To Catch a Thief: North Korea On Our Payroll
This investigative podcast exposes a hidden network of North Korean IT workers infiltrating American companies, government agencies, and critical infrastructure. Host Nicole Perlroth, a former New York Times cybersecurity reporter, interviews defectors and investigates how these workers funnel money to the regime's nuclear program. The series reveals the impact on American job seekers and the global adoption of this playbook by cybercriminal groups.
Episodes
Ep. 6: The North Korea Model
North Korea has now successfully planted agents in companies over the world. And while businesses are getting better at flagging it, North Koreans still have to meet quota. Cybersecurity experts fear North Koreans will move to monetize their access, and data, beyond the paycheck. That data North Korean IT workers took, the source code they stole — even built in some cases — will come back to haunt
Ep. 5: The Heists
In the decade after Sony, North Korea learned something fundamental: Destructive cyberattacks make headlines. Financial cyberattacks make money. One year after Sony, North Korea pulled off one of the most audacious bank heists in history and reshaped cybercrime in the process. Today, the regime has expanded those same tactics into billion dollar cryptocurrency heists and sprawling money laundering
Ep. 4: The Sony Playbook
It’s been nearly 12 years since North Korea launched its crippling attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment over a Seth Rogen film. Most Americans remember the celebrity leaks, the embarrassing emails, the Hollywood spectacle of it all. What they missed was the playbook: Why simply hack an organization when you can bleed reputations dry? Turn stolen data into psychological warfare. It was a model tha
Ep. 3: The Americans
All North Korean IT worker schemes hinge on one thing: a willing participant in America. We found one, and knocked on her door.Experts have dubbed some of these Americans “laptop farmers.” The North Koreans call them “facilitators” – people willing to host multiple laptops in their home and happy to not ask too many questions. But identifying these people can be hard: unless you have access to a p
Ep. 2: The Cell
Infiltrating the infiltrators. For the first time ever, host and former lead cybersecurity and digital espionage reporter for The New York Times Nicole Perlroth partners with a team of private investigators as they infiltrate a North Korean worker cell. She uncovers what happens after a security firm hires a man calling himself “Joseph.” By turning the tables on one of the world’s most elusive reg
Ep. 1: Strange Things Are Happening
A new breed of worker is quietly clocking in across the United States. They’re writing code. Managing your passwords. Training the next generation of AI models. They’re gaining trust. And access.
On paper, they’re the dream hire. Skilled. Low maintenance. Always remote and often affordable. And by most accounts, they’re doing the work. But strange things are happening.
In a new season of To Cat
Season 2 Trailer: An “inside-out” look at North Korea’s covert IT workforce
To Catch a Thief: North Korea On Our Payroll is a gripping investigative podcast exposing how thousands of North Korean operatives are quietly getting hired inside American companies, funneling millions back to the regime and its nuclear weapons program.
Hosted by bestselling author and former New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth, the series features rare access to insiders and t
OUT OF BAND | The Breaking Point: Inside Mythos' Zero-Day Machine with Anthropic's Nicholas Carlini
Nicole Perlroth sits down with Nicholas Carlini for an Out of Band conversation on the imminent zero-day surge. Carlini explains what Mythos can already do: find and exploit flaws in some of the world’s most hardened, widely deployed software—with minimal human input. He details what Mythos has already hacked, which now includes most of the operating systems in use.
Together, they unpack what hap
Ep 9: The New Frontline
Colonial Pipeline was a warning shot. Now, Chinese hackers are inside the digital guts of hundreds of Colonial equivalents across the U.S.—power, water, transportation, and more. The question isn’t if they’re in. It’s why. And what happens next.
Is this digital coercion? A warning to stay out of Taiwan? Is an invasion imminent—and are we ready for the cyber fallout that could come with it?
In th
Ep 8: Living Off The Land
Cyber experts start getting called into electric, water, pipeline, railway, and transportation hubs around the country. Hackers have found a clever way to embed in these systems, using a small, unsuspecting device in everyday Americans’ homes. And once these hackers get in, they’re not dropping the usual malware, or sucking much of any data out. Unlike their predecessors, these hackers are very ca
Ep 7: Everything Everywhere All At Once
The General Manager of an electric and water utility in Littleton, Mass. gets a surprise call from the FBI. At first he suspects the caller is a spammer, but soon he learns the agent is very real. Chinese hackers are lurking deep in his utility’s systems. And his is not the only one. Hundreds of other power, water and pipeline operations across the United States are getting hit. These targets have
Ep 6: The Gunslingers
During China’s pseudo-cyber-hiatus, the PRC’s hacking operations get a major overhaul. CCP leadership moves responsibility away from the sloppy, brazen hackers at the People’s Liberation Army to the far more stealthy, and strategic, Ministry of State Security. Gone are the “most polite” hackers in the digital world. Here to stay are the gunslingers – the elite of the elite in their field.
In Epis
Ep 5: A Cyber Detente
Every U.S. administration, dating back to President H.W. Bush has struggled to address the threat of Chinese trade theft. But a growing sense of urgency kicks in as American businesses start hemorrhaging trade secrets and entire product lines start vanishing to Chinese copycats. Just as the Obama Administration is set to do something about it, Edward Snowden shifts the narrative back onto the Unit
Ep 4: Naming and Shaming
As Chinese hackers continue their raid of American companies, the threat reaches new levels of urgency, not so much for the sophistication of these hackers, but because of the sheer volume of attacks. And yet, victims continue to keep their breaches under wraps, and the government is hamstrung in what they can say because most everything they know about Chinese cyberespionage is classified.
Then,
BONUS: Live Panel with Top China & Cyber Experts at The New York Stock Exchange
For this special live recording of To Catch a Thief at The New York Stock Exchange, host and former lead cybersecurity and digital espionage reporter for The New York Times, Nicole Perlroth sits down with those who have been directly targeted by, traced, or directly engaged China’s state-sponsored hackers, diplomatically, or in the cyber domain: Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Barboza, the
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
In Episode 3, host and former lead cybersecurity and digital espionage reporter for The New York Times, Nicole Perlroth visits a welding shop in rural Wisconsin where Chinese hackers have set up shop in a dusty, back-office server. Hackers are using the welding shop as staging grounds to attack a staggering range of American businesses, including a major American airline, fast-growing Silicon Vall
Ep 2: Then They Came for Us
Google discloses its hack and points the finger squarely at Beijing, which spells the end for Google’s business ambitions in China. Other victims stay silent, too fearful to offend the gatekeepers to the world’s largest market. Nobody will talk. Until they came for The New York Times.
In Episode 2, host and former lead cybersecurity and digital espionage reporter for The New York Times, Nicole Per
Ep 1: The Five Poisons
Former NSA Director Keith Alexander called it “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.” Hillary Clinton, FBI Director James Comey and President Barack Obama also sounded the alarm on the biggest heist in human history.
In Episode 1, host and former lead cybersecurity and digital espionage reporter for The New York Times, Nicole Perlroth, pulls back the curtain on China’s sprawling hacking oper
Coming Soon - To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
American companies, whole towns, have been eviscerated by Chinese cyberattacks. But their stories remain untold, even as the stakes get higher and the targets more reckless.
To Catch a Thief is a first-of-its-kind, documentary look at China’s rise to cyber supremacy. This podcast charts the evolution of China’s state-sponsored hackers, from their beginnings as “the most polite, mediocre hackers i
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