Darknet Diaries
darknetdiaries.com · Group blog · on HN since 2018
Darknet Diaries is a podcast by a cybersecurity professional telling true stories of hackers, breaches, and cyber crime.
What HN saysCommenters repeatedly name it a favorite podcast, call it a crash course in learning from security failures, and suggest starting from episode one.
268HN people shared it
234linked it in comments
58stories submitted
611story points
3 months agolast shared
2018people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Show HN: I made a podcast featuring true stories about hackers and cyber crime28 people · 65 points · first shared 2018 · 9 comments on HN
- 2Being spied on by the makers of Pegasus, then lured them into a trap18 people · 158 points · first shared 2021 · 49 comments on HN
- 3Something dark is brewing on Kik12 people · 23 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Pentesters charged with felonies after breaking into Iowa courthouse[audio]9 people · 1 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 5Episode 479 people · first shared 2019
- 6Episode 979 people · first shared 2021
- 7Xbox Underground – Part 1 (2019)7 people · 5 points · first shared 2019 · 1 comments on HN
- 8EP 172: SuperBox7 people · 3 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 9Episode 646 people · first shared 2020
- 10Episode 996 people · first shared 2021
- 11Episode 92: The Pirate Bay5 people · 7 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 12Podcast about the 2012 LinkedIn data breach – who,how,when5 people · 6 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 13Operation Glowing Symphony – Darknet Diaries5 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 14Darknet Diaries5 people · 2 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 15Episode 1125 people · first shared 2022
What HN people wrote when they linked it
richardw · 2024-10-01
There are also some fantastic physical pentest stories on Darknet Diaries.
https://darknetdiaries.com/
In fact this is the episode referring to Alethe from the article:
https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/107/
andrefuchs · 2024-08-07
Darknet Diaries - one of my favorite podcasts.
https://darknetdiaries.com/
nicolaslem · 2023-01-20
Without doubt Darknet Diaries, it should be a mandatory listen for anyone touching computers. It is a crash course on building secure systems by learning from the failures of others.
I highly recommend starting from episode #1 because they are almost all great and episodes often reference past topics.
https://darknetdiaries.com
vivekseth · 2020-05-02
Surprised no one has mentioned https://darknetdiaries.com yet!
The podcast covers the stories of hackers, and the stories behind hacking attacks like Stuxnet. The creator comes from the cybersecurity field, so episodes don't shy away from including technical details. Each episode is well researched and very interesting. It is by far my favorite podcast.
K0nserv · 2020-01-12
Every episode of Darknet Diaries[0]. Episode 49 and the two Xbox Underground episodes are excellent, but regardless of where you start you cannot go wrong with Darknet Diaries.
0: https://darknetdiaries.com/
newguy1234 · 2019-10-30
Honestly, join these groups and read what they talk about on the forum. Look up what the bigger fraud marketplaces are. Go on tor and read stuff in the dark net markets. All of them more or less talk about methods they're using and they help each other out. This type of stuff ranges from low level script kiddie (copy cat) people to high-level hackers that develop their own methods, search out vulnerabilities and so on.
A good podcast I would recommend is called dark net diaries. They have lots of episodes on cryber crime. Episode 32 specifically talks about carding and how the secret service took down a guy who acquires the credit card numbers. Most of it involves putting malware on point of sale machines or hacking companies.
https://darknetdiaries.com/
hacdaddy · 2018-09-29
Malicious Life https://malicious.life
—-A bit of a history lesson in viruses, malware, and cyber crime. From Morris through CryptoLocker and now Target.
Darknet Diaries https://darknetdiaries.com/
—-Similar vein to ML, this one gets you into either specific events, people, or times.
Risky Business https://risky.biz
—-Weekly current affairs and news show dedicated to CyberSecurity. If this is your field, or next to your field, it’s worth listening to the news episodes at least (the numbered episodes).
ISC StormCast https://isc.sans.edu/podcast.html
—-A quick (5 min) daily cyber security podcast. If Risky.biz tickled your fancy, this one is worth the add too.
antonio-ramadas · 2018-09-26
Here is the link for the ones interested: Darknet Diaries — https://darknetdiaries.com
I discovered it here on HN. I recommend it.
xs · 2018-01-15
Hey if you like stories like this, then you'd love my podcast. https://darknetdiaries.com.
callahad · 2019-01-06
I think they do, at least in part: They directly discuss how the price of their insurance policy changed following the event:
> WENDY: I emailed our agent this morning because I hadn't heard anything. Knowing that we are - ah, AIG quoted the renewal with limits with a 66 percent increase and increased the retention from 10,000 to 25,000. Ew, that's the deductible.
> TEMPLE-RASTON: Increasing your premium by 66 percent and more than doubling your deductible - that motivates change.
[...]
> DUFFIN: Wendy was able to convince a new insurance company that her new training program actually worked. She got a new policy with more coverage, but for less money.
Exact costs for the policy, prior remediation, and the training program are not disclosed, but I wouldn't necessarily expect those to be shared publicly anyway.
