The Host Unknown Podcast - Episode 197 - The Andy Is Distracted Episode

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

This week in InfoSec  (07:40)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield3 July 1996 - a mere 28 years ago the movie Independence Day was released.  In it, Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith fly into an alien vessel in a 50-year-old space junker, then upload a computer virus in less than 5 minuteshttps://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1808464060972667170 Rant of the Week (11:07)Cancer patient forced to make terrible decision after Qilin attack on London hospitalshttps://www.theregister.com/2024/07/05/qilin_impacts_patient/EXCLUSIVE The latest figures suggest that around 1,500 medical procedures have been canceled across some of London's biggest hospitals in the four weeks since Qilin's ransomware attack hit pathology services provider Synnovis. But perhaps no single person was affected as severely as Johanna Groothuizen.Hanna – the name she goes by – is now missing her right breast after her skin-sparing mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction surgery was swapped out for a simple mastectomy at the last minute. Billy Big Balls of the Week (18:20)Ransomware scum who hit Indonesian government apologizes, hands over encryption keyhttps://www.theregister.com/2024/07/04/hackers_of_indonesian_government_apologize/ Industry News (24:28)Vinted Fined €2.3m Over Data Protection FailureEuropol Warns of Home Routing Challenges For Lawful InterceptionMeta Faces Suspension of AI Data Training in BrazilNew Ransomware Group Phones Execs to Extort PaymentUK’s NCA Leads Major Cobalt Strike TakedownCyber Extortion Soars: SMBs Hit Four Times HarderNew RUSI Report Exposes Psychological Toll of Ransomware, Urges ActionDozens of Arrests Disrupt €2.5m Vishing GangHealth Tech Execs Get Jail Time For $1bn Fraud Scheme Tweet of the Week (31:07) Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

Independence is more like Ungrateful Colonials Day. I know, Rowdy Colonials Day. Treason Day. Ungrateful Colonial Traitors Day. Exactly. And that's just our elections. Woo-hoo! You're listening to the Host Unknown Podcast. Hello, hello, hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening

And welcome to episode 197 of the Host Unknown Podcast 201 It's, well, it's the day of a new dawn isn't it today for us in the in the uk it's a new day exactly not only not only has it been as we just said uh july 4th um independence day for the us we've got a new government in the uk blime, who'd have thought? After 14 years, a mere 14 years. I'm going to enjoy putting... It doesn't feel very new, though, does it? Oh, dear. Anyway, how are you both?

Did either of you stay up last night to see the count as it came in live? Or did you just go to bed with a cup of cocoa like you normally do? No, I was up till one and then it goes quiet sort of between one and five. So I was asleep during that time. But then an early start, had to take the dog out for a walk this morning. And then get back for some work. Been a busy day for me today. Yeah.

Interesting. I didn't stay up for that. I didn't stay up for the election, but on Wednesday I did stay up to watch the new Beverly Hills Cop, Axel Foley movie. Ah, yeah. No spoilers. I've not seen it yet, yeah. The other one I liked. No spoilers. I've not seen it yet. Yes.

I actually really enjoyed it. Obviously, it's not as good as the original. Yeah, it's never going to be good. But I think they've done the character... I mean, Eddie Murphy... I haven't seen Eddie Murphy in a proper action... like a movie for a long time. Well, it's a decent film.

Yeah, yeah. But he played Axel foley exactly how i remembered it it's it's a typical 80s vibe feel you get from it it's not a complicated plot it's nothing it's a bit like the fall guy in some in some ways the the the remake of the fall guy uh except you know eddie murphy's probably not as good-looking as that dude whose name I completely just blanked on. Ryan Gosling? Yes, yes. Ryan Gosling. That one, yeah.

But, yeah, no, I enjoyed it. I think if you grew up in the 80s and you watched the original, I think you'll enjoy it. If not, you'll probably think, meh, what is this? Although he looks identical to how he looked back then, though, doesn't he? He has not aged at all. He is the poor... No, no.

He's maintained himself very, very well. You can tell he's not as fast as he was and, like, you know, he's slightly bigger than what he was, but he's by no means, like, out of shape or anything like that. He's done good. Him and the guy from Ghostbusters who's... Yeah, go on. The guy from Ghostbusters, the original ones, who's, like, super...

