Three Buddy Problem

(Presented by TLPBLACK: A cybersecurity intelligence platform focused on sharing curated, high-sensitivity threat insights and research with trusted security professionals.)

SECURITY CONVERSATIONS: Black Lotus Labs researcher Michael Horka joins the show to discuss Silent Train, a Volt Typhoon framework that spins up four-to-six-hop chains of hijacked SOHO routers in about two minutes and wipes every hop when the day's session ends.

We discuss how ORB networks differ from botnets, why Silent Train took over after the FBI's KV-botnet takedown, the zero-days hitting control plane software from Versa, N-able and VeloCloud, and the NetFlow and logging moves defenders can make right now.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Intros

0:29 What is an ORB network?

2:34 Silent Train, an operational framework for Volt Typhoon

3:30 Why call it Silent Train?

4:12 Chains that exist for a few hours

6:47 The hijacked routers in the chain

8:16 Burning zero-days on a single hop

9:48 Attribution and the KV-botnet successor

11:02 Crown jewels and NetFlow visibility

14:53 Why network monitoring gets skipped

17:23 Victims in Hawaii, California and Texas

19:23 Four confirmed zero-days, all patched

20:47 Control plane software as the target

26:00 No-brainer defenses: logs and internet exposure

29:41 Threat hunting, agentic AI and where ORBs go next

(Presented by TLPBLACK: A cybersecurity intelligence platform focused on sharing curated, high-sensitivity threat insights and research with trusted security professionals.)

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 117: This week, we dig into PHP2Shell, the AI-assisted PHP bug that led governments to take websites offline, and the arguments over broken embargoes, who found it first, and the AI doomers taking an "I-told-you-so" victory lap.

Plus, why patching hasn't kept up with AI bug finding, a failure of SBOMs, Terence Tao on math after AI, the iPhone Duo jailbreak and the eMudhra certificate authority key leak.

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

Timestamps:

0:00 Introductory banter

1:07 Black October's pile of critical bugs

2:34 PHP2Shell and the AI victory lap

8:28 Twenty years of PHP technical debt

16:54 Wiz, Gemini 4 Argon and the credit fight

21:01 Chainguard breaks the embargo

28:42 The doomers' warnings and the patching gap

39:32 Is this an SBOM problem?

55:33 Inside the PHP Foundation's post-mortem

1:03:13 Are bugs sparse or dense?

1:11:24 Should frontier labs fix coding?

1:20:14 Vibe coding and math's industrial era

1:27:26 Who pays to maintain open source?

1:44:59 iPhone Duo hacked already, eMudhra and the news

(Presented by TLPBLACK: A cybersecurity intelligence platform focused on sharing curated, high-sensitivity threat insights and research with trusted security professionals.)

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 116: This week, the buddies dig into a mystery hack that cooked French supermarket fridges, cyberattacks against food supply networks, and why this smells like nation-state sabotage in Europe?

Plus, a fresh Ivanti zero-day chain, Anthropic's self-replicating IoT research and defender-hostile guardrails, Citizen Lab's AdFection spyware-by-ads exposé, Calif's iPhone exploit drops at Hexacon, Grok's surprising enterprise adoption, and spy chips stuffed inside Ledger wallets.

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

Timestamps:

0:00 Introductory banter

1:35 Virus Bulletin 2026 in Seville

6:13 Conference roundup: State of Statecraft, Countermeasure, RE//verse

10:21 French supermarket fridges hacked

22:53 Hacking food supply and the attribution question

33:23 Who patches the fridge?

45:58 Ivanti Connect Secure zero-day chain

53:00 When an AI agent deletes your databases

1:04:34 NCSC edge-device forensics guidance

1:28:06 Anthropic's self-replicating IoT research

1:52:17 Why guardrails lock out defenders

2:04:57 Grok's enterprise play and agent sprawl

2:16:26 Citizen Lab exposes AdFection spyware via ads

2:57:24 Calif burns iPhone exploits at Hexacon

3:06:55 Ledger wallet implants and the grain of rice

(Presented by TLPBLACK: A cybersecurity intelligence platform focused on sharing curated, high-sensitivity threat insights and research with trusted security professionals.)

Three Buddy Problem x Offensive AI Con: Luta Security chief Katie Moussouris makes the case for an NTSB-style board for AI incidents, with subpoena power and full-time investigators, after OpenAI's DNS tunneling escape and the 52 days it took to notice a model had wandered into Australian government systems.

Along the way, we chat about her work on the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), AI model refusals that leave defenders stuck, and why she still bets on hackers to bend this technology their way.

Cast: Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Ryan Naraine and Katie Moussouris.

Timestamps:

0:00 Intros at Offensive AI Con

1:00 OpenAI's DNS tunneling incident and slow monitoring

4:36 Treating AI like malware in a sandbox

9:01 The business model is the misalignment

13:37 Log4j, SBOMs and an NTSB for AI

18:00 Trading liability protection for honest disclosure

22:13 Accountability and "once you become aware"

26:18 The Australia notification timeline

28:19 A blank-check administration and the Anthropic phaseout

34:35 Powerful models in the right hands

38:42 Kill switch bills and regulatory capture

42:36 EU fines as a tariff on American tech

48:03 Reasons for optimism

54:13 Bring back "information security"

1:01:57 Katie's last word

(Presented by TLPBLACK: A cybersecurity intelligence platform focused on sharing curated, high-sensitivity threat insights and research with trusted security professionals.)

Three Buddy Problem x Offensive AI Con: Ollie Whitehouse, CTO of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, joins us to explain how Britain is preparing for an AI-driven patch wave and why the NCSC is pressing edge-device vendors to finally ship real telemetry.

Plus, we dig into rogue AI agents wandering into a Five Eyes network, along with his forecast that small, capable models could revive self-spreading worms around 2030, all part of what he calls the biggest forced correction of technical debt the industry will ever see.

Cast: Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Ryan Naraine and Ollie Whitehouse.

Timestamps:

0:00 Live from Offensive AI Con: meet Ollie Whitehouse

2:46 Why the NCSC is a model for the US

6:48 What a "national technical authority" does

7:49 The Huawei analysis and the push for passkeys

10:50 Independent AI model testing

13:12 Open-weight vs. closed models and AI sovereignty

19:02 Capability density and AI worms by 2030

23:09 Robotics security and lessons from Japan

26:49 Preparing for the patch wave

31:06 Architecture fixes: OT, cross domain, privileged access

32:28 Telecoms security and Salt Typhoon

38:59 Minimum telemetry standards for edge devices

41:55 Market incentives and the EU Cyber Resilience Act

46:05 Rogue agents and the forced correction of technical debt