But this is all subjective -- I enjoyed it and found it a worthwhile listen while prepping dinner tonight. I'll be sure to check out Darknet Diaries (https://darknetdiaries.com/) as well, thanks for the recommendation!
Tangurena2 · 2026-07-29
There's a box being sold called "SuperBox". It claims to be able to stream any movie/video. The claim is "just pay $300 and you won't need to subscribe to any streaming service anymore." However, part of what it does is hacks your home network and tries to take over every thing on that network. And it sends this all back to China. The vast majority of people buying & installing these are just ordinary people but some will be executives, or people working for the feds. Did they bring their work laptop home and plug it in to their network? So it can get attacked outside the office firewall? Remember how stuxnet was spread?
This is a podcast about it:
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/172/
menno-sh · 2026-05-11
Even worse than a rubber ducky: the O.MG cable does the same thing, but looks like a regular USB cable. Their Apple Lightning-dupe [0] is my favorite. The creator was on Darknet Diaries a while ago, too. [1]
[0] https://shop.hak5.org/products/omg-cable
[1] https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/161/
zzixp · 2025-10-30
One of my favorite darknet diaries episodes is about corporate whistleblowing, it's a huge business. If you get a massive 1M+ payout, chances are the company is getting just as much (if not more).
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/80/
jackjackk0 · 2024-12-20
If you are not familiar with the fascinating story behind it, I recommend this podcast episode [1], it's one of my absolute favorites (along with its sequel)! I found out about it on this very forum a few years ago, hope to propagate the favor to somebody else out there.
[1] https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/45/
ctippett · 2024-10-15
The Darknet Diaries podcast features a lot of fascinating first-hand accounts of penetration testers breaking into places.
One of my favourite episodes is the account of two people breaking into a US courthouse[1], it's both exhilarating and terrifying.
[1] https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/59/
tgsovlerkhgsel · 2024-10-05
Should have needed. I recommend listening to (or reading the transcript of) https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/118/ about someone doing account hijacking/password reset as a service. Even good services sometimes have zero-days.
zonkerdonker · 2024-08-27
Would recommend this podcast from Darknet Diaries. [1] Not quite an article, but there is a transcript if you'd prefer to read. Includes interview with the people actually selling these hacks, and it is fascinating
[1] https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/115/
piotrke · 2024-07-11
Darknet Diaries:
Now it is monthly, but if you are new to it, you will have much to listen every week for 2 years before you catch up with the latest story...
https://darknetdiaries.com/
pouulet · 2024-02-01
For the interested, Darknet Diaries did a great episode about that case:
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/136/
jonnyreiss · 2023-11-02
The Stuxnet Episode (https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/29/) is one of my favorites
mlsu · 2023-09-19
I recently listened to the Darknet Diaries episode about the PirateBay:
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/92/
Great episode, he interviewed one of the founders. Goes through the whole history of the piratebay and all the times they tried to take it down. Guy seems... interesting. Basically exactly who you might expect would be running that website.
balls187 · 2023-09-08
It really is a great episode.
Link for those curious: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/100/
fuddle · 2023-09-07
For anyone interested in learning more about the NSO group, I'd recommend this podcast episode: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/100/
geocrasher · 2023-05-22
Huge shout out to https://darknetdiaries.com/ one of the most entertaining security podcasts I have heard. Some of my favorite episodes:
-----
Jenny: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/90/
The Beirut Bank Job: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/6/
Black Duck Eggs: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/21/
John and Brian's Big Adventure: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/95/
-----
And this is just scratching the surface. There's some GREAT stuff.
avnigo · 2023-04-27
There was a great Darknet Diaries episode [0] on this with some more recent developments from 2020 I came across recently, and I found it fascinating. I feel like this is something I should've known happened but somehow missed completely.
[0]: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/64/
alphabettsy · 2022-12-19
Top 3 for this year:
1. Criminal - https://thisiscriminal.com/
2. Darknet Diaries - https://darknetdiaries.com/
3. Other Peoples Lives - https://oplshow.com/
rickspencer3 · 2022-10-03
I just recently listened to 2 great of Darknet Diaries covered Citizenlab, NSO, and Pegasus.
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/99/
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/100/
The gist is that the NSO group is a company that sells malware which they claim is only ever used to catch bad guys, but the podcast makes a pretty compelling case that they know that repressive governments and even companies use it to target journalists and activists.
zvikinoza · 2022-08-14
[1] Rustacean Station - https://rustacean-station.org/
[2] Changelog - https://changelog.com/podcast
[3] Darknet Diaries - https://darknetdiaries.com/
[4] Philophize This! - https://www.philosophizethis.org/
[5] On The Metal - It's no longer active, but prev episodes/guests are amazing - https://oxide.computer/podcasts
sqwrell · 2022-06-09
Darknet Diaries
https://darknetdiaries.com/
This is a podcast about hackers, breaches, shadow government activity, hacktivism, cybercrime, and all the things that dwell on the hidden parts of the network. This is Darknet Diaries
marconey · 2022-04-20
Reminded me of a great Darknet Diaries episode that involved a lot of tunneling!
EP 39: 3 ALARM LAMP SCOOTER
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/39/