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182: Blackshades

November 3, 2026 · 39 min

Show notes

What if you got infected by a friend who wanted to spy on you? This is the story of how BlackShades spread to more than half a million machines, and 97 people got arrested.

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Support for this show comes from Drata. Drata is the trust management platform that uses AI-driven automation to modernize governance, risk, and compliance, helping thousands of businesses stay audit-ready and scale securely. Learn more at drata.com/darknetdiaries.

Support for this show comes from Ramp. Ramp is a financial operations platform bringing spending visibility and control to AI. With Ramp, you can see spending across AI providers and set real-time controls and guardrails by team and model. Stop guessing where your AI spend is going. Get started with Ramp. Learn more at ramp.com/darknet.

Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker. ThreatLocker is a Zero Trust Platform that gives organizations control over what can run and what users and devices can access. It combines prevention with real time detection and automated response, helping security teams stop unauthorized activity and quickly contain compromised machines. Learn how ThreatLocker can strengthen your defenses at threatlocker.com/Darknet

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Sources

Full list of sources on the show page: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/182/

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