Winston, who's like super... Winston, who's like super jacked and fit, and he's like 70s or something. Yeah, I think Eddie Murphy drinks the blood of Tom Cruise. I think that's probably how he stays so young. Oh! That is just, like, so wrong. Anyway, Andy... Go on, go on. What, what?

I said, where can one subscribe to such services? Like, you know, is there a subscription offer for less than a cup of coffee a week? You can get Tom Cruise's blood. Oh, anyway, talking of blood-suckingucking vampires andy you've been busy this week hey subscribe to my only fangs yes it has been a busy week i'm trying to think what um joey's been that busy i can't even tell you uh what else i've been um working on but no I am looking forward to watching Axel F over the weekend

and Jav you say it's never going to be as good as the original right but Top Gun Maverick was a pretty good film and I was a big fan of the original Top Gun you know so I think there is precedent that you know you don't have to do something stupid or weak just to make the money

you can actually deliver something good no no i i agree with that at the same level of quality yep exactly talking of quality tosh, how are you doing? Yeah, good, good. I managed to give myself sunstroke last weekend, shooting this wedding in the stifling heat and forgetting to put sunblock on the top of my head whilst I was outdoors for nearly 12 hours. But aside from that, it's been quite a quiet week. Obviously, bosses are away for half the week

with Independence Day celebrations, so that's always handy. I'm trying to think what else we've done. Oh, we all voted as a family. That was fun. We've all had our political discussions around the dinner table, you know, that sort of thing. So it's good. It's good. My son came back from London.

And did reform get in? No, we ousted. Where we are is quite interesting because although it's a very conservative area, the town council has always been Lib Dem. But the MP has always been Conservative for the longest time. We're in the middle of the countryside, what do you expect? But for the first time in decades, we've now got a Lib Dem MP representing us. So, yeah, definite change is afoot.

So that was very interesting. Very interesting. But yeah, if you look at the South West generally, it's pretty much where most of the Conservatives have retained their seats, is the South West, full of the farming folks. Yeah. Yeah, same in my area. They managed to retain their seat by 2 000 votes what so all

those people that uh voted lib dem instead of uh of uh labor they split the vote that's why tactical voting was the was the name of the game this year. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't about voting with your conscience. It was about voting to remove the right people. So, totally agree. Oh dear.

Anyway, talking about mistaken priorities. Shall we see what we've got coming up for you this week? This week in InfoSec takes us to a time where Mac was compatible with everything. Rant of the week is unfortunately the very real impact of criminal hacking. Billy Big Balls is a selfless act of kindness. Industry News is the latest and greatest security news stories from around the world.

And Tweet of the Week is the reality behind VCs. So let's move on, shall we, to our favourite part of the show. It's the part of the show that we like to call... This Week in InfoServe. it is that part of the show where we take a trip down infosec memory lane with content liberated from the today in infosec twitter account and further afield and today we shall be going back a mere 28 years to the 3rd of July 1996 when the movie Independence Day was released and in it Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith fly into an alien vessel in a 50 year old space junker and then upload a computer virus in less than five minutes how is that for alien compatibility i i really can't get over the

fact you said that that's 28 years ago it can't be 28 years ago because i saw it in the cinema and i wasn't that young i wasn't like five when it came out no you must have been like seven right yeah at the most i remember that that was the time when you you could barely connect a floppy disk to a mac let alone an alien mothership oh yeah i remember my first computer was a mac. And this is because, yeah, yeah, this. No, well, it was very expensive, but it was my dad did put it under as a business expense because he bought it with the hope that I would help him with. At that time, he had a magazine. So I would like to, you know, my cousin was a graphics or she still is a graphics designer

she said get a mac and i can tell you what software to get and then you can do like the page layouts and settings and print stuff out so that's kind of like why we bought it and i i really liked it as a from that perspective the work side of stuff couldn't play any games on it. Ended up forking out over a hundred pounds at that time for a Windows emulator software. I think it was called Soft Windows or something like that. And honestly, it was just like so slow. Like you'd open it up and you go to that start menu and it'd take forever for it to pop up. It was just like the worst thing ever. So after that, my second machine, I did actually ask a friend to build me. He used to build PCs.

I asked him to build me a PC. And I said, put some games on it. And he put GTA on it, the original GTA with a top-down view. And it had a turbo button on it as well. It was the worst. It was so good. It was like the best machine I had. The turbo button, which was actually the reverse, you use it

to slow down your computer, not to speed it up. Oh, I did. Right. We've only got the one this week haven't we we do that's it right well see we've been too busy with the politics this week so that was

InfoSoul for a serve. You're listening to the award-winning Host Unknown podcast. Officially more entertaining than Smashing Security. In your face! Right, let's move on now to our other favourite part of the show. It is time for

List It Up! Rants of the Week. It's time for Motherf***ing Rage. So this is a little bit serious, this one. This is a story from The Register, and it's concerning the NHS attack, which we're still feeling the effects of. It was identified, the gang was identified as killing q-i-l-i-n um which has

affected london hospitals and their ability to um get tests done etc uh what was the company that was actually attacked was it synovus something like that i think it was wasn't it um and it was a ransomware attack uh it was situation was so dire that blood reserves were running low a week after an attack um you know everything operations were cancelled on a regular basis um even your neighbor was affected as as we as as i recall jav because we were talking about this yes yes i wrote a blog post about that as well. It's available on my website, javadmalik.com. Okay, yeah, everyone has a book to sell.

So, but this is actually quite a personal story because we hear about operations being cancelled, blah, blah, blah. But I think, as you said, until you actually hear about what the effect it has on people, it's very difficult to put it into context. Well, the Register have highlighted just that. So there was a woman who goes by the name of Hannah. She had a serious form of aggressive breast cancer,

and she was scheduled to have a a mastectomy but the type of mastectomy you have where reconstruction can be carried out afterwards it's a more complex operation etc but she was given because this happened in the middle of the of the uh impacts the attack she was given 24 hours to make a decision as to whether or not to have a cancel have her operation postponed um or to go ahead with a more basic form of mastectomy which meant reconstruction was either impossible or significantly more difficult given that she had um i think it was stage 3 cancer at this time, it was very, very serious and progressive, etc., she had to make quite the decision.

And I think this really underscores the seriousness of this. I always remember Brian Honan saying, friends of the show Brian Honan, saying that we always seem to romanticise cyber criminals by putting the word cyber in front of the phrase. And that's problematic because actually all we are just dealing with is criminals here in a way that the profits made from any kind of attack always go towards drug running or modern slavery, etc. This is another very, very real impact to this. This isn't just, you know, fat cats having to make life-changing decisions

about their care in this instance. So, yeah, my rant is very, very simple here. Let's really understand the true human impact here of cyber attacks and what it means and also how actually, frankly, we need to up the game in our public services when it comes to security in the UK's public sector because this sort of thing is not going to go away. We need to look at how we can defund and attack ransomware at its source, how we can actually cut the money off before it gets to them, actually make it too expensive for them and too risky for them to make these kinds of attacks, certainly against government institutions and that sort of thing. government institutions and that sort of thing um so uh so yeah and in this instance for instance hannah does actually put the blame squarely at uh killing at the at the uh uh the gang in question

here the criminal gang in question but does say this really does need to change and that the government now of course sir keir starmer's government needs to do something about this sooner rather than later. Hear, hear. You know, it's kind of like I'm obligated contractually to disagree with you, Tom. I know, but it's it's a difficult you can't really, can you? I'm going to walk across the aisle, reach across the aisle for this one and say like... I think we can both agree. Yes, yes. I think if we can agree, then I'm sure Keir Starmer can agree with the Tories. He can agree with our colleagues or friends in Europe and Europol and say like we need to work together to really nip this in the bud, I think.

And if the newly elected PM, congratulations, would like advisory services, please, or indeed sponsor a great podcast, please get in touch with us. Absolutely. There was actually, she was asked, Hannah was asked what she would say to Killings members, which I thought this was very good

and really shows the resilience of people of generation. But she said if, you know, asked what she would say to Killings members if she ever met them, Hannah once again showed her strength in handling a difficult situation, bringing light to the matter with her humour. I would flash them, she quipped, letting out a laugh. I would show them a picture of what my body now looks like. This is what you did. Which I have to say is that's very, very well.

