This week, Maria Varmazis host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe, as they celebrate Maria joining the Hacking Humans podcast every week! Maria's story is from a listener this week who writes in with a story on an IT company that is a third party for a healthcare company, and the dangers that can come from that. Dave and Joe share some listener follow up from Michael, who shares some thoughts on AI. Dave's story follows how a recent study found that 40% of elderly adults in the UK regularly face phone-based fraud attempts, with significant impacts on their mental health and quality of life. Joe follows a Scottsdale couple, Alexandra Gehrke and Jeffrey King, and how they have been indicted for a $900 million fraud scheme targeting hospice patients, receiving $330 million in illegal kickbacks used to purchase luxury items. Our catch of the day comes from listener Jim who writes in with a letter about a concerned beneficiary who received a letter from the FBI about their overdue inheritance with the National Bank of Belgium. The message confirmed the legitimacy of their claim but warned of potential scams by individuals impersonating bank officials. Please take a moment to fill out an audience survey! Let us know how we are doing! Links to the stories: Two-Fifths of Senior Citizens Suffer Frequent Fraud Attempts ‘It’s really disgusting’: Scottsdale couple accused of $900 million fraud scheme targeting hospice patients, according to DOJ You can hear more from the T-Minus space daily show here. Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

An acronym for Advanced Persistent Threat to describe hacker groups or campaigns normally, but not always, associated with nation state cyber espionage and continuous low-level cyber conflict operations.

This week, Maria Varmazis host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe, as they celebrate Maria joining the Hacking Humans podcast every week! Maria's story is on supplement scams, as there has been a significant surge in health-related supplement scams on social media platforms, utilizing advanced technologies like AI-generated images and deepfake videos to promote fake products endorsed by celebrities and medical professionals. Joe's story follows Airplane WiFi, now essential for many travelers, and how it poses unexpected risks as recent incidents highlight dangers like "evil twin" attacks, urging caution with VPNs and verifying network legitimacy to safeguard personal data midair. Dave has the story on 2 women charged in a romance scheme, defrauding elderly men out of $7 million. Please take a moment to fill out an audience survey! Let us know how we are doing! Links to the stories: Deep Dive on Supplement Scams: How AI Drives ‘Miracle Cures’ and Sponsored Health-Related Scams on Social Media Federal Agency Issues New Security Advice If You Use Airplane WiFi 2 women charged in 'romance schemes' to defraud elderly men out of $7 million, feds say You can hear more from the T-Minus space daily show here. Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

An undocumented or publicly unknown method to access a computer system undetected or to break a cypher used to encode messages.

This week Dave shares a story on Business email compromise (BEC) scams, and how they are a major threat, costing $26 billion annually. The story shares how it's crucial for employees to verify suspicious emails through a secondary channel and for companies to foster transparent communication to mitigate such risks. Joe shares two stories with us this week. The first is from a listener named Jay, who received a story from a relative. In this story, someone claiming to be a constable calls to warn about a person who has gift cards with the victim's name on them, then tries to get the caller to call the police to confirm. Joe's second story comes from Allison Gormly at Consumer reporter at WTHR in Indianapolis. Allison share's videos videos on Instagram that all start with “Hey Allison,” this one starts with Hey Allison, a stranger sent me money on Venmo, should I send it back? Our catch of the day comes from listener Cameron, who shares how he is a business owner with a public-facing email address, and how he gets his fair share of scam emails, but this one takes the cake. Please take a moment to fill out an audience survey! Let us know how we are doing! Links to the stories: How to Spot a Business Email Compromise Scam Scam alert on Venmo, CashApp & Zelle! Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

From the intrusion kill chain model, a technique where the hacker compromises sites commonly visited by members of a targeted community in order to deliver a malicious payload to the intended victim.

