A Secret Service agent, a young hacker, and the Life of PII

Summary

A Secret Service Agent, a Young Hacker, and the Life of PII

Podcast: Click Here
Host: Dina Temple-Raston
Release Date: April 22, 2025

---

Introduction

In this gripping episode of Click Here, Dina Temple-Raston delves into the intricate world of cybercrime, identity theft, and redemption. The story intertwines the lives of Matt O'Neill, a dedicated Secret Service agent, and Hu Min, a young Vietnamese hacker who orchestrates one of the largest Personally Identifiable Information (PII) marketplaces in the world. This detailed narrative explores the fine line between legality and criminality in the digital age and showcases a remarkable journey from wrongdoing to restitution.

---

Matt O'Neill and the Secret Service

The episode begins by introducing Matt O'Neill, a Secret Service agent based in New Hampshire, who specializes in combating financial crimes. Contrary to popular belief, the Secret Service's primary mission extends beyond presidential protection to include the fight against counterfeit money and financial fraud.

• Dina Temple-Raston (00:24): "Matt was investigating financial crimes, but not with the FBI or local law enforcement. He was with the Secret Service."

• Matt O'Neill (00:41): "Secret Service was actually founded at the end of the US Civil War because a third to half of all money in circulation was counterfeit. But the roots of the organization have always been in combating financial crime."

In 2012, Matt's routine work dealing with cash register hacks in New Hampshire takes a pivotal turn when he discovers a website blatantly selling stolen PII openly.

---

The Rise of Hu Min

Hu Min, a teenager from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, becomes central to the story. Growing up in a context where computer access was limited and internet usage was costly, Hu found his passion and skills in hacking through his family's electronics business.

• Hu Min (03:19): "I didn't know much about computers, so I just played with it."

Sent to live with his uncle to hone his skills, Hu's fascination with computers deepens, leading him into the dark web—a realm of illicit activities that forever changes his path.

• Hu Min (05:02): "At first, I just had for fun, you know, like I had the website getting into database and stealing the credit card and bank accounts, and I just share for free."

---

The Creation and Operation of Super Get.info

Bored with minor thefts, Hu Min stumbles upon a major opportunity by selling PII, recognizing its perpetual value compared to transient assets like credit card information.

• Hu Min (08:42): "Is not like credit card, right?"

By creating a fake identity, Jason Wheel, Hu begins selling PII on a large scale through his website, Super Get.info, quickly amassing a staggering amount of data and income.

• Hu Min (10:17): "Today I got into so much data and I was able to obtain roughly around 200 million U.S. identity."

Within two years, Hu's operation grows exponentially, generating over $100,000 monthly by selling stolen identities openly on the clear web.

---

The Sting Operation and Arrest

Agency Matt O'Neill devises a strategic plan to bring Hu Min to justice. Understanding the complexity of prosecuting an international cybercriminal without an extradition treaty with Vietnam, Matt employs an undercover operation to lure Hu back to U.S. jurisdiction.

• Matt O'Neill (13:36): "It's not necessarily illegal to sell other people's PII. A lot of people don't know that. So I could sell you 5,000 Social Security numbers, but in order to charge me, you have to show that I knowingly sent it with the knowledge that you intended to commit fraud."

By posing as a potential criminal buyer, Matt obtains undeniable proof of Hu's intent to use PII for unlawful activities.

• Hu Min (06:35): "So I returned all that money to the victims. And then I was so scared, I ran back to Vietnam."

Matt orchestrates a meeting in Guam, a U.S. territory, ensuring Hu Min's apprehension without the complications of international extradition.

• Matt O'Neill (16:09): "We were able to get his payment information, and he was using a credit card that actually comes back to him."

Upon arrival in Guam, Hu is swiftly detained, marking the end of his extensive PII operation.

---

Hu Min's Transformation and Redemption

Faced with the consequences of his actions, Hu Min undergoes a profound transformation during his incarceration. Influenced by the heartfelt letters from victims and the realization of the real-world impact of his crimes, Hu commits to rehabilitation.

• Hu Min (21:37): "The victims couldn't afford the house, couldn't afford the car, stuff like that, because of me, because of me selling their identity. It's real people with real damage with real consequences."

