Three Buddy Problem

Latest Episodes:

Live at LABScon: Aurora Johnson and Trevor Hilligoss on China's 'internet toilets' Sep 24, 2025

Show notes

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 64: SpyCloud Labs researchers Aurora Johnson and Trevor Hilligoss discuss the world of “internet toilets," the toxic online communities in China where harassment, stalking, and sextortion thrive. We explore how these groups operate, from doxing ex-lovers and enemies to running coordinated campaigns of cyberbullying that often spill into real-world harm. (Recorded at LABScon 2025).

Cast: Aurora Johnson, Trevor Hilligoss, Ryan Naraine and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade.

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Live at LABScon: Visi Stark shares memories of creating the APT1 report Sep 24, 2025

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Three Buddy Problem - Episode 63: Co-founder of the Vertex Project Visi Stark joins the buddies to reminisce about his work writing Mandiant's famous APT1 report, the China-nexus threat landscape, the value of cyber threat intelligence, APT-naming schemes, and more... (Recorded at LABScon 2025)

Cast: Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Ryan Naraine and Visi Stark.

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Live at LABScon: Lindsay Freeman on tracking Wagner Group war crimes Sep 24, 2025

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Three Buddy Problem - Episode 62: Lindsay Freeman, Director of the Technology, Law & Policy program at the Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law, joins the show to discuss her team's meticulous work to document the Wagner Group's chain of command, military operations in parts of Africa, and the broadcasting of war crimes on social media platforms like Telegram. (Recorded at LABScon 2025)

Cast: Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Ryan Naraine and Lindsay Freeman.

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Can Apple's New Anti-Exploit Tech Stop iPhone Spyware Attacks? Sep 09, 2025

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Three Buddy Problem - Episode 61: We cover a pair of software supply chain breaches (Salesforce Salesloft Drift and NPM/GitHub) that raises big questions about SaaS integrations and the ripple effects across major security vendors.

Plus, Apple’s new Memory Integrity Enforcement in iPhone 17 and discussion on commercial spyware infections and the value of Apple notifications; concerns around Chinese hardware and surveillance equipment in US infrastructure; Silicon Valley profiting from China’s surveillance ecosystem; and controversy around a Huntress disclosure of an attacker’s operations after an EDR agent was mistakenly installed.

Cast: Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Ryan Naraine and Costin Raiu.

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Salt Typhoon IOCs, Google floats ‘cyber disruption unit’, WhatsApp 0-click Aug 29, 2025

Show notes

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 60: We dissect a fresh multi-agency Salt Typhoon advisory (with IOCs and YARA rules!), why it landed late, why the wall of logos matters (and doesn’t), and what’s actually usable for defenders: new YARA, tool hashes, naming ambiguity across reports, the mention of Chinese vendors, and a Dutch note that smaller ISPs were hit.

Plus, Costin details his hunting stack and philosophy (historic IOC/malware hoarding, fast pivots, and AI as analyst “wingman”) and a new Chinese APT report that may intersect with LightBasin and the murky PSOA world.

We also debate Google’s proposed “cyber disruption unit” versus Microsoft’s DCU (legal vs. “ethical” takedowns, PR, and business models); react to Anthropic’s report on real attacker use of Claude; note Amazon’s APT29 watering-hole disruption; and close on a fresh WhatsApp-to-ImageIO zero-click chain and practical phone OPSEC.

Cast: Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Ryan Naraine and Costin Raiu.

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Zero-day reality check: iOS exploits, MAPP in China and the hack-back temptation Aug 22, 2025

Show notes

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 59: Apple drops another emergency iOS patch and we unpack what that “may have been exploited” language really means: zero-click chains, why notifications help but forensics don’t, and the uncomfortable truth that Lockdown Mode is increasingly the default for high-risk users. We connect the dots from ImageIO bugs to geopolitics, discuss who’s likely using these exploits, why Apple’s guidance stops short, and the practical playbook (ADP on, reboot often, reduce attack surface) that actually works.

Plus, we debate Microsoft throttling MAPP access for Chinese vendors, the idea of “letters of marque” for cyber (outsourced offense: smart deterrent or Pandora’s box?), and dissect two case studies that blur APT and crimeware: PipeMagic’s CLFS zero-day and Russia-linked “Static Tundra” riding seven-year-old Cisco bugs.

Cast: Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Ryan Naraine and Costin Raiu.

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On AI’s future, security’s failures, and what comes next... Aug 15, 2025

Show notes

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 58: The buddies react to the Brandon Dixon episode, digging into what it’s really like to scale products inside a tech giant, navigate politics, and bring features to millions of machines. Plus, an exploration of the AI cybersecurity gold rush, the promise and hype, and the gamble for startups versus the slow-moving advantage of incumbents.

We revisit the Chinese "cyber militia" discussion and the looming AI “dot-com bubble,” the value of owning infrastructure, Nvidia and export controls, China’s manufacturing edge, and the geopolitics of supply chains.

Cast: Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Ryan Naraine and Costin Raiu.

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Live from Black Hat: Brandon Dixon parses the AI security hype Aug 07, 2025

Show notes

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 57: Brandon Dixon (PassiveTotal/RiskIQ, Microsoft) leads a deep-dive into the collision of AI and cybersecurity. We tackle Google’s “Big Sleep” project, XBOW’s HackerOne automation hype, the long-running tension between big tech ownership of critical security tools and the community’s need for open access.

Plus, the future of SOC automation to AI-assisted pen testing, how agentic AI could transform the cyber talent bottlenecks and operational inefficiencies, geopolitical debates over backdoors in GPUs and the strategic implications of China’s AI model development.

Cast: Brandon Dixon, Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, and Ryan Naraine.

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Rethinking APT Attribution: Dakota Cary on Chinese Contractors and Espionage-as-a-Service Aug 01, 2025

Show notes

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 56: China-focused researcher Dakota Cary joins the buddies to dig into China’s sprawling cyber ecosystem, from the HAFNIUM indictments and MSS tasking pipelines to the murky world of APT contractors and the ransomware hustle. We break down China’s “entrepreneurial” model of intelligence collection, why public visibility into these threat actors is so hard to get right, and how companies like Microsoft get caught in the geopolitical crossfire.

Plus: a deep dive on suspected MAPP leaks and Sharepoint zero-days, Singapore targeted by extremely sophisticated China-nexus hacking group, soft censorship in corporate threat-intel, and whether the U.S. should rethink how it fills its intelligence gaps.

Cast: Dakota Cary, Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Ryan Naraine and Costin Raiu.

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Transcript (unedited, AI-generated)
Dakota Cary on LinkedIn
China’s Covert Capabilities -- Silk Spun From Hafnium
HAFNIUM-Linked Hacker Xu Zewei: Riding the Tides of China’s Cyber Ecosystem
Microsoft Probing Whether Chinese Hackers Found Flaw Via MAPP
Cybersecurity Law of the People’s Republic of China
Frozen in transit: Secret Blizzard’s AiTM campaign against diplomats
Fire Ant: Hypervisor-Level Espionage Targeting VMware ESXi & vCenter
Singapore actively dealing with ongoing China cyberattack
Iranians Targeted With Spyware in Lead-Up to War With Israel — all inside Iran and working either in the country’s technology sector or for the government.
LABScon 2025
Apple in China (book)

Microsoft Sharepoint security crisis: Faulty patches, Toolshell zero-days Jul 25, 2025

Show notes

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 55: A SharePoint zero-day exploit chain from Pwn2Own Berlin becomes a full-blown security crisis with Chinese nation-state actors exploiting vulnerabilities that Microsoft struggled to patch properly, leading to trivial bypasses and a cascade of new CVEs. The timeline is messy, the patches are faulty, and ransomware groups are lining up to join the party.

We also revisit the ProPublica bombshell about Microsoft's "digital escorts" and U.S. government data exposure to Chinese adversaries and the company's "oops, we will stop" response. Plus, trusting Google's Big Sleep AI claims and a cautionary tale about AI agents gone rogue that wiped out a production database.

Cast: Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Ryan Naraine and Costin Raiu.

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