Blair Cohen from AuthenticID joins Dave to discuss how generative AI and authentication go hand in hand. Joe and Dave share some follow up from listener Robert who discusses an ad for a device that uses ChatGPT to record phone calls on your device. Dave helps his dad out with his computer and shares the tale. Dave also shares a story this week on the FBI warning against scammers who are posing as NFT devs to try and steal your crypto. Joe and Dave test their scammer catching skills while taking a test to see if they are smarter than the average scammer. Our catch of the day comes from listener Steve who writes in to share a receipt he received that looked quite suspicious. Links to stories: FBI warns of scammers posing as NFT devs to steal your crypto Are you smarter than a scammer? Play this game. Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com or hit us up on Twitter.

Welcome in! You’ve entered, Only Malware in the Building. Join us each month to sip tea and solve mysteries about today’s most interesting threats. Your host is Selena Larson, Proofpoint intelligence analyst and host of their podcast DISCARDED. Inspired by the residents of a building in New York’s exclusive upper west side, Selena is joined by N2K Networks Dave Bittner and Rick Howard to uncover the stories behind notable cyberattacks.  Being a security researcher is a bit like being a detective: you gather clues, analyze the evidence, and consult the experts to solve the cyber puzzle. On this episode, we talk about "Operation Endgame." Operation Endgame is a strategy by Western law enforcement to counter Russian cybercriminals through psychological tactics. This involves creating distrust among hackers, exposing their internal communications, and dismantling their anonymity to hinder their operations. You can find more information on Operation Endgame here. Today we look at the new tactics used to disrupt these criminals by eroding trust among them and undermining their anonymity.

Network observation systems designed to monitor globally unreachable but unused Internet address space or the Deep Web in order to study a wide range of interesting Internet phenomena.

This week Joe and Dave share some interesting follow up from a few episodes ago where Dave shared his love for baby grand pianos and how scammers we're using that to lure people into traps. Listener George wrote in to share about a show on UK Channel 4, called "The Piano," it's a music competition where visitors play a public piano in a train station, judged by hidden famous pianists, with winners performing at the UK Royal Festival Hall. Joe's story is a warning to travel goers using booking.com, as they share scams are at a all time high. Dave's story follows some neighborhood Facebook groups, and how they are inundated with posts about air duct cleaning services, prompting an investigation that reveals a scam involving fake profiles, telemarketers in Pakistan, and local technicians. Our catch of the day comes from listener Christopher, who writes in to share an outlandish message he received from a hacker with too much time on their hands. Please take a moment to fill out an audience survey! Let us know how we are doing! Links to the stories: Note by Note: The Making of a Steinway Piano | Musical Instrument | ENDEVR Documentary Booking.com warns of up to 900% increase in travel scams Air Duct Cleaning Scam Exposed! Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

A best practice for framing cyber intelligence critical information requirements that recommends collecting and consolidating data from three specific sources: endpoint, network and log.

Brandon Kovacs, a Senior Red Team Consultant at Bishop Fox, is talking about how Artificial Intelligence is shaping the future of social engineering. Listener Adina wrote in to share their thoughts on an earlier episode on Google. Dave share's listener Tony's write in for his story this week. Joe and Dave discuss some questions Tony shared about preparing for an overseas trip when his bank account was locked due to security measures triggered by setting up a backup phone and using a VPN. Joe has two stories for this week, one from Blair Young at WBAL, where Maryland Lottery is warning the public about a phone scam claiming Powerball winnings. The second comes from listener Don who shares a story on people who hold posters up saying they need money for children's funerals. Our catch of the day comes from a listener that found a "task scam" on Reddit. Please take a moment to fill out an audience survey! Let us know how we are doing! Links to the stories: Maryland Lottery warns public about phone scam claiming Powerball winnings ‘It’s a scam’: Poster-holders aren’t really raising money for a child’s funeral Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

Also known as a third-party attack or a value-chain attack, advisory groups gain access to a targeted victims network by first infiltrating a business partner's network that has access to the victim's systems or data.

