How to lose friends and DDoS people

Smashing Security

Graham Cluley

Tech News, News, Technology

4.7 • 579 Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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.

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's a good job this is not a video podcast because listeners would see my mind boggling a new category of AI porn.
0:12.6	Yeah.
0:13.0	It's sort of hard to imagine that there is a new category of porn, whether AI or not.
0:18.8	Exactly. What's the internet been playing at for all these years?
0:21.4	Surely it's covered just about every category possible. Smashing Security, Episode 456, How to Lose Friends and E-Dos people, with Graham Cluelly and special guest Paul Ducklin.
0:43.9	Hello, hello, and welcome to Smashing Security episode 456.
0:47.4	My name's Graham Cleoley.
0:48.7	And my name is Paul Ducklin.
0:50.4	How are you, everybody?
0:52.5	Hello, Duck.
0:53.5	Welcome back to the show. Lovely to have you on again. What's been keeping you
0:56.6	busy lately, Duck? Well, you know that feeling you probably had years and years ago when we both
1:02.1	started in cyber security that when this virus writing thing blows over, we'll go and find
1:07.5	something else to do. When the fad has passed.
1:11.1	Yeah.
1:11.6	I'm just still waiting for that fad to blow over.
1:15.7	Never a dull moment for better or for worse.
1:18.7	I know what you mean.
1:19.5	Well, before we kick off, let's thank this week's wonderful sponsors.
1:22.6	Threat Locker, Corview and Vanta.
1:24.2	We'll be hearing more about them later on in the show.
1:29.2	This week on Smashing Security.
	...

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