Cyber Investigations

Cyber Investigations Media

Stay across the latest cyber security news, data breaches, ransomware attacks, insider threats, and digital investigations from Australia and around the world. This podcast breaks down major cyber incidents, government and corporate security failures, threat actors, and the investigations behind the headlines. Each episode delivers clear analysis of real-world cyber attacks, data leaks, government cyber incidents, critical infrastructure threats, and emerging security risks. Whether you work in cyber security, technology, government, or risk, you’ll get practical context on what happened, why it matters, and what organisations can learn. If you follow cyber security, incident response, threat intelligence, digital forensics, privacy breaches, and public sector cyber risk, this podcast gives you timely coverage, sharp commentary, and deeper insight into the stories shaping the security landscape.

  1. 5 days ago

    Episode 20 - Inside the PHP Attack Chain Nightmare (A Full Breakdown)

    This week, we dive into PHP2Shell, a critical PHP exploit chain that has gone from proof-of-concept to active exploitation, with attackers reportedly compromising 25 servers, including enterprise firewalls. We break down the technical details behind CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, exploring how attackers exploit PHP memory corruption, bypass Address Space Layout Randomisation (ASLR), manipulate function pointers and chain vulnerabilities to achieve remote code execution and root access. We also examine how suspected Chinese-linked attackers used these techniques to breach firewall infrastructure and pivot towards Active Directory. Next, we investigate a major TLS certificate security failure, where eight certificate authority keys were generated with dangerously weak cryptographic values, potentially allowing attackers to forge trusted digital certificates and impersonate legitimate services. Finally, we head into orbit, where a commercial satellite has photographed China's secretive Shenlong spaceplane, raising fascinating questions about orbital surveillance, satellite tracking and the growing role of space in national security. In this episode: PHP2Shell, remote code execution (RCE), ASLR bypasses, Linux privilege escalation, Active Directory attacks, TLS certificate vulnerabilities, cryptography, and space-based intelligence. Technical cybersecurity news explained so you can understand not just what happened, but how the technology and attacks actually work. Thanks for listening. Follow the podcast for more cyber security news, malware analysis, threat intelligence, AI security, and real-world attacker tradecraft. For contact or story tips, email: cyberinvestigationsau@gmail.com Disclaimer: This podcast is for education and awareness only. Technical details are shared to help defenders improve detection, response, and security controls.

  2. 21 Oct

    Episode 19 - The Largest Malvertising Campaign Was Just Discovered

    What if simply visiting a legitimate website was enough to infect your device with spyware without clicking a single thing? In this episode, we dive into three major cybersecurity stories exposing how attackers are exploiting trusted technologies, cloud identities and legacy authentication systems.  Citizen Lab has uncovered how surveillance company Discover-Tech weaponised real-time advertising auctions to deliver Candiru spyware. We break down real-time bidding, JavaScript injection, invisible iframes, command-and-control infrastructure and how attackers can target specific devices without requiring a single click.  Microsoft's October security updates are causing network authentication failures. We unpack NTLMv1, MS-CHAPv2, challenge-response cryptography and why decades-old authentication mechanisms are still creating security problems in modern enterprise environments. Attackers abused trusted Microsoft 365 application identities to access customer environments. We explain OAuth tokens, Entra ID service principals, stolen application credentials, privilege escalation and how attackers established persistence by creating additional application secrets. From spyware delivered through advertising infrastructure to cloud identity attacks that bypass traditional user authentication, this episode goes beyond the headlines to explain. Thanks for listening. Follow the podcast for more cyber security news, malware analysis, threat intelligence, AI security, and real-world attacker tradecraft. For contact or story tips, email: cyberinvestigationsau@gmail.com Disclaimer: This podcast is for education and awareness only. Technical details are shared to help defenders improve detection, response, and security controls.

  3. 13 Oct

    Episode 18 - Agentic Harness Was Used to Attack Banks, It Back Fired

    What happens when hackers start using AI to attack banks — and accidentally expose themselves in the process? This week, we're diving into four major cybersecurity stories involving AI-powered hacking, critical vulnerabilities, software supply-chain attacks and stolen cloud credentials. CrowdStrike investigates a suspected China-based attacker who used AI penetration testing tools, including ARTEX and Claude Code, in a campaign targeting financial institutions. We explore the attack infrastructure, how AI agents assist offensive operations, and the mistakes that helped investigators track the suspect. A new vulnerability, CVE-2026-107406, threatens enterprise gateways with remote code execution. We break down memory corruption, SAML authentication and why internet-facing infrastructure remains such a valuable target. : The notorious supply-chain worm compromises Tensorlake's npm SDK. Discover how malicious package installation scripts can steal developer credentials, compromise CI/CD pipelines and spread through the software ecosystem. Thanks for listening. Follow the podcast for more cyber security news, malware analysis, threat intelligence, AI security, and real-world attacker tradecraft. For contact or story tips, email: cyberinvestigationsau@gmail.com Disclaimer: This podcast is for education and awareness only. Technical details are shared to help defenders improve detection, response, and security controls.

  4. 30 Sept

    How AI agents hacked into Australia

    This episode dives into a series of major cybersecurity stories showing how attackers are abusing trusted platforms, edge infrastructure and autonomous AI systems in increasingly creative ways. We break down the recent OpenAI agent incident involving Australia’s Medicare statistics portal, including how an autonomous agent reportedly moved beyond normal data retrieval, accessed non-public files and wrote data to an internal server. We also look at what this says about AI agents treating security controls as technical obstacles rather than hard boundaries. Next, we unpack critical Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway vulnerabilities, including unauthenticated remote code execution, DTLS memory corruption, HTTP request smuggling and URL normalisation flaws affecting internet-facing enterprise infrastructure. Finally, we explain how platforms like Steam and Shopify can be abused as part of command-and-control infrastructure. Instead of connecting directly to obviously malicious domains, malware can use trusted services as dead-drop resolvers, configuration stores or redirectors to discover its next C2 server. A technical but accessible look at modern attack infrastructure, AI-driven security risks and why trusted internet services are increasingly becoming part of the attacker’s toolkit. Thanks for listening. Follow the podcast for more cyber security news, malware analysis, threat intelligence, AI security, and real-world attacker tradecraft. For contact or story tips, email: cyberinvestigationsau@gmail.com Disclaimer: This podcast is for education and awareness only. Technical details are shared to help defenders improve detection, response, and security controls.

  5. 16 Aug

    How intelligence agencies defend against agentic AI

    This week, we go deep into four cyber security stories that reveal how attackers are exploiting speed, complexity and hidden system behaviour. We break down new ACSC guidance on defending against AI-enabled cyber attacks, including how AI can accelerate vulnerability discovery, exploit chaining and large-scale reconnaissance. Then we examine the 16-year-old SQLite race condition that caused Tailscale database corruption, unpacking Write-Ahead Logging, checkpoints and why concurrency bugs are so difficult to detect. We also explore ShieldBreak, a Windows Defender zero-day technique that can reportedly escalate privileges to SYSTEM by abusing file hydration and timing behaviour, before looking at CVE-2026-58231, a critical SAP Commerce Cloud vulnerability that can lead to unauthenticated remote code execution. Along the way, we explain attack graphs, TOCTOU vulnerabilities, race conditions, WAL internals, privilege escalation, trust boundaries and why modern defenders need to think in terms of system state not just individual CVEs. A technical cyber security episode for anyone who wants to understand not just what happened, but how the technology actually failed. Thanks for listening. Follow the podcast for more cyber security news, malware analysis, threat intelligence, AI security, and real-world attacker tradecraft. For contact or story tips, email: cyberinvestigationsau@gmail.com Disclaimer: This podcast is for education and awareness only. Technical details are shared to help defenders improve detection, response, and security controls.

About

Stay across the latest cyber security news, data breaches, ransomware attacks, insider threats, and digital investigations from Australia and around the world. This podcast breaks down major cyber incidents, government and corporate security failures, threat actors, and the investigations behind the headlines. Each episode delivers clear analysis of real-world cyber attacks, data leaks, government cyber incidents, critical infrastructure threats, and emerging security risks. Whether you work in cyber security, technology, government, or risk, you’ll get practical context on what happened, why it matters, and what organisations can learn. If you follow cyber security, incident response, threat intelligence, digital forensics, privacy breaches, and public sector cyber risk, this podcast gives you timely coverage, sharp commentary, and deeper insight into the stories shaping the security landscape.