EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,114 words- 0:00 – 7:52
What Is Scattered Spider?
- CWChris Williamson
What's happening with Scattered Spider?
- JTJoe Tidy
(inhales deeply) Well, Scattered Spider is the name of this very loosely coordinated collective of hackers that are, we think, currently causing havoc around the UK and the US as well. So, I don't know if you've heard about the news of the M&S cyberattack and the Co-op cyberattack. So, um, there's a really big ... If you're not in the UK, there's a really big, uh, chain of, of supermarkets called M&S, very much loved, over a hundred years old, one of the pillars of the High Street. And around Easter time, there was a cyberattack which started causing problems for M&S, and it just got worse and worse and worse for them. Because a-ori-... Initially they said, "Actually, we, we can't take orders on the internet," which, for a massive company like M&S is really bad. Then we started seeing logistics problems, empty shelves in some stores, and then around the same time, there was a very similar attack on the Co-op, again, another big supermarket chain in the UK. They also do funeral services and insurance as well. Um, that attack wasn't as bad, but again, we're seeing disruption at stores, empty shelvess, real chaos behind the scenes. And around the same time, we saw an attack on Harrods, obviously the, uh, the luxury retailer in London. Um, so everyone's wondering what on earth is going on. And things have got progressively worse, and then we hear the last couple of days, there are attacks on US retailers as well. And everyone is pointing towards this really infamous group called Scattered Spider. And they're not a normal cybercrime gang. They haven't named themselves that. They are, uh, you know, not very organized. They come together on Discord and Telegram. A little bit like... Have you heard of Anonymous?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah. So, they're a little bit like that, but more out for cybercrime and money and infamy than sort of hactivism. So, uh, one company called CrowdStrike started looking at this activity coming from this sort of corner of the, the cybercrime ecosystem, and they said, "Who are these people? Th- they're doing the same kind of tricks to get into, into places." So they nicknamed them Scattered Spider. Spider's the name that CrowdStrike gives cybercrime groups, and Scattered is, is what they, um, the term they give for, you know, because they're loose and they're all over the place.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
And actually, I'm looking right now at the CrowdStrike Scattered Spider figurine. Um, it's very controversial actually that they've done this, but here you go. So this is the... So they sell these on their merch website, and like I say, quite controversial actually because it kind of glamorizes these, these guys, and there are some people who would, who would say, "We shouldn't really glamorize cyber criminals." Because, um, the, the type of individuals that we think Scattered Spider are, very young, probably teenagers, in the US and UK, they will love the attention of having their own figurine.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think that social media platforms like Twitter have sort of changed what hackers' motivations are from just exploration or exploitation to now fame, clout-chasing, stuff like that?
- JTJoe Tidy
Absolutely, yeah. Whe- when I wrote this book, my publisher... On, on the first draft, my publisher said, "Yeah, that's all great, but can you answer some questions as to how this has happened and why this has happened?" And they really kind of challenged me. And I work for the BBC, so normally, you know, we've gotta be very careful about giving opinions and, and putting our necks on the line in terms of theories about things. But it was quite good, 'cause I landed on this... There, there are two kind of factors which I think have turned teenage hackers from largely benevolent groups of people that are out to... You know, they're out to, to make a name for themselves, but they're also out to make the internet a safer place, to where we are now, where we've got cybercrime gangs, teenage gangs that are causing mayhem and trying to make money. And I think Twitter is a very v-... That you could kind of see at that point when Twitter becomes mainstream, this shift's starting to take place. 'Cause of course before Twitter, social networks were about being social with your network, whereas Twitter th- sort of invented the idea of followers and retweets and likes and, you know, clout online. And that's when we started seeing, in 2011 when Twitter was really on the ascendancy, we saw LulzSec, the first of this conveyor belt of teenage cybercrime gangs.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. There's no one flexing their recent, uh, ransomware exploitation on their personal Facebook account.
- JTJoe Tidy
(laughs) No.
- CWChris Williamson
That's not gonna be an impression of
- NANarrator
That wouldn't-
- CWChris Williamson
That wouldn't work. But on, on Twitter-
- JTJoe Tidy
... I'm pretty sure
- CWChris Williamson
... that would be great.
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah, absolutely. And, and we know from interviews with arrested hackers and convicted hackers, they loved it. They loved the attention back then. And I think where we are now is slightly different, because I think what we're seeing is they have come off Twitter or X, whatever they're calling it, um, and now it's more in the kind of insular communities. But they're still, they're still after that online clout and that, that infamy, it's just they're in their own channels in Telegram and Discord.
- CWChris Williamson
I was gonna say, where do these people live?
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah. Telegram and Discord. (laughs) Yeah. So if we're talking about Scattered Spider, which very much form the last part of my book, 'cause I talk about the kind of, this gradual shift to where we are now. But Scattered Spider, they're part of this larger collective known as the Comm, the community, which is a group of thousands of online delinquents really-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
... largely boys, obviously it always is, and they're causing mayhem, and in some cases, doing some really nasty stuff like sextortion. Do you know what sextortion is?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- JTJoe Tidy
So, sextortion is this horrible sort of criminal harassment campaign where you trick someone into sending you nudes. So I would- I might befriend someone on the internet and, and strike up a relationship, a romantic relationship, send them some nudes that they think are of me, but-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JTJoe Tidy
I'm, I'm a criminal, I- I'm a, I'm a man, not, not, not the, the young girl they think I was, convince them into sending me nudes, and then you start extorting them, saying, "If you don't pay me-"... that I'm gonna release all these pictures. So we see that kind of activity in the com, and we see some really nasty stuff, some other stuff like, um, there's some, uh, it's really nasty, but, but like cut signs. Have you heard of cut signs?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- JTJoe Tidy
So like, you know a fan sign where if you're a big fan of someone you will hold a sign up saying, "I love-"
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Yeah.
- JTJoe Tidy
... them, or you'll hold their name-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JTJoe Tidy
... or their band name? A cut sign is like that, but you literally cut into your own skin the names of hackers-
- 7:52 – 18:32
How We Get Hacked & What We Can Do About It?
- JTJoe Tidy
- CWChris Williamson
It seems, I don't know, I, I, I have to assume that although M&S is a 100-year-old institution, I would like to think that their cybersecurity isn't 100 years old. Th- how ... I, if ... You've gotta have someone with talent, I, I assume. Like how, how do they get into a system of any kind? Is this cyber hacking, or is this social engineering, or is this some combination of the two?
