Darknet Diaries
Episodes
67: The Big House
09 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
John Strand is a penetration tester. He’s paid to break into computer networks and buildings to test their security. In this episode we listen to s...
66: freakyclown
26 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Freakyclown is a physical penetration tester. His job is to break into buildings to test the security of the building. In this episode we hear stories...
65: PSYOP
12 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
PSYOP, or “Psychological Operations”, is something the US military has been doing to foreign audiences for decades. But what exactly is it? And wh...
64: The Athens Shadow Games
28 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Vodafone Greece is the largest telecom provider in Greece. But in 2004 a scandal within the company would pin them to be top of the news cycle in Gree...
63: w0rmer
14 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The hacker named w0rmer was active within AnonOps. These are Anonymous Operations which often organize and wage attacks on websites or people often wi...
62: Cam
31 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Cam’s story is both a cautionary tale and inspirational at the same time. He’s been both an attacker and defender. And not the legal kind of attac...
61: Samy
17 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Samy Kamkar is a hacker. And while he’s done a lot of stuff, he’s best known for creating the Samy Worm. Which spread its way through a popular so...
60: dawgyg
03 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is a story about the hacker named “dawgyg” and how he made over $100,000 in a single day, from hacking.Thanks to our guest dawgyg for telling...
59: The Courthouse
18 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we hear from Gary and Justin. Two seasoned penetration testers who tell us a story about the time when they tried to break into a cour...
58: OxyMonster
04 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
OxyMonster sold drugs on the darknet at Dream Market. Something happened though, and it all came crashing down.SponsorsThis episode was sponsored by D...
57: MS08-067
21 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hear what goes on internally when Microsoft discovers a major vulnerability within Windows.GuestThanks to John Lambert for sharing this story with us....
56: Jordan
07 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is the story of Jordan Harbinger. A bit of a misfit teenager, who was always on the edge of trouble. In this story we hear what happened that lea...
55: NoirNet
25 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A holiday special episode. A private pen tester takes on a job that involves him with another eccentric pen tester, a mischievious smile, and his ques...
54: NotPetya
24 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The story of NotPetya, seems to be the first time, we see what a cyber war looks like. In the summer of 2017 Ukraine suffered a serious and catastroph...
53: Shadow Brokers
10 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The NSA has some pretty advanced, super secret, hacking tools. What if these secret hacking tools were to end up in the wrong person’s hands? Well, ...
52: Magecart
26 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Credit card skimming is growing in popularity. Gas pumps all over are seeing skimmers attached to them. It’s growing in popularity because it’s re...
Ep 51: The Indo-Pak Conflict
12 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Kashmir is a region right in between India, Pakistan, and China. For the last 70 years Pakistan and India have fought over this region of the world, b...
Ep 50: Operation Glowing Symphony
30 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Operation Inherent Resolve was started in 2016 which aimed to combat ISIS. It was a combined joint task force lead by the US military. Operation Inher...
Ep 49: Elliot
15 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we meet Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) from Twitter. Who is this strange masked person? What adventures have they gotten themselves into?...
Ep 48: Operation Socialist
01 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is the story about when a nation state hacks into a company within another nation.SponsorsThis episode was sponsored by IT Pro TV. Get 65 hours o...
Ep 47: Project Raven
17 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is the story about an ex-NSA agent who went to work for a secret hacking group in the UAE.SponsorsThis episode was sponsored by Thinkst Canary. T...
Ep 46: XBox Underground (Part 2)
03 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is the story about the XBox hacking scene and how a group of guys pushed their luck a little too far.This is part 2 of a 2 part series.SponsorsTh...
Ep 45: XBox Underground (Part 1)
20 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is the story about the XBox hacking scene and how a group of guys pushed the hacking a little too far.This is part 1 of a 2 part series.SponsorsT...
Ep 44: Zain
06 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ransomware is ugly. It infects your machine and locks all the the data and to unlock you have to pay a fee. In this episode we dive into some of the p...
Ep 43: PPP
23 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is the story about how I acquired a black badge from DEFCON (pictured above).We also hear the story about who PPP is, and their CTF journey at DE...
Ep 42: Mini-Stories: Vol 2
09 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Three stories in one episode. Listen in on one of Dave Kennedy's penetration tests he conducted where he got caught trying to gain entry into a datace...
Ep 41: Just Visiting
25 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Join JekHyde and Carl on a physical penetration test, a social engineering engagagement, a red team assessment. Their mission is to get into a buildin...
Ep 40: No Parking
11 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Take a ride with a red teamer. A physical penetration tester as he tries to make his away into unauthorized areas, steal sensitive documents, hack int...
Ep 39: 3 Alarm Lamp Scooter
28 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A talk at Defcon challenged people to find a way to destroy a hard drive. A young man was inspired by this challenge and was determined to find a way ...
Ep 38: Dark Caracal
14 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A journalist wrote articles critical of the Kazakhstan government. The government did not like this and attempted to silence her. But they may have do...
Ep 37: LVS
30 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Venetian casino in Las Vegas Nevada was the largest hotel in the world until 2015. The parent company is Las Vegas Sands (LVS) which owns 10 prope...
Ep 36: Jeremy from Marketing
16 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A company hires a penetration tester to pose as a new hire, Jeremy from Marketing, to see how much he can hack into in his first week on the job. It d...
Ep 35: Carbanak
02 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
ATM hacking. Hollywood has been fantasizing about this since the 1980's. But is this a thing now? A security researcher named Barnaby Jack investigate...
Ep 34: For Your Eyes Only
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Nude selfies. This episode is all about nude selfies. What happens if you take one and give it to a vengeful boyfriend. What happens when a hacker kno...
