Episodes

  • Criminal Network Trailer

    Criminal Network Trailer

     Cybercrime, Espionage, and the Cold War 2.0
    Jan 6 2023

    Full series episodes will release on January 26, 2023.

    Sandworm. Evil Corp. Fancy Bear. DarkSide. The SVR. REvil.

    Many of the most world’s most dangerous hackers are from Russia, go by creepy names, and have preyed on Americans. Some are part of Putin’s government. Others are alleged to be associated with it. Over the last decade, their attacks have become more frequent, extreme, and catastrophic.

    This Russian cadre of cybercriminals has a daunting catalog of victims: the US government, Fortune 500 companies, the DNC, global food producers, shipping companies, hospitals, transportation networks, nuclear power plants, and the electric grid.

    Each year, the Department of Justice indicts more Russian hackers for cybercrimes, but almost none have or will face prosecution.

    Russia’s unprovoked and deadly invasion of Ukraine in 2022 deepened its divide with the US and marked the beginning of a new era of conflict—a return to familiar Cold War tensions in which skirmishes are fought in the gray zone between peace and war. Today, however, most of these attacks are launched digitally. The spies and disrupters are hackers. In Russia, many belong to a loose criminal network with a shared aim to prey on the US and its allies.

    Told firsthand by those closest to the events, Criminal Network takes you inside the dramatic discoveries and responses to the most serious cyberattacks of the recent past. It also looks ahead to the future of cybercrime in a highly charged and fractured world.
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    1 min
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  • Episode 1: Den of Thieves

    Episode 1: Den of Thieves

     Cybercrime, Espionage, and the Cold War 2.0
    Jan 26 2023
    The world’s most wanted cybercriminal is a playboy Russian hacker and the alleged leader of a notorious cybercrime group called Evil Corp. But despite offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest, the FBI has had little success capturing him. Perhaps that’s because the hacker, like many other cybercriminals in Russia, is alleged to be working for one of the Russian government’s intelligence services, engaging in high-level hacking against US companies and the US government.
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    31 mins
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  • Episode 2: Crossing the Line

    Episode 2: Crossing the Line

     Cybercrime, Espionage, and the Cold War 2.0
    Jan 26 2023
    While Evil Corp was raking in almost $100 million in revenue from hacks of mostly American companies, the Russian government turned a self-serving blind eye to homegrown cybercriminals and engaged in its own hacking schemes to undermine US democracy. Russia’s 2016 hack and leak operation against the Democratic National Committee, and its creation of countless fake social media profiles to spread false and divisive information blew through a red line that cybersecurity experts thought would never be crossed. In many ways, Russia’s disinformation campaigns in the US helped create the conditions in which election deniers stormed the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
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    28 mins
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  • Episode 3: Red Alert

    Episode 3: Red Alert

     Cybercrime, Espionage, and the Cold War 2.0
    Jan 26 2023
    As the events leading up to January 6th unfolded, an analyst at the cyber security firm FireEye (now called Mandiant), discovered that his own company had been hacked. The hackers had also breached the private networks of hundreds of major US companies and about a dozen US government departments, including the Justice, Treasury, and State Departments. The hackers’ digital footprints were found in a common piece of software used by all its victims, proving that they had used a rare, impossibly challenging, and extraordinarily stealthy method to commit what may now be the most expensive hack in history. Only a well-funded adversary—a nation—could afford such an attack. In this case, Russia.
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    20 mins
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  • Episode 4: Lives at Stake

    Episode 4: Lives at Stake

     Cybercrime, Espionage, and the Cold War 2.0
    Jan 26 2023
    As the US reeled from the news that a Russian intelligence service called the SVR was behind the massive data theft at hundreds of major US companies and many US government departments, another series of cyberattacks occurred that threatened American lives. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, hackers – many from Russian cybercrime groups—set their sights on hacking US hospitals. They encrypted the hospitals’ computers and demanded millions in ransom payments to decrypt them. With lives at stake, US hospitals paid up.
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    14 mins
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  • Episode 5: Lifeline Hacks

    Episode 5: Lifeline Hacks

     Cybercrime, Espionage, and the Cold War 2.0
    Jan 26 2023
    For years, Russian cybercrime groups like Evil Corp had made millions by unleashing ransomware attacks against US companies. None had ever unleashed a ransomware attack on a major piece of US lifeline infrastructure though. But that changed in May of 2021, when hackers attacked one of America’s largest gasoline pipelines, causing it to shut down. Thousands of gas stations on the East Coast ran dry; ransomware became a household term; and President Biden met with Vladimir Putin in Geneva to put an end to the ransomware epidemic. But Russian cybercriminals were not the only cyberthreat to US critical infrastructure, nor were they the most dangerous.
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    17 mins
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  • Episode 6: Weapon of Choice

    Episode 6: Weapon of Choice

     Cybercrime, Espionage, and the Cold War 2.0
    Jan 26 2023
    After cybersecurity expert John Hultquist coined the popular name for Russia’s most daring and threatening hacking group, “Sandworm”, he watched it commit a series of escalating cyberattacks against critical infrastructure around the world, including hacking into a nuclear power plant in Kansas and the US electric grid. Much of the world’s critical infrastructure is not well protected from cyberattacks. Hultquist and other experts wonder what Sandworm might be planning and what it’s capable of. They fear that its powerful attacks on Ukraine’s power grid are harbingers of even more damaging attacks in the future.
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    23 mins
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  • Episode 7: Hackpocalypse

    Episode 7: Hackpocalypse

     Cybercrime, Espionage, and the Cold War 2.0
    Jan 26 2023
    As the potential severity of Russian-led cyberattacks increases, what are the worst-case scenarios the US and its allies should plan for? How likely are they? Could hackers take control of water treatment plants? Transportation systems? Satellite communications? Could a cyberattack on the US grid cause a widespread blackout for months? Could nuclear weapons be hacked? What would Putin’s motive be in such an attack? How is this so-called Cold War 2.0 different from the original, and what is being done to protect the many computers and networks we have come to depend on?
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    28 mins
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