- JTJoe Tidy
It's, yeah, it's a combination of the two. I think the initial entry is usually through social engineering. But to be honest with you, I mean, a lot of hacking is that. To get into a system, it's not really like in the movies where you kind of hunch over a laptop typing code furiously to get in. Normally, it starts with like an email that you can trick someone into downloading an attachment, or you call up ... This i- this is what we think happened with the, the latest, um, attacks is that they call up the IT help desk, and they pretend to be a member of staff, and they say, you know, "I forgot my password. Can you let me in, please?" (clears throat) And it sounds so stupid, but it works. And then what th- what often happens is once they are in, that's when you would argue the hacking starts. That's when they find a vulnerability that allows them to spread themselves throughout the network, deploy ransomware, which is this type of malicious software that scrambles a company or a victim's computer and systems and servers, makes that data completely unreadable, useless, brings computers to their knees, and that is where they send the, the ransom note saying, "If you want the key, pay us in Bitcoin, certain amount, and we'll give it back to you." And ransomware is, uh, by, by far the number one problem in cyber right now.
- CWChris Williamson
Right, so this is, uh, social engineering, uh, p- pretend to be Julie from the front-
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... fucking from reception who's locked herself out. Find the person who is sufficiently gullible or doesn't stick to protocol and actually allows you in, in some ways. Then you've got access to some f- intranet type system that means-
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that you can access other bits. Maybe some more sort of spreading from there. I would ima- maybe you as that person email someone else an attachment which gets you more access to a higher-
- JTJoe Tidy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... admin level, blag your way up.
- JTJoe Tidy
You're thinking like a cyber criminal.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, I'd l- what can I say, I'm a, a, I, I am a, a young British man, um-
- JTJoe Tidy
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... but no, I was, I'm in ... My password manager's a fucking mess, so I would, I would be bad at that. Uh, I-
- JTJoe Tidy
It's good that you've got one.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- JTJoe Tidy
You're way a s- you're way a step ahead of most people if you've got a password manager.
- CWChris Williamson
I had ... Who was the FBI's most wanted guy, that hacker, for a while? Fuck. I've got-
- JTJoe Tidy
Kevin Mitnick?
- CWChris Williamson
No. Uh, maybe. I, h- he was on the show probably about three years ago or so, and you know, he'd gone through all of this stuff that he'd done. He'd broken himself out of jail twice and all of this bullshit, and I got to the end of it, and I was like, "Hey man, I'm, I'm fucking terrified." Like, "What, what, what do I do?" And he's like, "Dude, just use a, use a password manager." Like the, the TLDR 90 tw- 90/10 solution is just get a password manager and use that. So, uh-
- JTJoe Tidy
Someone once said to me there are, there are buckets of how difficult you are to hack, and hackers will always go for the easiest bucket. Who can I hack? Who uses the same passwords-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JTJoe Tidy
... across multiple accounts?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
Who uses weak passwords? If you take yourself out of that easy bucket into the slightly harder bucket, massively reduce your chance of getting hacked.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, yeah. Why, uh, uh, like even if you're the target, but you're a difficult target, there's so many more easy targets, fuck it, we might as well go for them. Okay, so, um, ransomware, what ... This is, this can just totally debilitate computer systems, companies. O- if M&S can't get eggs on the shelves, it seems it's pretty comprehensive.
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah, absolutely. Ransomware completely cripples a, an o- an organization. It's like going back to medieval times. You're pen and paper, you really are. And sometimes, we've had situations where ransomware has hit hospitals, for example-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JTJoe Tidy
... and they can't even function in any way you'd imagine. Like, some of the systems, some of the scanning systems they use in hospitals, for example, they've been infected by ransomware, so they're down as well. So yeah, uh, I, I would not want to be in an organization where they've been hit with ransomware. M&S is going through a tough time.
- CWChris Williamson
I wonder whether, or probably more likely when, we will see the first, uh, vehicle hack-
- 18:32 – 26:40
Today’s Rising Hacking Culture & Cybercrime
- CWChris Williamson
Going back to the youth, these youths online-
- JTJoe Tidy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... I think I've heard you say that today's youth hacking culture has tipped from chaotic good into chaotic evil.
- JTJoe Tidy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Apart from clout, is there anything else that's triggered some moral decline in this scene?
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah, so we mentioned earlier about the rise of Twitter. I would put that very much as one of the reasons we've seen this shift. I would also say the rise of Bitcoin as well because if you think about when Bitcoin started becoming valuable and useful as a store of value or as something you could buy things with, sort of 2011, '12, '13, that's when we saw this shift. And certainly s- looking at some of the people I do in my book, they go from not even thinking about money, just doing it for the, for the lols, um, and for the clout, to thinking, "Hang on a minute. I can make some money here." And as soon as you start in- in- introducing Bitcoin into the lives of young teenage boys, you're looking at trouble.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. So without cryptocurrency, would this be even harder again?
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah, I think without cryptocurrency, a lot of cyber crime that happens these days would be a lot harder because the great thing about crypto, of course, if you're a cyber criminal, is that I can steal crypto or I can e- uh, extort crypto from someone and then it goes to my wallet and people don't know wh- know who I am. No banks can stop that. And if I can find a way, and it's becoming harder now, but if I can find a way to launder that Bitcoin, I can get it out of the system, turn it into money I can use, happy days. If we- without Bitcoin, you get things like, uh, bank card fraud, that kind of thing, and we did see that in- in some of the early days of- of- of hacking, but of course that's easy to trace and track and stop if you're a bank.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
And one of the guys in- in the book, the main hacker that we follow who started as a, as a teenage cyber criminal ended up becoming one of the most wanted criminals in the world, he started by carding, which is where you take credit cards and you use the numbers and the details to spend, uh, without the owner knowing, and the banks usually, you know, reimburse the owner. A- a- and what's interesting about that is they- when they first arrest him and they're going through all the bank receipts, they work out he spent about 33,000 euros, which you'd think, like, that's quite a lot of money for, I think he was like 15, 16, and when you look at the things he's spending the money on, it's of course what you would do. We've both been 14, 15-year-old boys. It's PlayStation games, it's the latest phone, it's Netflix subscription. He even went and bought, um, some land. He bought like a little bit of land in Scotland-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JTJoe Tidy
... so he could call himself a lord, like his highland titles. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- JTJoe Tidy
You know, that- that's what you would do if you had unlimited money. But of course the problem with that is when you get arrested, it's all there and the police have got it all and, you know, it's very hard to hide from, whereas cryptocurrency makes that way easier. The other way that you could do it, I'm not giving anyone a- any ideas 'cause this is how some cyber criminals work, is through gift cards. So you don't say to someone, "Send me $200" in a ransom, for example. You say, "Send me $200 worth of gift cards," and then you can sell those online for $190. So then you get, you know, you have to shave a little bit off each time.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, okay. That's interesting.
