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Tune in to learn about the "internet iceberg," an analogy to help put into perspective the vastness of the internet and its three main parts – the surface web, the deep web, and the dark web. Nathan and Ham define each one and discuss the perils of the dark web. Find out what goes on in some of the most hidden parts of the internet, and hear Ham's personal story about a frightening experience.
The episode concludes with news from Mercy on a recent malware disguised as an Android app, a Verizon phishing scam, and a cyberattack on a Japanese company.
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News Sources:
Story 1:
Sharma, Ax. "Photo Editor Android App Still Sitting on Google Play Store is Malware." Bleeping Computer, 12 October 2021, https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/photo-editor-android-app-still-sitting-on-google-play-store-is-malware/
Story 2:
Riley, Duncan. "Sneaky New Phishing Campaign Uses a Math Symbol in the Verizon Logo." SiliconANGLE, 12 October 2021, https://siliconangle.com/2021/10/12/sneaky-new-phishing-campaign-uses-math-symbol-verizon-logo/
"Verizon Phishing Scam Targets Customers Through a Text Message." DataBreaches.net, 11 October 2021, https://www.databreaches.net/verizon-phishing-scam-targets-customers-through-a-text-message/
Story 3:
Greig, Jonathan. "Olympus Suffers Second Cyberattack in 2021." ZDNet, 12 October 2021, https://www.zdnet.com/article/olympus-announces-second-cyberattack-in-2021/
Join Nathan, a cybersecurity expert, and Ham, an internet-savvy gamer, as they walk you through the cybersecurity world. Plus, get the latest security news and happenings from expert Mercy and hear from occasional special guests! Tune in weekly to learn about everything from the basics of personal security to fascinating topics like ransomware, the dark web, and hacking. #BeCyberAware!
Nathan: All right, everybody.
Welcome back to the cyberaware
podcast, episode three.
And for today's episode, we got a pretty
interesting topic that I'm excited to talk about.
My name's Nathan, I'm your resident
expert for all things cybersecurity.
And I'm here joined with Ham.
Ham: Ham, once again, on the mic as
always here in the broadcasting room.
Nathan: Today's episode is the internet iceberg.
So Ham, what do you know
about the internet iceberg?
Ham: Well, I know that, using
the iceberg analogy, it really, it
can go as deep as it wants to go.
You know, so you got the surface web,
got stuff like Amazon, YouTube, Facebook,
all those, you know, big companies
that are just out there ready for it.
Ready to be accessed.
And then you got the deep web, right?
Nothing super crazy, but you got your
data's stored there and all that stuff.
And then you got the dark web.
Nathan: Correct.
Ham: The dark web is a dark scary place.
I never want to go back to.
Nathan: Okay.
So for anyone who's just curious about the
iceberg analogy here, you think of an iceberg
you see the surface above it, but then
icebergs are with so massive underneath.
No one truly knows the scale.
Surface web, I believe is what maybe 5%
compared to the like 90, 90, some percent.
Consists of the dark web and deep web.
You can think of all the websites
that you can find on surface web.
Oh yeah.
And it is a fraction of
what you can find elsewhere.
So the iceberg analogy is, you have everything
above the surface and it's just, it looks big,
but it's actually tiny compared to everything
that's underneath and the deeper you go, the
bigger gets or the more stuff that you find there.
So with the internet iceberg how we're
comparing this as we have the surface
web, the deep web and the dark web.
So this, as Ham here was saying surface
web, you got your general public sites
that, you and me visit every day.
It could be YouTube, Amazon.
Facebook Instagram, you know?
Okay.
I'm going to look at clothes
here or I use D2L for my school.
Ham: Yeah.
Nathan: Anything like that, that would
be considered surface web it's public.
It's accessible to pretty much everybody.
However you need it.
Deep web, as you're saying, I'll just cover
it a bit more quick, deep web it's the stuff
behind closed doors, but it's not the stuff that
and down hundred feet.
So deep web could consist things, like
medical records, hidden Wiki, private
networks research papers actually.
And, just all the data that's being
stored, hidden behind these closed doors.
And then we get into the fun part, which
I'm sure most people want to hear about.
