Masked Actors
True crime meets cybercrime. Discover the people behind the keyboard.
From Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) gangs to global financial crime syndicates, the rise of sophisticated cyber threats is reshaping the world. These aren’t lone hackers — they’re organized groups running multi-million dollar operations in the shadows.
In the Masked Actors podcast, cyber threat expert and former soldier turned hacker Gary Ruddell joins forces with Nick Palmer, a seasoned financial crime fighter, to investigate the top 10 most dangerous cybercriminal groups of 2025 — drawn from Group-IB’s High-Tech Crime Trends Report.
Each episode explores the tactics, motivations, and impact of major cybercrime groups, uncovering their role in the latest cybercrime, RaaS, and financial crime trends. You’ll learn how these actors exploit vulnerabilities, fuel geopolitical tension, and affect businesses and consumers alike.
Tune in to Masked Actors — and stay one step ahead of cybercrime.
Masked Actors
Boolka: The evolution of a cybercriminal enterprise
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If evolution has taught humanity anything, it’s that adaptation is key to survival. As prey develop camouflage techniques, predators get faster, sturdier, and better at detection. Now this game of cat and mouse is taking over the digital world.
All cybergangs are on a cycle of relentless adaptation – but a group that stands out from all the rest is Boolka, innovating near-constantly since it first landed on the cybercriminal scene in 2022. Its primary goal is to steal user data across high traffic websites – from usernames, passwords and even credit card information, and sell it for profit on the dark web.
Group-IB’s Gary Ruddell and Nick Palmer are joined by Joel Fromont, Senior Manager of the EMEA Security Specialists Solutions Architect team at AWS, where they discuss how commercially minded adversaries innovate to stay active and avoid detection, how businesses can effectively respond to such a constantly moving target, and what steps can be taken by users to protect themselves online.
By understanding who these actors are and how they operate, you can better anticipate threats and protect yourself in an increasingly hostile digital world.
Subscribe to Group-IB's Masked Actors now — and stay one step ahead in the fight against cybercrime.
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