An Italian held hostage in Mauritania over a multi-mn USD transaction gone bad? Just another Tuesday in the shadowy, high stakes world of cyber warfare. As demand for cyber espionage continues to rise, a thriving international cyber-weapons arms market worth bns is developing fast. Companies and countries are dishing out mns for “offensive technology.” Hackers are now a hot commodity at weapons trade shows, peddling their wares and skills to governments looking to spy on other countries. It is a world where a guy like Maniche Kumar, who taught himself how to code through Youtube videos in his poor village in India, can sign a USD 2.5 mn contract with the government of Mauritania. But, as one security analyst said, the cyber weapons market operates on a “trust deficit,” meaning it is mired in scams, cons and strong arm tactics by governments. It perhaps unsurprising that Kumar’s agreement goes sour. Bloomberg’s Decrypted podcast takes you through the story of how it all devolved, and how an innocent Italian bodyguard hired by Kumar ended up imprisoned for the last 16 months in a Mauritanian jail cell. You can check out the episode on SoundCloud (runtime: 22:26).

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