Handala wiper attacks, APT28 implant devs are back, Signal's verification problems

March 13th, 2026  |  1 hr 44 mins

ai, apt research, cyberespionage, nation-state, ransomware, zero-day

(Presented by TLPBLACK - High-fidelity threat intelligence and research tools for modern security teams. From curated Passive DNS and real-time C2 monitoring to actionable IOC feeds and daily malware samples, we help defenders detect, hunt, and disrupt threats faster, with seamless integration into SIEM and SOAR workflows.)

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 89: We discuss Iran hacktivist group 'Handala' wiper attacks against US medical device maker Stryker, Microsoft Intune MDM tool abuse, and whether Iran's cyber retaliation is as scary as the headlines suggest.

Plus, ESET's discovery that Russia's APT28 original implant developers are back after years of silence, Dutch intelligence warnings on Russian campaigns targeting Signal and WhatsApp accounts, Apple finally patching Coruna exploit kit vulnerabilities for older iPhones, and Google sharing Coruna samples that raise new questions about the exploit kit's proliferation chain.

Cast: Ryan Naraine, Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade.

Trenchant, Peter Williams, and the proliferation of a Shadow Brokers-level iOS exploit framework

March 6th, 2026  |  1 hr 59 mins

ai, apt research, cyberespionage, nation-state, ransomware, zero-day

(Presented by Thinkst Canary. Most Companies find out way too late that they’ve been breached. Thinkst Canary changes this. Deploy Canaries and Canarytokens in minutes and then forget about them. Attackers tip their hand by touching ’em giving you the one alert, when it matters. With 0 admin overhead and almost no false-positives, Canaries are deployed (and loved) on all 7 continents.)

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 88: We unpack the fallout from public documentation of the Coruna iOS exploit kit, the likely connection to the Peter Williams/Trenchant exploit sale to Russians, how it slipped from government hands into criminal use, and the widening use of zero-days by surveillance vendors and cybercriminals.

Plus, fresh signs of cyber-warfare activity tied to Iran and Israel, the FBI’s disclosure of a breach affecting internal surveillance systems, and the latest debate over AI, security tooling, and Anthropic’s public stumbles.

Cast: Ryan Naraine, Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade.

Matthias Frielingsdorf on the mysterious Coruna iOS exploit kit discovery

March 5th, 2026  |  39 mins 4 secs

apt research, cyberespionage, nation-state, surveillance, zero-day

(Presented by TLPBLACK - High-fidelity threat intelligence and research tools for modern security teams. From curated Passive DNS and real-time C2 monitoring to actionable IOC feeds and daily malware samples, we help defenders detect, hunt, and disrupt threats faster, with seamless integration into SIEM and SOAR workflows.)

Matthias Frielingsdorf (co-founder and VP of Research at iVerify) joins the show to discuss the mysterious US government connection to 'Coruna', an iOS exploit kit fitted with 23 exploits across five full chains targeting iPhones iOS 13 through 17.2.1.

We talk about a "gut feeling" connecting this to the L3 Trenchant/Peter Williams exploit sale scandal, how a nation-state-grade exploit kit ended up in the hands of a Chinese cybercrime group chasing crypto wallets, and what it means that criminal organizations are now deploying iPhone zero-days at scale.

Matthias walks through what iVerify can and can't do on Apple's locked-down platform, why he thinks Apple needs to give defenders more access, the Lockdown Mode debate, the thorny issue of sample sharing in the research community, and practical advice for everyday iPhone users facing a threat landscape that just got a lot more complicated.

Threat Hunter Greg Linares on the modern ransomware playbook

March 3rd, 2026  |  49 mins 48 secs

ai, apt research, cyberespionage, nation-state, ransomware, zero-day

(Presented by TLPBLACK - High-fidelity threat intelligence and research tools for modern security teams. From curated Passive DNS and real-time C2 monitoring to actionable IOC feeds and daily malware samples, we help defenders detect, hunt, and disrupt threats faster, with seamless integration into SIEM and SOAR workflows.)

Huntress threat intelligence analyst Greg Linares shares insights on the modern ransomware ecosystem, including how crews operate like businesses and why Akira, Medusa, RansomHub, and Qilin cause so much damage. Plus, signs of overlap between ransomware and nation-state activity, what “time to ransom” really means for defenders, and why techniques like ClickFix and credential theft keep working at scale.

The conversation also covers the surge in RMM tool abuse, how “living off the land” attacks can unfold without traditional malware, and the basic defenses smaller organizations can prioritize.

War in Iran, Anthropic v Pentagon, Trenchant zero-day sanctions, AI stock market shocks

February 28th, 2026  |  2 hrs 8 mins

ai, apt research, cyberespionage, cyberwar, nation-state, ransomware, zero-day

(Presented by Thinkst Canary. Most Companies find out way too late that they’ve been breached. Thinkst Canary changes this. Deploy Canaries and Canarytokens in minutes and then forget about them. Attackers tip their hand by touching ’em giving you the one alert, when it matters. With 0 admin overhead and almost no false-positives, Canaries are deployed (and loved) on all 7 continents.)

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 87: We wake up to news of U.S./Israel military action against Iran and the expected fallout, including Tehran’s cyber capabilities and proxy risks. Plus: Anthropic’s clash with the Pentagon over AI use in warfare, market shockwaves from AI-driven security tools, mass layoffs tied to automation, sentencing and sanctions in the exploit trade, and fresh questions around Cisco’s SD-WAN breach and supply-chain trust.

Cast: Ryan Naraine, Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade.

GitLab doxxes North Korea .gov hackers; fresh Ivanti zero-days; AI addiction and human purpose

February 20th, 2026  |  2 hrs 16 mins

ai, apt research, cyberespionage, nation-state, ransomware, zero-day

(Presented by TLPBLACK - High-fidelity threat intelligence and research tools for modern security teams. From curated Passive DNS and real-time C2 monitoring to actionable IOC feeds and daily malware samples, we help defenders detect, hunt, and disrupt threats faster, with seamless integration into SIEM and SOAR workflows.)

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 86: We dig into GitLab’s explosive look at North Korea’s “Contagious Interview” APT operation, the scale of fake IT worker infiltration, and what it means for companies chasing cheap talent.

Plus, a fresh batch of already-exploited Ivanti and Dell zero-days, the return of Apple’s shutdown logs, and thoughts on addictive AI coding agents affecting human purpose.

Cast: Ryan Naraine, Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade.

Palo Alto and the uncomfortable politics of APT attribution

February 13th, 2026  |  2 hrs 30 mins

ai, apt research, cyberespionage, nation-state, ransomware, zero-day

(Presented by Thinkst Canary. Most Companies find out way too late that they’ve been breached. Thinkst Canary changes this. Deploy Canaries and Canarytokens in minutes and then forget about them. Attackers tip their hand by touching ’em giving you the one alert, when it matters. With 0 admin overhead and almost no false-positives, Canaries are deployed (and loved) on all 7 continents.)

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 85: Top stories this week include drone incursions over El Paso and the murky line between cartel activity, anti-drone tech testing, and full-blown hybrid warfare; updates on the Notepad++ supply chain fallout; Microsoft’s zero-day treadmill and AI-enabled attack surfaces; and Apple’s “extremely sophisticated” iOS exploits.

Plus, Europe’s growing appetite for offensive cyber, Palo Alto and the uncomfortable politics of cyber attribution, Singapore on telco intrusions, and the economics of end-of-life infrastructure.

Cast: Ryan Naraine, Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade.

From Epstein to Notepad++: Redactions, Zero-Days and Supply Chain Attacks

February 8th, 2026  |  2 hrs 17 mins

ai, apt research, automation, cyberespionage, nation-state, ransomware, zero-day

(Presented by Thinkst Canary. Most Companies find out way too late that they’ve been breached. Thinkst Canary changes this. Deploy Canaries and Canarytokens in minutes and then forget about them. Attackers tip their hand by touching ’em giving you the one alert, when it matters. With 0 admin overhead and almost no false-positives, Canaries are deployed (and loved) on all 7 continents.)

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 84: We process the cybersecurity fallout from the latest Epstein document dump, focusing on why redactions fail in the AI era and how quickly modern tools can unravel them. The conversation moves from sloppy redaction practices and exploit mythology to harder questions about ethics, accountability, and silence within the infosec community.

Plus, inside the Notepad++ supply-chain compromise attributed to a known Chinese APT, Microsoft’s security executive changes, Anthropic's AI-driven vulnerability discovery, China-linked network implants, and Lockdown Mode thwarting FBI investigators.

Cast: Ryan Naraine, Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade.

A destructive cyberattack in Poland raises NATO 'red-line' questions

January 30th, 2026  |  2 hrs 53 mins

ai, apt research, cyberespionage, nation-state, ransomware, zero-day

(Presented by Material Security: We protect your company’s most valuable materials -- the emails, files, and accounts that live in your Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 cloud offices).

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 83: Poland's CERT documents a rare, explicit wiper attack on civilians in a NATO country, including detailed attribution of a Russian government op targeting the electric grid in the heart of winter. We examine why this crosses a long-avoided threshold, why attribution suddenly matters again, and what it says about pre-positioned access, vendor insecurity, and the shrinking gap between cyber operations and acts of war.

Plus, another Fortinet fiasco, a new batch of Ivanti zero-days under attack, an emergency patch from Microsoft and the return of the mysterious KasperSekrets account.

Cast: Ryan Naraine, Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade.

Cheap, AI-generated zero-days and the real meaning of ‘advanced’ malware

January 23rd, 2026  |  2 hrs 9 mins

ai, apt research, cyberespionage, nation-state, ransomware, zero-day

(Presented by Material Security: We protect your company’s most valuable materials -- the emails, files, and accounts that live in your Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 cloud offices).

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 82: We parse news that China-linked VoidLink is a malware framework created entirely by AI and the collapsing line between elite APT operations and everyday threat actors.

Plus, a new Sean Heelan essay on low-cost exploit generation and why “AI guardrails” are mostly a comforting myth; AI slop overwhelming bug bounty programs; CISA's new Brickstorm YARA rules; and fresh research on a wiper-malware found in Russian attacks against Poland's electricity sector.

Cast: Ryan Naraine, Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade.