This week we are adding a new series to our catalogue. Darknet Diaries. Check out insights from one of our favourite episodes. Enjoy!
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Title: Zero Day Brokers
Podcast: Darknet Diaries
Release Date: 2021-08-03
Summary:
In the ‘Zero Day Brokers’ episode of ‘Darknet Diaries’, host Jack Rhysider delves into the secretive and legal grey market of zero-day exploits, where vulnerabilities unknown to software vendors are sold to the highest bidder, often governments or companies with offensive cyber capabilities. The episode features Nicole Perlroth, a cybersecurity and digital espionage reporter at the New York Times, who shares her experiences and insights from her book ‘This is How They Tell Me the World Ends’. Perlroth discusses her firsthand encounters with state-sponsored hacking, including a Chinese military hack of the New York Times aimed at uncovering sources for stories on Chinese ruling family corruption. The narrative also touches on her journey to Argentina’s Echo Party hacking conference, where she observed the bustling trade of zero-day exploits and the reluctance of developers to discuss their secretive dealings.
The episode traces the history of the zero-day market back to the Reagan era’s Project Gunman, which revealed the Soviet Union’s extensive espionage efforts through bugs in typewriters at the US embassy in Moscow. This incident awakened the US government to the necessity of developing its own cyber espionage capabilities. As the cyber arms race evolved, government agencies began to outsource exploit development to private entities, leading to the emergence of independent groups like the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) team. Members of TAO later left the agency to form their own company, Vulnerability Research Labs (VRL), which specialized in creating ‘click and shoot’ espionage tools for the government. The episode also touches on the ethical and security dilemmas faced by software companies like Microsoft, which have to contend with their own government exploiting vulnerabilities in their products for intelligence-gathering purposes.
Key Takeaways:
| Category | Takeaway |
| Exploit Market Dynamics | The grey market for zero-day exploits is secretive and driven by high financial incentives, with governments often being the buyers. |
| Software companies are at a disadvantage as they cannot outbid the prices offered by governments for zero-day vulnerabilities. | |
| The zero-day market has global reach, with countries like Argentina becoming hubs for exploit development due to skilled hackers and economic conditions. | |
| Government Involvement in Cyber Espionage | Governments, including the US, have been actively involved in developing and purchasing cyber espionage tools. |
| The US government’s shift from creating exploits in-house to purchasing them from independent contractors has led to an increase in the privatization of cyber warfare. | |
| Historical events like Project Gunman have been pivotal in shaping government strategies towards cyber espionage. | |
| Ethical and Security Implications | The use of zero-day exploits by governments can undermine trust in technology companies and create significant security risks for the public. |
| The secretive nature of government cyber operations raises concerns about accountability and oversight in digital espionage. | |
| There is a moral dilemma faced by exploit developers, as the tools they create can be used for purposes beyond their control once sold. | |
| Journalistic Challenges | Journalists investigating cyber espionage face significant risks, including becoming targets of nation-state hackers. |
| The secretive nature of the exploit market and the refusal of key players to be interviewed make it difficult to shed light on the industry. |
Conclusion:
The ‘Zero Day Brokers’ episode of ‘Darknet Diaries’ offers a sobering look at the complexities and moral ambiguities of the zero-day exploit market. The episode emphasizes the dichotomy between the need for national security and the risks posed to individual privacy and global cybersecurity. It highlights the tension between the government’s pursuit of cyber espionage tools and the software industry’s efforts to secure their products, raising questions about the long-term sustainability of this cyber arms race. The episode suggests that the proliferation of zero-day exploits and the lack of transparency in government cyber operations contribute to a fragile digital ecosystem, where trust in technology and international norms are eroded.
The broader implications of the episode suggest that as technology continues to advance, the stakes of the zero-day market will only increase, potentially leading to more destructive cyber attacks with global consequences. The episode calls for a reassessment of the current trajectory of cyber warfare and espionage, advocating for more informed and tech-savvy leadership in government positions. It also underscores the need for international cooperation and dialogue to establish norms and regulations that balance national security interests with the protection of digital infrastructure. Ultimately, the episode leaves listeners with a deeper understanding of the hidden battles being waged in cyberspace and the urgent need for ethical considerations in the development and use of cyber weapons.
Key People Mentioned:
- Jack Rhysider – Host of Darknet Diaries podcast
- Nicole Perlroth – Cybersecurity and digital espionage reporter at the New York Times
- Cesar Cerruto – Argentine hacker focused on smart cities and vulnerabilities
- Federico Kirschbaum – Organizer of Echo Party hacking conference
- Yvonne Arsay – One of the godfathers of the Argentine hacking scene
- James Gosler – Referred to as the ‘godfather of American Cyber War’, former employee at Sandia National Labs, NSA, and CIA
- John Markoff – Former cybersecurity reporter at the New York Times
Important Terms:
- grey market: A market for goods that are legal but sold through unauthorized channels or without proper authorization.
- NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement): A legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes but wish to restrict access to or by third parties.
- exploit: A piece of software, a chunk of data, or sequence of commands that takes advantage of a bug or vulnerability in order to cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on computer software or hardware.
- zero day: A computer software vulnerability that is unknown to those who would be interested in mitigating the vulnerability, including the vendor of the target software.
- magnetometer: An instrument used to measure the strength and direction of the magnetic field in the vicinity of the instrument.
- fuzz farms: Automated systems that use fuzzing techniques (providing invalid, unexpected, or random data as inputs to a computer program) to discover coding errors and security loopholes in software.
- penetration testing: A method of evaluating the security of a computer system or network by simulating an attack from malicious outsiders (who do not have authorized access to the system) and insiders (who have some level of authorized access).
- back door: A method of bypassing normal authentication or encryption in a computer system, product, or embedded device, or its implementation, for securing unauthorized remote access to a computer or remaining undetected.
- catalog: In the context of the NSA, it likely refers to a database or collection of cyber tools, including exploits and vulnerabilities, that can be used for cyber operations.
- Faraday cage: An enclosure used to block electromagnetic fields. A Faraday shield may be formed by a continuous covering of conductive material or a mesh of such materials.
- asymmetrical: In the context of cyber warfare, it refers to a situation where the balance of power or capabilities is significantly skewed, with one party having a substantial advantage over the other.
- red tape: Excessive bureaucracy or adherence to official rules and formalities that can lead to action or decision-making processes being slow or complicated.
Memorable Quotes:
- ‘”But there’s one type of person who always refuses to be interviewed for the show. And that’s people who find vulnerabilities and sell those exploits to governments or companies that will use it to attack people with. This is the grey market for exploits.”‘ – Jack Rhysider
- ‘”Yes. So I have been a target and a victim, although I don’t know to what extent so.”‘ – Nicole Perlroth
- ‘”We decided to publish this story and it changed. It was a time when so many companies had been infiltrated by Chinese hackers and their intellectual property had been stolen and no one wanted to talk about it.”‘ – Nicole Perlroth
- ‘”So I went down to Argentina because I kept hearing over and over again that some of the best 0 day exploit developers were in the southern hemisphere that they were in Argentina.”‘ – Nicole Perlroth
- ‘”I told him that, he laughed and said, you know, some people would probably describe me more as Satan, but OK.”‘ – Nicole Perlroth
- ‘”And so I was really worried about. And one day I was at work and I was sitting at my cubicle desk and I was sort of rooing about this out loud. And John Markov, who’s my predecessor at the New York Times, covered cybersecurity for 20 something years said, oh, you should talk to the godfather of Cyber War.”‘ – Nicole Perlroth
- ‘”They were never going to pay the rates that governments and brokers were going to be offering for these tools. Like the going rate for a 0 day exploit that gets you into an iphone’s iOS software remotely is $2.5 million. Although I found one broker that now offers even more than that.”‘ – Nicole Perlroth
- ‘”So it’s almost like the US government is enemies with Microsoft, especially since Microsoft has to do damage control of the NSA has known about for years.”‘ – Jack Rhysider
- ‘”It’s very asymmetrical because if you become the target of a government cyber attack, they pretty much have endless resources to get what they want and you simply won’t be able to defend yourself effectively.”‘ – Jack Rhysider
- ‘”It’s thought provoking and gives you an incredible peek into the esoteric world of 0 day brokers that no one has exposed before, like the way she has.”‘ – Jack Rhysider
Media Mentioned:
Project Gunman: An operation where the NSA investigated and found Russian bugs in US typewriters.
