Clippy's crypto comeback

Danny Palmer (0:03)

It's October, which means it's Cyber Security Awareness Month.

Graham Cluley (0:06)

Oh, no, the one month of the year we have to care about cyber security, and then the 11 months we can have off.

Danny Palmer (0:11)

Yes, yes.

Graham Cluley (0:12)

It is, isn't it?

Danny Palmer (0:13)

I've got up all my decorations, sent my card, very exciting times.

Graham Cluley (0:27)

Smashing Security, Episode 487, Clippy's Crypto Comeback, with Graham Cluley and special guest Danny Palmer. Hello, hello, and welcome to Smashing Security, Episode 487 My name's Graham Cluley.

Danny Palmer (0:41)

And I'm Danny Palmer.

Graham Cluley (0:42)

Danny, great to have you back.

I also have to say great also to be sitting in the seat again here at the Podcast Palace, newly relocated thanks to everyone who listened to the show for their kind words as I took a week off yesterday in order to undergo a house move. So it wasn't possible to do the podcast and move house and change cities at the same time.

Danny Palmer (1:05)

You weren't doing it or driving the van to your new house there.

Graham Cluley (1:09)

I could have done, couldn't I? I could have live streamed or something like that. I did used to know a guy. I remember once he was driving me around. This was like, oh gosh, 25, 30 years ago or so. And he was driving me around London. And I thought, oh, that's an interesting radio program. It appears that he's listening to an episode of Dad's Army. And I looked over at him and I saw that he actually had balanced on top of his steering wheel where the speedometer was or whatever. He actually had one of those mini televisions with an aerial. And he was bloody well watching TV while driving me around. Some friend he turned out to be.

Danny Palmer (1:44)

I suppose that's those times where the laws hadn't caught up the technology yet.

Graham Cluley (1:48)

Yes, yes. I suppose he would have been caught these days.

Danny Palmer (1:51)

I'm glad everything's on successfully. And you've got your important bookshelf behind you as well in your camera. That's the most important thing.

Graham Cluley (1:57)

Yes, yes. Anyone who's watching the video will be able to see, yes, got the all important bookshelf sufficiently blurred out so you can't see that it's mostly Doctor Who books and Doctor Who videos and the occasional chess book as well.

Christine Bartlett (2:13)

This week on Smashing Security.

Graham Cluley (2:14)

We won't be talking about how AI agents are suspected of hacking seven South Korean banks.

You'll hear no discussion of how Asos customers found out the site had been hacked from an app notification posted by the hackers themselves. And we won't even mention how AI coding agents leaked 13,000 internal screenshots from over 300 companies onto public GitHub. Just to be helpful. So Danny, what are you going to be talking about this week?

Danny Palmer (2:47)

Well, I'm going to be talking about a big rise in cyber scams, stealing social media accounts of maybe your friends.

Graham Cluley (2:53)

And I'm going to be exploring a cyber attack involving one of the most reviled characters in history. Plus, we're also going to be joined by Christine Bartlett of Hack The Box for a featured interview. All this and much more coming up in this episode of Smashing Security.

Right, Danny, before we start, I've got some bad news for you, I'm afraid.

Danny Palmer (3:17)

I know.

Graham Cluley (3:18)

Yeah, I'm sorry to tell you that you are in a small plane, a small plane plummeting into the sea.

Danny Palmer (3:26)

Doesn't sound ideal, I've got to be honest.

Graham Cluley (3:29)

No, it gets worse because the pilot has jumped out with the last parachute.

You're the only one on board. You don't even have a picnic hamper to save yourself. Now, kusplosh, you've landed in the ocean. You survived the impact. That's great.

Danny Palmer (3:45)

That is good.

Graham Cluley (3:46)

And you're bobbing around in the waves. And luckily for you, there are two islands within swimming distance. Now, I don't know how good a swimmer you are, Danny.

Danny Palmer (3:55)

We're probably talking about 200 meters at this rate.

Graham Cluley (4:00)

Yes. Conveniently, these two islands are very close. But unluckily for you, these islands are inhabited by people that you'd probably rather not meet. And you've got to make your choice as to which island to swim towards. OK, that's the name of the game. You've got to make the choice. Now, your first island, which you've got to consider, is the Michael Buble Island. Now, Michael Buble, some people think he's perfectly nice. What they're forgetting, of course, is that he sings. And in this particular case, Michael Buble is going to sing at you constantly.