Ep 33: RockYou
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2009 a hacker broke into a website with millions of users and downloaded the entire user database. What that hacker did with the data has changed t...
Ep 32: The Carder
19 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A carding kingpin was tracked by the Secret Service. How did he steal the cards? Where was he stealing them from? How much was he making doing this? A...
Ep 31: Hacker Giraffe
05 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In late November 2018, a hacker found over 50,000 printers were exposed to the Internet in ways they shouldn't have been. He wanted to raise awareness...
Ep 30: Shamoon
22 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2012, Saudi Aramco was hit with the most destructive virus ever. Thousands and thousands of computers were destroyed. Herculean efforts were made t...
Ep 29: Stuxnet
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Stuxnet was the most sophisticated virus ever discovered. It's target was a nuclear enrichment facility in Iran. This virus was successfully able to d...
Ep 28: Unit 8200
15 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Israel has their own version of the NSA called Unit 8200. I was curious what this unit does and tried to take a peek inside. Hear what I found by list...
Ep 27: Chartbreakers
01 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Something is wrong with the Apple Podcasts top charts. As a podcaster, this personally annoyed and intrigued me. I investigate how this is happening a...
Ep 26: IRS
15 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The IRS processes $3 trillion dollars a year. A lot of criminals want to get a piece of that. In 2015 the IRS had a large data breach. Hundreds of tho...
Ep 25: Alberto
01 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Alberto Hill was sent to prison for a long time for hacking. For a crime he said he did not commit. Listen to his story and you be the judge on whethe...
Ep 24: Operation Bayonet
15 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Darknet markets are online black markets. They are highly illegal, and dangerous to run. Hear exactly how dangerous it was for Alphabay and Hansa dark...
Ep 23: Vladimir Levin
01 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When banks started coming online, they almost immediately started being targeted by hackers. Vladimir Levin was one of the first ever known hacker to ...
Ep 22: Mini-Stories: Vol 1
15 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Three stories in one! In this episode we hear about a penetration test from Mubix that he'll never forget, a incident response from Robert M. Lee whic...
Ep 21: Black Duck Eggs
01 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ira Winkler's specialty is assembling elite teams of special forces and intelligence officers to go after companies. Ira shares a story about a time h...
Ep 20: mobman
15 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Chances are, if you were downloading shady programs in the early 2000's, you were infected with malware he wrote called SubSeven. Hacking changed mobm...
Ep 19: Operation Aurora
01 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 2009, around Christmas time, something terrible was lurking in the network at Google. Google is the most popular website on the Internet. It’s so...
Ep 18: Jackpot
01 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A man addicted to gambling finds a bug in a video poker machine that lets him win excessive amounts of money.
Ep 17: Finn
03 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A 14-year-old kid who finds himself bored in class decides to hack someone's twitter account and ends up with more than he bargained for.
Ep 16: Eijah
01 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 2007, a hacker named Eijah got fed up with the way DRM prevented him from being able to play the content he paid for. He decided to fight back agai...
Ep 15: Ill Tills
01 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A major retailer was hacked. Their point of sales machines were riddled with malware. Listen to hear how digital forensics and incident responders han...
Ep 14: #OpJustina
01 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 2013 a hospital was accused of conducting a medical kidnapping against a young girl name Justina. This enraged many people across the country, incl...
Ep 13: Carna Botnet
15 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 2012 the Carna Bot was built and unleashed on the world. But it didn't have any intentions on doing anything malicious. It was built just to help u...
Ep 12: Crypto Wars
01 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1990's the Internet started to take shape. But the US goverment had strict laws regulating what type of cryptography is allowed to be used onli...
Ep 11: Strictly Confidential
15 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when an innovative tech company, that's trying to develop the next big thing, detects a hacker in their network? We hear the story from a...
Ep 10: Misadventures of a Nation State Actor
01 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In today's world of intelligence gathering, governments hack other governments. This episode takes you on a ride with a nation state actor to see exac...
Ep 9: The Rise and Fall of Mt. Gox
15 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Mt. Gox was the largest bitcoin exchange in the world. It suddenly went offline. What happened?
Ep 8: Manfred (Part 2)
01 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Manfred found a way to turn his passion for video games and reverse engineering into a full time business. He exploited video games and sold virtual g...
Ep 7: Manfred (Part 1)
01 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Manfred has had the most epic story of all online video game stories. For the last 20 years, he's been hacking online games.
Ep 6: The Beirut Bank Job
15 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jayson E. Street tells us a story about the time he broke into a bank in Beirut Lebanon.
Ep 5: #ASUSGATE
01 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Security researcher Kyle Lovett bought a new Asus router in 2013. He found it was riddled with security vulnerabilties. He set out on a mission to res...
Ep 4: Panic! at the TalkTalk Board Room
15 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Mobile provider TalkTalk suffered a major breach in 2015. The CEO tried her best to keep angry customers calm and carry on. The UK government and Metr...
Ep 3: DigiNotar, You are the Weakest Link, Good Bye!
01 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The 2011 DigiNotar breach changed the way browsers do security. In this episode, we learn what role a CA plays, how browsers work with CAs, and what h...
Ep 2: The Peculiar Case of the VTech Hacker
15 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
VTech makes toy tablets, laptops, and watches for kids. In 2015, they were breached. The hacker downloaded gigs of children's data. Discover what the ...
Ep 1: The Phreaky World of PBX Hacking
01 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Farhan Arshad and Noor Aziz Uddin were captured 2 years after being placed on the FBI's Cyber's Most Wanted list for PBX hacking. In this episode, we ...