Risky Biz Feature Interview: Mark Dowd on the 0day market and future of exceptional access

This feature podcast was made possible by the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative. The foundation has given us grant funding to produce this podcast series, which is designed to educate policymakers in cybersecurity so they can make better decisions. In this edition you’ll hear an interview I recorded with Mark Dowd. Mark is a world-renowned security researcher who, some years ago, co-founded a company called Azimuth Security. As you’ll hear, the original plan was to provide security research and consulting services to vendors. But, pretty quickly, Azimuth became a serious player in offensive security, selling exploits and other tools to government agencies in the Five Eyes countries. We recorded this interview touching on the history of Azimuth, what the public gets wrong when talking about 0day and surveillance, and were this whole thing could go – especially considering writing memory corruption exploits is getting so much harder.