This week we are joined by Maria Varmazis, host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus. Maria's story covers the escalating efforts of pro-Russian propagandists to tarnish the Paris Summer Olympics and erode Western support for Ukraine, employing bold tactics like using AI to mimic Tom Cruise's voice. Joe and Dave share quite a bit of listener follow up, the first on is regarding the AirBnB story from a few weeks ago, the second one is from listener Lawrence who wrote in to verify dave’s comments about American Express, and the last one is from listener Tait, who shares some info on how they stay safe with banking. Joe has two stories for this week, the first one is on how the FBI is investigating the city of Gooding after they sent $1 million to a contractor for a wastewater project but later learned it was the victim of a scam. Joe's second story follows how a scammer dupes a Las Vegas woman out of $9,000 using a simple trick after turning up on her doorstep. Dave shares Avast's Q1, 2024 threat report. Our catch of the day comes from listener Clinton who wrote in to share and invoice he received from Apple Global requesting almost $1400. Please take a moment to fill out an audience survey! Let us know how we are doing! Links to the stories: City of Gooding scammed out of $1 million, officials say Scammer dupes Las Vegas woman out of $9,000 using a simple trick after turning up on her doorstep... so can you spot it? Avast Q1/2024 Threat Report Russians target Olympics with fake AI-generated Tom Cruise video You can hear more from the T-Minus space daily show here. Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

The process of software engineers checking the flow of user input in application code to determine if unanticipated input can affect program execution in malicious ways.

This week, we are joined by Dr. Chris Pierson CEO at Black Cloak, and he is talking about some of the social engineering attacks his team is tracking. Joe's story follows how Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed the financially motivated cybercriminal group Storm-1811 misusing the client management tool Quick Assist in social engineering attacks. Dave share's the story of the lure of a free baby grand piano to deceive over 125,000 email recipients, mainly targeting North American university students and faculty, earning at least $900,000. Our catch of the day comes from listener Chuck who writes in to share some of his junk mail he has been receiving recently, and shares concerns for other listeners. Please take a moment to fill out an audience survey! Let us know how we are doing! Links to the stories: Threat actors misusing Quick Assist in social engineering attacks leading to ransomware Free Piano phish targets American university students, staff Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

Welcome in! You’ve entered, Only Malware in the Building. Join us each month to sip tea and solve mysteries about today’s most interesting threats. Your host is Selena Larson, Proofpoint intelligence analyst and host of their podcast DISCARDED. Inspired by the residents of a building in New York’s exclusive upper west side, Selena is joined by N2K Networks Dave Bittner and Rick Howard to uncover the stories behind notable cyberattacks.  Being a security researcher is a bit like being a detective: you gather clues, analyze the evidence, and consult the experts to solve the cyber puzzle. On this episode, we talk about "The curious case of the missing IcedID." IcedID is a malware originally classified as a banking trojan and was first observed in 2017. It also acts as a loader for other malware, including ransomware, and was a favored payload used by multiple cybercriminal threat actors until fall 2023. Then, it all but disappeared. In its place, a new threat crawled: Latrodectus. Named after a spider, this new malware, created by the same people as IcedID, is now poised to take over where IcedID melted off. Today we look back at what happened to the once prominent payload, and what its successor’s spinning web of activity means for the overall landscape.

The process of stealing ATM customer credentials by means of physically and covertly installing one or more devices onto a public ATM machine.

This week we are joined by Maria Varmazis, host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus. Maria shares an interesting story from a listener, who writes in on an AirBnB debacle he was dealing with. Joe shares the newly released 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report from Verizon. Dave shares a story From the New York Magazine, written by Ezra Marcus, on a college sophomore from University of Miami who was found to be tangled up in a refund fraud scam that granted him a lavish lifestyle. Our catch of the day comes from Joe's mother this week. She happened to receive an email with the subject line being "your order is confirmed," coming from what looks to be "McAfee." Please take a moment to fill out an audience survey! Let us know how we are doing! Links to the stories: The Package King of Miami 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report You can hear more from the T-Minus space daily show here. Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

A nation-state hacking group’s practice of funding its town activities through cybercrime or cyber mercenary work.