Embracing change, Hu actively participates in programs to improve himself, learns English, and mentors fellow inmates. His cooperation proves invaluable to the Secret Service, aiding in dismantling further cybercriminal operations.

• Hu Min (25:08): "Me and him, we kind of very good friends. We constantly keep in touch almost every week."

Upon his release after seven years, Hu returns to Vietnam with a renewed purpose. He joins the National Cybersecurity Center, utilizing his expertise to combat the very crimes he once perpetuated. Additionally, Hu establishes a nonprofit organization to train law enforcement, ensuring his skills contribute positively to society.

• Hu Min (25:34): "When I'm hunting the cyber criminal, it just feels like, you know, I was facing myself, you know, and kind of talking to myself back in the day."

---

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a compelling narrative of redemption and the power of second chances. Hu Min's journey from a novice hacker to one of the most notorious PII traffickers, and finally to a cybersecurity advocate, underscores the complex interplay between technology, morality, and personal growth. Matt O'Neill's relentless pursuit and strategic brilliance highlight the ongoing battle against cybercrime, emphasizing that behind every digital breach are real lives affected.

---

Notable Quotes

• Dina Temple-Raston (00:24): "Matt was investigating financial crimes, but not with the FBI or local law enforcement. He was with the Secret Service."

• Matt O'Neill (10:17): "Today I got into so much data and I was able to obtain roughly around 200 million U.S. identity."

• Matt O'Neill (13:36): "It's not necessarily illegal to sell other people's PII. A lot of people don't know that."

• Hu Min (21:37): "The victims couldn't afford the house, couldn't afford the car, stuff like that, because of me, because of me selling their identity."

• Hu Min (25:34): "When I'm hunting the cyber criminal, it just feels like, you know, I was facing myself, you know, and kind of talking to myself back in the day."

---

Key Takeaways

1. The Dual Nature of PII: While PII can be leveraged legally for marketing and data analysis, in the wrong hands, it becomes a tool for extensive fraud and identity theft.

2. Undercover Operations: Matt O'Neill's approach demonstrates the importance of understanding the nuances of cybercrime to effectively dismantle it from within.

3. Redemption and Rehabilitation: Hu Min's transformation highlights that even those deeply entrenched in criminal activities have the capacity for change and positive contribution.

4. Global Cybersecurity Challenges: The story underscores the complexities of international cybercrime, especially in the absence of extradition treaties and the need for global cooperation.

5. Human Impact of Cybercrime: Beyond the technical aspects, the episode emphasizes the profound personal and societal repercussions of identity theft.

---

This episode of Click Here offers an insightful exploration into the world of cyber intelligence, showcasing the relentless efforts of law enforcement to curb digital crimes and the potential for personal redemption even in the darkest of circumstances.

Transcript

[Dena Temple Raston]

From Recorded Future News and prx, this is Click Here. It all started with a diner. Matt O'Neill was sitting at the counter in New Hampshire, black coffee in hand, thinking about stolen credit cards.

[Matt O'Neill]

So I was working point of sale terminal hacking cases.

[Dena Temple Raston]

He was investigating financial crimes, but not with the FBI or local law enforcement. He was with the Secret Service. What most people don't know is that the Secret Service does a lot more than just protect the President.

[Matt O'Neill]

Secret Service was actually founded at the end of the US Civil War because a third to half of all money in circulation was counterfeit. But the roots of the organization have always been in combating financial crime.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And back in 2012, Matt was feeling a little bored with all his New Hampshire cash register cases. And he stumbled across this website. It was selling people's identities, something called pii, Personally Identifiable Information. And it was selling it right in the open. So Matt got curious. He logged onto the site and punched in the names of a few people he knew, and sure enough, and I.

[Matt O'Neill]

Could buy the name, date of birth, Social Security number, address, and previous addresses.

[Dena Temple Raston]

He thought, well, maybe that's a fluke. So he typed in more names.

[Matt O'Neill]

Literally every single person that I queried. I found all of their PII. You could ask to purchase things like, hey, I'd like to buy 50 men in New Hampshire, ages 18 to 30. Something like that. And then he would send you in an email.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Pii, I'm Dena Temple Rest, and this is Click Here. A podcast about all things cyber and intelligence. We tell true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world. And today, the story of one of the largest PII marketplaces in the world. And a career agent in the US Secret Service, and a teenager in Ho Chi Minh City. It's a story about choices and the fine line between the dark side and the light and one kid's surprising journey across it. Stay with us. There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's on the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here? And maybe how to head them off at the pass that's on the media specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Podcasts.