- JTJoe Tidy
But they're untraceable, so...
- CWChris Williamson
Huh. Well, I- you've said, uh, teenage hackers are sort of a kind of digital cartel. Should we be thinking about them more like organized crime than bored kids in bedrooms? Wh- what's the tension there?
- JTJoe Tidy
Well, I think, um, modern ransomware groups, for example, these really, really well-run, highly organized, um, money-oriented gangs like, I don't know, EvilCor or LockBit, there's loads of them, um, Conti was another one, they are like modern cartels. They are run with, you know, there's a- there's someone who develops the malware, there's someone that sends out the phishing emails, there's someone that does the extortion negotiations. There's 24/7 customer service on the dark net websites for these things. But the teenage hacking gangs, they are slightly different. Th- they're becoming more organized now with the likes of Scattered Spider, but it is a different type of culture. It's more of a hacking culture than a, than a hacking organization. I wouldn't necessarily put them in the same bracket. But certainly if you look at the, um, the rise of the teenage hacking gangs, every single step of the way they've been un- underestimated. There's a, there's a researcher called Alison Nixon who is- she features quite a lot in my research and, um, she came up with this new phrase for these types of gangs. She calls them NPTs, which stands for noob persistent threats.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JTJoe Tidy
So they're nooby, they're noobs, but it's play- it's a play on-
- CWChris Williamson
NPCs.
- JTJoe Tidy
... this very famous and well used term, APTs, which stands for advanced persistent threat. So she's sort of poking fun at them, but she says, you know, they're not advanced but they are persistent and they are a threat and we should take them seriously. And to be honest, I've been doing this job quite a long time now and- and we don't. We don't take them seriously. Every time there's a- a case like we're seeing right now in the UK-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
... people are shocked. How can this be done by teenagers from their bedrooms? Well, we know from history that this is how they work.
- CWChris Williamson
They've just rolled the dice enough times. They just keep on going.
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah, and also they- they don't really care about getting caught. This is the other thing about these- these teenage gangs. Unlike the cyber crime gangs that are based in Russia or places where, you know, law enforcement in the West can't really get them, um, these guys are very grabbable. They're very gettable. In the last about year and a half, there's been six arrests of- of teenagers and sort of early 20s hackers-... that are thought to be from the Scattered Spider, um, culture or community-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
... because they're in the UK and the US, and they don't, they don't protect themselves very well. They don't actually disguise their voices when they call up IT desks pretending to be someone else, stuff like that, you know. Like, it's called operational security and these groups, these NPTs, are terrible at it 'cause they don't seem to care.
- CWChris Williamson
What are the patterns or dynamics about how young kids get pulled into these communities online? What's the typical trajectory of one of these people?
- JTJoe Tidy
It's nearly always the same. It's, uh, uh, every single hacker I've ever met has had the same pathway. It's computer games, so Minecraft or RuneScape or whatever it is, I- I don't... probably Fortnite these days. Um, (laughs) probably still Minecraft, it's so popular. So you, you get into gaming and you play with your mates, and then you start wanting to be better, so you buy some, uh, extra bits for your character or you find some shortcuts, some cheats. Then you find yourself on a hacking forum and you find ways to become better at the game and cheat the game. Then you find yourself sort of drawn away from the game and drawn towards more fun ways to have fun on the internet, i.e. hacking. And it always starts off as just a bit of fun, see, "W- well, what- what happens if I type that in there? What happens if I go into this server over here? Ooh, where am I? This is exciting." And then it's, "Ooh, quick," you escape, "Ooh, that was, that was wrong, I shouldn't have been there." And then it's, "Hang on a minute, what else can I do?" And then it goes on from there. And then as soon as you start bringing money into it, Bitcoin, then it can quite quickly become serious cyber crime. And that's, uh, that is th- the path that I've personally seen, speaking to all the hackers that I've interviewed over the years. But also the NCA, the National Crime Agency, in 2015 they did a kind of massive research of all the convicted cyber criminals and it was exactly the same. It was step one, gaming, step two, gaming cheats, all the way down until serious cyber crime. So, it is a cliché but it's true.
- 26:40 – 33:03
Which Country Is Cybercrime Most Prevalent?
- JTJoe Tidy
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Where are most of these people? You've mentioned Russia. I always, th- when I think hacking group, I just think, "Oh, it's the..." What is it? "IRA or whatever in, in Russia," or s-
- JTJoe Tidy
Oh, G- GRU?
- CWChris Williamson
GRU. S- or whatever.
- JTJoe Tidy
That's, yeah, there's loads of them, loads of acr- acronyms.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, what is it? What, w- where, where are, where are all of these... You mentioned these two, uh, notable, or at least Scattered Spider's notable because they're primarily English-speaking in the US-
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and the UK, but that, that's a rarity, I guess?
- JTJoe Tidy
It is, yeah. Um, that's probably why they're so interesting as well, because we're like, "Well, hang on a minute, they could be upstairs in, in, in, in, in the bedroom." Um, so if you're looking at the, the kind of... if we take the whole cyber crime ecosystem, these are the people that are out to make money defrauding, stealing money, extortion, ransomware, all that kind of stuff. They're... they could be anywhere. But the biggest gangs are organized and run, we think, from Russia, Eastern Europe. And we know this because there are lots of, lots of kind of, like, hints that you get. So for example, I spoke to a guy who deals with, um, ransomware negotiations, and I said, "How, how can you be so sure that they're in Russia?" And he said, "Well, they speak and they plan in Russian on Russian forums. They, um, work in Moscow hours. And they don't ever answer you on, um, public holidays in Russia." So you know-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JTJoe Tidy
... (laughs) there's a few hints there. Um, but of course the actual affiliates, the people that are carrying out the everyday attacks, we don't know where they are. They could be anywhere. I mean, there was an, uh, very famous, um, arrest of a, uh, an IT expert in Canada who was, you know, an upstanding citizen of the Canadian IT scene, and he was working for a Russian cyber crime gang, uh, called NetWalker. Um, and I actually... on that one, uh, it was really interesting 'cause someone, uh, one of my contacts sent me the negotiation portal for when NetWalker was extorting this university, and it was during the pandemic. And I was... over the course of about three weeks, I watched this negotiation, this extortion take place.
- CWChris Williamson
What- what's- what- what do you mean by the portal? Like a chat? Like a-
- JTJoe Tidy
Oh, so-
- CWChris Williamson
... private chat type thing?
