Operation Endgame, deepfakes, and dead slugs
Smashing Security
Graham Cluley
4.7 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Graham unravels Operation Endgame - the surprisingly stylish police crackdown that is seizing botnets, mocking malware authors with anime videos, and taunting cybercriminals via Telegram.
Meanwhile, Carole exposes the AI-generated remote hiring threat. Could your next coworker be a North Korean hacker with a perfect LinkedIn?
And BBC cyber correspondent Joe Tidy joins us to talk about "Ctrl-Alt-Chaos", his new book diving into the murky world of teenage hackers, ransomware gangs, and the strange motivations that lie behind digital mayhem.
Plus: competitive pond husbandry, dead slugs, Hitster the board game, and a shoutout to the AI startup that hijacked Graham's SEO.
All this and more is discussed in episode 423 of the "Smashing Security" podcast by cybersecurity veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault - it's like a cauldron of life... but for cybersecurity.
Warning: This podcast may contain nuts, adult themes, and rude language.
Episode links:
- Operation Endgame.
- Ctrl+Alt+Chaos.
- Lizard Squad Member: Why I Took Down Xbox and PlayStation - YouTube.
- Reckoning With the Rise of Deepfakes - The Regulatory Review.
- Deepfake interviews: Navigating the growing AI threat in recruitment and organizational security - Fast Company.
- Why Your Hiring Process is Now a Cybersecurity Vulnerability - Pindrop.
- Best Practices for Defeating Deepfake Candidate Fraud - Dice Hiring.
- Phanpy - A minimalistic opinionated Mastodon web client.
- How to make a mini pond - Gardener’s World.
- Hitster board game.
- Smashing Security merchandise (t-shirts, mugs, stickers and stuff)
Sponsored by:
- Vanta– Expand the scope of your security program with market-leading compliance automation… while saving time and money. Smashing Security listeners get $1000 off!
- Flare- Uncover the latest threats across the dark web and Telegram. Start your free trial today.
- Trelica by 1Password - Access Governance for every SaaS app. Discover, manage, and optimize access for any of your SaaS apps - whether managed or unmanaged.
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THANKS:
Theme tune: "Vinyl Memories" by Mikael Manvelyan.
Assorted sound effects: AudioBlocks.
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyTranscript
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| 0:00.0 | Like I'm |
| 0:12.0 | Like I say, they're having fun Smashing Security, Episode 423, Operation Endgame, Deep Fakes, and Dead Slugs, with Carol Terrio and Graham Cluley. |
| 0:33.1 | Hello, hello, and welcome to Smashing Security episode 423. My name's Graham Cluelly. And I'm Carol Terrio. |
| 0:39.4 | And Carol, we're joined by a special guest, someone who's been on the show a couple of times before. |
| 0:43.9 | Please put your hands together for BBC Cyber Correspondent and author. |
| 0:48.3 | Ooh la la, Joe Tidy. Hello, Joe. |
| 0:51.4 | Hello. Yes, I like that and author bit. That's very new to me, but it feels nice hearing that. I'm saying as often as possible. |
| 0:58.0 | Your book's out now, isn't it? Control Alt Chaos. Yes. Been out a few weeks. Yeah, yeah, my first book. |
| 1:04.1 | Congratulations. Thank you very much. A labor of love. How many hours? Come on. How many hours? |
| 1:09.2 | Well, you know what? I actually worked it out pretty |
| 1:11.4 | accurately. I bet you did. Because what I did was I would do my working day, put the boys to bed |
| 1:17.2 | about eight, and then worked till about half past 10, 11. And I did that for about a year. I just basically |
| 1:23.5 | quit watching TV. And talking to your wife. Oh, yeah, she loved it. |
| 1:28.7 | And I think it was probably about 400 hours sat at the laptop, tip-tapping away. |
| 1:33.1 | And that doesn't include all the other nonsense you have to do around a book. |
| 1:36.6 | But yeah, a lot of work. |
| 1:38.5 | Well, you've been busy. |
| 1:39.6 | I've seen loads of publicity for it. |
| 1:41.5 | And you've been popular in all kinds of places. |
| 1:45.9 | Well, no, but that's absolutely terrific. How is it going? Yeah, good. Yeah. Obviously, I've got no frame of reference at all, |
| 1:50.8 | because I've not done this before. But yeah, lots and lots of nice feedback, really. And there's |
| 1:56.5 | been enough people now that are being nice about it to make me think that actually maybe it is a good book, you know, because at the first few people, you think they're just being nice. But actually, no, it's been pretty good. I've got some nice reviews in the press and some people have commented on it. And it's been a really amazing thing. It's like the hardest thing we've done. But I've done documentaries and I've done podcasts and all the rest of it. But writing a book |
... |
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