[Dena Temple Raston]

From Recorded Future News. This is Click Here to hear Hu Min go tell it. He didn't mean to become one of the world's most prolific identity thieves. In fact, when he was growing up in Vietnam, computer crime wasn't really a thing.

[Hu Min]

Because Internet is so expensive in Vietnam. Lots of people in Vietnam, they don't even have computer.

[Dena Temple Raston]

His parents ran an electronics store. His uncle sold computers, which is how he became one of the first of his friends to actually get a laptop.

[Hu Min]

At first, I didn't know much about computer, so I just played with it.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And he did what a lot of kids do with a new toy. He'd break it, fix it, break it again. And his parents couldn't afford all this. They couldn't even afford the $5 an hour it cost to use the Internet at the time. So they sent him to Ho Chi Minh City to live with his uncle and learn how to use computers properly. And learn he did. Soon he was coding, then skipping school to code, then waking up to find himself face planted into his keyboard. Hugh was obsessed with computers.

[Hu Min]

I didn't study much because a lot of my time I spent on computer. I sleep on computer, I study on computer, everything on computer.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And for a while, it was the typical boy meets computer boy, loves computer boy, spends all his time with the computer story. Until Hugh ran into this stranger at an Internet cafe and he saw a flicker of something forbidden on his screen.

[Hu Min]

Suddenly, I see him browsing some very dark website, something very, very new to me and very strange to me.

[Dena Temple Raston]

The Dark Web. Hugh had never seen it, never even heard of it. But he soon found out it was a secret world of drugs and fraud and cybercrime.

[Hu Min]

Yeah. And then he's saying, yeah, if you want to open an account, just let me know, you know? And then he showed me, sign up an account at the Dark Web, A few Dark Webs.

[Dena Temple Raston]

He didn't have to ask twice. Hugh just dove in. Tutorials, forums, stolen credit cards, bank accounts. He was into it all. And at first, it really wasn't about the money.

[Hu Min]

At first, I just had for fun, you know, like I had the website getting into database and stealing the credit card and bank accounts, and I just share for free.

[Dena Temple Raston]

But that straight path didn't last very long, because soon Hugh and a friend were holed up together, living, hacking, laundering money. And the laundering, it was child's play.

[Hu Min]

Every night, I always start making money, like 1,000, 2,000, easily.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Every night they ran it through online poker sites, cashing out clean. And that's how it started. He told his parents he was a programmer, a good one, and technically, that wasn't a lie. He used the money to enroll in college in New Zealand, and he majored in computer science, naturally. But the deeper he got, the more invisible the line between right and wrong became he was getting rich and he was getting sloppy. Someone noticed and suddenly he was caught.

[Hu Min]

So they asked me to return the money to the victims.

[Dena Temple Raston]

So how much money was it?

[Hu Min]

Like more than 20,000 USD.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Wow.

[Hu Min]

Right? Okay. So I returned all that money to the victims. And then I was so scared, I ran back to Vietnam.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And when he got home, his parents.

[Hu Min]

Were devastated, they got so upset. I told them that I never had in again. So I will stay away from computer.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And for a while, he stayed clean. No hacking, no schemes, just staying out of trouble. But he couldn't quite stay away from the scene of the crime. His beloved Internet cafes.

[Hu Min]

At the Internet cafe, we chit chat and we exchanged information. And I told them, you know, I don't want to touch the computer again. You know, it's so dangerous.

[Dena Temple Raston]

For me, it was like an arsonist hanging out at the fire station, just talking, just looking. But the temptation had a way of drawing him in when the glow of the screen was that close. And the thing is data, data isn't inherently illegal. There's a whole industry built around collecting it and packaging it and selling it legally. You've seen the results, those ads that pop up a little too conveniently after you search for boots or books or divorce lawyers. So there he was, same cafe, same crowd when someone suggested a workaround, a loophole. Why not become a legitimate data broker, do the same thing, just wear a better disguise, still hack, still earn. Just look the part while you're doing it.

