Smashing Security

You've been headhunted for a great job in cryptocurrency. All you have to do is complete a short online assessment - with your webcam on, of course, so they can verify who you really are. Which is ironic, because the person recruiting you doesn't exist. And North Korean hackers using this trick have already made off with $643 million in crypto this year alone.

Meanwhile, researchers at UC San Diego have discovered that 2.2 million cars across the United States can be unlocked or immobilised by anyone with a bit of Bluetooth kit - thanks to one aftermarket car...

A Russian intelligence-linked hacker is arrested in Thailand while enjoying a beach holiday - and the trail of evidence that nailed him to the Russian government includes 14 separate orders of chicken McNuggets.

Meanwhile, AI music generator Suno has been hacked - and the stolen data appears to show exactly how much copyrighted music they hoovered up to train their models.

All this and more in episode 477 of the "Smashing Security" podcast with cybersecurity expert and keynote speaker Graham Cluley, and special guest James Ball.

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An app has appeared in India that lets anyone with a smartphone stop a passing e-rickshaw dead in its tracks - no login, no passwords, no permissions needed. 

Meanwhile, Geoff - swimming in money and Lamborghinis, as all published authors are - has been on the receiving end of a slew of AI-generated scam pitches from fake book marketing experts. Rather than ignore them, he's been playing them at their own game...

All this and more in episode 476 of the "Smashing Security" podcast with cybersecurity expert and keynote speaker Graham Cluley, and special guest Geoff W...

A 15-year-old boy asked a chatbot for help - and cancelled nearly 47,000 anime streaming subscriptions in under four hours. Meanwhile, researchers have documented the first fully autonomous, agentic AI-driven ransomware attack, "JadePuffer". What does this tell us about the future of cybersecurity?

Also, Apple's "Hide My Email" feature turns out to hide rather less than it promises - despite Apple knowing it has a problem for over a year.

All this and more in this episode of the "Smashing Security" podcast with cybersecurity expert and keynote speaker Graham Cluley, and special guest Zoë Rose.

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Polymarket has built an entire business on predicting the future. So how did it manage to spectacularly fail to predict its own hack? Plus, the Google engineer with a million-dollar secret, and the curious case of the airport hairdryer.

Meanwhile, "FortiBleed" sees 75,000 Fortinet firewalls thrown wide open - and the real damage is going to roll on for years.

All this and more in episode 474 of the "Smashing Security" podcast with cybersecurity expert and keynote speaker Graham Cluley, and special guest Quentyn Taylor.

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A polite caller from your bank says there is a problem with your account. Don't worry - they'll send someone round to help. They'll even take your cards away to keep them safe. The scam has run rampant, until Dutch police plastered blurred photos of 100 suspects across billboards, supermarkets, and TikTok, with a two-week ultimatum to turn themselves in... or else.

Meanwhile, a security researcher called Bob DaHacker got her hands on the live broadcast controls for every match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. She could have Rickrolled the entire planet, but actually spent days trying to...

What if your AI coding assistant could be tricked into stealing your own company's secrets - by reading a single booby-trapped bug report? No phishing email. No malware. No password ever stolen. Just an AI doing exactly what it was told.

Meanwhile, someone calling themselves Nightmare Eclipse has decided to teach Microsoft a lesson. The result? Three zero-days dropped on the internet, one of which lets a thief with a USB stick walk straight past BitLocker. Microsoft is furious.

Plus don't miss our featured interview with Son Nguyen Kim of Proton Pass, who explains why p...

Researchers at the University of Toronto have built a worm that thinks for itself. Using free off-the-shelf AI models it works out how to break into each new computer it encounters, and hijacks the powerful ones to host its own AI brain. And then the researchers discovered their creation had quietly removed the list of machines it wasn't supposed to attack.

Meanwhile, Meta's shiny new AI customer support agent has been cheerfully helping hackers help themselves to other people's Instagram accounts. Just keep asking, politely but firmly, to have a password reset sent to a different email a...

A website called "UK visa portal" has been quietly collecting passport scans, selfies, and personal data from thousands of travellers who thought they were applying through official channels. They weren't. And when a journalist tried to warn the company, it was lawyers who responded.

Meanwhile, a paper from Cornell suggests that prompt injection - the technique malicious actors use to trick AI agents into doing things they really shouldn't - may be fundamentally unsolvable. Which is err... awkward, because everyone is rushing to plug AI agents into their email, files, and corporate networks.

Plus don't...

CISA, the US government agency whose entire job is keeping America's critical infrastructure safe from hackers, has had a contractor publish dozens of plain-text credentials to a public GitHub profile.

Meanwhile, your Oura ring is quietly transmitting some of its data unencrypted - and when one journalist asked the company how often it hands user data to law enforcement, the answer was quite telling.

Plus don't miss our featured interview with OPSWAT's Benny Czarny about his new book "Cybersecurity Upside Down."

All this and more in episode 469 of the "Smashing Security" podcast with...

A 23-year-old radio enthusiast spent £300 on a piece of kit from the internet, and used it to bring four packed high-speed trains to a screeching halt. His defence in court? Possibly the most creative excuse we've heard all year.

Meanwhile, owners of $4,000 robot lawnmowers are discovering that their gadget can be hijacked over the internet, redirected at journalists who foolishly lie down in front of it, and used to harvest Wi-Fi passwords, email addresses, and GPS coordinates. Change the default password? Sure - until the next firmware update silently resets it back.

Plus - don't mi...

Welcome to the largest educational data breach in history - affecting nearly 9,000 institutions, every Ivy League university, and 30 million students mid-finals. When Canvas's parent company refused to pay and announced they had deployed "security patches" instead, the hackers were less than impressed. So they came back through the cat flap.

Meanwhile, a famous finance expert's face has been showing up on Facebook adverts promising hot stock tips and exclusive WhatsApp investment groups. Spoiler: it isn't him, the tips aren't real, and you're about to be scammed.

Plus we chat to Mike Nichols of Elastic, about...

Meta's smart glasses promise privacy "designed for you" - but everything they record was being beamed off to workers in Nairobi to label by hand. When those workers blew the whistle, Meta sacked all 1,108 of them.

Meanwhile, the IT press is in a frenzy over a new Linux bug called "Copy Fail" - complete with logo, dedicated website, and a marketing-friendly name. But is it really the disaster everyone's making it out to be?

And in our featured interview, Jake Moore of ESET explains how he tricked a company into offering his deepfake clone a...

A developer at an AI startup wanted to cheat at Roblox. They downloaded a dodgy script on their work laptop. That one decision triggered a cascade of failures that ended with a $2 million data breach affecting hundreds of thousands of organisations. All for some free in-game currency.

Meanwhile, there's a 1980s phone protocol called SS7 that lets shadowy surveillance companies track anyone, anywhere, via their mobile phone. Governments know about it. Telecoms know about it. Nobody's fixing it.

All this and more in episode 465 of the "Smashing Security" podcast with cybersecurity keynote speaker and industry...

A company that ran anonymous tip lines for 35,000 American schools - handling reports of bullying, weapons, and self-harm - boasted on its website that it had suffered zero security breaches in over 20 years. A hacker called Internet Yiff Machine thought that sounded like a challenge, with predictable results...

Meanwhile, Rockstar Games gets hacked again - and the stolen data turns out to be less embarrassing than the financial secrets it accidentally revealed. GTA Online is still making half a billion dollars a year. Red Dead Redemption is not.

All this and more in episode 464 of...

A hacking group claims to have broken into the flood defence system protecting Venice's Piazza San Marco - and is offering to sell access to whoever wants it. The asking price? A frankly insulting $600.

Meanwhile, Anthropic accidentally leaked the source code for Claude Code via a basic packaging mistake. Oh, and by the way, they've also just revealed they've built an AI model called Mythos that can find and chain together software vulnerabilities faster than any human. Sleep well.

All this and more in episode 463 of the “Smashing Security” podcast with cybersecurity expert and keynote spea...

