Avast Hacker Archives artwork

Avast Hacker Archives

11 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 3 years ago -

Avast is launching a new series, Avast Hacker Archives, that uncovers the “Aha!” moments that hackers and researchers have had over the course of their careers. Jaya Baloo, Avast CISO and the host of the series, will be chatting with renowned security experts about their backgrounds, education, and, of course, their toughest and funniest hack stories and projects — nitty-gritty and technical details included.

Security professionals, hardware experts, threat intelligence leads, privacy advocates, and vulnerability researchers around the globe will join Jaya in discussing current and future trends in the cybersecurity industry.

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Episodes

#10 - Keren Elazari

September 14, 2021 09:09 - 40 minutes - 46.2 MB

“I work in the most interesting field in the world – cybersecurity. I’ve been doing this since I was 14 and I’ve not been bored a single day!” Keren Elazari tells Avast CISO Jaya Baloo early in the interview of our tenth episode and Season 1 finale of the Avast Hacker Archives (AHA) podcast. Keren is explaining how she maintains the energy to do everything she does, which includes:  Being an internationally recognized security analyst, researcher, author, and speaker; working with ...

#9 - Heather Adkins

August 19, 2021 08:32 - 38 minutes - 44.5 MB

She doesn’t just talk the talk, she also walks the walk every day in and day out for a service most of the planet has come to depend on,” says Avast CISO Jaya Baloo, introducing Heather Adkins, Senior Director of Information Security and Privacy at Google and founding member of the Google Security Team. That “service” Jaya mentions only happens to be keeping the most popular internet tool in the world safe and secure for all.  In Episode 9 of Avast Hacker Archives (AHA), Heather te...

#8 - Dave Aitel

July 15, 2021 09:23 - 39 minutes - 90.5 MB

“I’ve always found the best way to get a kid to learn how to hack is to tell them to just never use the computer,” Dave Aitel confides to Jaya Baloo in Episode 8 of our podcast Avast Hacker Archives (AHA). Dave is speaking from experience. When Jaya asks him about his earliest hacking exploits, he harkens back to high school days, when his parents enforced a strict “hands-off” policy with their home computer. They kept it locked in his father’s office. Dave saw this as a challenge....

#7 - Philip Zimmermann

June 22, 2021 09:26 - 47 minutes - 108 MB

“Here’s how it works!” Dan Aykroyd energetically tells the SNL audience. “Catch a bass, remove the hook, and drop the bass – that’s the WHOLE bass – in the Bass-O-Matic 76!” As he says this in his best punchy announcer voice, he picks up a real fish and drops it in a blender. The audience begins to titter, nervously anticipating what might happen next. When he punches that blender button, turning the fish into puree, the audience loses it, laughing hysterically at what would become ...

#6 - Wendy Nather

May 18, 2021 09:00 - 39 minutes - 91.2 MB

At the age of 12, Wendy Nather was living in Israel. Her father was a professor at the University of Tel Aviv, and when she complained to him one day that she was bored, his response launched her on the course that quickly became her life’s calling. They had an electronic console known as a “teletype” in their home – essentially a primordial fax machine – and it had a little bell inside it. Wendy’s father tossed her a BASIC programming manual and challenged her to figure out how to ...

#5 - Eva Galperin

April 13, 2021 10:05 - 42 minutes - 96.7 MB

t’s no coincidence that when our pandemic-stricken world went into lockdown mode in 2020, incidents of abuse via stalkerware spiked, especially in situations where the victimizer did not live with the victim. Then, as the lockdown began to be lifted in early 2021, stalkerware abuse spiked yet again. Abusers have learned over the past couple of years that certain apps facilitate or outright promote spying capabilities without the need for malware. The subterfuge hangs simply on a sha...

#4 - Troy Hunt

March 17, 2021 08:00 - 41 minutes - 95.4 MB

Troy Hunt is an Australian web security consultant known for public education and outreach on security topics. He created Have I Been Pwned?, a data breach search website that allows non-technical users to see if their personal information has been compromised. He has also authored several popular security-related courses on Pluralsight, and regularly presents keynotes and workshops on security topics (Source). He holds the title of Microsoft Regional Director and Microsoft Most Va...

#3 - Chris Roberts

February 16, 2021 09:33 - 43 minutes - 101 MB

Several years ago, Chris Roberts was waiting for a train in Chicago. Bored, he found himself staring at one of the station’s LED display screens. Twenty minutes later, he had that screen programmed so that it pulsed the lyrics of “God Save the Queen” in Morse code for 30 seconds at a certain moment every single night. From what he understands, it’s still doing it to this day.   Chris has what he calls “the hacker mentality” – a constantly inquisitive state of mind that whirs into ...

#2 - Katie Moussouris

February 01, 2021 11:04 - 40 minutes - 91.7 MB

Katie started with computers at age eight in her bedroom on a Commodore 64. She was the first female in her high school to take AP Computer Science and has continued to achieve many firsts in the hacking community.  Katie is now an established pioneer and expert on bug bounty programs, vulnerability disclosure standards, handling processes and secure development, and a recognized cybersecurity public speaker.  In our episode, Katie tells the story of how a presentation she made at a grad-s...

#1 - Joseph FitzPatrick

January 19, 2021 02:00 - 35 minutes - 82 MB

In this episode, Joe recollects about the first hack he ever presented at a conference. It was a Nikon D800 camera. The high-end apparatus used a very expensive proprietary Wi-Fi adaptor, and Joe didn’t understand why a generic $50 adaptor, at a tenth the cost, shouldn’t work just as effectively. Applying some electrical engineering skill and technical know-how, Joe hacked the device and made the cheaper adaptor work like a charm on it.   Aside from leading Joe down the road to ma...

Teaser

January 14, 2021 13:31 - 19 seconds - 790 KB

Avast Hacker Archives, new video and podcast series, that uncovers the “Aha!” moments that hackers and researchers have had over the course of their careers. Jaya Baloo, Avast CISO and the host of the series, is chatting with renowned security experts about their backgrounds, education, and, of course, their toughest and funniest hack stories and projects — nitty-gritty and technical details included. Join us as we uncover some of the greatest moments in the careers of top hackers and celebra...