174: Pacific Rim

For six years, Sophos fought a secret cyber war against a state-backed hacking group targeting its firewalls. This forced Sophos to drastically change tactics to properly secure their firewalls.

Was it ethical? Was it effective? They disrupted nine zero-day attacks, exposed who was hacking them, and forced the hackers to change tactics. But at what cost?

You have to listen to one of the most audacious corporate cyber defenses ever conducted.

Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker®. ThreatLocker® is a Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform that strengthens your infrastructure from the ground up. With ThreatLocker® Allowlisting and Ringfencing™, you gain a more secure approach to blocking exploits of known and unknown vulnerabilities. ThreatLocker® provides Zero Trust control at the kernel level that enables you to allow everything you need and block everything else, including ransomware! Learn more at www.threatlocker.com.

This show is sponsored by Meter, the company building networks from the ground up. Meter delivers a complete networking stack - wired, wireless, and cellular - in one solution that’s built for performance and scale. Alongside their partners, Meter designs the hardware, writes the firmware, builds the software, manages deployments, and runs support. Learn more at meter.com.

Support for this show comes from Drata. Drata is the trust management platform that uses AI-driven automation to modernize governance, risk, and compliance, helping thousands of businesses stay audit-ready and scale securely. Learn more at drata.com/darknetdiaries.

• https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2024/10/31/pacific-rim-timeline/
• https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/seven-hackers-associated-chinese-government-charged-computer-intrusions-targeting-perceived
• https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/guan-tianfeng