Which is the dark web.
So I'm going to let you just take
a lead on this for the start here.
So you said you've had experience with dark web.
Do you just want to tell us that story?
Ham: Yeah.
I mean many, many years ago about about 10 years
ago now, actually I was 16 years old and me and
my friends as, you know, dumb teenagers, do we
go around and we find fun things on the internet.
Little did we know we stumbled upon with
a little bit of computer finagling, I have
a friend of mine who's a complete computer
Wiz and knows how to get almost anywhere.
He found our way into the dark web.
Nathan: Are you familiar with
how he did it by any chance?
Not a darn clue.
I'll just cover one of the
main ways for people here.
It's called the onion router.
I don't know if you've heard of that.
Ham: I've heard, I've heard of it.
I don't know what it does though.
Nathan: It's like its own its
own like network kind of sure.
Wiggle your way in.
So yeah.
Do you want to continue with the story?
Ham: Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
We, we got our way into it and there was like,
we heard we can search up literally anything.
You can be whatever you want from like
Bitcoin, which is now a huge topic.
Nowadays.
This is when we first heard about it.
When one Bitcoin used to cost around three K,
like three K in USD, and that is a lot of money.
That is a huge amount of money.
We learned that you would pay X
amount of money for whatever you want
You know, Bitcoin doge coin send
that sucker straight to the moon.
Nathan: Yeah.
I mean you now, nowadays you think about it
everybody's pretty much got their hands dipped in
the cryptocurrency of some courts as previously.
I don't think most people realize that this was
the main currency and has been on the dark web.
Yeah.
A long time, like, especially Bitcoin,
as you were saying more than that,
like Bitcoin runs the dark web.
Ham: It really does, with how, for how many
things that are down there, people traded weapons.
There was human trafficking, like
so many dark terrible things that
you can imagine are on the dark web.
And it's definitely not a place
an average person should go.
Nathan: And it's not by any means, as you were
saying, guys with the dark web, you can't just
get into the dark web by searching for it online.
It's own thing.
So, you know, we have the surface
web, which is what you use with your
Google, your safari, or Firefox.
The dark web is its own people have their
own accesses to get into this sort of thing.
And these markets, as you were saying,
the dark web markets, you got drug
trafficking, weapon, trading, human
trafficking, all this sort of stuff.
If there's anything that you can
think of that's bad and that goes on.
You can usually find it on the
dark web and it covers everything.
Ham: And it's so like massive,
there's also like people buy organs.
That's probably some of the tamer side of things
that come on, surprisingly for anyone listening.
These people Go to great lengths to get what they
want and they'll pay doesn't matter what it is.
They'll pay, 40,000 for whatever they want
and all of this was with cryptocurrency.
Like you were talking about cryptocurrency
back in, oh gosh, 2013, 2011.
Nathan: Spare change compared to what it's at now.
Ham: Oh my gosh.
They'll literally do whatever they want.
Nathan: And that's the thing I've
heard stories from people that they went
on there and someone just said that.
How's it going first name?
how you doing?
Yeah.
Oh my, and then you got certain people
who are on the dark web and they,
they might not be good characters.
You know what I mean?
And they're very evil and it's not
a good thing because these people
might be completely protected.
Again, it's the dark web.
Usually have some pretty
bad actors on there as well.
And I mean, it's, these people are
pretty smart with how they got onto it.
Okay.
They're not, new, they're not noobs when it
comes to dark web is a good way to explain it.
They're probably seasoned veterans with how
things go, the, all the functions of it and,
coming in, I don't recommend it for anyone
oh yeah, this sounds fun.
Let me do it.
Not a good idea.
It's not fun.
Ya.
So do you want to continue with your story then?
Ham: yeah.
So like we searched Bitcoin
mainly like searched Bitcoin, and then after that
we got link upon link of different ways to like
buy anything for Bitcoin, anything associated.
Okay.
And we saw Hitman and I was like, and
that is the scariest thing being 16.
I was just a teenager.
Now I'm now I'm a full grown adult
and I'd never want to go back.
It was a horrifying experience to
say the least in being in there.
Someone
can
track you and they'll dox you.
These are bad actors, they're seasoned veterans.
They'll find you want to find you.
They can find you.
Can we go over really quick about what doxing is.
Like finding people's place, where they live.
Nathan: They can snag any information
about your network that you're on, they can
usually back trace it to you in particular.
And then your IP address can be traced to your
house or your city to your actual address yeah.
All that.
And yeah, it's basically just backpedaling
from they get, they grab this piece of
information from your online presence,
and then they just follow that back.
They just follow the trail to you.
Ham: Oh, that's so scary.
Nathan: And, weapons have been sold.
Yup.
It's not just these small, small,
like little auctions going on.
Like people saw big things
for millions of dollars.
People saw vehicles that are military equipment,
military grade, full on war equipment there.
Yeah.
On that auction house.
And it's insane.
I, anything basically all the legal
stuff that you can't do in the public.
Goes on here.
And as you mentioned, drug trafficking, huge one.
Have you ever heard of silk road ham?
Yes.
So for anyone who doesn't know, the
silk road is a pretty good story.
So basically it has to do with a guy
named I think it was Dread Pirate Roberts.
That sounds about right.
But he basically became a drug Lord over, the dark
web and kind of with this drug trading going on.
And it's a huge story, you know, that
involved the FBI and I'm getting onto
him and a bunch of different people were
associated through him because he became
a pretty well-known figure on the dark web
where he was selling all these drugs and stuff.
And for anyone who hasn't read it, I would
highly recommend that it's a good book.
If you haven't read it really
interesting really gives you an in depth
description about what goes on here.
The silk road has a lot to do with drug
trafficking, drug trading, all this sort of thing.
Really good story.
It gives you a lot of in depth,
like about just the true scale of
kind of the things that go on here.
So highly recommended if you haven't read it.
Ham: Yeah and I mean, especially like these
people are going to they're doing so many
like illegal things through the dark web.
That just, it can't be tracked either.
Nathan: Nope.
I, as I was saying, if people are
being protected, it's not trackable.
So as you mentioned, you had people
buying drugs, selling weapons, human
trafficking is a big problem on there.
And I mean, all of these sort
of things are just un-trackable.
Like you have terrible
people doing terrible things.
With no consequences if they're
being super smart about it.
Yeah.
And it's just, it's some of
this stuff's undetectable.
It's not like we have, law enforcement
or government just tracking the
dark web every hour of the day, you
can't cover everything that goes on.
That's true.
It's just the true scale of everything going on.
And I mean we only mentioned like a small
percentage of the bad stuff that goes on.
Ham: It
can
go so much darker and it's almost
like too much for me to talk about.
I do want to keep it PG on the podcast here.
It reaches almost to a
point where its disgusting.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just criminal.
Nathan: Some of the things that
go on are just downright criminal.
There's just stuff from movies, horror movies.
Ham: Like that actually reminds me of a movie.
I think it's 2007 ever see the movie hostel
before familiar, familiar, three U.S exchange
students go over to Europe on a vacation and they
end up in this hotel that isn't really a hotel.
It's actually a torture dungeon find
that it's kind of stuff on the dark web.
Yeah.
Nathan: It's just a reminder for anyone listening
to this cool topics to read about just kind
of the stuff that goes on, but do not, I can't
recommend enough do not go to the dark web.
Not going to have a good time, only bad
things can pretty much come from it.
So, and again, just disclaimer, do
not go you can read about some of this
stuff, but don't actually visit it.
Ham: Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Nathan, like it's yeah.
As you're saying, it's a cool topic
to read about, but if you, if you
were to think about going down there.
Don't do it.
Nathan: And you already have,
and you said you've been scarred.
Ham: I've been down there and
I've been scarred for life.
It's, it's where I first learned about
cryptocurrency and it's why I won't buy into
it now, because I know what goes on with it.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, that's just that I've just,
backing up what we were saying.
Guys, just stay safe, goes back to this,
the security in general, internet, not a
safe place in general regular internet.
It's usually not crazy safe place.
Dark web.
There's no like there's no safety.
There's no safety net there.
Everyone who goes there knows it's illegal.
Not good.
Not used for anything.
Good.