[Hu Min]

So they told me about Social Security numbers, US identity.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Nobody in Vietnam was selling that kind of data. So when a friend told him he could be the first that he could break open the market, it stuck with him. He went home, sat with the idea, turned it over in his mind. And it wasn't just that he could get away with it. It was that it didn't feel like a real crime.

[Hu Min]

Is not like credit card, right?

[Dena Temple Raston]

It's not like a real credit card. It's just numbers.

[Hu Min]

It's just numbers. Why people, they bought this? So many. Why they bought so many?

[Dena Temple Raston]

Hugh sat down at his computer and broke his promise. He didn't go back to hacking. He leveled up. He invented someone, a private investigator. He called Jason Wheel, a phantom with credentials.

[Hu Min]

So I use that name. I falsify only documents. I use that identity as a private investigator in Singapore and also in the us.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And here's the loophole. Real private investigators, actual ones, can buy personal data legally. No red flags, no questions. Using that fake identity, he approached a data broker who Sold him a trove of Social Security numbers. And with that, Hugh opened shop and waited.

[Hu Min]

Within the first few weeks, the money come into my account like crazy. I couldn't believe my eyes. Man, this is so easy money.

[Dena Temple Raston]

It was easy. Too easy. Hugh had stumbled into a weird quirk of data theft. Unlike credit cards, PII lasts forever because you can't cancel a birthday, you can't cancel a mother's maiden name, which means you can sell those things again and again and again. So Hugh was sitting on a gold mine.

[Hu Min]

Today I got into so much data and I was being able to obtain roughly around 200 million U.S. identity.

[Dena Temple Raston]

200 million. That's nearly 60% of the U.S. population. He wasn't dabbling anymore. He was building one of the largest identity theft operations the world has ever seen. By the end, more than 13,000 people's identities would be stolen using his website. And that promise he made, the one to his parents, it was gone. He was all in.

[Hu Min]

Now and then I decided to open a website that providing stolen data as a service.

[Dena Temple Raston]

He was so confident that he could get away with selling PII that he began to sell it openly on the clear web. And it turns out there were lots of people looking to buy what he had to offer.

[Hu Min]

I was marketing like up to more than 100,000 USD per month.

[Dena Temple Raston]

A month?

[Hu Min]

Yeah, a month. Wow.

[Dena Temple Raston]

For nearly two years, Hugh lived like gravity didn't apply to him. He made millions. He bought sports cars, real estate, a fantasy life built on stolen names and birth dates. He went to five star restaurants, private suites. There was a different girlfriend on each arm. It was kind of a magic trick. Young Q, the kid who couldn't even afford the Internet, wouldn't have believed it, but every con has a shelf life. And Hughes was about to expire because halfway across the world, that Secret Service agent Matt O'Neill was closing in. And that's when we come back. Stay with us.

[Brooke Gladstone]

For decades, China's economic rise has been symbolized by the unstoppable force of low cost manufacturing. But today, a new and far more disruptive wave of competition is unfolding. One that threatens not just Western manufacturing, but also the West's geopolitical dominance. I'm journalist James King, and in my new audiobook, Global Tech wars, from Pushkin Industries and the Financial Times, I'm unpacking what China's rapid technological ascent across cutting edge industries like artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and surveillance technology means for the future. Find Global Tech wars at Pushkin fm, Audiobooks, Audible, Spotify, and wherever Audiobooks Are sold.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Strangely enough, the first thing that agent Matt O'Neill had to do to catch Hugh was this. Prove that he wasn't just a person behind a PII website, but that he knew his data was part of committing a crime.

[Matt O'Neill]

It's not necessarily illegal to sell other people's pii. A lot of people don't know that. So I could sell you 5,000 Social Security numbers, but in order to charge me, you have to show that I knowingly sent it with the knowledge that you intended to commit fraud.

[Dena Temple Raston]

PII in the hands of a data broker using to target you with ads is annoying, but it's not against the law. The same personal data in the hands of a criminal, well, that's different.

[Matt O'Neill]

I can use it for things like stolen identity refund fraud or account takeovers or new account fraud.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Matt needed to prove Hugh was selling data for that kind of reason. So he made a decision, a bold one. He'd walk right in, pretending to be a customer.

