(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 81: We dissect New York Times reporting on the "precision" of US cyber operations in Venezuela, the competing narratives around offensive cyber capabilities and "letters of marque" for private hackers. Plus, a mysterious failed cyber attack on Poland's power grid, internet blackouts in Iran (with fascinating DNS telemetry revealing Chinese bank traffic and Russian website spikes), and news of China's ban on US/Israeli cybersecurity software.

We also cover Check Point's research on "VoidLink" (is it a successor to ShadowPad?), Microsoft's threat intelligence sharing practices, and Google Project Zero's disclosure of zero-click vulnerabilities caused by AI-powered transcription features.

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

Links:

Transcript (unedited, AI-generated)
Sponsor: Material Security
Cyberattack in Venezuela Demonstrated Precision of U.S. Capabilities
Massive cyberattack on Polish power system in December failed, minister says
What happened in Poland? (Ruben Santamarta)
Costin Raiu: What’s Happening in Iran?
Verizon just had a big outage. Here’s what we know
Beijing tells Chinese firms to stop using US and Israeli cyber products
MS Patch Tuesday CVE-2026-20805 (exploited in the wild)
VoidLink: The Cloud-Native Malware Framework
Microsoft disrupts global cybercrime subscription service
Project Zero: A 0-click exploit chain for the Pixel 9
Joint statement from Google and Apple
Sean Plankey re-nominated to lead CISA
TLPBLACK
DistrictCon Agenda
Ekoparty Miami
The Thinking Game (Full Documentary)

Fly Out Day: Inside the funding fight with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto

The Daily Punch

Accountability, training and constitutional protections

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