LinkedIn has been secretly scanning your browser for over 6,000 installed extensions — on every single click you make. It can tell if you're job hunting, what religion you are, and whether you have ADHD. And none of this is mentioned anywhere in their privacy policy.

Meanwhile, California's crypto millionaires are learning that no amount of encryption can protect you from someone who knocks on your door pretending to deliver a pizza.

All this and more in episode 462 of the “Smashing Security” podcast with cybersecurity expert and keynote speaker Graham Cluley, joined this week by special guest Dave B...

A cannabis-growing, beekeeping, gyrocopter-flying Irishman invested his drug money in Bitcoin back in 2011 - and now sits on a fortune worth $400 million. There's just one small problem: the access codes were tucked inside his fishing rod case, which has mysteriously vanished. Or has it? Because this week, one of his frozen wallets suddenly woke up and moved $35 million - and someone had to identify themselves to do it.

Meanwhile, Ajax Football Club scores a spectacular cyber own-goal, as a data breach that the club claimed affected "a few hundred" fans turns out to may have exposed the...

A disgruntled data analyst decides that the best response to losing his contract is to steal the entire company payroll database and demand $2.5 million in Bitcoin - signing his extortion emails from a company called "Loot."

Meanwhile, two people drive up to the entrance of the UK's nuclear submarine base at Faslane and politely ask if they can have a look around. Tourists? Spies? Something in between?

Plus: Female Muslim punk rock group, and a little red book that might save your sanity in a post-truth world.

All this and more in episode 460...

In episode 459 of Smashing Security, we dive into a chillingly clever account takeover attempt targeting WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg - involving MFA fatigue, real Apple alerts, a convincing support call, and a phishing page that oh-so-nearly worked. If a famous techie could have this happen to you, can you be sure you're immune?

Plus: would you donate your lifetime medical history to science if you were promised anonymity? We unpack serious concerns around UK Biobank, where “de-identified” data may not be as anonymous as you think — and how surprisingly little information it takes to reveal everything.

And...

A Wikipedia security engineer accidentally wakes a dormant JavaScript worm that hadn't stirred since 2024 - and within minutes, giant woodpecker images are plastered across the internet's favourite encyclopaedia.

Meanwhile, a crypto contractor hired to help the US Marshals manage seized digital assets allegedly decides to help himself to $46 million of it - and then brags about it on a recorded Telegram call.

Plus: Graham champions Asterix, Trisha discovers the fantasy novels of Robin Hobb, and someone called "Lick" ends up in the nick.

All this, and much more, in episode 458 of the "Smashing...

When a top cybersecurity firm discovered it had a leak, you would expect the FBI to be called. Instead, the person put in charge of the investigation was the actual leaker... who promptly sent an innocent colleague into a career-ending ambush.

In this episode, we unravel the jaw-dropping tale of a defence contractor caught selling zero-day exploits to a Russia-linked broker.

Plus: are nation states quietly poisoning AI models to bend reality itself? We explore how “foreign information manipulation interference” could target not just social media users, but the large language models we increasingly trust for...

When the mysterious operator of an internet archiving-service decided to silence a curious Finnish blogger, they didn’t just send a stroppy email - they allegedly weaponised their own CAPTCHA page to launch a DDoS attack, threatened to invent an entirely new genre of AI porn, and tampered with parts of their own archive to smear the blogger's name.

In this episode, we unravel how a website designed to preserve history may have trashed its own credibility - and how Wikipedia responded when trust went out the window.

Plus a ransomware gang shoots itself in th...

Could America turn off Europe's internet?

That’s one of the questions that Graham and special guest James Ball will be exploring as they discuss tech sovereignty. Could Gmail, cloud services, and critical infrastructure really become geopolitical leverage? And is anyone actually building a Plan B?

Plus we explore if Meta is quietly plotting to turn its smart glasses into face-recognising surveillance specs? With reports of internal memos suggesting they plan to launch controversial features while everyone’s distracted by political chaos, we ask: is this innovation really wanted by the public... or something far creep...

AI bots are having existential crises, inventing religions, and allegedly plotting against humanity... or so the internet would have you believe.

We dig into Moltbook, the “AI-only” social network that sent Twitter into a meltdown, attracted breathless talk of the singularity, and turned out to be far less Terminator and far more humans role-playing as bots.

Plus we discuss why "vibe coding" your app might be a catastrophically bad idea, when security researchers can easily peek inside rifle through your private messages, API keys, and databases.

Also this week we learn that pro-Russian hack...

Supposedly redacted Jeffrey Epstein files can still reveal exactly who they’re talking about - especially when AI, LinkedIn, and a few biographical breadcrumbs do the heavy lifting.

Sloppy redaction leads to explosive claims, and difficult reputational consequences for cybersecurity vendors, and we learn how trust - once cracked - can be almost impossible to fully restore.

Elsewhere, the spotlight turns to insider threat in the age of AI, after a senior US cybersecurity official uploads sensitive government material into the public version of ChatGPT. Oops.

All this, and much more, in episode 453 of...

In episode 452, a London-based YouTuber wins a landmark court case against Saudi Arabia after his phone was hacked with Pegasus spyware — exposing how a single, seemingly harmless text message can turn a smartphone into a round-the-clock surveillance device.

Plus, we go looking for professional hitmen online - only to uncover uncomfortable questions about why some crimes attract customers but very few complaints.

All this and more is discussed in the latest edition of the "Smashing Security" podcast by cybersecurity veteran Graham Cluley, joined this week by special guest Joe Tidy.

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In episode 451 of "Smashing Security," we meet the cybercriminal who hacked the US Supreme Court, Veterans Affairs, and more - and then helpfully posted screenshots (and even someone’s blood type) on an account called "I hacked the government."

Plus we discuss how researchers uncovered a creepy flaw that lets attackers hijack wireless headphones, listen in on calls, inject audio, and even turn your earbuds into a stalking device - all without you noticing.

All this, and much more, in this episode of the "Smashing Security" podcast with Graham Cluley, and special guest Ray [REDACTED]

Confusion reigns after claims that data linked to 17.5 million Instagram accounts is up for sale - sparked by a vague post, contradictory statements, and a flood of password reset emails nobody asked for.

And we dig into Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, after it started generating sexualised images of women and children - raising uncomfortable questions about guardrails, accountability, and why playing the censorship card doesn’t make the problem go away.

All this, and much more, in this episode of the "Smashing Security" podcast with Graham Cluley, and special guest Monica Verma.

Romance scammers have apparently discovered astrology... and Taurus is their secret weapon.

In episode 449 of "Smashing Security", we take a look inside an actual romance-fraud handbook - complete with scripts, personality “types”, corporate jargon, and a seven-day plan to get victims from hello to hand over the crypto.

Then Lesley "hacks4pancakes" Carhart delivers a reality check on the dire cybersecurity jobs market for juniors: why entry-level roles are evaporating, how automated CV screening is chewing candidates up, and what hopeful newcomers (and weary veterans) can do about it.

Plus, Graham talks to Thre...

Think your Kindle is harmless? Think again! In this episode, Graham and special guest Danny Palmer unpack a Black Hat Europe talk revealing how a boobytrapped audiobook could exploit the Amazon eBook reader - potentially letting an attacker break into your account and seize control of your credit card.

Plus a blast from 2021's "summer of ransomware" returns to haunt Ireland's Health Service Executive, as victims are offered €750 each.

And because it's the last show before the Christmas break, there's also a Pick of the Week that veers from cosy rom-com comfort to pointy-polygon nostalgia. 

On this week's show we learn that AI really can be a stalker’s best friend, as we explore a strange tale that starts with a manatee-shaped mailbox on a millionaire's lawn and ends with Grok happily doxxing real people, mapping out stalking "strategies," and handing out revenge-porn tips.

Then we go inside the Louvre heist, where thieves in hi-vis and a hire van waltzed off with the French crown jewels in broad daylight, exploiting our assumptions about what "looks normal" - the same kind of bias we’re now baking into security AIs.