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah, so if you, um, if you get hit with ransomware, you'll have on your screen on your computer, it'll pop up saying, "Hey, you've been hit by ransomware. Go to this dark net website," um, which is like a jumble of numbers and letters, ".onion," um, "and we can start the to- start the, the negotiation." They always... it's really ad- really kind of, like, irritating and frustrating, but they always, like, frame themselves as, um, "We are here to help. Follow this link. We will help you. You know, we'll, we'll get you through this."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
And of course they're the, th- they're the bastards who are trying (laughs) to extort money-
- CWChris Williamson
You did it.
- JTJoe Tidy
Um, but it was fascinating watching this NetWalker ransomware group extort San Francisco, um, I think it was, it was, uh, the Southern California University or something, and they were like... this is during the pandemic, "We are working on a vaccine. Please, we haven't got any money, leave us alone." And they're like, "How much you got?" And they're like, "Ja, das 750,000 dollars." "That's nothing. I can't even buy McDonald's with that. Send more." And it ended up they paid, uh, I think it was 1.2 million dollars to these guys. Anyway, so he turned out to be in Ca- in, in Canada, um, but most, we think... if you look at the arrests, they could be anywhere, but they are normally based in Russia. Then you've got, um, North Korea. They are very, very, uh, big on the, on the hacking scene. But what's really interesting about North Korea is they're the only country that n- that we know of in the world that as well as doing cyber spying, which we all do, every country does it, UK and US all over it, but North Korea does that plus they steal cryptocurrency, and they are very, very good at it. They just stole... oh, my, what was it now? I think it was, like... I can't even remember. It was, it was, it was, like, 1.5 billion-
- CWChris Williamson
... the country, the country of North Korea or at some-
- JTJoe Tidy
The country of North Korea has a cyber team that, they've always denied this of course, but they have a cyber team that is dedicated to making money for the regime by hacking. They used to do banks, but now they do cryptocurrency companies. But they're unusual. Most countries don't have that. Most countries just have their cyber spies and they're out to project power, steal secrets. In some cases, they'll be used in military, so Russia we know has hacked against, uh, Ukraine, in, in the war, for example. Um, but most cyber crime is done by criminals, um, who could be anywhere but are, yeah, largely kind of organized in Russia and Eastern Europe.
- CWChris Williamson
Why is that area of the world such a hotbed? Have they got lax internal scrutiny from the law enforcement? Is it sort of side eye allowed by the state to try and fuck up everybody else? What's going on?
- JTJoe Tidy
Well, yes. So there's this golden rule if you're a Russian cyber criminal, which is you do not hack Russia or former Soviet states. It's like a kind of unwritten rule. If you do, you get in lots and lots of trouble. And there was a, a cyber crime gang called REvil, or R Evil, and, um, they were, they were allowed to kind of just run amok for years and years, hacking left, right, and center Western companies, causing huge amounts of problems. Um, but then, so the story goes, they accidentally hacked Russia and then suddenly there were some arrests. Uh, so yeah, there is that kind of, that kind of, um, culture in Russia. Obviously the Russian government denies this every single time it comes up. Um, there was this, uh, this summit between Biden and Putin.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
Um, when was that now? 2021, I think. It came off the back of some absolutely horrendous ransomware attacks, one of which was on, against Colonial Pipeline, which is a really important part of the US, um, petrol and oil, uh, infrastructure. And it meant that there was shortages at pumps and panic buying, and there was no fuel going up and down the East Coast. So this conversation between Biden and Putin, according to him, was like, "You've got to stop your people hacking. This is no good." And Putin was like, "It's not us. We get hacked too." But the evidence really, is not really there for
- 33:03 – 37:41
Will Cyber Attacks Ever Be Treated As An Act Of War?
- JTJoe Tidy
that.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. How close are we to seeing cyber attacks being treated as acts of war?
- JTJoe Tidy
Oh. Well, there's this... Yeah, there's this thing called, I think it's Article 5 in NATO, which means that when you get attacked and it's a confirmed attack, then everyone else is, you know, piles in. Um, and it's one of the founding, you know, parts of NATO, one of the tenets. And some people have said what we've seen in, um, in Ukraine, uh, sorry, in, i- i- i- with the attacks against Colonial Pipeline and others, is, "Oh, could this be Article 5?" There was another attack on US government, SolarWinds attack thought to be from Russia.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. I remember that.
- JTJoe Tidy
People are saying maybe that crosses the threshold. But I think people are very, very scared to bring cyber in the same, in anywhere near the same kind of, um, seriousness as a, as a missile.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JTJoe Tidy
When in fact sometimes the damage can be, you know, can be just as bad.
- CWChris Williamson
What was that one that tried to get... Was it Iranian nuclear reactors and it waited around the-
- JTJoe Tidy
Stuxnet.
- CWChris Williamson
Stuxnet. Can you tell me the story behind that?
- JTJoe Tidy
Oh, just like, u- unbelievable. You have to take your hats off to them. So Stuxnet was a, an attack by, they've never admitted it, but Israel and the US against Iran, and they were very worried about the e- uranium enrichment helping to create nuclear weapons for Iran. So according to the, the story, the, the uh, the president at the time said, "Right, well what, what can we do to slow them down?" And someone said, "Let's, let's hack 'em." And the Stuxnet virus was so specifically and perfectly targeted that it only infected that certain system, and I think they spread it through USB sticks or something. They dropped them in the car park. Absolutely brilliant. Um, it's dumb but it works. That's what they always say in cyber. I- it sounds dumb, but if it works, i- it's not dumb. Um, and it managed to get inside the system of this very specific machinery that they were using in the N- Natanz, um, refinery, and it sped up the refinery, um, centrifuges so fast that it caused apparently, we don't know because obviously Iran would never admit it, but we think it caused physical damage and potentially broke some of those centrifuges and slowed them down. We don't know how much it slowed them down, we don't know how much damage was done, but it's largely been, you know, hailed as one of the most impressive cyber attacks of all time.
- CWChris Williamson
Didn't it... It was infected some insane percentage of computers around the world as well. Like, loads and loads of machines had it, but it just, it didn't do anything. It was just-
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... "Is this, is this computer attached to an Iranian nuclear facility? No. All right, just chill out. Nothing for you to do."
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"May- maybe you'll get... Maybe you'll meet someone in future that is."
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And it just did that over and over again?
- JTJoe Tidy
That's it. And i- it's really targeted, really precise. And there have been cases where a country is blamed for releasing something like that, you know, an uncontrollable worm that's got out of hand. So there's this one called NotPetya, which was 2017 I think it was, and, um, it was... Well, again, Russia would, uh, Russia would never admit this, but it was, uh, thought to be from Russia against Ukraine, and they hacked into a really popular accountant, accountancy sort of software that Ukrainians used, and it was a worm that spread uncontrollably, and it was a fake ransomware. So normally the thing comes up and it says, "Pay this and you'll get your d- your files back." But with NotPetya, it was, it was a shredder. It was fake. Even if you paid, you wouldn't get, you wouldn't get anything back. And that spread from Ukraine all over the world.... hundreds of countries affected by this and it caused, they think, the most damage of any hack ever. I can't remember the figure now, but it was, oh, I know one company lost a billion. Maersk, the logistics company, they were back to pen and paper, so they had ships coming into harbors, they didn't even know what was on the ships, they didn't know how to unload it, where it was going. Absolute carnage, and it cost them well over a billion, I can't remember the details of the rest of it.
- CWChris Williamson
So this is like the Wuhan Institute of Virology equivalent of a online worm...
- JTJoe Tidy
Exactly. And you can't stop it. The only way to stop it is to inoculate all the computers so that if you get it, you don't get ill.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- JTJoe Tidy
It's like a vaccine
- 37:41 – 42:39
How Do Cybersecurity Firms Find Hackers?
- JTJoe Tidy
around the world, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What are the ways that cybersecurity firms find these sorts of hackers? Like, what is it? I know TTPs is sort of part of this, but I don't know. I- if you're good, if you're good enough to construct a worm that does ransomware and scrambles and does all the rest of it, I have to assume that you're good enough to be able to hide your tracks. So it's, yeah, h- how do the security companies track down who caused it?
- JTJoe Tidy
Well, a lot of it is, is follow the money. Because if you can follow the trail of, of, of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, then you, you might be able to get them. But thinking about, um, about that, there's a, there's a part in my book where Julius Kivimäki, this guy that we follow all the way through, he gets caught. One of the ways that they find out it's him is because he does the biggest self own in cybercrime history, an absolute monster of a blunder. Someone in the book called Antti Kurttu who's a cyber expert, he says that, um, everyone thinks that cybercriminals are masterminds when they're carrying out the hacks, but they're not masterminds at cov- at covering their tracks. They often get a bit lazy or a bit, um, you know, arrogant about that part of it, because operational security is really, really hard. So, um, this guy, Kivimäki, he starts sending out, um, he's got all these, the p- the patient data of psychotherapy patients all over Finland, 33,000 people. He's managed to steal all the notes from the, from the therapists. So he starts extorting the company by releasing every day, 100 new records. Um, and yeah, this is the kind of stuff that you do not want on the internet. Like, this, the stuff you say to your therapist is the most sensitive information probably that you could ever hope that, you know, stays safe. So day one, 100 records. Day two, this is on the dark net. Day two, another 100 records. Day three, another 100 records. But then he says, "To make it easier for all the people on the forum, here's a bulk download. So you can download all 300 patient data notes, um, instead of having to do one after the other." Um, then he goes to bed, uh, and then what he doesn't realize is he's accidentally uploaded the entire database of 33,000 patients. So he's given away all his bargaining chips, but also he's accidentally uploaded his entire home directory for his computer. So it's like, for example, I want to send you an email. I accidentally send all the emails in my inbox and all the attachments and every folder on my desktop as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- JTJoe Tidy
So the police found this in the morning and they obviously downloaded it as quick as they could. He woke up and he realized that what he'd done and he starts deleting files from the server. The police find an IP address, which is a internet protocol, which is like tells you wh- roughly where the physical computer is. They find an IP address in that home directory, you know, accidental dump for a computer server, a cloud server company, which is only half an hour away from them in Helsinki. So there's this race against Ransom Man, that's what he's called, deleting everything as he's going because they've got this massive server that could potentially give them all the clues they need. They get to the, uh, the server farm, pull out the internet cable, severing Ransom Man from his server. I put it like this, it's a... if you imagine a drug dealer, the cops are arriving, he's trying to flush all the cocaine down the toilet.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JTJoe Tidy
But then suddenly, I don't know, the, he can't-
- CWChris Williamson
They cut off the water or something.
- JTJoe Tidy
Exactly, something like that. So he, yeah, he's... nothing he can do. So then, um, they had this, they had this massive server full of all the evidence they needed to track him down. It was a little bit harder than that. Um, he did s- he did try and use aliases and that kind of thing, but there was just so much there on that server that led them back to him. And that's what led to, ultimately led to his conviction. So it's that kind of thing, those mistakes that can be made.
- CWChris Williamson
It's the... It's Ross Ulbricht at gmail.com.
- JTJoe Tidy
(laughs) Yes, that kind of thing, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah. Like if you're going to start the biggest online drug selling network in human history, make sure that your old forum posts aren't linked to yourname@gmail.com.
- JTJoe Tidy
But that's a really good example, isn't it, of how someone's online presence can start, you know, innocently enough, you're building something-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
... you're a software developer, you're just asking for advice. You don't know that in five years time, you're a massive mastermind cybercriminal.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you got to future proof yourself. Be careful what, be careful what RuneScape username you use-
- JTJoe Tidy
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
... in 2012 because God knows where you're gonna end up 14 years later. Yeah. Okay, so-
- JTJoe Tidy
Sounds like we're giving advice now to (laughs) cybercriminals.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm, I'm, I, uh, I welcome our internet overlords.
- JTJoe Tidy
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
My operational security is horrible.
- 42:39 – 49:16
The Lizard Squad Hack Of Christmas of 2010
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so another hack that I knew about, one of the most famous ones, uh, the Christmas hack of computer games and it seems like this sort of kicks off a lot of the story that you've been following. So what, what first drew you to this? What's the story behind Lizard Squad? Give me the, give me the overview.
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah, so um, 2014, Christmastime, there was a ginormous DDoS attack, which is a very low level form of hacking. It's like a... I liken it to when Glastonbury tickets go on sale, everyone lands on the website, and, uh, and accidentally the website crashes. It's like that really in cyber crime. If you get enough traffic into a server or a website, you can bring it down. So the Lizard Squad were part of this, as I said earlier, this conveyor belt of these teen hacking gangs, these NPTs that emerged in 2010s. And they decided they were going to after, not just Xbox Live, but PlayStation Network as well. And I don't, I still don't really know how they did it, but they managed to bring these services down for hours and hours on what was, you know, the busiest time of year. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day. So that was, uh, coincidentally, like that was the first story I ever covered. And I went into the Sky Ne- I used to work for Sky News. And I walked into the Sky News, um, newsroom, uh, I think it was like, uh, very early on Boxing Day, or the day after Boxing Day. And they said to me, "Have you heard about this massive hack these kids have done?" I was like, "What are you talking about? No." So then I looked into it, and I couldn't believe the power that, that these kids could wield. I, I fi- found it absolutely fascinating. So my news editor came over to me, and he said, um, "Riley's called," who's the, the head of Sky News, he says, "He wants a lizard on air tonight." So I was like, "Right, how on earth am I gonna get one of these anonymous Lizard Squad hackers to do a TV interview in, you know, six hours, seven hours, whatever it was?" So anyway, I managed to find one, and it turned out to be, um, this kid who was, I think he was 16 at the time, 17, uh, calling himself Ryan, and we did an interview, and it was, uh, it blew up-
- CWChris Williamson
Hang on, hang on, you've jumped ahead. How'd you find him?
- JTJoe Tidy
Oh, just, like, going after person who says they're involved and then it turns out they're not, then another person, then another. I don't even know. I couldn't tell you how I got to him in... But in... I went through... I know one of the people I went through was this guy called Vinnie who was part of Lizard Squad, kind of like an adjacent member. He didn't, he, he said he didn't really do anything for them, and I believe him and he was cleared of all wrongdoing. Um, and he actually lived in Twickenham which was, like, three miles away-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JTJoe Tidy
... from the Sky News newsroom. So, uh, so he, he promised he would get me this, this, this kid Ryan who was a part of the, the gang that took out these, these gaming services. So anyway, I did this interview with, um, with Ryan who it turned out was Julius Kivimaki. Uh, that's one of the aliases he used was Ryan. Um, and I, I s- that kind of really sparked off in my mind this, this fascination I've had ever since with cyber crime. Um, and I've tried to keep tabs on, on, on Ryan or Julius ever since. But then the trail ran cold 'cause he disappeared for a while. So then when he pops up as potentially the person behind this ginormous hack in Finland on the py- the psychotherapy centers called Vastaamo, I thought, "Wow, he has had a career." And I, I... My money, Kivimaki is the most hated hacker in history not just because of the Vastaamo hack and, a- and the, the S- the PlayStation and, uh, and Xbox one, but also there are lots of times in that, that sort of 10, 12 year cyber crime career where he's done some really hateful, nasty stuff to not only, you know, people that he wanted to go after, but fellow hackers as well.
- CWChris Williamson
What like?
- JTJoe Tidy
So there was a Sony, um, executive called, uh, John Smedley who, um, fought back a bit on Twitter against Lizard Squad. He was like... He wouldn't... H- h- he was used to be a prolific tweeter and he, he sort of fired back some tweets against these kids and they didn't like it. So they went after him pretty badly, and, um, one of the things that Kivimaki did was he found out that John Smedley was flying from, oh, I think it was from Phoenix to Houston or somewhere, I can't remember where it was, um, and he convinced the airline that there was a bomb on John Smedley's, uh, flight and it had to get escorted by fighter jet to a different airport where he was, um, he was questioned at gunpoint and all sorts. Stuff like that. Um, and, uh, there, there is a litany of situations, uh, and incidents where Kivimaki has done some really horrible things.
- CWChris Williamson
What you said about, um, what he's done to other hackers as well. What's in that list?
- JTJoe Tidy
Well there's, uh, there was a kid called Blair Strater who, um, I spoke to in the book and Kivimaki led probably a three-year harassment campaign against him. Have you heard of swatting? Not swatting?
- CWChris Williamson
Y- yes, yes.
- JTJoe Tidy
Where you pretend... Y- y- you call up the police and you say, "There's a-"
- CWChris Williamson
Armed, whatever the fuck.
- JTJoe Tidy
"... I'm gonna kill someone," or whatever, yeah. Um, and, and the SWAT team arrive and, and it's really dangerous, a- and, and people have died. Um, so they would do that all day, all night, for months against Blair Strater. They've g- they've also got this weird thing which is, is still a thing now. I don't really understand it, but it's, um, when you get doxed your documents come online. So that means that everyone knows where you live, your real name, all that stuff. So for a hacker, that's a pretty bad situation to be in if you're doxed 'cause you, you know, the whole point of it is you're anonymous and you're powerful and you're, you know, you can disappear at any moment. So with Blair, they doxed him and then Kivimaki and others would send him pizzas, Chinese takeaways, all these kind of deliveries. At one stage, a lorry load of sand and gravel arrived at his house. Personally, like, if a free pizza turned up at my house I'd be happy about it, but when you talk to people who have been victims of this for months, it becomes horrible because you are on edge the whole time and the delivery drivers want paying if you haven't paid them and they get annoyed with you. So, you know, th- that kind of harassment i- is not nice. The- there's a...There was an article written by another journalist called Kevin Roose, who, um, interviewed the Strater family around this time when it was really bad. And the article was called Haunted by Hackers. And I've always thought that's such a good headline because for Blair Strater and his family, that's what it
- 49:16 – 1:09:25
Insights From An Interview With A Hacker
- JTJoe Tidy
was like.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Yeah, it's ruthless, man. Okay, so you sit down with this guy. You don't know... I mean, this is what, 2014?
- JTJoe Tidy
2014, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
The first time you do it. Um, what stuck with you from that first interview?
- JTJoe Tidy
Just, just a complete lack of remorse, caring, um, smirking throughout the entire interview. A lot of honesty. He didn't sort of make up a sort of nice-
- CWChris Williamson
So he didn't hide his face?
- JTJoe Tidy
No, not at all. Not at all. No, no. He, he turned up, uh, to the Sky News interview on, on Skype fully. Uh, didn't disguise his voice, his face. Didn't, didn't, didn't give a damn.
- CWChris Williamson
Surely that's a bad idea.
- JTJoe Tidy
This is why I'm saying, OpSec is terrible. These NPT-
- CWChris Williamson
No, that's, that's, that's i- but surely that's something different. That, to me, seems like operational security is covering your tracks. That seems more like a purposeful middle finger.
- JTJoe Tidy
Absolutely. Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- JTJoe Tidy
And don't, and don't forget... Well, uh, you don't know this and I don't know how far you got in the book, but at this point, Kivimaki was already under investigation. He'd already been arrested. He was on bail. So...
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JTJoe Tidy
So you gotta factor that in.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- JTJoe Tidy
But, but, but, you know, Kivimaki, and there's a few others like him in the last kind of 10, 15 years, they're a different breed. So you've got the MPTs who don't care, they're out to cause chaos, get some money, bit of infamy. Then you've got the kind of... Alison Nixon, the researcher I mentioned earlier, she calls them the centers of gravity. There are certain teenage hacking, uh, hackers, who they are, they, they are the center of their gangs and everyone follows their lead. And you don't necessarily have to be the most technical to be that center of gravity, but you have to be the most ballsy, anarchistic-
- CWChris Williamson
Charismatic.
