting ransoms from victims by threatening to leak it. For organisations whose reputation is very important to them, data leaks are a bigger threat than having their files locked up. They also discuss how the rise of AI makes it worth reinvigorating CISA's Secure by Design initiative. Show notes

Russian state hackers adopt fake job interview tactics, a Portuguese man will face trial for developing a malicious AI chatbot, an AI assistant hacks an Australian gym, and OpenAI releases cyber models for blue teams. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Russian hackers adopt the fake job interview tactics

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about examples of cyber resistance and whether they achieve their goals. This epsiode is also available on YouTube. Show notes The Record on the Belarus Cyber Partisans BTN6, How Ukraine could use its IT army

Two American law firms pay multi-million dollar ransoms, a Metabase zero-day is being used in data theft attacks, Russian hackers disrupted a second power plant in Poland, and there's a remote code execution bug in WordPress… again! Show notes Risky Bulletin: Pwnie Awards 2026 winners

In this Risky Business sponsored interview, Catalin Cimpanu talks with Michael Leland, Field CTO at Island, about the company's seamless expansion into SASE and enterprise AI. Show notes About Michael Leland

A Meta AI model also escaped a testing sandbox, a cyberattack disrupts ports in North Carolina, the Philippines will establish a cybersecurity agency, and a Ransom Cartel admin gets 16 years in prison. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Meta's AI joins Anthropic and OpenAI in the hacky-hacky

Tom Uren and James Wilson talk about North Korea losing control over some of its hacker workforce. Expect some tightening of controls and oversight, and perhaps even a reduction in the country's ransomware operations. They also discuss escalating attacks on American water infrastructure. Although the impact of these attacks is relatively minor so far, the US government has been slow to respond from a political perspective. This episode is also available on YouTube Show notes

A hacker breached Hungary's State Treasury, Russia will mandate 40 apps on all smartphones next year, hackers steal Liechtenstein's business database, and an AI agent got real CVEs for hallucinated vulnerability reports. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Hacker breaches Hungary's State Treasury

In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about whether hacker culture is inherently anti-authoritarian and how different states get their country's hackers to work for the state. This episode is also available on YouTube. Show notes Daily NK, North Korean elite hacking ring busted North Korean smartphone hacking

Anthropic models also did the hacky-hacks, Coldcard was hacked for $70 million in Bitcoin, npm adds publish-time malware scanning, and Russia is behind the recent hotel WiFi hacks. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Russia is behind the recent hotel WiFi hacks

In this sponsored interview James Wilson chats with Permiso CTO Ian Ahl about detecting ShinyHunters-style attackers as they move through cloud and SaaS environments. Ian explains how ordinary-looking events such as a password reset, a new MFA device, unusual searches and a first-time AWS role assumption can combine to reveal an intrusion. Permiso's platform connects these signals across identity providers, cloud platforms and SaaS applications. They also discuss how AI is helping attackers move from initial access to extortion in just four hours. Show notes

A non-profit puts a $22,000 bounty on the INC ransomware group, hackers breach the UK Department for Education, Russia charges Telegram founder Pavel Durov, and the FCC bans foreign robots and power inverters. Show notes Risky Bulletin: Non-profit offers $22,000 bounty for INC ransomware group

Tom Uren and James Wilson talk about open-weight AI models and distillation. These topics have been subject to a lot of US government attention in recent weeks, but let's not forget that America's overriding goal is to remain ahead of China in the AI race. There are better ways to do that than overindexing on distillation. They also discuss Iranian attacks on US critical infrastructure. Given that the war in Iran is unpopular, incidents that make headlines without causing serious impact are perfectly calibrated. This episode is also available on YouTube Show notes

A cyberattack has disrupted water utilities in more than 30 communities in Minnesota, Denmark tests a secondary banking system in case of a cyberattack, North Korea arrests bank hackers, and a new Chinese cyber contractor has been identified. Show notes Risky Bulletin: New Chinese cyber contractor identified