APRIL 3 2023
In the riveting first season of The Lazarus Heist, the Peabody-nominated BBC World Service podcast, we heard how cyber criminals hacked into the private correspondence of workers at Sony Pictures in 2014 and leaked it online. The hackers were alleged to have been working from North Korea and visiting revenge on Sony for The Interview, the Seth Rogen film that imagined the assassination of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (Pyongyang officials have denied involvement and accused the US of trying to tarnish their country’s image.) Given the outlandish nature of the story, which subsequently took in counterfeit currency and an audacious bank heist in Bangladesh, the podcast seemed like a one-off. But the Lazarus Group, the name under which this shadowy cyber crime collective operates, turns out to be a vast and many-headed beast which continues to find new and ingenious ways to wreak havoc. So now we have a second season, bringing with it an outré tale of a global heist worth $2.1bn and spanning 28 countries.
Click here to read the full review by Fiona Sturges of the Financial Times.