- JTJoe Tidy
... charismatic. And, and you, and you don't care. And the thing about the, th- that Christmas Day hack was he appeared on, um, on the interview fully, you know, face and voice. And yes, like it came w- it came very quickly afterwards, there was a knock on his door by the Finnish police. But they never, they never got him on anything. All the things he told me, either they didn't find evidence or they were too busy on these other cases to, to look into it. But, uh, as far as I'm aware, and it's lu- if you look at his, at his court records, none of that was taken into account with any subsequent convictions.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you know what he did in between that and the mental health hack?
- JTJoe Tidy
Not really. I know that he traveled a lot. I know that he was carrying a lot of Bitcoin. I spoke to one, um, fellow Lizard Squad hacker, who he went out with in, um, in the Netherlands, uh, on a, on a jolly, and he was carrying a, a, a hardware crypto wallet, and it had something like $50,000 worth of Bitcoin in, and that was apparently just his holiday spending money. And of course, that Bitcoin now would be worth something like 12 million, you know? But you're right. There is this gap in his story, which I, I would love, um, to find out what, what happened. But the a- the actual hack happened in 2018, so he stole the Vastaamo database of psychotherapy patient notes in 2018. So there wasn't like a huge gap, it didn't go to 2020-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
... but, yeah, there was a gap. There are... There is a, um, suggestion by a Finnish journalist, which is yet to be confirmed and it's all alleged and, you know, huge pinch of salt with this, 'cause I haven't... we don't know if this is true, but he thinks that Kivimaki might be involved in a, in a, uh, in a hacking, sort of hacking cybercrime thing that happened around that time, which was Kivimaki aside, whoever did this, it's like the perfect crime. So what they did, I'm not gonna say Kivimaki, 'cause we don't know if it was him, but what they did was they found a website on the Clear Web. So that's the, the, the internet that we all know and love, that was advertising darknet drugs marketplaces. So it had links for the, the darknet links. So like, as I say, jumble of numbers and letters .onion. He hacked into that and then changed the links for those darknet websites to his own fake darknet, uh, marketplaces, which had all the things you would imagine, like, "Buy your coke here," "Buy your MDMA here." But all the money going into that marketplace was going into his pocket. And I spoke to the police about this. I was like, "If that is Kivimaki, why aren't you looking into that? Like, why isn't that part of your investigations? Now, that he's behind bars, you know, y- aren't you investigating this?" And the guy, Markko Leppinen, the F- Finnish, uh, police officer, said, "We haven't got any, uh, complaints. There are no victims." Because, of course, no one's complaining. (laughs) No one's complaining, but-
- CWChris Williamson
The, the cocaine that I tried to buy on the dark web, I didn't receive my order for that.
- JTJoe Tidy
Exactly. It's the perfect crime, the perfect crime. But anyway, I don't know who d- I don't know who's behind that one. But there is some vague suggestion, uh, that some, uh, that some journalists have, have made.
- CWChris Williamson
How did he do the Vastaamo hack? Do you know?
- JTJoe Tidy
Yes. It was, uh... (clears throat) It took about four minutes. It was, it was awful. The, the security at Vastaamo was terrible. And there have been convictions. Uh, the CEO's been convicted. He's appealing it, but, um, the, the, the, the cybersecurity practices at that company were very, very poor. So he did a scan of, um, open servers with no passwords. He logged in, saw it all there, downloaded it. It mu- it, it must have been... Well, I...No one knows why. He did it in 2018, but then he didn't do the extortion until 2020. But my theory is, he couldn't believe his luck. He downloaded it and then sort of sat with it for a long time.
- CWChris Williamson
Waiting to see if someone's realized.
- JTJoe Tidy
I think so. Uh, because of course, at some point, we don't know why in 2020, um, he decided to extort the company, which went broke.
- CWChris Williamson
Run out- run out of Bitcoin to party with. You know what I mean? I need to-
- 1:09:25 – 1:15:53
Who Is The Most Wanted Cyber Criminal In The World?
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so I'm interested in this Maksim Yakubets guy as well-
- JTJoe Tidy
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that you went and, and tried to track down. It seems like you have a, a penchant for-
- JTJoe Tidy
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, trying to find Eastern European young men. (laughs) Uh, and no, no accusation, but-
- JTJoe Tidy
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, you, you, you do seem to have a skill for it. So, uh, what's the story of him and EvilCor and stuff like that?
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah, so EvilCor are, um, are the kind of OGs of Russian cyber crime. They were there from the beginning, and they evolved as the cyber crime ecosystem evolved. Um, and they've, they've been kind of run and led by a family, the Yakubets family. And Maksim Yakubets is, was the most wanted cyber criminal in the world. There's a ten thou- $10 million, uh, award out for his arrest, him and his right-hand man, um, Igor Turischev. So we decided in, I think it was just, just before the pandemic, so 2019, that we would try and go and find him in Russia. Because one of the things that I became a bit annoyed about was that the West points fingers at these people, UK, US, and says, "Ah, they're cyber criminals. They're guilty. They've done this, that, and the other. They've, they've stolen $100 million worth of, uh, of money from innocent people around the world." But you never hear from the actual cyber criminals themselves. You never actually ... they never get a chance to kind of have their say. I know that sounds silly, but as a journalist, like, that's kind of like my job, uh, and that's the bit that interests me, is like hearing both sides. So I was, I remember I was sat in the garden there, and I was just like thinking one, one afternoon, "Why don't we go? Why don't we try and find these people?" So we did. And we searched around Moscow, and we got all the addresses that were known, uh, about them, and tracked down their super cars and tried to take ... uh, go to the garages that they were at. Um, and I managed to find an address that we thought was Maksim Yakubets, but it was actually his dad. But we went there, and his dad opened the door, and we had this absolutely, for me, unforgettable interview with, um, with, uh, Yakubets Sr., uh, where he was like so angry with the, with the West, uh, accusing his son of being a cyber criminal. And I was saying things like, you know, speaking through my, uh, producer, reporter, translator, like, "Well, how, how do you explain the Lamborghinis?" He's like, "Well, they could be rented." "So how do you explain the quarter of a million dollar wedding?" "Well, we don't know how much it was. Have you seen the paperwork?" It's like, "Well, no, but I went there and spoke to the wedding organizer," you know? And he had an answer for everything. And what was fascinating about that, and what's become even more fascinating, is we went there in 2019 and put the documentary out, and I think it was, yeah, last year, the National Crime Agency gave us loads more information about EvilCor, and they said it wasn't just these seven or eight men, it was also the dad. He's a part of it. He's in some way involved, money laundering-
- CWChris Williamson
You met the mastermind.
