123. Mic Drop: China seeks a Great Leap Forward in cyber

In a year that could bring a perfect storm of disinformation, meet Doppelgänger, a Russian-backed group seeking not just to shake up the world’s elections, but its institutions too.

The White House’s top cyber official is keen to set minimum cybersecurity standards for industry, put contingencies in place in case cyberattacks are successful, and start looping ordinary people into an effort to make products secure by design.

An episode from the ‘CSAIL Alliances Podcast’ from MIT CSAIL Alliances. Host Kara Miller talks with MIT robotics researcher and professor Daniela Rus about how we can use a new generation of robots to help humankind. Rus is the co-author of the new book, "The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots."

Before Nigerian authorities detained two mid-level Binance executives back in February, they were telling anyone who would listen that the cryptocurrency platform was manipulating the value of its currency, the naira. It turns out the more likely culprit is more than a decade of economic mismanagement. We explain.

A former American IRS investigator responsible for some of the earliest dark market takedowns has been in Nigerian custody since February. Neither Nigerian nor the US authorities seem to be distinguishing Tigran Gambaryan from Binance, the company where he works.

Chinese hackers are stepping up their game, according to Nigel Inkster, the former director of operations for Britain’s MI6. He says they are taking on a new swagger in cyberspace and borrowing things from a familiar playbook: a Russian one.

The US and UK made a splashy coordinated announcement last month about a years-long cyber espionage campaign by Chinese state-backed hackers. The US indicted seven, the UK leveled sanctions. They just neglected to do one thing --- let some of the victims know.

North Korea has a unique way of testing malware — they are less concerned about getting it right than getting it out… a kind of “smash-and-grab” approach to cyber attacks. Sentinel One’s Tom Hegel explains.

North Korea may be best known for the Lazarus group’s epic cryptocurrency heists. But there’s another special unit of state-backed hackers who have a different specialty: spying on journalists, dissidents, and cybersecurity experts. We look at the ScarCruft gang and their very crafty phishing campaigns.

Everyone is talking about the power of AI in conservation, but a professor at Arizona State University has found an even simpler, more elegant solution – and all you have to do is listen.