[Matt O'Neill]

So I created an account, and then I emailed him because it had a Gmail address. And I basically said, hey, I'm trying to buy some Social Security numbers, and I'm using it for tax return fraud. Can you confirm if I buy this, you're not going to sell it to anybody else? Because if I'm going to buy your Social Security number and file a fraudulent tax return, the IRS considers the first filer the legitimate filer.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Matt hit send. And half a world away, it landed in Hugh's inbox. And Hugh, thinking this was just one more potential customer, quickly replied, no, no, no.

[Matt O'Neill]

Once you buy it, I take it out of circulation.

[Dena Temple Raston]

That single line. It erased all plausible deniability. It was the smoking gun that Matt needed that got him a search warrant. And with that, he and his team set about combing Hugh's accounts, looking for.

[Matt O'Neill]

Evidence by going through about 200,000 emails that we seized one by one, which, you know, we didn't have LLMs to help us. Like, it was literally one by one.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And in this haystack of emails, he found needle after needle after incriminating correspondence. And even the server Hugh was using to host his website, we realized that.

[Matt O'Neill]

Super Get.info was being hosted actually in the United States.

[Dena Temple Raston]

He used that to get another search warrant. And as he was pawing through the server, he found something else.

[Matt O'Neill]

We were able to get his payment information, and he was using a credit card that actually comes back to him.

[Dena Temple Raston]

A real credit card with a real name.

[Matt O'Neill]

Okay, this is Hugh. Hugh's in Vietnam. Hugh's probably working alone. And here's where his infrastructure is.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Boom. They had their guy, and they knew exactly where he was. There's just one problem. The US doesn't have an extradition treaty with Vietnam. So Matt thought he needed to get Hu out of Vietnam to force him to go someplace where the US had jurisdiction. So Matt came up with a ruse, a story that Hugh would believe that involved a dark web rival who allegedly was jealous of all this money Hugh was making.

[Matt O'Neill]

We arranged for a cooperating defendant who lived overseas, who was a pretty well known fraudster, to reach out to Hugh and basically say, hey, I know who you are. You've been making way too much money off of your website. I'm shutting you down. If you want to get in business, you're going to have to come through me.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And then to make sure Hugh knew this fraudster was serious, Matt actually arranged to shut off Hugh's PII supply by going to the company Hugh was getting data from and asking them to freeze his account.

[Matt O'Neill]

And then we sent him a follow up email from this fraudster that basically said, see, I told you, you know, if you want to get back in business, come through me.

[Dena Temple Raston]

It got Hugh's attention.

[Hu Min]

I got used to making so much money every month and living a lavish.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Lifestyle, but now someone was threatening to shut it all down. The longer his supply was cut off, the more Hugh started to emerge from the fog of this criminal life he'd chosen. You start to see this as a chance to maybe turn his life around. He thought, okay, I'll go meet this guy, get my data back, and then I'll start selling it legitimately. You know, keep the skills, but ditch the crime.

[Hu Min]

I think I will take this change and I will try to see if I can become a real legitimate businessman because I got so tired of doing this. I want to be someone else. I want to be a legitimate businessman.

[Dena Temple Raston]

So he responded to the email and said he was open to talking. And Matt, posing as the dark web rival, wrote back. He told Hugh that if he was going to do this deal, it had to happen in person.

[Hu Min]

He offered me to Australia, to New York, to Wine. I said, no, man, too far. It's so dangerous for me. He said, yeah, I think my business partner can set up a meeting. We can go to Guam.

[Matt O'Neill]

We arranged for an in person meeting in Guam.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Guam, a tropical outpost in the western Pacific just five hours from Vietnam. To Hugh, it seemed close enough to feel safe. But what Hugh didn't realize, what he missed entirely, was that Guam is a US territory has been since 1898. And tucked among the palm trees and coral beaches, there is a Secret Service field office.

[Matt O'Neill]

And so I sent two agents from the Manchester office to Guam. And the Secret Service sent a really good agent out of Honolulu as well that spoke Vietnamese to do translation in case we needed it.

[Dena Temple Raston]

So in February 2013, Hugh boarded a plane with his sister who had agreed to serve as a translator. And five hours later.

[Sean Powers]

Welcome to Guam.

