UnHacked · 2026-09-01 · 37 min
Hosts: Justin Shelley - Mario Zaki - Joshua Holloway - NASA, Homeland Security, and the DOJ were just hacked using smart fridges, routers, and Apple TVs turned into a botnet. If a Chinese front company staffed by retired military hackers can breach federal agencies with seemingly unlimited security budgets, what chance does a small business have? That's the question Justin Shelley, Mario Zaki, and Josh Holloway tackle in episode 101 of UnHacked, and the answer is more reassuring than you'd think. Justin, Mario, and Josh break down how a group called QTFY, operating through a front company called XJW, built a database of known, published vulnerabilities (not secret zero-days) by scanning over 2 million routers, firewalls, and devices in a single day. They then hijacked vulnerable home devices, thermostats, cheap Amazon modems, Apple TVs, turning them into a botnet used to disguise attack traffic as normal U.S. internet activity and bypass geo-blocking on China. The operation ran undetected for roughly eight years before a hospital got hit as collateral damage and the FBI finally traced it back and took down the network by seizing the hardcoded command domains.
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
AI Ran Its First Solo Ransomware Attack in 30 Minutes Flat | UnHacked Ep. 10275 / 100Are You Actually Protected? Learn How to Prove Your Cybersecurity Posture For Free Ep. 9782 / 10093. Stop Wasting Payroll: How A $2,500 AI Automation Creates $80K in Revenue88 / 10092. The Automation That Pays for Itself in a Week (And Why Security Can't Be DIY)60 / 10091. Your AI Integration Is a Lit Match Over a Gas-Soaked Hay Pile54 / 100
