Adversary Universe Podcast

The CrowdStrike 2026 Threat Hunting Report is now live! The report sheds light on how our threat hunters and analysts hunt and defend against the world’s most sophisticated adversaries. It’s packed with stories from the front lines and trends that define the modern threat landscape.

Joining Adam to dig into its findings is Katie Blankenship, Sr. Manager of the Global Threat Analysis Cell for the CrowdStrike Counter Adversary Operations team. Katie, who leads the charge for our major intelligence reports, explains the herculean effort that goes into distilling a year’s worth of events into a single report. The CrowdStrike 2026 Threat Hunting Report is the product of seven trillion events analyzed, 14 million daily detection leads, and 36,000 annual customer alerts and notifications.

So what did they tell us? These are some key takeaways covered in this episode:

The window between vulnerability disclosure and exploitation is collapsing. From January through June 2026, 88% of CrowdStrike-observed exploitation of vulnerabilities with a public proof of concept (PoC) was conducted within 48 hours of the PoC’s release. China-nexus adversaries VAULT PANDA and GENESIS PANDA, both highly active in the last six months, are monitoring vulnerability disclosures so they can quickly weaponize them.

Adversaries are targeting the developer ecosystem. Software supply chain attacks aren’t new, but adversaries are seeing opportunities to exploit trust relationships in this pipeline. ALTERED SPIDER is one of them — this adversary compromised 300+ software dependencies in one day, harvested credentials, and pivoted into cloud environments.

Technology and finance are in the crosshairs. Technology was the most targeted sector for the ninth year running. DPRK-nexus adversary FAMOUS CHOLLIMA’s operations accounted for 55% of all state-sponsored intrusions targeting this sector. The financial services sector saw an 11% year-over-year increase in targeting, with FAMOUS CHOLLIMA driving activity there as well.

Tune in to hear Adam and Katie discuss the CrowdStrike 2026 Threat Hunting Report’s most interesting stories, stats, and adversaries in an episode that Adam calls “the podcast for those who didn’t want to read the 48-page report.”

Methodology & Source: All information provided is based on the CrowdStrike Counter Adversary Operations team’s proprietary threat intelligence gathered between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026. Stats may include data from the entire period surveyed or excerpts of data from specific date ranges within the period.

Kelly McCracken, SVP of the Cyber Security Operations Center at Salesforce, leads one of the most complex and high-scale cyber operation environments on the planet. Today, she joins Adam and Cristian to discuss how adversaries are targeting SaaS vendors, the most underappreciated SaaS misconfigurations, and what the future of the shared responsibility model looks like.

SaaS is a continuously growing target, but who is taking aim? eCrime adversaries such as SNARKY SPIDER and CORDIAL SPIDER are ones to watch, Adam says. They take advantage of poorly secured identities that make for lucrative targets. If a threat actor can log in as a legitimate user and gain access to a SaaS environment, they can reach any range of applications with poor security configurations — and exfiltrate their sensitive data.

The shared responsibility model is essential to defense. Businesses must understand what their vendors are responsible for securing and what they’re responsible for securing. A lack of configurations and policies opens the door to both external adversaries and insider threats.

“I feel like most security teams are flying blind when it comes to what’s going on with some of the most precious data for their company,” Kelly says.

Tune in for a deep-dive conversation on one of the most prominent threats facing businesses today and stick around to hear about Cristian’s latest culinary fail and Kelly’s elite Latin skills.

He’s back, and he’s ready to talk botnet takeovers.

Tillmann Werner, VP of Intelligence Production at CrowdStrike, returns to the podcast to discuss CrowdStrike’s coordinated takeover of the Glassworm botnet. Glassworm was a global threat targeting software developers through the open-source supply chain. This infection vector stood out — open-source ecosystems are based on trust, and adversaries are learning they can reach a vast pool of victims by compromising the supply chain. Some open-source libraries get 100 million downloads per week.

Glassworm was described as an “unkillable” botnet. Resilience was built into its design, which relied on four different command-and-control channels. This made the takeover complicated because a botnet can’t be taken over until all command-and-control mechanisms are suppressed.

“Once it’s down, you gotta make sure it’s down,” said Adam, who calls Tillmann the “bot slayer.”

In this episode, they get into the details: what Glassworm was after, how its unknown operators strengthened its infrastructure, and the planning and execution behind the takeover. Tillmann and his team facilitated the process by conducting extensive technical analysis, understanding Glassworm’s evolution, and spotting the opportunity to disrupt it. They worked with partners across the private and public sectors, as well as internally at CrowdStrike, to do it safely and avoid disrupting critical systems.

Come for the behind-the-scenes details, and stay for the debate around baking the perfect pizza in this episode of the Adversary Universe podcast.

Learn more in our blog: https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/blog/inside-crowdstrike-takedown-of-a-developer-targeting-botnet/.

The technology sector is the most targeted in the world by eCrime and state-sponsored threat actors. Between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026, China-nexus adversaries drove more than 58% of state-sponsored interactive intrusions against the sector, creating the greatest intelligence collection threat to tech companies.

These threat actors are escalating espionage against tech businesses to steal the AI capabilities and intellectual property they can’t build fast enough on their own. Adversaries such as MURKY PANDA, MUSTANG PANDA, OVERCAST PANDA, SUNRISE PANDA, and WARP PANDA targeted the tech sector more than any other industry. And China isn’t alone — Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) adversaries also have their sights set on tech.

The CrowdStrike 2026 Technology Threat Landscape Report, now live, sheds light on how nation-state and eCrime adversaries are targeting this critical industry. From FAMOUS CHOLLIMA’s IT infiltration campaigns to eCrime adversaries accelerating extortion, there is a broad range of threats that tech organizations must prepare for.

Modern tech companies are creating the world’s most valuable and targeted assets, and their cutting-edge innovations represent both competitive advantage and greater risk. Tune in to learn the report’s key takeaways and hear Adam and Cristian dive into the report’s findings.

The CrowdStrike 2026 Financial Services Threat Landscape report is now live! Adam and Cristian are here to break down the trends and techniques affecting an industry that has become a major target for adversaries.

Financial services is the fourth most-targeted industry as of Q1 2026 and accounts for 12% of all observed adversary activity. eCrime adversaries target the industry for financial gain. MUTANT SPIDER, the most active eCrime threat in the past 12 months, is tied to several intrusions in which they sell access to ransomware groups. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea set its sights on cryptocurrency and fintech entities to steal funds for its military programs.

While financial gain may seem the obvious goal in targeting financial services, it’s not the only one. Nation-state adversaries in China, Iran, and Russia launched operations against the sector for intelligence collection. Hacktivists conducted DDoS campaigns and data breach operations, primarily driven by ideological conflicts.

Even if you don’t work in the financial services sector, you most likely work with it — consumer banks, credit card companies, insurers, payment processors, and related businesses are all part of everyday business and personal life. Tune in to hear which adversaries are targeting them and why, which regions are in the crosshairs, and how companies should defend themselves. And stick around to hear about Adam’s foray into ice cream cakes.