[Hu Min]

Please stay comfortably seated until the seatbelt sign is off. They landed right after we landed. We went to the custom office. And then they hold me back. They say, yeah, we need to see you at the office.

[Dena Temple Raston]

He was escorted to a back room, and in his mind he was hoping that this was just an extra screening. But as soon as the door closed, the charade fell apart.

[Hu Min]

I was there four or five hours away, very tired. They questioned me a lot, and at the end I admitted everything. And they say, man, this is game over. The game is over.

[Dena Temple Raston]

The Secret Service put him in handcuffs and escorted him away. And as Hugh told his sister goodbye.

[Hu Min]

Oh, she was so upset and she was crying and just crying. She didn't say much. But one thing she told me, the last thing she told me that stay strong, stay strong.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And then just like that, human go was in US custody. A20 something locked up in a foreign country where the language, the customs, even the prison system felt completely, completely alien. And he was ping ponging from one prison to the next.

[Hu Min]

California to Tessa to Nevada to New Jersey and up. After two, three months, I end up to New Hampshire.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And somewhere in that shuffle, something from the trial kept echoing in his mind. Not the prison sentence, not the courtroom drama. It was something the judge said at.

[Hu Min]

One point that the federal judge told me that he received more than 10,000 letters from the victims about my case. Some of the letters, very sad story. The victims couldn't afford the house, couldn't afford the car, stuff like that, because of me, because of me selling their identity. It's real people with real damage with real consequences.

[Dena Temple Raston]

What once felt like an abstraction, just ones and zeros and names on a screen, had faces now and life stories sitting behind a keyboard. In Vietnam, it had all felt so far away. Now it was inescapable. The damage, the ripple effects, the real guilt.

[Hu Min]

I was thinking, I have to improve myself. I have to change myself. I have to do something.

[Dena Temple Raston]

He learned English, joined an addiction program. He mentored other inmates. He became a model prisoner. And then he went one step beyond just doing his time. He tried to make amends he handed the keys to super get.info over to the feds. And for two years, the secret Service ran the site as a full blown.

[Matt O'Neill]

Sting, communicating with all of his biggest buyers that we arrested a fair amount of them. We got them to make incriminating statements about what they were using the PII for. And then we lured them and arrested them. And after a bunch of people got charged and went to trial, that he was basically cooperative and testified in the.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Trial, the hunter had become the bait. And it worked. One arrest after another, one trial after the next, the lingering damage of Hugh's crime started to disperse. And then in November 2019, I remember.

[Hu Min]

I was sleeping around 2, 3 o'clock at night, and the prison guard, he woke me up, he said, back up your stuff.

[Dena Temple Raston]

They handcuffed him, shackled him and put him on a bus and told him only that they were going to New Hampshire.

[Hu Min]

I'm so scared because that's where I got sentenced. And then I was thinking a lot of bad things, you know, like the worst thing could happen to me in New Hampshire.

[Dena Temple Raston]

They brought him back to the original.

[Hu Min]

Judge, the same judge that sentenced me. He told me, you just need to share your story. So I stand there for almost three hours. I was sharing my case. Not my case, my life.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And a few days later he got.

[Hu Min]

A phone call, the public defender, he called me and he told me that I got immediately released after seven years behind bars.

[Dena Temple Raston]

After all the cooperation, Hugh was released with time served. Though just before he returned to Vietnam, he had a couple of visitors, the Prosecutor and Matt O'Neill. And they had some advice.

[Hu Min]

Never go back and keep doing good.

[Matt O'Neill]

You know, if there's anything I can do to help him out, please reach out.

[Hu Min]

Don't worry, I will do good and I will give back to the society.

[Dena Temple Raston]

And somehow what started with a sting turned into something else.

[Hu Min]

Me and him, we kind of very good friends. We constantly keep in touch almost every week.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Back in Vietnam, Hugh didn't return to crime, he returned to purpose. And this time it was legal. He took a job with Vietnam's National Cybersecurity Center, a place where his old skills could finally do some good. And are you kind of like hacking the hackers now, right?