Plus, Grah...

A teenage cybercriminal posts a smug screenshot to mock a sextortion scammer... and accidentally hands over the keys to his real-world identity. Meanwhile, we look into the crystal ball for 2026 and consider how stolen data is now the jet fuel of cybercrime – and how next year could be even nastier than 2025.

Plus, Graham rants about recipe sites that won’t shut up, and there's even more love for Lily Allen's album "West End Girl" album.

All this and more is discussed in episode 446 of the "Smashing Security" podcast with cybersecurity veteran Graham Cluley, and special gues...

America's airwaves are haunted by zombies again, as we dig into a decade of broadcasters leaving their hardware open to attack, giving hackers the chance to hijack TV shows, blast out fake emergency alerts, and even replace religious sermons with explicit furry podcasts.

Meanwhile, we look at how a worker at a cybersecurity firm allegedly leaked internal information to a hacking gang - raising big questions about insider threats.

Plus: Frankenstein on Netflix, Vine nostalgia, and why Barney the Dinosaur may be the true criminal mastermind behind it all.

All this and more...

Stop the press - a company has actually said "sorry" after a data breach, and hotels are helping hackers phish their own guests.

In episode 444 of "Smashing Security" we examine a refreshingly honest breach response (and why legacy systems are still going to ruin your week), dig into a nasty hotel-booking malware campaign that abuses trust in apps and CAPTCHAs, and chat about autonomous pen testing, AI-turbocharged cybercrime, and what CISOs should really be asking on Monday morning.

And lost Doctor Who is brought back to life by one very dedicated animator, and we take...

Tinder has got a plan to rummage through your camera roll, and Warren Buffett keeps popping up in convincing deepfakes dishing "number one investment tips."

Meanwhile, will agentic AI replace your co-hosts before you can say "EDR for robots"? and why you should still read books.

All this, plus Lily Allen's new album and Claude Code come up for discussion in episode 443 of the "Smashing Security" podcast, with special guest Ron Eddings.

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Time itself comes under attack as a state-backed hacking gang spends two years tunnelling toward a nation’s master clock — with chaos potentially only a tick away.

Plus when ransomware negotiators turn to the dark side, what could possibly go wrong?

All this and more is discussed in episode 442 of the "Smashing Security" podcast with cybersecurity veteran Graham Cluley, and special guest Dave Bittner.

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Basketball stars have allegedly joined forces with the mafia to fleece high-rollers in a poker scam involving hacked shufflers, covert cameras, and an X-ray card table.

Meanwhile, researchers have found they could poke around an FIA driver portal to pull up the personal details of Formula 1 megastars.

Plus: Graham’s “Pick of the Week” turns CAPTCHA hell into a delightfully deranged browser game that will make you question vegetables, geometry, and your life choices, while Danny takes a trip to ancient Africa...

All this and more is discussed in episode 441 of "Smashing Security" podcas...

A literal insider threat: we head to a Romanian prison where “self-service” web kiosks allowed inmates to run wild. Then we head to the checkout aisle to ask why JavaScript on payment pages went feral, and how new PCI DSS rules are finally muzzling Magecart-style skimmers.

Plus: Graham reveals his new-found superpower with Keyboard Maestro, and Scott describes a slick new way to whip up beautiful how-to videos with Screen Studio.

All this and more is discussed in episode 440 of "Smashing Security" podcast with cybersecurity veteran Graham Cluley, and special guest Scott Helme.

EPIS...

A critical infrastructure hack hits the headlines - involving default passwords, boasts on Telegram, and a finale that will make a few cyber-crooks wish the ground would swallow them whole. 

Meanwhile we dig into the bit we don't talk about enough: the human cost of defending companies from hackers - stress, burnout, and how better leadership culture can help make security teams safer and saner.

Plus we say a heartfelt "la di dah" to Diane Keaton, and tune in to a freshly re-released slice of pre-Fleetwood Mac history for the music-obsessed amongst us. 

Al...