Hacked

Yes I know, I know it's a TLD. Don't worry, we get to it. In September 1990, a Soviet physicist named Alexey Soldatov registered a domain name for a country that would cease to exist fifteen months later. What happened to .su in the 35 years since is a story about cybercrime, Soviet nostalgia, internet governance, and one man who built Russia's internet — and went to prison rather than hand it ove...

Heads up if there's more cat meows and talking over each other than we normally let fly, this is a summer episode with less editing than you've ever heard! We kick this one off with a story of a fraud ran from a telegram channel and a scheme to use something very mundane to steal millions; refunds. We discuss REKK and the rise of refunding, human-oid objects, Mythos, and several other strange tech...

Or the very good bet, depending on how you think about it. In this episode, we start by discussing the strange, fast-moving world of prediction markets — platforms where you can bet real money on whether a head of state gets removed from power, whether a country gets invaded, whether the Fed raises rates — and where the prices themselves are supposed to be the point, a real-time probability signal...

Investigative journalist Geoff White has spent a lot of time inside the leaked communications of Conti — the Russian ransomware gang that ran like a corporation, hit Ireland's national health service, extorted the Costa Rican government, and pulled in $180 million in a single year. Geoff joins us to break down how Conti operated, the internal moral debate over hitting hospitals, the jewellery heis...

We return to one of the more interesting ransomware as a service stories of the last few years; the story of REvil and it's recently (allegedly) named operator. Also the big mythical thing that happened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Heads up, the guy in the opening story survives — realized in editing it's kind of stressful if you don't know where that's going. In this chat episode we start with a coin toss on which story to start with, which leads us on an adventure into the world of America's favourite private security camera network, Flock, searchable by law enforcement without a warrant. Cool stuff. Learn more about your...

We start this chatty chat looking at the legacy of EternalBlue, an NSA-developed cyberweapon that leaked in 2017 and powered global disasters like WannaCry, to explain a new mobile threat called "Coruna." Just as EternalBlue likely escaped government chain of custody to become a tool for mass digital carnage, Coruna is a sophisticated iPhone exploit framework leveraging 23 vulnerabilities that has...

In this chatty chat episode, we kick things off with a primer on one of the oldest methods of stealing money—made new again in the age of crypto: the $5 wrench attack. It’s a simple tactic, but it has enabled some surprisingly significant damage. We also cover recent incidents, including the DJI robot vacuum hack, and wrap up with an in-depth discussion on AI harnesses. Learn more about your ad ch...

A lot of modern AI models have a kind of security guard layer that sits in front of them. Its job? A binary choice as to whether the prompt heading into the model is safe or not. Kasimir Schulz, a lead security researcher at HiddenLayer, has been researching how to trick these models. Their solution, a technique called "Echogram" involves words with such positive statistical sentiment — such overw...

Two FBI agents. One room. One of them is the most damaging spy in U.S. history. Robert Hanssen told a lot of lies — including a really weird one about booking the Beach Boys for the FBI. That lie didn’t matter all that much, but the others did. For 22 years, Hanssen sold America’s deepest secrets while hunting moles inside the Bureau. With retirement looming, the FBI set a trap: a fake department,...

Pokémon cards became a billion-dollar market—and then a massive fraud target. This episode follows the rise of ultra-rare Pokémon prototypes, the grading systems meant to protect collectors, and the amateur investigator who used codebreaking and printer forensics to expose a modern forgery ring hiding in plain sight. All that plus a nice chatty chat after the break to kick off the year. Learn more...

It’s the 2025 Chatty Chat year in review friends! We’re diving into a big old pile of stories from the past year and speculating on what’s to come in 2026. If you’re wondering where this sits on the "in-depth interview vs. casual chatting" spectrum, just know we spend a considerable amount of time talking about how rad the Switch 2 is. This is not a deep dive, just a good time. Learn more about yo...

A deep dive into Lighthouse, a phishing-as-a-service platform linked to millions of scam texts worldwide, and the sprawling “smishing triad” ecosystem built around it. With security researcher Ford Merrill, we unpack how modern scam operations work at industrial scale — from fake e-commerce sites and mass SMS campaigns to the wallet-provisioning techniques that let criminals turn stolen credit car...

For the last few years, Grindr has branded itself as the global gayborhood—a digital safe space for queer communities. But a series of European investigations raised serious questions about how the app handled user data. In this episode, we talk with Chaya Hanoomanjee of the law firm Austin Hayes, who is leading a major UK claim alleging that Grindr shared sensitive user information, including in...

It’s a chatty chat. I repeat, this one's a chatty chat. Today we’re digging into the big weird questions on our desk: what percentage of Meta’s revenue allegedly comes from knowingly running scam ads, what exactly recently pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao did and why he walked free, and what happens when AWS—the concrete pad foundation of the modern internet—goes down. If long-form nerd tal...

Hh hey maybe don't buy that $14 projector off amazon. In this episode, we dive into the sequel nobody asked for: BADBOX 2.0 — the return of last year’s botnet built out of bargain-bin Android gadgets. Google just filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that millions of sketchy streaming boxes, projectors, and mystery electronics were shipped pre-infected from factories overseas. The moment someo...

The story of a massive swatting hoax campaign across the US that helped take down a piece of cybercrime infrastructure in the heart of New York. That and a big rambling chatty chat about Tilly Norwood, AI bubbles, and somehow, very briefly, Goku. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The question: can one host of a podcast that was planning to do a chatty chat episode proceed at the last minute while the other host is unfortunately out sick? Wish our dear pal Scott a speedy recovery and wish ya boy luck as he threads this needle. We discuss — I discuss? — the heist of Mexico’s financial system, the European airport hack, and a slew of other tech tales.  As I say in the ep — if...

The story of a hoax within a hoax within a hoax within an AI soft rock band. That and a bunch of other stories about technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reboundergame.com ( if you wanna wishlist our work in progress game on Steam

We discuss the rise of China’s early patriotic hacking scene, and a new report that unravels how some of its most skilled members eventually found their way into more formal, state-aligned cyber operations. This episode is brought to you by Push Security. Check them out at Pushsecurity.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We unpack how a Swedish entrepreneur used Pablo Escobar’s name to sell fake phones, flamethrowers, and crypto — and how a viral scam built on influencer hype finally came crashing down. That and other stories. Hacked is brought to you by Push Security, check them out at PushSecurity.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We start with the AI hiring chatbot used by McDonald’s, and the vulnerability hiding beneath the conversation. What looked like some janky job application exchanges led two security researchers, Ian Carroll and Sam Curry, to uncover a serious flaw. That and a bunch of Grok madness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just for fun: an actual no script, no plan, hot mic blather-athon. If you crave a nice structured story with lots of research, give the ep we dropped a few days ago about the Texas Lottery Courier App scandal a listen. This is to wash some dishes to. Links to some stuff we discuss below: CBC On Design First Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh4OLQxXEZ0&t=36s Input free generative AI by Terr...

A London syndicate used a phone app to buy nearly every combination in the Texas Lottery—and walked away with a $95 million jackpot. In this episode, we dig into how that happened, what it reveals about the modern lottery system, and a handful of other stories. Hacked is brought to you by PushSecurity.com. Check them out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices