How cryptography is used in ransomware

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

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

Plus a ransomware gang shoots itself in the foot with a classic case of buffoonery, accidentally corrupting the very keys victims would need to decrypt their data. When even the criminals can’t unlock your files, what happens next?

All this, a surprisingly zen Pick of the Week, and a gloriously splenetic rant against web forms, on episode 456 of the award-winning "Smashing Security" podcast, with cybersecurity veteran Graham Cluley and special guest Paul Ducklin.

EPISODE LINKS:

• This App Will Detect People Wearing Smart Glasses Near You - Lifehacker.
• Patients listed as dead after major NZ health app MediMap hacked - 1News.
• Why fake AI videos of UK urban decline are taking over social media - BBC News.
• FBI orders domain registrar to reveal who runs mysterious Archive.is site - Ars Technica.
• Archive.today CAPTCHA page executes DDoS; Wikipedia considers banning site - Ars Technica.
• Archive.today is directing a DDOS attack against my blog - Gyrovague.
• Critical buffer overflow bug - in ESXi ransomware - SolCyber.
• Yoga with Adriene - YouTube.
• Smashing Security merchandise (t-shirts, mugs, stickers and stuff)

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THANKS:

Theme tune: "Vinyl Memories" by Mikael Manvelyan.

Assorted sound effects: AudioBlocks.