Palo Alto Fears China Retaliation – 2026-02-16
🧦 SOC Summit 2026
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In this episode, the crew dives into reports that Palo Alto Networks allegedly avoided directly attributing a threat campaign to China over fears of retaliation—sparking a broader debate about corporate and government threat attribution, geopolitics, and whether attribution still matters in today’s cyber landscape.
They also explore the escalating AI arms race, including Meta’s aggressive (and expensive) talent poaching, the growing rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic, and what it all means for the future of the industry.
Rounding out the episode, the team discusses the unintended consequences of the AI boom—like global hardware shortages stretching beyond GPUs to hard drives—and examines emerging prompt injection attack techniques, highlighting real-world examples and the growing security risks surrounding AI-powered tools.
Join us LIVE on Mondays, 4:30pm EST.
A weekly Podcast with BHIS and Friends. We discuss notable Infosec, and infosec-adjacent news stories gathered by our community news team.
https://www.youtube.com/@BlackHillsInformationSecurity
Chat with us on Discord! -
https://discord.gg/bhis
🔴live-chat
Chapters
Links
Story # 1: Exclusive: Palo Alto chose not to tie China to hacking campaign for fear of retaliation from Beijing, sources say
Story # 2: Rent a Human
Story # 3: OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joining OpenAI, Altman says
Story # 4: Western Digital runs out of HDD capacity: CEO says massive AI deals secured, price surges ahead
Story # 5: GTIG AI Threat Tracker: Distillation, Experimentation, and (Continued) Integration of AI for Adversarial Use
Story # 6: Data Exfil from Agents in Messaging Apps
Story # 7: AMOS infostealer targets macOS through a popular AI app
Story # 8: Discord Voluntarily Pushes Mandatory Age Verification Despite Recent Data Breach
Story # 9: Vietnam bans unskippable online video ads longer than 5 seconds from next month
Story # 10: SolarWinds Web Help Desk Exploitation - February 2026
Story # 11: Devilish devs spawn 287 Chrome extensions to flog your browser history to data brokers
Story # 12: Snail mail letters target Trezor and Ledger users in crypto-theft attacks
01:01:00 - Eric’s Workshop
01:01:31 - Jennifer’s Workshop
01:04:37 - SOC Summit 2026
Click here to watch a video of this episode.
🔗 Register for FREE Infosec Webcasts, Anti-casts & Summits
They also explore the escalating AI arms race, including Meta’s aggressive (and expensive) talent poaching, the growing rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic, and what it all means for the future of the industry.
Rounding out the episode, the team discusses the unintended consequences of the AI boom—like global hardware shortages stretching beyond GPUs to hard drives—and examines emerging prompt injection attack techniques, highlighting real-world examples and the growing security risks surrounding AI-powered tools.
Join us LIVE on Mondays, 4:30pm EST.
A weekly Podcast with BHIS and Friends. We discuss notable Infosec, and infosec-adjacent news stories gathered by our community news team.
https://www.youtube.com/@BlackHillsInformationSecurity
Chat with us on Discord! -
https://discord.gg/bhis
🔴live-chat
Chapters
- (00:00) - PreShow Banter™ — Threat Actor Age Range
- (06:00) - Palo Alto Fears China Retaliation – 2026-02-16
- (11:51) - Story # 1: Exclusive: Palo Alto chose not to tie China to hacking campaign for fear of retaliation from Beijing, sources say
- (16:24) - Story # 2: Rent a Human
- (21:02) - Story # 3: OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joining OpenAI, Altman says
- (24:54) - Story # 4: Western Digital runs out of HDD capacity: CEO says massive AI deals secured, price surges ahead
- (28:53) - Story # 5: GTIG AI Threat Tracker: Distillation, Experimentation, and (Continued) Integration of AI for Adversarial Use
- (30:55) - Story # 6: Data Exfil from Agents in Messaging Apps
- (32:38) - Story # 7: AMOS infostealer targets macOS through a popular AI app
- (39:48) - Story # 8: Discord Voluntarily Pushes Mandatory Age Verification Despite Recent Data Breach
- (46:34) - Story # 9: Vietnam bans unskippable online video ads longer than 5 seconds from next month
- (50:22) - Story # 10: SolarWinds Web Help Desk Exploitation - February 2026
- (54:23) - Story # 11: Devilish devs spawn 287 Chrome extensions to flog your browser history to data brokers
- (58:36) - Story # 12: Snail mail letters target Trezor and Ledger users in crypto-theft attacks
- (01:01:22) - Eric's Workshop
- (01:01:54) - Jennifer's Workshop