[Hu Min]

Sadly, yeah. When I hunting the cyber criminal, it just feel like, you know, I was facing myself, you know, and kind of talking to myself back in the day. Sometimes it's very easy for me to talk to hackers or cyber criminal because I understand them, I know how to talk to them.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Since getting out hu Mingo has made amends. He's helped law enforcement around the world track down cybercriminals. He founded a non profit. He trains officers in the very tactics he once used to evade them. And now he's something else entirely. A father. And his daughter, well, she's a chip off the old block. She plays with computers and among her first words, hack, hack.

[Hu Min]

Every night you say hack, hack, hack, hack.

[Dena Temple Raston]

But now it's a game, not a gateway. A word once soaked in fear now is just part of his toddler's play. This is Click Here.

[Deirdre Darbosa]

Looking for more of the cybersecurity and intelligence coverage you get on Click Here. Then check out our sister publication the Record from Recorded Future News. You'll get breaking cyber news from reporters in New York, Washington, London and Kyiv, among others. And you'll see for yourself why it attracts hundreds of thousands of page views every month. Just go to the Record media.

[Dena Temple Raston]

It's Tuesday, April 22, and here are some of the top cyber and intelligence headlines of the past week.

[Matt O'Neill]

Some breaking news on Google this morning. Let's get to Deirdre Darbosa.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Morning, Dee.

[Hu Min]

Hey, good morning, Kyle.

[Dena Temple Raston]

Google shares, they are down more than 2% in a landmark antitrust case. The Justice Department has suggested that breaking up Google may be the only remedy to its alleged monopoly in Internet search. One proposed solution forcing Google to sell its Chrome browser. The case could reshape the tech landscape, especially as AI driven search tools from competitors like Microsoft and OpenAI begin to gain traction. Every nerd and their dog has been.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Freaking out about the possible complete and total shutdown of the CVE database.

[Dena Temple Raston]

There was an 11th hour scramble before a key CISA contract was set to expire last week. The longtime software vulnerability hacking project known as the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure Program was staring death in the face. It had been managed by the nonprofit research and development group Mitir, and it was a linchpin for global security, providing critical data and services for digital defense and research. Hours before the funding was set to run out, a CISA spokesperson said on Wednesday that the program would be extended for another 11 months. Mitre said in a statement on Wednesday that CISA had identified incremental funding to keep the program operational. Though the program can now continue as before, some members of the CVE program's board are preparing to transition the project into a new nonprofit entity called the CVE Foundation. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has signed a $30 million deal. ICE just signed a $30 million deal with Palantir for a new immigration tracking system. The system, called Immigration os, is meant to provide ICE with near real time visibility on self deportations, as well as insight into those overstaying their visas. Its intent to streamline the deportation process. ICE is claiming this management system is necessary under Trump's immigration order. Palantir is launching the prototype in September this year, with its contract extending through 2027. In Vermont, a man named Niklas Moses is facing federal hacking charges after allegedly operating a server in the Netherlands that distributed smoke loader malware. He allegedly stole data from over 65,000 people selling their credentials online for pocket change. His guilty plea comes as Europol celebrates a major takedown of the same botnet infrastructure. A cybercrime ripple, maybe, but also a reminder of how global these attacks remain and how low the bar is for entry. And finally, while pop star Katy Perry took a joyride on a Blue Origin rocket, astronomers quietly made a far more meaningful leap. Scientists have found the strongest evidence yet that a planet 124 light years away could be home to life. Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scientists at Cambridge found evidence of marine microbe gases on a planet 124 light years away. K2 18b might be the most promising candidate for alien life so far, but don't cue the Spielberg soundtrack just yet. More testing is needed, and science, as always, moves slower than spectacle.

[Sean Powers]

Today's episode was written and produced by Megan Dietre, Zach Hirsch, Erica Gajda, Dina Temple Raston and me, Sean Powers. It was edited by Karen Duffin, Fact Checked by Darren Ankrum, and it contains original music by Ben Levingston and some other music from Blue Dot sessions. Our staff writer is Lucas Riley, and our illustrator is Megan Gough. Martin Peralta and Jesse Niswonger are our sound designers and engineers. Click Here is a production of Recorded Future News and prx. Tune in on Friday for Mic Drop, which features our favorite interview of the week. We'll see you then.

[Deirdre Darbosa]

If you're looking for a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News. It serves up the day's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication the Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to TheRecord Media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox.