Stay ConnectedHacking. Hackers. Disinformation campaigns. Encryption. The Cyber. This stuff gets complicated really fast, but Motherboard spends its time embedded in the infosec world so you don’t have to. Host Matthew Gault talks every week to Motherboard reporters about the stories they’re breaking and to the industry’s most famous hackers and researchers about the biggest news in cybersecurity.
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We’ve all heard of high profile hacks, like Stuxnet which basically took out the Iranian nuclear program, or that time when Seth Rogen’s stoner comedy made North Korea really, really pissed off and they hacked Sony.
And the key to all of these hacks is malware, or software specifically and intentionally designed to damage computer systems.
But one thing some people often ask themselves is: what is malware, exactly? Well, ultimately just some lines of code. On this week’s CYBER we have someone who researches it for a living: malware analyst Tarik Salah of Domain Tools.
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Imagine a world where one of our most critical instruments of democracy, voting systems, are connected to the internet where they are potentially vulnerable to hacking.
Well, thanks to the work of Motherboard contributor Kim Zetter, we now know that’s the reality we live in after she broke the story that researchers had found voting systems online, including systems in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida—all well known for being key swing states in presidential elections.
But for years election officials have said our voting systems, used for closely fought Presidential election of 2016 and in 2012 when it was Romney versus Obama, weren’t even on the internet and thus, they said, unhackable.
CYBER recently caught up with Kim to discuss her massive scoop and how Russian troll armies might not be the thing threatening American democracy or scaring the intelligence community tasked with protecting it come 2020.
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For over 25 years, hackers, spies, cops, Silicon Valley bros, technologists and even politicians descend upon Las Vegas, Nevada for what’s become the pre-eminent hacker conference in the entire world: Def Con.
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Two years ago, Marcus Hutchins, better known by his hacker name ‘MalwareTech,’ was at the Las Vegas International Airport awaiting his flight back home to the United Kingdom (UK). He was hungover and coming back from Def Con, the biggest hacker conference in the world.
And that’s when the feds came in and nabbed him.
But earlier that same year the 23-year-old security researcher was hailed as a global hero for stopping the spread of the WannaCry ransomware worm, which disabled companies and even paralyzing computer systems in hospitals in the UK. But instead of accolades from the state, he found himself facing an FBI indictment.
The U.S. government accused Hutchins of creating and conspiring to distribute a banking malware called Kronos in 2014, when he was 19. His arrest enthralled the cybersecurity community and set off a legal fight that finally ended just last week. Hutchins, who was potentially facing years in prison, was free and sentenced to time served.
It has been a two year journey for Hutchins and on this week’s CYBER, Marcy Wheeler, an acclaimed journalist who covers national security, will tell us all about his ordeal and what his case has done to stoke the fears of the FBI within the infosec community.
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Did you know you could make money watching Netflix trailers on your phone? Did you know that people have earned close to $2,000 a month programming hundreds of phones to watch Netflix trailers, video game trailers, celebrity gossip shows, and sports?
But the trick is, no one is really watching.
This is what’s called phone farming. Just imagine rows upon rows of phones, with fans cooling them that simulate the engagement of a real human. On this week’s episode of CYBER, Motherboard’s Joseph Cox dove into this world by making his own mini phone farm, talking to the real farmers who made the cash creating them to give us the inside story on how this bizarre phenomenon actually works.
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The last time Phineas Fisher agreed to an interview with Motherboard, they made us recreate the whole thing with a puppet.
This time around, Phineas Fisher—one of the world’s most wanted hackers—wanted to make a statement on CYBER to deny he’s an agent of the Kremlin.
Phineas Fisher is the hacker’s hacker that nobody knows. In fact, nobody even knows if they are just one person, or several people. All we know is Phineas Fisher has hacked, embarrassed, and exposed some of the world’s most powerful spyware companies that have connections to the FBI, the DEA, and dozens of other law enforcement and spy agencies all around the world.
And Phineas Fisher has completely gotten away with it.
Throughout these exploits, Motherboard'sLorenzo Francheschi-Bicchierai has been one of the few reporters to make contact with the hacker several times. Recently, Phineas Fisher got in touch with him again, but this time to deny a recent allegation that he’s Russian intelligence operation made in Joseph Menn’s new book on hacktivism.
On this week’s CYBER, Lorenzo sits down with host Ben Makuch to take you through the murky history of Phineas Fisher’s hacks, then the infamous hacktivist speaks.
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A Silicon Valley company with a history of CIA funding, a suite of highly sought after intelligence software tools, and a gallivanting billionaire founder with connections to the Trump Administration is set to become one of the biggest IPOs in recent memory.
Yet many outside of the infosec world don’t even know its name or that it even exists—a sharp difference Palantir doesn’t share with other similar-sized startups based out of the Silicon Valley.
But Palantir’s surveillance software, which essentially siphons up monumental amounts of data on the public using state, police, and federal databases can map interpersonal relationships between people and provide that info to the fingertips of police and spies in a matter of seconds.
Among the list of past and current Palantir clients are the NSA, CIA, Department of Homeland Security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement—which directly uses its technology to fuel its controversial raids on undocument workers.
Motherboard reporter Caroline Haskins obtained a copy of one of the company’s top-secret police manuals describing how to use its software. The revelation gave privacy-concerned onlookers a rare insight into just how invasive Palantir technology can be.
On this week’s CYBER, Caroline sits down with host Ben Makuch to map out what Palantir is and how this company influences the very technological landscape of the modern world.
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In the span of six seconds and 20 gunshots and three dead bodies hit the ground of a Nissan dealership in Texas. And somebody was tracking one of their cell phones remotely.
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For years, Google’s internet freedom moonshot Jigsaw has gotten glowing attention for its ambitious projects. But current and former employees, along with leaked documents and internal messages, reveal a grim reality behind the scenes. Motherboard's Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai tells us about his months-long investigation into Jigsaw and its "toxic" workplace culture.
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For decades, experts have known that a simple alphanumeric password isn't enough to secure our identities online, but nothing has changed. In this episode, we’re talking to Wendy Nather, a veteran of the infosec world who knows a thing or two about identity and authentication.
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