- (01:04:59) - SOC Summit 2026
Links
Story # 1: Exclusive: Palo Alto chose not to tie China to hacking campaign for fear of retaliation from Beijing, sources say
Story # 2: Rent a Human
Story # 3: OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joining OpenAI, Altman says
Story # 4: Western Digital runs out of HDD capacity: CEO says massive AI deals secured, price surges ahead
Story # 5: GTIG AI Threat Tracker: Distillation, Experimentation, and (Continued) Integration of AI for Adversarial Use
Story # 6: Data Exfil from Agents in Messaging Apps
Story # 7: AMOS infostealer targets macOS through a popular AI app
Story # 8: Discord Voluntarily Pushes Mandatory Age Verification Despite Recent Data Breach
Story # 9: Vietnam bans unskippable online video ads longer than 5 seconds from next month
Story # 10: SolarWinds Web Help Desk Exploitation - February 2026
Story # 11: Devilish devs spawn 287 Chrome extensions to flog your browser history to data brokers
Story # 12: Snail mail letters target Trezor and Ledger users in crypto-theft attacks
01:01:00 - Eric’s Workshop
01:01:31 - Jennifer’s Workshop
01:04:37 - SOC Summit 2026
Click here to watch a video of this episode.
🔗 Register for FREE Infosec Webcasts, Anti-casts & Summits
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Creators and Guests
Host
Bronwen Aker
Bronwen Aker is a BHIS Technical Editor who joined full-time in 2022 after years of contract work, bringing decades of web development and technical training experience to her roles in editing pentest reports, enhancing QA/QC processes, and improving public websites, and who enjoys sci-fi/fantasy, Animal Crossing, and dogs outside of work.
Host
Corey Ham
Corey Ham has been with Black Hills Information Security (BHIS) since 2021 delivering red teaming and OSINT services. Currently, Corey leads the ANTISOC team at BHIS, providing subscription-based continuous red teaming to BHIS clients. Outside of his time at BHIS, you can find him out in the woods or up on a mountain somewhere.
Host
Ralph May
Ralph is a U.S. Army veteran and former DoD contractor who supported the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) with information security challenges and threat actor simulations. Over the past decade, he has provided offensive security services at Optiv Security and Black Hills Information Security (BHIS) across various industries. His expertise spans network, physical, and wireless penetration testing, social engineering, and advanced adversarial emulation through red and purple team assessments. Ralph has developed several tools, including Bitor (set to release in January 2025) and Warhorse, which enhance efficiency in penetration testing infrastructure and operations. He has spoken at numerous conferences, including DEF CON, Black Hat, Hack Miami, B-Sides Tampa, and Hack Space Con.
Host
Wade Wells
Wade Wells has been working in cybersecurity for a decade, focusing on detection engineering, threat intelligence, and defensive operations. Wade currently works as a Lead Detection Engineer at 1Password, where he helps build and mature scalable detection programs. Outside of his day-to-day work, Wade is deeply involved in the security community through teaching, mentoring, podcasting, and running local events
Guest
Eric Kuehn
Eric Kuehn is a principal security consultant at Secure Ideas, as well as an IANS faculty member. He leverages his extensive experience with Microsoft infrastructures and Active Directory to perform penetration tests and offer guidance on system security and architecture. He also is the author of the “Red Team Fundamentals for Active Directory” course, where he explains the concepts, techniques, and best practices for exploiting and defending AD environments. Eric has been working with Active Directory since its release and was the technical leader and architect of one of the largest and most complex AD implementations out there. He holds the CISSP certification and is passionate about sharing his knowledge and skills with others. Eric has delivered talks on Active Directory security and other topics at various conferences, events, and webcasts, and via Antisyphon Training.
Guest
Jennifer Shannon
Jennifer is a Senior Security Consultant with Secure Ideas with a background in malware analysis, penetration testing, and teaching. She graduated with honors from Florida State College at Jacksonville’s networking program. An avid computer geek for most of her life, she began her journey in cybersecurity as a SOC Analyst where she showed an aptitude for both penetration testing and malware analysis. She was quickly promoted into a role that capitalized on her abilities.