I like it because it makes you laugh, but I also like it because it does show the real impact and this is a very weird situation of of of host unknown actually trying to take a matter like this quite seriously uh which i know is rare but um it does uh what we have to do it to maintain our our cpe capability don't we you know so that people can say that they've owned cpes by listening to us because we take some stuff seriously. I don't know. Yeah, those CPE numbers are going down each year. They are, aren't they? They are. But, Hannah, if you're listening, well played. And screw you, Killian.

Rant of the Week. When listeners leave the Host Unknown podcast in favour of another security podcast they raise the average IQ of both audiences You're in good company with the award winning Host Unknown podcast Right Jeff, let's see if I can reach across

the aisle to you on this one It is time for before I go into that you mentioned CPEs and I realize what I've done is like ages ago I set up this this rule on my inbox that anything from ISEE2, it goes into this folder called ISEE2 because I like to be organised, yeah? But then I actually absolutely forget to ever look in there. So now that you mentioned it, I quickly went in there and there's reminders about renewing my membership, about board elections, about all this stuff.

So I might not even be a member anymore. But I really don't care you know yeah does that mean we have to take down the ciosp video no no no we just call it i'm an ex ciosp you see lots of people do that on on on link i've really done on the same they do it on linkedin where like they have their profile and it's like x microsoft x cisco x this x and it's like okay get over your x's mate it's like not a big deal but they also put like cisp lapsed in brackets or you know whatever sounds that's lapsed yeah that's so they can say that they've got it for the cv you know it's it's kind of like the white text on the background.

Yeah, it's, yeah, passing the filters, isn't it? The word analysis. That's it. Anyway, the story, Billy Big Balls, is you might remember that BrainCypher was the group responsible for hacking into Indonesia's temporary national data center and disrupting the whole country's services. the Selfless Act and a Billy Big Balls move, they released a statement saying citizens of Indonesia. I can just imagine them standing there practicing it like Homelander in front of a mirror, citizens of Indonesia.

We apologize for the fact that it affected everyone. And they said that they were releasing the decryptor without any prodding by law enforcement or any other agencies. It did however ask for public gratitude for its monogamous behavior and even provided an account at which it could receive donations i think of this the sheer audacity it just makes it such a big bull billy big ball move it's like me coming over and kidnapping one of your kids and then a week later releasing them and say well you can make a voluntary donation to say thank you for releasing my child unharmed.

It's like, why? You called it selfless as well. I'm hoping that's the dripping noise I can hear is the sarcasm from your voice because it's... Absolutely. This is outrageous. It is, it is. It's, um...

You know, it did clarify in its statement that while the Indonesian government will receive its data back for free, not all its victims would get the same treatment. Um, you know, so... know so you know it's why i think it's um well i suppose they're not that i suppose they they were afraid of law enforcement coming after them i suppose because it's it's a bit like that scene in office space where they're like they think they're only going to skim and you know get a few grand and then they look and there's like one point whatever million

skimmed from pennies or fraction of pennies in all transactions, and then they get really worried. That's probably what it was. Yeah, that's also Superman 3, yes. Yes, the Richard Pryor one, yeah. Richard Pryor. I wasn't born when Superman 3 came out. Oh, please.

Yes, yes, of course not. Henry Cavill, Superman, right? Yeah. Dean Cain. Dean Cain. Oh, my God. He's gone a bit crazy now. But anyway, that was my Billy Big Balls.

And you can now feel free to disagree or reach across the aisle, Tom, in a show of solidarity. I reach across the aisle. And I've got a crypto wallet. If you want to make a donation as opposed to just, like, you know, reaching across publicly, I'll accept that as well. I reach across the aisle if I need to mop up the sarcasm that dripped off your voice there, because I think that's that was very clear. And also they hand over the decryption key. I bet you it doesn't work or I bet you it only decrypts half the stuff because they rolled their own.

Right. And it's it's going to fall apart. So, so dear me i talk about not having the courage of your convictions here i wonder if there is a bunch of 13 and 14 year olds who are just like oh shit we could get into some real trouble here yeah i don't know i think it's more like if the mic was left on when they were talking do you think it was like you know please can we have our families back now please yeah there's something going on in the background there that's true the indonesian government government is not known for taking shit standing sitting down are they no they squat oh dear billy Balls of the week when listeners leave the host unknown podcast in favour of another

security podcast they raise the average IQ of both audiences you're in good company with the award winning host unknown podcast I think we played that one twice my random jingle button's not working very well right Winning Host Unknown Podcast. I think we played that one twice. My random jingle button's not working very well.

Right. Andy. Oh, let's just cut to the chase, shall we? What time is it? It's that time of the show where we head over to our news sources over the InfoSec. P.A. Newswire, who have been very busy bringing us the latest and greatest curious news from around the globe.

Industry News. have been very busy bringing us the latest and greatest curious news from around the globe industry news vinted finds 2.3 million euros over data protection failure industry news europol warns of home routing challenges for lawful interception. Industry news. Meta faces suspension of AI data training in Brazil. Industry news. New ransomware group phones execs to extort payment. Industry news. UK's NCA leads major cobalt strike takedown. Industry news. Industry news.

Industry news. Industry news. New Roosie report exposes psychological toil of ransomware. Urges action. Industry news. Dozens of arrests disrupt 2.5 million euro vishing gang. Industry news. Health tech execs get jail time for $1 billion fraud scheme. Industry news. And that was this week's...

Industry News. Huge if true. Huge if true. Huge. I can't help... What I really like here is... The vision and vintage stories are actually connected somehow. That's exactly where I was going. I thought, they've been fined

2.3 million. They were disrupted a 2.5 million vishing gang. OK, 0.2 million is skimmed off the top by some like law enforcement. Exactly. But vishing and vinted. Yes.

But do you know who fined them in the EU? Stephen Bonner. Nigel Farage. You'd think it sounds like a UK regulatory... No, the Lithuanian Data Protection Office. What?

Is that the headquarters though? Is that Vinted's headquarters? Oh, it is. That's actually where vintage global headquarters are based yeah there you go wow so follows a series of complaints over data protection failures notably from france which is vintage leading customer market so it concerns difficulties encountered by individuals exercising their right to data erasure. I used Vinted once. It was a dreadful experience.

Never using it again. Well, now you might be entitled to a year's free worth... three years' worth of credit monitoring. You mean the free service that you get from all of the major services anyway? Yeah. All the major services anyway? Yeah. All the major providers. There's one you can pay for as well. Which one might that be, Andy? All of them. They all offer a paid-for service.

So Europol has released a position paper today highlighting significant challenges posed by privacy enhancing technologies in home routing uh yeah yeah basically it means they are struggling to spy on what you do at home well good i'd like to think it's a little difficult to spy on what we do at home yeah so yeah as a result europa warns service providers cannot deliver communication data to local law enforcement if pet is enabled yep so this is all to do with your roaming i think so if you're if you're registered your phone's here you live in the uk you go to germany and then your provider gives you European roaming in your package.

And then you make a phone call threatening someone in Germany from Germany. And then you come back. I think there's an issue as to which who holds the data. Where they can get it, what jurisdiction covers it, all that kind of stuff. Ah, that is interesting. Ah, that is interesting And who would have thought that three C-level execs from health tech companies in the US Were actually sent down for fraudulently obtaining a billion dollars of investment from investors and lenders I mean, what the hell? At some point along that journey,

three supposedly intelligent people must have thought, dude, is this legal? Well, do you know what? They've actually got the Trump defence here because it looks like they artificially inflated firms' revenue figures in 2015 and 2016 to raise debt financing, which then resulted in dividend payments. Yeah.

So not only... $225 million dividends. So not only did they inflate the figures to get more investment, it also meant that they got payouts from their boards. Oh, jeez. Yeah, that's a Billy Big Ball story. That actually is a bit of a Billy Big Ball story, I have to say. I'm disappointed I missed this one.

