Darknet Diaries

The staff of Phrack magazine — the oldest underground hacking publication, running since 1985 — share stories from 40 years of documenting hacker culture.

The story of Masters of Deception (MoD), the hacker group that rivaled Legion of Doom with grittier tactics and more sophisticated social engineering.

The Legion of Doom captured the essence of underground hacking in the 80s and 90s. BBSes, phreaking, rival crews, and the crackdowns that changed everything.

A manufacturer and hospital hit with ransomware. ThreatLocker discusses how application allowlisting stops these attacks by changing the execution environment.

Maxie Reynolds shares stories from her career as a professional penetration tester, including high-stakes physical intrusions and red team operations.

Tanya Janca, founder of We Hack Purple, shares stories from the front lines of application security and why most security breaches are caused by the same preventable mistakes.

Nathan Michael led the Oak Cliff Swipers, a card fraud ring that spiraled from small-time gift card scams to a full-blown criminal enterprise with dozens of co-conspirators.

Ola Bini, a Swedish programmer and privacy advocate, was arrested in Ecuador in 2019 in connection with the Julian Assange case. His story reveals how governments weaponize cybercrime laws.

An examination of election security vulnerabilities, from voting machines to voter registration databases to social media influence operations.

How attackers compromise software supply chains to inject malware into trusted updates, affecting millions of users who believe they are installing legitimate software.

How AI voice cloning and deepfakes are supercharging social engineering attacks, making it possible to impersonate anyone convincingly in real-time.

Inside the market for zero-day vulnerabilities: how they are discovered, priced, and sold to governments, defense contractors, and occasionally criminals.

How nation-state hacking groups (APT28, Lazarus, Equation Group) operate: their tactics, targets, and the geopolitical environments that shape their missions.

The story of a bank employee who exploited their legitimate access to steal millions, revealing why insider threats are the hardest security problem.

Grifter, a longtime hacker and DEF CON organizer, shares stories from decades in the hacking community and how the security landscape has evolved.

How open-source intelligence (OSINT) investigators use publicly available social media data to track people, verify events, and solve crimes.

The story of a cryptocurrency exchange hack that resulted in $100 million in losses, traced through blockchain forensics to a state-sponsored hacking group.

A red team operator shares stories of breaking into corporate buildings, data centers, and government facilities — all with written permission — to test physical security.

An undercover look at scam call centers that defraud elderly victims of their life savings through tech support scams and romance fraud.

Bryan from Bike Index investigates the stolen bike world, revealing an organized underground economy where stolen bikes are laundered through online marketplaces.

The anatomy of a 'pig butchering' scam — a romance-investment fraud that has stolen billions of dollars worldwide. Rhysider traces how organized crime syndicates in Southeast Asia use human trafficking victims to staff massive scam call centers.

A deep investigation into tech support scam call centers in Punjab, India. Rhysider follows a scam-baiter who infiltrates the operations, accessing security cameras and internal communications of the criminal organizations.

The rise and fall of Team Xecuter — the most successful video game piracy operation in history. They sold hardware modifications that allowed people to play pirated games on Nintendo Switch consoles. The story of how a global piracy ring was built, operated, and ultimately busted.

Deviant Ollam — a physical penetration tester who legally breaks into buildings for a living. He picks locks, clones badges, and walks past security guards to demonstrate how weak physical security really is.

The story of Sam — a darknet market vendor who sold drugs online for years before being caught by a combination of his own operational security failures and law enforcement persistence.

A penetration tester named Jason shares stories from his career breaking into secure facilities — from military bases to corporate headquarters. The episode reveals how social engineering exploits human psychology rather than technology.

Chinese hackers compromised managed IT service providers to gain access to their clients — including NASA, IBM, and the US Navy. By hacking one company, they accessed hundreds.

A story about hackers who discovered they could predict the winning numbers in state lottery scratch-off games by analyzing the statistical patterns in the ticket distribution algorithms.

Episode 100 dives deep into NSO Group and its Pegasus spyware — the most sophisticated surveillance tool ever created. Rhysider traces how a small Israeli company built software capable of remotely accessing any iPhone or Android device, and how governments weaponized it against journalists, activists, and political opponents.

The story of Stuxnet — the world's first digital weapon. A computer worm created by the US and Israel to sabotage Iran's nuclear enrichment centrifuges. The attack that proved cyberweapons could cause physical destruction.