Ham: Yeah.
Well, and like you were saying, I'm really quick.
I just want to throw this out there.
Like people like you use the example of like
you go on there and someone immediately,
you get a chat box saying, Hey, first name.
Like people can find you they'll they'll
know you like if these people want
to find you, they will, they will.
Exactly.
, Nathan: like this happens on the
dark web, people are pros on this
with how they do this sort of thing.
I'm glad we got to talk
about the dark web for a bit.
Cause it's super interesting, scary place, but
you know, not many people are familiar with it.
I mean, I don't know too many people who you
could actually have a full on conversation
about what goes on on the dark web.
That's true.
So yeah, I'm hoping some of you learned something
from this hopefully again, learned, do not
go really like a huge disclaimer, do not go.
Yeah.
But overall, internet, iceberg, fun
analogy to learn about this is
just a little bit of the scale.
Again, we didn't cover even a portion
of what happens in our time here.
And, it just goes to show just how big
the internet is and how crazy it can be.
So, yeah, I just want to cover
again internet icebergs for the
surface web deep web and dark web.
That's probably the biggest
things you should learn about.
How about you Ham have anything to say?
Ham: Most of this stuff I'm pretty, I wouldn't
say well-versed, but I know just enough about it
But it's, this episode has been, eye opening.
Once again, ever every time
I'm in here in the production.
I learned something new, every day.
Nathan: Im glad that's the main
purpose that we're here for.
So I'm just glad, I'm hoping that you
guys listeners can learn something
or have learned something as well.
Hopefully for the better.
Ham: Yeah right!
Nathan: But overall it should you know,
I'm excited that you're joining us here,
you know, having a good conversation.
So these are great.
Ham: This is great.
The conversations we're having are phenomenal.
Nathan: Thank you for joining us again.
I can't thank you enough.
We've been having a great time in the
episodes so far and for anyone else who wants
to learn more information about our cyber
aware message, just visit MNSU.edu/CyberAware
And thank you.
Thank you again, Ham!
GGs Nathan, and then we'll pass
this off to Mercy for the news.
Mercy: Hey everyone.
Mercy here with the news student expert on the
information security team, I'll be updating you
with whats going on in the cybersecurity world.
Before I get into the headlines, please
make sure to subscribe to our podcast.
And today's highlights are watch out
for a malware application called blender
photo editor easy photo background
editor on the Google play store.
This sneaky app asks users to sign into
Facebook, allowing you to steal account
credentials and payment information.
As of October 12th, 2021, the application
has over 5,000 downloads, but has been
removed from the Google play store as of now.
Use this as a reminder to double check
your applications and their permissions
or else be careful what you download.
Our second news update today, Verizon
users be aware of a phishing attempt
inky technology corporation researchers
have found and new phishing attempt
that is impersonating Verizon's logo.
If you look carefully this phishing message.
You'll notice the V in the Verizon is
replaced with a square root symbol.
This incorrect logo is a telltale
sign that this message is fake.
Phishing is also happening through text
messages from the number 562-661-159.
The message notifies users that have
already paid their bill for that previous
month and offers a reward or gift.
When you click on the link to secure
your award, you will be asked to fill a
form, including your name, phone number,
address, and social security number.
Be aware.
This is fake and there is no reward to be given.
Instead, your information will be stolen always
watch out for phishing messages, practice safe
clicking and never give out personal information.
Our third news update today,
Japanese company Olympus confirmed
a second cyber attack over the week.
Olympus a medical technology company
based in Japan announced on October 12th,
2021 that it was hit by a cyber attack.
The company was forced to shut down, affecting
IT systems in Canada, the United States and
Latin America Olympus said in a statement,
we are walking with appropriate third parties
on this situation and we'll continue to all
necessary measures to save our customers
and business partners in a secure way.
The second attack came after the same company was
hit with the ransomeware attack by a group called
black matter reported just a few days prior.
The ransomeware group black matter has
been very active, recently hitting
an Iowa best farm cooperative with an
attack that asked for about $5.9 million
after compromising its computer systems.
And that wraps up the news for this week.
Thanks for listening to the cyberaware podcast.
We'll see you next time.