Malicious Life
Ran Levi's narrative podcast on cybersecurity history — single-story episodes covering the Crypto Wars, Stuxnet, the Equation Group, the Conficker Working Group, the WANK worm, and the prehistory of modern cyber. Sponsored by Cybereason but editorially independent.
- Hosts
- Ran Levi
- Running
- 2017–
- Network
- Cybereason
- Status
- Active
- Language
- English
Listen on
Listen if
Listeners who want the history-of-the-field complement to Darknet Diaries — Malicious Life leans more historical, more contextual, less interview-driven. Levi's research depth and willingness to cover obscure stories is the show's edge.
Skip if
Listeners wanting current incident coverage or weekly news. The show's value is in its archive of historical episodes; recent episodes still publish but the back catalog is the reason to subscribe.
Key takeaways
- Levi covers stories no other podcast touches — the WANK worm, the Mexican Mafia's prison-phone hack, early-90s carding crews — and does the archive research to make them landable.
- The narrative structure trusts the listener with chronology and context; episodes don't need flashy opening hooks because the stories carry themselves.
- Cybereason's sponsorship is acknowledged but doesn't visibly shape the editorial; treat it as a vendor-funded show that has earned its independence.
Notes
Pair with Darknet Diaries for the interview-driven sibling and with The Lazarus Heist for the more journalistic mode. Levi's earlier Hebrew-language podcast (Making History) is the same approach applied to broader history; worth seeking out if you read Hebrew. Strong recommendation for anyone teaching the history of the field.