Masked Actors
Masked Actors is a true crime podcast that delves into the world of cybercrime, exploring the people behind the keyboard. Hosted by cyber threat expert Gary Ruddell and financial crime fighter Nick Palmer, the series investigates the top 10 most dangerous cybercriminal groups of 2025, based on Group-IB's High-Tech Crime Trends Report. Each episode uncovers the tactics, motivations, and impact of major cybercrime groups, including Ransomware-as-a-Service gangs and global financial crime syndicates. The podcast aims to help listeners stay one step ahead of cybercrime by understanding how these actors exploit vulnerabilities and affect businesses and consumers.
Episodes
Defender: Leaving the Cyber Underworld Behind
Send us Fan MailThe public often sees cybercrime through the lens of attacks, arrests and headlines. Far less visible are the online communities that sit behind them. For many people, cybercrime isn’t just about the money. These communities offer status, identity and belonging, making it difficult for people to walk away once they’re inside. In this episode, host Gary Ruddell and former INTERPOL D
The Wire: ShinyHunters - Hackers Hunting Hackers
Send us Fan MailShinyHunters has left an alleged trail stretching from university campuses, and major healthcare providers, to government agencies. It even turned on its peers, extorting and publicly humiliating Cl0P ransomware group in a turf war that offered a rare glimpse of the power struggles that underpin the criminal underworld. In this debut episode of Masked Actors: The Wire, where we ta
MuddyWater: Expanding an Espionage Operation
Send us Fan MailSuccessful espionage usually relies on patience. Nation-state actors quietly infiltrate targets, maintain access for years, and gather intelligence without attracting attention. But one threat actor has spent nearly a decade rewriting that playbook. MuddyWater has built its reputation on aggressive and continuous retooling. With ties to Iran, the group’s ambitions have only grown b
Defenders: Two Front Lines - Fraud From the Case File and the Comments Section
Send us Fan MailMost people experience fraud as a single event. A suspicious text message, a fake investment opportunity, or a phone call from someone pretending to be their bank.The reality is that modern fraud is an organised global economy, powered by criminal networks that continuously adapt their tactics while relying on the same psychological manipulation to deceive victims at scale.Understa
GoldFactory: Rethinking Digital Identity in the Age of Biometric Theft
Send us Fan MailFor years, stronger authentication was seen as the answer to online fraud. As passwords became easier to steal, organisations turned to stronger forms of verification, from facial recognition and voice authentication to digital identity checks. But cybercriminals are now weaponising those too. This episode revisits GoldFactory, the threat actor behind some of the first large-scale
TX-NFC: Ghost Tap — can your bank catch fraud from a card that never left your pocket?
Send us Fan MailContactless payments have become such a routine part of everyday life that we rarely think twice about how they are secured. For decades, every contactless transaction has been built on the assumption that your card needs to be physically present to make the purchase. Now, there is one Chinese-language Fraud-as-a-Service operation that has found a way to break that assumption. Firs
Defenders: The life of a threat researcher
Send us Fan MailThreat researchers work deep in the digital underground, mapping adversaries, exposing tactics, and turning fragments of intelligence into protection that actively stops attacks. Despite the impact of their work, the reality of what they do remains largely hidden from view.In this episode of Masked Actors, Group-IB’s Gary Ruddell is joined by Anastasia Tikhonova, Global Threat Rese
Scattered Spider: Could one phone call bring down your whole organization?
Send us Fan MailCan you recognise every employee in your organisation? Most companies cannot — and attackers know it.A routine IT request comes in from a senior leader locked out of their account. Everything checks out, so access is restored. Except it wasn't them. In that moment, you've handed the keys to Scattered Spider — a group that has spent three years proving that human trust is
Defenders: What does it take to orchestrate international takedowns across borders?
Send us Fan MailCybercrime operates at a scale most people never see. A single incident can cost hundreds of millions of pounds, disrupt businesses overnight, or devastate individuals and families. What often follows is a simple question: how do you stop something that moves this fast, across so many borders?The reality is far from straightforward. Building a case against cybercriminals means trac
Team TNT: Could you be unknowingly mining for crypto?
