This week, we’re revisiting one of the stories that changed how we think about ransomware. It starts with an attack on a group of small towns in Texas and ends with the realization that cybercrime had become organized, scalable, and startlingly corporate.

Most ransomware gangs are known only by what they leave behind. Conti was different. Thanks to one extraordinary leak, we can see the conversations that usually stay hidden: arguments, anxieties, plans, and mistakes. This week, we return to a story we did about a cybercriminal empire—and what happened when someone turned on the lights.

For decades, we've treated the open internet as a fact of life. But what if it was just a phase? As governments, platforms, and algorithms carve the web into smaller and smaller realities, we ask internet activist Ethan Zuckerman whether the internet can still be saved—or whether we're already living through its replacement.

What if the most interesting thing about China’s internet isn’t what it keeps out... but what grew within it? This week, how a parallel online world took shape—and how AI may be changing it.

The people most vulnerable to a scam aren’t always the least informed. Sometimes they’re the most confident. We revisit a conversation with cybersecurity researcher Dan Guido about Zoom, social engineering, and the dangerous assumption that cyberattacks only happen to other people.

When people get hacked, security researcher Nick Bax says, it’s a lot like watching a magic trick. Your attention goes one way while something important happens somewhere else. In this CyberMonday crossover with WAMU and NPR’s 1A, we talk about the latest online scams and meet Jake Gallen. He didn’t click a suspicious link. He didn’t download malware. He just agreed to an interview. And then he watched some of his most valuable crypto assets just… disappear.

For years, Hansa was one of Europe’s biggest dark web drug markets. Then Dutch investigators pulled off an audacious undercover operation—and instead of shutting it down, they ran it. This week, we revisit the story of one of the most successful cybercrime stings ever.

The ad seemed straightforward. The recruiter seemed legitimate. The opportunity seemed real. A story about what happens when all three turn out to be something else.