Your Social Security number, credit card, and passport can be bought online for about 19 dollars. The CTO of NordVPN explains how.
Marijus Briedis has spent nearly 10 years at Nord Security, starting as a DevOps engineer and rising to CTO of a company with over 2,000 employees and a whole suite of cybersecurity products behind the flagship VPN. In this episode, Marijus and Ivan Patriki go deep on how the dark web identity market actually works, why Nord deletes entire servers rather than hand data to governments, and what AI scams are going to look like next.
We cover:
Why NordVPN runs a no logs audit every year (and whether that’s normal or rare)
How a full identity (email, working credit card, ID) sells for around 19 dollars on the dark web
Why Nord pulled its servers out of India instead of complying with a data law
“Do free VPNs sell your data?” The economics that make it likely
The three pillars of the NordVPN app: connect, protect, monitor
Leaked cookies: the unsolved cybersecurity problem nobody talks about
Disinformation as a service, and how bot armies get built for 10 minutes of work
The 25 million dollar Zoom deepfake scam that fooled a Singapore accountant
Vishing: attackers calling your relatives to clone your voice
How to know if the girlfriend calling for a thousand dollars is really her
Why Marijus’s mom is NordVPN’s best QA tester
The “human firewall” and why tools alone won’t save you
Building a unicorn: why product and marketing have to go hand in hand
RESOURCES & LINKS:
NordVPN: https://nordvpn.com
MORE OF MARIJUS BRIEDIS:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marijusbriedis/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marijusbriedis/
MORE OF ON THE MARGIN:
Website: https://www.themargin.tv
Spotify:
Main Site: https://www.on-the-margin.com
MORE OF BOAZ SOBRADO:
Twitter: https://x.com/sobradob
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobradob
Website: https://themargin.tv/boaz-sobrado
MORE OF IVAN PATRIKI:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/artizt
Substack: https://substack.com/@artizt
Twitter: https://x.com/Ivan_patriki
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artizt/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ascended
Telegram: https://t.me/ivanpatriki
Timestamps:
00:00 - Inside the NordVPN headquarters.
00:40 - 10 years at Nord, from DevOps to CTO.
01:26 - More than a VPN: the full Nord Security suite.
04:16 - Does Nord sell your data? The no logs audit explained.
07:45 - When governments came knocking, Nord deleted the servers.
09:36 - Why a VPN alone won’t hide you online.
12:01 - What the dark web really is and how Nord monitors it.
14:09 - A full identity for 19 dollars: the leaked data market.
18:30 - Disinformation as a service and AI bot armies.
21:00 - Scam websites, fake bags, and the Black Friday spike.
24:17 - What scams look like in 10 years: voice, video, deepfakes.
26:54 - Is the girlfriend calling for money actually your girlfriend?
28:52 - What Nord is building to fight AI scams.
29:35 - Managing 1,000 engineers as CTO.
32:05 - Biggest lesson: product and marketing go hand in hand.
Make sure to like, comment, and share, and I’ll see you in the next one.
