🌍 Has cybersecurity become a myth?

Your Insider’s briefing:
— Has cybersecurity become a myth?
— The US and Iran trade fresh fire
— Cross-border golf

28 years

That’s how long it took British adventurer Karl Bushby to walk 31,000mi (50,000km) around the world, finally arriving back at his mother’s house in England yesterday (Monday).

Move over 10 Things I Hate About You.

We’ve found 4 Things We Hate About Your Vulnerable Cloud Infrastructure, starting with… 

Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, indeed lost a historic chunk of crypto assets in a ~20 minute stretch after hackers broke into the platform’s ‘signing infrastructure’ last Thursday.

The thieves then swapped the stolen stablecoin (tethered to a reserve asset like the USD) which they knew would soon get frozen, in favour of other decentralised coins harder to track and suspend.

But here’s the Intrigue: first, this wasn’t some pack of nerds in a basement, but (according to the FBI) North Korea’s own Lazarus (or TraderTraitor) hacking unit, which okay might actually still be comprised of nerds in a basement.

And as we flagged yesterday, this hack is on-brand for the regime, which desperately needs cash to stay afloat, and specifically prefers crypto because of the way it helps circumvent all the international sanctions it’s accumulated for its nukes and threats.

So its hackers yoinked $1.2B in 2024, $1.65B in 2025, and now $6B on a Thursday.

The second layer of Intrigue™ is in the crypto itself: after news of the attack spread, rattled users shifted another $4.7B away from Binance, but if the North Koreans could hack a paranoid platform like Binance, it’s not clear your bitcoin is safer anywhere else (other than perhaps just by virtue of hiding in a smaller target).

Oh, and the third layer? North Korea just denied it was responsible for the hack, but Pyongyang once signed a denuclearisation treaty pledging never to obtain nuclear weapons, and yet here we are.

Anyway, the crypto sector has avoided a crash for now thanks to Binance covering the losses, so maybe it’s like Nelson’s victimless crime (“like punching someone in the dark”). But what happens after the third or fourth AI-powered mega-hack?

Then on Sunday night, millions of Ukrainians received alerts about nuclear, chemical, and even street fighting dangers via the official air-raid alert app folks use to prepare for Putin’s nightly attacks. 

But the fact some of the alerts were written in Russian rather than the usual Ukrainian triggered everyone’s spidey sense until Ukraine’s Air Defence Forces quickly confirmed there’d been a hack (the app was then back online by Monday). 

Shortly thereafter, however, Russians started getting weird alerts from their own warning app. And while legacy outlets duly cleared their throats, adjusted their spectacles, and politely reported that these were (ahem) “expletive-laden” fakes, we'll give you an actual example (just censored to not offend your corporate firewall):

But here’s the Intrigue: while there’s no direct attribution to confirm these were Russo-Ukrainian hackers trading blows, that’s our assessment. And sure, those kinds of messages might sow some initial panic, but the strategic aim is really to undermine the public’s trust in its government and any official comms. In Ukraine’s case, it’s also an immediate retaliation to deter the Muscovites from trying that stunt again.

Do we really need internet fridges?? We doubt it even more after the latest hacks on supermarket refrigeration across Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia, Finland, and Sweden. RIP Ikea meatballs, gone but not forgotten.

How? Hackers again switched the appliances to a ‘defrost’ setting, raising the internal temperatures to as high as 55°C (131°F) and spoiling millions worth of food. It’s a redux of what hit French supermarkets last month, while the US is also investigating familiar freezer failures at six military sites back in August.

But here’s the Intrigue: absent any clear attribution (yet), a lead suspect would be Russia given its motive (divide, distract, and deter), capabilities (NotPetya), and track record (arson and sabotage across Europe).

The Kremlin would also see a chance to test NATO reactions given a serious enough cyberattack could trigger the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defence clause.

Sure, there’s a ransomware theory too, though that doesn’t fit the scattergun targeting, lack of discretion, or absence of any ransom reports.

In the meantime, ask yourself if you really need that internet-toaster, or if it’s just another way to charge you more while hocking your data to the highest bidder.

The top brass over at Japan’s GMO Internet Group bowed low at a news conference on Monday as they apologised for a massive cyberattack on the firm’s cloud services hitting tens of thousands of users (including a major forex platform). 

GMO says a ransomware group was demanding a cool $51M, and executed the hack after the firm refused to pay. So now, as penance for not heeding cybersecurity advice from 2024, four top execs now face a temporary pay cut of 20-30%. 

But here’s the Intrigue: GMO has interests across web-hosting, cloud services, robotics, AI, and (lol) cybersecurity, so when it gets hit, there’s quite the blast radius.

In this case, GMO’s forex link has spooked creditors given a) the potential downstream liabilities, but also b) the hit to GMO’s financial tech division, a major revenue driver. That’s why GMO’s 2031 bond spreads just widened 50bp in a few days.

Anyway, gone are the days when a bank’s worst nightmare was an antitrust investigation or an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist. As GMO chief Masatoshi Kumagai put it, “Before, cyberattacks were like a handgun. Now, they’re a machine gun.”

If you’ve ever brought a water sample to your local pool shop for that ✌️free pH test✌️, you already know the drill: they dip a strip, gasp like it’s a Geiger-counter at Chernobyl, perhaps asks if “you let your *kids* swim in that water?”, then hand you…

If you’ve ever brought a water sample to your local pool shop for that ✌️free pH test✌️, you already know the drill: they dip a strip, gasp like it’s a Geiger-counter at Chernobyl, perhaps ask if you “let your *kids* swim in that water?”, then hand you $500 worth of pool accessories and chemicals you didn’t know existed.

Cybersecurity has always carried a bit of that same racket energy. Some of the OG players (like the late John McAfee) long boasted about doing endless media to warn of the next big virus then charging a fortune to sell some bloated firewall.

So okay, maybe this last week of cyber-stories is a reminder that even if the pool guy is ripping you off, your pool water is still pretty gross. You do your banking in that?!

It’s also a reminder how the same trend playing out in the physical world will keep jolting our cyber-world: we spent three decades building out an era of hyper-connectivity, hyper-efficiency, and hyper-financialisation, all built on the kinds of fragile legacy architecture that invited last month’s big PHP hack. But after decades of building staggering wealth and advances, it’s all now looking more like a big attack surface for foes incorporating AI into their arsenals. Even your fridge?!

Longer term, we also wonder if these stories will keep adding more cred to The Dead Internet Theory, which started out in the fringes but maybe feels less weird as our online experiences indeed get shaped by more bots, slop, hacks, corporate concentration, and polarisation. We can see a not-too-distant future in which this miraculous public square starts feeling more like an abandoned scrapyard (so thanks for supporting our Intrigue oasis!).

Anyway, let’s wrap with that old industry adage: if you think cybersecurity is expensive, try insecurity. Binance, GMO, and random supermarkets in Europe would all now nod along, but the trouble is we’re all left paying for both security and insecurity, whether via the spammy Norton invoices, higher insurance premiums (premia 🤓), taxes to socialise private losses, or a collapse in online trust.

Anyway, cannonball! 🌊

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Imagine a golf course where your tee shot takes more than an hour to actually land, and you can enjoy a night-time round at 2am that’s somehow still under blazing sun.

This is not a David Lynch movie but the real-life Tornio Golf Club, which straddles the border between Finland and Sweden! Their neighbourly one-hour time difference explains that strange delay in golf-ball gravity, as finishing all 18 holes actually involves crossing that international border a full four times.

But don’t worry: both countries sit within Europe’s passport-free Schengen Area, meaning you can safely wander into the shade for that sip of Gatorade Arctic Blitz without suddenly getting slammed to the ground by an overzealous border patrol.

Just be careful on the back nine: play poorly enough and you can literally slice a drive right back into yesterday.

Thursday’s poll: Who do you think is most at fault for Poland's crisis?

🥊 President Nawrocki (65%)
👔 PM Tusk (33%)
✍️ Other (write us!) (2%)

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