- JTJoe Tidy
... or something like that. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
He was in front of you. You could've snagged him there and then.
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah, that would have been fun. Yeah, yeah, um, so yeah, that wa- that was a, that was an amazing trip. But I di- I didn't enjoy it. It was the worst assignment I've ever been on. It was so ... and I went to Ukraine as well during the war, but this was worse. The, the Mo- the Moscow trip w- was worse.
- CWChris Williamson
Why?
- JTJoe Tidy
Well, you're in a, what is a ... there aren't many countries that you go to that are kind of like, um, adversarial countries, that, that, you know, that, that are, um ... they're not friends of the UK. And the BBC out there is seen as an arm of the British government, even though, of course, we're completely independent. So like, there's that, plus I'm going there to track down cyber criminals who we know have got links to the Kremlin, um, and it was really intimidating the entire time. We thought we were followed at one stage. We flew out to, um, this place called Yoshkar-Ola, which is about 1,000, uh, kilometers east, to try and find, um-... uh, Igor Turischev, and we were convinced there were guys in the airport who we saw, who we then saw at our hotel. Um, so that, that kinda thing, you know, isn't, isn't nice. And I'm here complaining, but really, um, the, the one that got off the worst was my, um, fellow reporter on the story with me, Andrey Zakharov, who, um, w- was and is a very talented cyber reporter. But he helped me out with the whole story and he was there the whole time. And maybe it was that or maybe it was something else, but he was very quickly put on the enemy of the state list, um, after, shortly after that, and he had to flee the country.
- CWChris Williamson
No way. Because of the work that you did together?
- JTJoe Tidy
We don't know if it was that, because he's done a lot of provocative to the Kremlin type of-
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Okay. Okay. An, an, an illustrious history-
- JTJoe Tidy
But it was aft-
- CWChris Williamson
... of pissing off the, the Kremlin.
- JTJoe Tidy
It was after that. It was after that. He thinks that it was possibly the, the straw that broke the, the camel's back. But before he, before he decided to leave, he was followed around the entire city by some nasty looking men for weeks and weeks and weeks. Horribly intimidating for him. He is a superb journalist, and I'm still friends with him, and I know he's doing well now. But, um, yeah, I- I- I can't complain about my, uh, my handling or treatment when, when-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JTJoe Tidy
... when Andrey had a really tough time.
- CWChris Williamson
"Wah! I got scared in a hotel. Wah! At least I get to stay in my country though."
- JTJoe Tidy
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You know, "At least I'm in my home country still. That's nice."
- JTJoe Tidy
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Um-
- JTJoe Tidy
I'll tell you though, when I got back, I installed a security camera system a- around my house, 'cause I was, I just started feeling a little bit intimidated. 'Cause I once interviewed a guy who, um, he decrypts ransomware. So, like, when ransomware's deployed in the system it scrambles your files. You have to pay them to get the key to unlock it. This guy, uh, Fabian, uh, Wasser, is an ano- anonymous researcher from a company called EmciSoft, and he is so good at building his own decryptors that, the, the hackers absolutely hate him. When he's searching through a piece of malware, he has found, on more than one occasion, "Fuck you, Fabian." Stuff like that.
- CWChris Williamson
No way.
- JTJoe Tidy
They write for you, they write in their code.
- 1:15:53 – 1:20:08
The Day CrowdStrike Cybersecurity Caused The World To Implode
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. What was the fallout from that Crowdstrike thing? Because you've just held up a cool toy model-
- JTJoe Tidy
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... thing. So Crowdstrike, cybersecurity organization, maker of cool figurines, but-
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah. (laughs) As a side hustle.
- CWChris Williamson
... also, also subject of a lot of bad press only at the start of this year. What-
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What... First off, what the fuck happened? And secondly, is this a, is that, what was the comeuppance of that? 'Cause I kind of heard about it, it was a huge deal, loads of shit happened, and then nothing.
- JTJoe Tidy
Well, give it time. There are some big court cases against Crowdstrike right now. There are companies like, um, oh, is it United, the airline in the US?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- JTJoe Tidy
Um, they are, they are trying to sue Crowdstrike for something like 7,000 flight cancellations across the day that, that Crowdstrike caused the world to implode. So the Crowdstrike problem was, um ... Was it this year? This year has flown by.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm being old, okay.
- JTJoe Tidy
Maybe it was this, maybe it was this year. Anyway, um, so they, they did an, they did an update for their, um, their Crowdstrike software. And, and they're like an antivirus, um, company-
- CWChris Williamson
No, it was a year ago. Nine- n- nin- 19th of July, 2024.
- JTJoe Tidy
Oh, it was, okay, last year. Um, and so Crowdstrike is a kind of, like, antivirus company, one of the biggest and best in the world. And, uh, used by some ginormous corporations, including United, to protect systems from cyber attacks. They did a really innocuous update where they sent through some really, like, tiny bits of information to keep the software up to date. It completely bricked the system. It caused the blue screen of death on something like, I think it was two and a half million computers around the world. And that's not just computers like we're talking on now. That's servers that run airlines, those kind of computers. So, um, yeah, the, the world went mad for, I think, like three days. No computers were running, flights canceled, uh, online services down, shops offline. Massive, massive problems. It was like, uh, some sort of apocalypse was, was unfolding. But, um, we bounced back. We're still here.
- CWChris Williamson
The best image that I saw of that was someone's smart fridge.
- JTJoe Tidy
(laughs) Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
The front screen of a smart fridge-
- JTJoe Tidy
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... which is, yeah, yeah, you got BSOD'd on a, on a-
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... f- fucking Samsung American chiller. Um, yeah, it's just-
- JTJoe Tidy
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... you know, there is a kind of, like, uh, the uncanny valley, but the equivalent of that for smart homes. And I still don't think that we're out of the other side of it. I think that most houses would benefit from a physical switch on the wall for most things.
- JTJoe Tidy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And that, you know, a, a nice, quite simple up and down ... Y- y- your fridge does not need an app.
- JTJoe Tidy
No.
- CWChris Williamson
Your ... I mean, look, Echo Water that's a, a hydrogen water company that I love. I love hydrogen water, I think it's awesome, this, like, big revolution in health.
- JTJoe Tidy
What is it?
- CWChris Williamson
It's-
- JTJoe Tidy
What's hydrogen water?
Episode duration: 1:26:41
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