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Rating
4.8from
This podcast has
11 episodes
Language
EnglishExplicit
No
Date created
2025/02/24
Latest episode
2025/03/17
Average duration
45 min.
Release period
-1 days
Description
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 in cyberspace” to the “apex predator” that now haunts America’s critical infrastructure. Host Nicole Perlroth, bestselling author and former lead cybersecurity and digital espionage reporter for The New York Times, interviews those who were victimized, and instrumental in tracking, Chinese cyberattacks as the threat morphed from trade secret theft, to blanket surveillance, to pre-positioning in America’s critical infrastructure. For what purpose? To Catch a Thief interrogates the motives behind it all. This audio documentary is produced by Rubrik, the leading data security company that delivers cyber resilience for businesses around the world.
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Podcast episodes
Check latest episodes from To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy podcast
Ep 1: The Five Poisons
2025/03/17
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 operations. To combat the “Five Poisons”, or the five groups the Chinese Communist Party deems existential threats, China builds an expansive domestic surveillance apparatus. As these dissidents fled China, China’s state-sponsored hackers followed closely behind, wiring the world for Chinese surveillance and paving the way for Operation Aurora.
Ep 2: Then They Came for Us
2025/03/17
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 Perlroth outlines what happened when she learns hackers are inside the Times. Mandiant is called. The malware traces back to a Chinese military unit based in Shanghai. Hackers’ digital crumbs make clear they are after one reporter: David Barboza. Just as he is putting the finishing touches on a massive, years-long investigation on the secret wealth of Chinese leaders and their families. Nicole recounts the behind-the-scenes build-up to the hack that started edging victims into the light.
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
2025/03/24
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 Valley start-ups, law firms and research labs, in search of capitalism’s crown jewels: Intellectual property.
Nicole revisits a period that cybersecurity experts now call “the most dangerous time in American history”-- a period in which the blueprints to airplanes, stealth fighter jets, turbines, genetically-modified seeds, oil exploration strategies, even the formula for white paint, were smuggled back to China.
Ep 4: Naming and Shaming
2025/03/31
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, the Times’ outing of its own breach, and its Shanghai assailants, gives the White House an opening. The Obama Administration decides to indict the Chinese military hackers responsible for thousands of hacks on American businesses. But the naming-and-shaming only sends China’s hackers further underground. In Episode 4, host and former New York Times cybersecurity reporter, Nicole Perlroth explores China’s hacking talent pipeline and how the PRC shifted tasking for its most sensitive operations from slipshod PLA hackers to high-precision, digital ninjas.
Ep 5: A Cyber Detente
2025/04/07
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 United States.
For years, the U.S. fends off its own accusations of hacking. But then China goes for the mother lode. And creates an opening for Obama to strike a deal with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. In Episode 5, host and former New York Times cybersecurity reporter, Nicole Perlroth reveals the ins and outs and backroom dealings of the cyber detente nobody saw coming.
Ep 6: The Gunslingers
2025/04/14
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 Episode 6, host and former New York Times cybersecurity reporter, Nicole Perlroth lays out what it looked like as China’s hackers went underground… and what we missed in Eastern Europe as they did.
Ep 7: Everything Everywhere All At Once
2025/04/28
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 little to no intelligence value at all. But their potential for sabotage? Enormous.
In Episode 7, host and former New York Times cybersecurity reporter, Nicole Perlroth, revisits a hack, more than a decade ago, where the motive was not entirely clear at the time. In hindsight, it was the opening salvo.
Ep 8: Living Off The Land
2025/05/05
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 careful to cover their tracks. It appears they’re just lying in wait. Sleeper cells waiting for marching orders. So what’s the trigger? And what happens if they pull it?
Ep 9: The New Frontline
2025/05/29
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 the final episode of this series, host and former New York Times cybersecurity reporter, Nicole Perlroth, investigates the nightmare scenarios U.S. officials are gaming out behind closed doors. The battlefield is already shifting—tilting toward Beijing. And while China prepares, America’s attack surface only grows.
This isn’t just a problem for Washington. The new front line runs through all of us.
Coming Soon - To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
2025/03/04
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 in cyberspace” to the “apex predator” that now haunts America’s critical infrastructure.
Host Nicole Perlroth, bestselling author and former lead cybersecurity and digital espionage reporter for The New York Times, interviews those who were victimized, and instrumental in tracking, Chinese cyberattacks as the threat morphed from trade secret theft, to blanket surveillance, to pre-positioning in America’s critical infrastructure. For what purpose? To Catch a Thief interrogates the motives behind it all.
BONUS: Live Panel with Top China & Cyber Experts at The New York Stock Exchange
2025/03/27
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 National Security Agency’s former Cybersecurity Director Rob Joyce, former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly, Jim Lewis, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Rubrik CEO Bipul Sinha. They discuss how the Chinese hacking threat has morphed from corporate espionage to insidious attacks on infrastructure, the strategic leverage China hopes to gain with these hacks, how Xi Jinping views Trump 2.0, and what levers the United States can still pull to salvage what’s left of its cyber defense.
Podcast reviews
Read To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy podcast reviews
HMCPhoebe 2025/11/18
Brilliant
Fascinating and beautifully done. Only one ep 2 but can’t wait to binge. This is just too good.
BearLdr 2025/06/02
Must Listen
This is a story of threats to U.S. National Security that needs to be heard and taken seriously. Don’t be scared off or intimidated if it sounds geeky...
Cate144 2025/05/29
🔥 To Catch a Thief: A Cyber Reality Check from Inside the Collapse
This podcast should terrify people and not just because it reveals how easily U.S. pipelines, grids, and institutions can be shut down, but because no...
47071911 2025/05/20
Must listen. Pay attention.
Nicole shared the (painful) truth of our lack of cyber security in this amazing well documented podcast. You won’t like what she has to say but you ...
alps420 2025/05/16
Amazing
I read Nicole’s book, but the insanity of what is happening along with Nicole’s storytelling makes this one of my favorite pods! Must listen !!
Rowdy 2024 2025/05/13
Real investigative journalism
Excellent podcast. Very informative. Scary stuff but so good to know. Appreciate the gentle approach to political issues
AnninFlorida 2025/05/06
The Most Valuable Podcast Available
Everyone should listen to this series. Incredible reporting. This is a subject that has implications for all of us. Grateful for all the work you do.
Tesnobay 2025/05/05
Great stuff, scary too
I have read Nicole’s book, and try to read anything she writes.
But the podcast is great and very informative . I look forward to every new segment!
Holly Godhi 2025/04/25
Fan-f-ng-tasting.
Thank you…thank you…thank you for finally spelling this all out in plain English. EVERYONE needs to listen to this podcast. 🤯
sdc70 2025/04/28
Interesting content
Very interesting content. I'm enjoying it very much.
There is a bit of work needed on pronunciations. Please hit those T's harder. Unwritten is not ...
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