158: MalwareTech
Darknet Diaries
Jack Rhysider
4.9 • 8.6K Ratings
🗓️ 6 May 2025
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
MalwareTech was an anonymous security researcher, until he accidentally stopped WannaCry, one of the largest ransomware attacks in history. That single act of heroism shattered his anonymity and pulled him into a world he never expected.
Sponsors
Support for the show comes from Black Hills Information Security. Black Hills has a variety of penetration assessment and security auditing services they provide customers to help keep improve the security of a company. If you need a penetration test check out www.blackhillsinfosec.com/darknet.
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Support for this show comes from Cloaked, a digital privacy tool. Cloaked offers private email, phone numbers, and virtual credit card numbers. So you can be anonymous online. They also will remove your personal information from the internet. Like home address, SSN, and phone numbers. Listeners get 20% off a Cloaked subscription when they visit https://cloaked.com/darknet. Calling 1-855-752-5625 for a free scan to check if your personal information is exposed!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I'm squealing over here. After years and years of trying to get |
| 0:05.8 | today's guest on the show, he finally said yes. I'm so excited for this one. I've been sliding |
| 0:12.9 | into his DMs for years. Hey, can I interview you? And I swear he always has the same answer every time. |
| 0:20.3 | He's like, who are you? And I say something like who are you and i say something like oh i'm a |
| 0:24.2 | podcaster and i i really want to hear your story and he's like no thank you and fair answer i wouldn't |
| 0:29.7 | want to talk to me either if i was in his position and then i saw him at a party at defcon and when i |
| 0:36.6 | when i first approached him in person he was hiding behind a sign, |
| 0:39.9 | trying not to be seen. So I stand out in a crowd, so I've learned that, like, signs are my best |
| 0:45.5 | friend. We can hide behind the lamp post. We can hide behind the tree. We can hide behind the sign. |
| 0:49.9 | But if I stand in the middle of the room, like, it's going to draw a lot more attention than I necessarily |
| 0:56.8 | maybe want. Although I've got the point now where I think I can just handle it. But I do remember |
| 1:02.6 | our first interactions. I think part of the awkwardness was I'm very bad at recognizing faces and |
| 1:09.2 | you were wearing a mask the first time you saw me. |
| 1:11.9 | It's true. I had a disguise on, and yeah, I asked to interview him, and he had no idea who I was. |
| 1:18.4 | He's just like, who are you? |
| 1:19.8 | In my defense, there is no photos of you online, and I have checked. |
| 1:24.1 | It's true. |
| 1:24.7 | There is no way I could have known. |
| 1:27.4 | It's true. I tried real hard not to have any |
| 1:29.5 | photos of me on the internet. I'm a very private person. But I swear every time I asked him for |
| 1:35.0 | an interview, he just kept asking me the same thing. Who are you? No, thank you. So I remember we |
| 1:40.5 | had quite a long conversation, and then you went away and you came back without the mask. |
... |
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