Risky Business #825 -- Palo Alto Networks blames it on the boogie

On this week’s show, Patrick Gray, Adam Boileau and James WIlson discuss the week’s cybersecurity news. They cover:

• Palo Alto threat researchers want to attribute to China, but management says shush

• An increasing proportion of ransomware is data extortion. Is this good?

• Cambodia says it’s going to dismantle scam compounds

• CISA sufferers through yet another shutdown

• Google Gemini’s training secrets are being systematically harvested to improve other LLMs

• Academics assess SaaS password managers’ resilience against a malicious server

This episode is sponsored by SSO-firewall integration vendor Knocknoc. Chief exec Adam Pointon joins to talk about the latest in defences… which is to say Knocknoc for Solaris/Sparc and HPUX on PA-RISC?! Okay also that other little known OS… Windows.

This episode is also available on Youtube (youtu.be/kNVm-iRCxo4).

Show notes

• Data-only extortion grows as ransomware gangs seek better profits | Cybersecurity Dive (cybersecuritydive.com/news/ransomware-extortio…)

• Arctic Wolf Threat Report 2026 (arcticwolf.com/resource/_pfcdn/assets/preproce…)

• Exclusive: Palo Alto chose not to tie China to hacking campaign for fear of retaliation from Beijing, sources say (reuters.com/world/china/palo-alto-chose-not-ti…)

• Risky Bulletin: Cambodia promises to dismantle scam networks by April - Risky Business Media (risky.biz/risky-bulletin-cambodia-promises-to-…)

• Age of the ‘scam state’: how an illicit, multibillion-dollar industry has taken root in south-east Asia | Cybercrime | The Guardian (theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/02/scam-st…)

• Critical flaw in BeyondTrust Remote Support sees early signs of exploitation | Cybersecurity Dive (cybersecuritydive.com/news/critical-flaw-beyon…)

• CISA Navigates DHS Shutdown With Reduced Staff - SecurityWeek (securityweek.com/cisa-navigates-dhs-shutdown-w…)

• Kimwolf Botnet Swamps Anonymity Network I2P – Krebs on Security (krebsonsecurity.com/2026/02/kimwolf-botnet-swa…)

• BADIIS to the Bone: New Insights to a Global SEO Poisoning Campaign — Elastic Security Labs (elastic.co/security-labs/badiis-to-the-bone-ne…)

• Over 500,000 VKontakte accounts hijacked through malicious Chrome extensions | The Record from Recorded Future News (therecord.media/500000-vkontakte-accounts-hija…)

• Password managers' promise that they can't see your vaults isn't always true - Ars Technica (arstechnica.com/security/2026/02/password-mana…)

• Zero Knowledge (About) Encryption: A Comparative Security Analysis of Three Cloud-based Password Managers (eprint.iacr.org/2026/058.pdf)

• Google finds state-sponsored hackers use AI at 'all stages' of attack cycle | CyberScoop (cyberscoop.com/state-hackers-using-gemini-goog…)

• Google: Gemini hit with 100,000+ prompts in cloning attempt (nbcnews.com/tech/security/google-gemini-hit-10…)

• Proofpoint acquires Acuvity to tackle the security risks of agentic AI | CyberScoop (cyberscoop.com/proofpoint-acuvity-deal-agentic…)

• Cisco Redefines Security for the Agentic Era with AI Defense Expansion and AI-Aware SASE (newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2026/…)

• Sophos Acquires Arco Cyber to Bring CISO-Level, Agentic AI-Powered Expertise to Every Organization (sophos.com/en-us/press/press-releases/2026/02/…)

• Dave Kennedy on X: "Regarding this, there was a couple questions on does the pacemaker continue to advertise - most BLE implantable devices go into a sleep type mode. In this case, we are lucky - it does not. We know based on law enforcement answers that she is using a more modern pacemaker with" / X (x.com/hackingdave/status/2023079529569214868?s…)

• Clash Report on X: "BIG: Dutch Defence Minister Gijs Tuinman hints that software independence is possible for F-35 jets. He literally said you can “jailbreak” an F-35. When asked if Europe can modify it without US approval: “That’s not the point… we’ll see whether the Americans will show t.co/f11cGvtYsO"; / X (x.com/clashreport/status/2023077430840172571?s…)

• Dutch police arrest man who refused to delete confidential files shared by mistake | The Record from Recorded Future News (therecord.media/netherlands-arrest-confidentia…)