Send us Fan MailCryptocurrency promised huge potential for investors. But it’s cybercriminals who are reaping the benefits. From multimillion-dollar ransomware payouts to borderless money laundering, cryptocurrency has quietly become the fuel powering a global cybercrime economy.As regulation evolves across multiple jurisdictions, gaps, inconsistencies, and the borderless nature of crypto continue
Boolka: The evolution of a cybercriminal enterprise
Send us Fan MailIf evolution has taught humanity anything, it’s that adaptation is key to survival. As prey develop camouflage techniques, predators get faster, sturdier, and better at detection. Now this game of cat and mouse is taking over the digital world. All cybergangs are on a cycle of relentless adaptation – but a group that stands out from all the rest is Boolka, innovating near-constantl
Brain Cipher: What happens when national infrastructure comes under strike?
Send us Fan MailIndonesia, June 2024 - 210 critical government agencies were crippled in one fell swoop. Immigration services were in disarray; customs officers locked out of critical systems and travellers left stranded in airport and ferry terminals facing delays that would continue for a full week.The culprit? Brain Cipher, a ransomware group barely a week old, which demanded a huge sum of $8M
Ajina: Can you really trust that app?
Send us Fan MailCyber criminals are masters at exploiting human vulnerability and trust. In Uzbek folklore, there's a creature known for causing chaos, preying on humans, lurking in the dark and changing its face to trick its victims before it pounces. In December 2023, it lent its name to a sophisticated Android malware campaign using the same tactics that emerged in the digital underworld.
MuddyWater & OilRig: The cyber espionage playbook
Send us Fan MailAs digital infrastructure becomes the backbone of global economies, cyber espionage has quietly evolved into one of the most powerful tools in modern statecraft. Behind the scenes, nation-backed threat groups like MuddyWater and OilRig operate sophisticated campaigns that blend malware, phishing, and social engineering to infiltrate governments, defence contractors, and critical in
Joystick to Jailbreak: Exploring the Youth Cybercrime Pandemic
Send us Fan MailForget everything you think you know about hackers. Today’s cybercriminals aren’t lurking in shadowy basements - they’re teenagers mastering cheat codes on Roblox, swapping tips on Discord, and using AI to launch attacks from their bedrooms.Join Group-IB’s Gary Ruddell and Nick Palmer as they sit down with Fergus Hay, CEO and co-founder of The Hacking Games, to explore how cybercri
RansomHub: From RaaS Kingpin to Cartel Mystery
Send us Fan MailWhen RansomHub, one of the most prolific ransomware groups, vanished overnight back in April, it sent shockwaves through the cybercriminal underworld. With over 600 global attacks and millions extorted, their sudden disappearance left affiliates scrambling and researchers asking: what happened?Join Group-IB’s Gary Ruddell and Nick Palmer as they speak with Pietro Albuquerque, a thr
DragonForce: The Cyber Cartel Helping Hackers Hit the High Street
Send us Fan MailEmpty shelves, lost customers, and hundreds of millions of pounds in lost profit are just some of the outcomes that retailers have faced in the wake of recent ransomware attacks. From the Co-operative to M&S, the recent cyber attacks on UK retail giants have dominated headlines and wreaked havoc that’s been felt by customers, staff, and government officials alike. The culprits
Lazarus: Is your best IT worker really a North Korean hacker?
Send us Fan MailIn December 2014, Sony Pictures announced they were cancelling the release of Seth Rogan’s newest venture The Interview due to a large-scale cyberattack. And in February of this year, global cryptocurrency exchange Bybit suffered a massive attack resulting in the theft of $1.5 billion. These masked actors are still active. But now, they’ve turned their attention to companies like y
GoldFactory: The cybercriminals who want to steal your face
Send us Fan MailIf a cybercriminal steals your password, you can change it. But what happens if they steal your face? Former soldier turned hacker, Gary Ruddell and financial crime veteran, Nick Palmer, explore the actors behind GoldFactory - a cybercriminal group stealing users' facial recognition data to clean out victims bank accounts.Joined by Craig Jones, who spent five years at Interpol
Cybercriminals Exposed: Welcome to Masked Actors
Send us Fan MailWelcome to Masked Actors — a true crime-inspired podcast from Group-IB that brings you face to face with the people orchestrating some of the most sophisticated cyberattacks on the planet. Join hosts Gary Ruddell — former soldier turned hacker and cyber threat expert — and Nick Palmer, a financial crime veteran, for the gripping new series which uncovers the tactics, motivations an
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