2025: ESPN Houston Hijack and Ongoing Risks

America's airwaves are haunted by zombies again, as we dig into a decade of broadcasters leaving their hardware open to attack, giving hackers the chance to hijack TV shows, blast out fake emergency alerts, and even replace religious sermons with explicit furry podcasts.

Meanwhile, we look at how a worker at a cybersecurity firm allegedly leaked internal information to a hacking gang - raising big questions about insider threats.

Plus: Frankenstein on Netflix, Vine nostalgia, and why Barney the Dinosaur may be the true criminal mastermind behind it all.

All this and more is discussed in episode 445 of the “Smashing Security” podcast with cybersecurity veteran Graham Cluley, and special guest Dan Raywood.

EPISODE LINKS:

• Fake adult websites pop realistic Windows Update screen to deliver stealers via ClickFix - Acronis.
• Tokyo Court Finds Cloudflare Liable For Manga Piracy in Long-Running Lawsuit - TorrentFreak.
• Former Google chief accused of spying on employees through account ‘backdoor’ - LA Times.
• Bogus zombie apocalypse warnings undermine US emergency alert system - Ars Technica.
• 2013 EAS Zombie Hoax - Emergency Alert System Wiki.
• The 1987 Max Headroom incident - YouTube.
• Nation-wide radio station hack airs hours of vulgar “furry sex” ramblings - Ars Technica.
• ESPN 97.5 Houston Victim Of Barix Hack - Radio Insight.
• ESPN Houston apologises to viewers - Facebook.
• CrowdStrike fires ‘suspicious insider’ who passed information to hackers - TechCrunch.
• Frankenstein official trailer - YouTube.
• Frankenstein - Netflix.
• Vine: Six Seconds that changed the world - Global Player.
• Smashing Security merchandise (t-shirts, mugs, stickers and stuff)

SPONSORS:

• Action1 - Keep your systems safe (and your sanity intact) with the patch management platform that just works. The best part? Your first 200 endpoints are free, forever, with no functional limits.
• Vanta - Expand the scope of your security program with market-leading compliance automation… while saving time and money. Smashing Security listeners get $1000 off!
• Horizon3.ai - Get an autonomous pentest demo and see your network the way attackers do. Visit Horizon3.ai.

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THANKS:

Theme tune: "Vinyl Memories" by Mikael Manvelyan.

Assorted sound effects: AudioBlocks.

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Make sure to check out our sister podcast, "The AI Fix".