Transatlantic Cable Podcast

This week on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast, Ahmed, Dave, and I discuss a number of topics that really run the gamut — from spy ships to the robot apocalypse, Bitcoin, and more.

Kicking things off is a story from Tom Spring on Threatpost about how Microsoft Power App configurations have led to the leak of more than 38 million sensitive records. We also debate why private is not the default option and actually invites user error.

From there, we jump into some cell-phone-battery myth-busting. (For the record, we all get angry at one time or another.)

Then, a Russian spy ship is hovering around the transatlantic cables. Comrades, we are flattered, but you can download the podcast on your favorite platforms, no need to launch a ship — it is 2021, after all.

Following that tongue-in-cheek story, we head to the UK for a look at PayPal and its new embrace of cryptocurrencies.

To close things out, we discuss the new robots Elon Musk and Tesla are pondering.

Direct download: KL_Podcast_216.mp3
Category:technology -- posted at: 8:42am EDT

This week on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast, Ahmed, Dave, and I discuss John Oliver’s recent monologue on ransomware and why it’s a good PSA to share with friends and family.

We then take a look at the world of malicious social media influencers — in this case from the United Kingdom, where an investigative reporter identified an “influencer” who was selling phishing texts through his social networking accounts.

From there, we jump into the world of crypto and a hacker stealing a boat-ton of coins … and then giving most of them back. The individual says it was to help with security. We debate the level of BS in that statement.

Next, it’s back to the United Kingdom, where a commission has said people should not have to give up all of their personal data just to buy a beer at a pub. Ahmed and I had some trouble grasping that issue, so Dave filled us in on this UK peculiarity.

In our next story, T-Mobile investigates an alleged data breach affecting more than 100 million users.

Finally, we discuss a city in Louisiana that is using garbage trucks and Raspberry Pi units to help determine which areas are current dark spots for high-speed Internet connectivity.

Direct download: KL_Podcast_215.mp3
Category:technology -- posted at: 7:40am EDT

Welcome back to the Community Podcasts, a mini-series on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast. Joining me again as our co-host for this series is Anastasiya Kazakova, a Senior Public Affairs Manager who coordinates global cyber diplomacy projects at Kaspersky.

As a reminder, the Community Podcasts is a short series of podcasts featuring frank cyber diplomacy conversations with cyber-heroes who unite people despite everything – growing fragmentation, confrontation, and cyber threats – there are people who build communities and unite people to work together for the common good. Why are they doing this? And are their efforts working?

For our second episode, we are joined by Serge Droz, Member of the FIRST Board and a senior security engineer at Pronton Technologies. FIRST is a global Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, the premier organization and recognized global leader in incident response.

During our extended conversation, we discuss a wide array of topics from the need for collaboration between the public/private sector, what working with governments has been like, what the future holds for FIRST and incident respondent in general, how to make sure that they remain neutral in cyber ‘firefighting’, and more.

Direct download: KL_Podcast_2021-07-28_Mini.mp3
Category:technology -- posted at: 10:47am EDT

This week on the Kaspersky Transatlantic Cable podcast, Ahmed, Dave, and I confirm once more how bad I am at trivia and then also cover a handful of some serious security related stuff.

To kick off the podcast, we discuss Apple’s new photo scanning practice meant to battle child pornography with AI. We stay in the realm of photography to look at Instagram shutting down a like farm.

For our third story, we discuss the dark market for COVID-19 vaccination cards. We have some strong feelings on the topic, so this story gets a bit heated.

Moving along, our fourth story takes a dive into the criminal world for some good ol’ crook-on-crook crime. In this story, a shortchanged affiliate of the Conti ransomware-for-hire syndicate retaliates by leaking the group’s playbook. We then take a break to offer a teaser to the second episode of our Community Conversations podcasts with Serge Droz of FIRST. The full episode will run over the weekend. We close out the podcast throwing some mud at the Internet of Things.

Direct download: KL_Podcast_214.mp3
Category:technology -- posted at: 8:22am EDT

In this week’s episode of the Transatlantic Cable podcast Jeff, Ahmed, and I look at some of the more interesting stories to come out of the cybersecurity space this week.

We start on a sombre note, with a story of a woman who found a video of herself on Pornhub. After getting the content taken down, she began working with a team to create an app that uses AI to help women find content that includes their faces. Following that, we discuss some recent news about Instagram, which is defaulting all teen accounts to private, and an upcoming Android update that privacy advocates should appreciate.

From there, we have two additional stories: the first about an Instagram influencer convicted of money laundering and BEC (business e-mail compromise) scams, and finally, what an art teacher did with a dead cat (yes, really).

Direct download: KL_Podcast_213.mp3
Category:technology -- posted at: 8:04am EDT

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