Yeah. Can we stop talking about it now and give it to me for next week? Yeah, because nobody will remember, right? Three people, maybe. Psychological toll of ransomware. Well, I think we've just spoken about the physiological toll of ransomware, but what's the psychological toll? Disruption of services, but people within that organisation,

staff members cannot go home to their families. Oh, this is from an interview at InfoSec. Gosh, they're milking InfoSec for a few weeks, aren't they? Well. Oh, talking of industry news, have you heard of

have you heard Cluley's new podcast yet i've seen him promote it i haven't seen i haven't heard it yet it's the ai one with um mr stockley right yeah that's right it's because we record so infrequently he's not had enough work to do he's had to go and start another one yeah that's right but if you listen they open up with headlines just like this it's like the entire show is a rip off

of our often imitated exactly exactly right let's move on Andy's looking restless that was this week's Exactly. Exactly. Right. Let's move on. Andy's looking restless.

That was this week's... Industry News. This is the podcast the King listens to. Although he won't admit it. Right, Andy, why don't you take us home this week with this week's... Tweet of the Week. And we always play that one twice. Tweet of the Week.

And this week's Tweet of the Week is from... It's actually a repost from VCs congratulating themselves. And they have said, VCs making projections be like... And they quote tweet Christian Kyle who has a picture of himself and his baby and it says, my three-month-old son is now twice as big

as when he was born. He's on track to weigh 7.5 trillion pounds by age 10. Oh, yes. That is how valuations you work that is exactly there's we have a total addressable market of like 15 billion and if we sell these all at like 10 each then 150 billion now assuming we only get a 10% success rate, how does 15 billion in annual recurring revenue sound to you? You sound like you've heard this before, Joe. Oh, dear.

I still, like, you know, sometimes wake up in a cold sweat thinking of my analyst days. But I'm glad I'm... It's not that I'm glad I'm not an analyst. It was actually a very, very interesting job. But you do have to listen to a lot of pitches that sound exactly the same. Yeah. Yeah. Dear me. Excellent. Thank you. That was this week's... Tweet of the same. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you. That was this week's

Tweet of the Week. Well, we've come home rather quickly. I think it's almost like we're on speed or something this week. We've powered through it. So, well,

there's not a lot else to say but but mind you at least we've got one out two weeks in a row which let's face it on our recent track record is not bad really is it exactly back to the glory days yeah it's glory something uh so um, thank you very much, sir. It's shit, but it's frequent. Oh, you know what? I just remembered this, something I didn't tell you guys. Oh, go on, go on. So, I live opposite a park,

and nearly every year in the summer, a bunch of travellers with their caravans come in, and they park up in there. And then, I'm not saying anything bad i'm not saying correlation is causation but then little crime in the area picks up and they're here for a week or 10 days until the police get them kicked out and last year after they were kicked out they put up these big barriers uh on the gates so that if your car is over a certain height like a caravan it won't go in but a couple of days ago they were back and they took out a freaking angle grinder in

the middle of the day blocking the road from both sides cut it open and entered the park like you know it was just like you know i just don't care it's. It's like Vince McMahon walking down the ramp. It was just like so, so blasé. And so I've upped the security in my area. I've been on the WhatsApp group with my neighbours saying, don't worry. I work in cyber security so I can monitor them from my CCTVs and fly the drone over them every now and then and like, you know, try to scare them off. But, you know, stay tuned, stay tuned. And fly the drone over them every now and then and try to scare them off. But, you know, stay tuned, stay tuned.

You know, I think vigilante justice are going to take a step up. I even reported it online to 101. I dread to think what they're going to do to your back passage as well. They better not come near my back passage. It's just like being so, like, it's nice, it's clean, it's like being trimmed down, everything. It's a pleasure. And, like, if they try to violate it,

then there will be consequences. That's all I'm saying. On that note, thank you, Jav. You're welcome. Thank you Jav you're welcome thank you thank you Andy stay secure my friends stay secure you've been listening to the host unknown podcast

if you enjoyed what you heard comment and subscribe if you hated it please leave your best insults on our reddit channel worst episode ever r slash smashing security jav do you get the impression that andy's multitasking i don't know you know the fact that he's been looking at his

screen typing on his keyboard you know know, stroking his chin, like moving his mouth the whole time. But you know what it is? I've actually got the show notes open on this machine. Uh-huh. Right. So why are you typing? The show notes were done. Yeah.

Oh, because I'm doing other work as well. I'm multitasking. Blimey. If you'd like a third of your money back, folks, just let us know. We'll refund you Andy's part of the fee. Yeah, send us a receipt and we will honour all refunds.