Hacking Humans

The prince, the pretender, and the PSA.

As Maria is on vacation this week, our hosts ⁠⁠Dave Bittner⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Joe Carrigan⁠⁠, are sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. Joe and Dave are joined by guest ⁠Rob Allen⁠ from ⁠ThreatLocker⁠ who shares a story on how a spoofed call to the help desk unraveled into a full-blown cyber siege on MGM Resorts. Joe’s story is on a new FBI warning: scammers are impersonating the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the very site where people go to report online fraud. Dave's got the story of a so-called “Nigerian prince” scammer who turned out to be a 67-year-old man from Louisiana, now facing 269 counts of wire fraud for helping funnel money to co-conspirators in Nigeria. Our catch of the day comes from a scams subreddit, and is on a message received from the Department of Homeland Security reaching out to a user to share that they are a victim of fraud.

When AI lies, hackers rise.

This week, our hosts Dave Bittner, Joe Carrigan, and Maria Varmazis (also host of the T-Minus Space Daily show) are sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. This week Joe's got some follow up about his chickens. Joe's story is on LLM-powered coding tools, and how they are increasingly hallucinating fake software package names, opening the door for attackers to upload malicious lookalike packages—a practice dubbed "slopsquatting"—that can compromise software supply chains when developers unwittingly install them. Dave’s story is on Cisco Talos uncovering a widespread toll road smishing campaign across multiple U.S. states, where financially motivated threat actors—using a smishing kit developed by “Wang Duo Yu”—impersonate toll services to steal victims' personal and payment information through spoofed domains and phishing sites. Maria's got the story of how scammers are using fake banking apps to fool sellers with phony payment screens—and walking away with thousands in goods. Our catch of the day comes from listener John who writes in to share a suspicious text message he received.

Phishing in the tariff storm.

This week, our hosts Dave Bittner and Joe Carrigan, are sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines, while our other host, Maria Varmazis is at a conference. We begin with some follow-up, as Joe reflects on the density of gold. Then, Dave shares some heartfelt and moving words about the recent passing of his father. Dave's story follows how confusion sparked by Trump's erratic tariff policies is fueling a global surge in cyber scams, phishing sites, and crypto cons, as threat actors exploit the chaos to mislead, defraud, and manipulate online users. Joe has two stories this week, the first is about the "blessing scam," a con that targets older Chinese women with promises of spiritual cleansing that ends in financial ruin. The second covers a new FTC rule requiring companies to make subscription cancellations as easy as sign-ups, cracking down on deceptive practices. Our catch of the day this week comes from MontClair University, as they are warning of a phishing scam offering a “free 2014 Airstream Sport 16′ Travel Trailer.”

You get a million dollars, and you get a million dollars!

This week, while Dave Bittner is out, Joe Carrigan, and Maria Varmazis (also host of N2K's daily space podcast, T-Minus), are sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. We start off with a lot of follow up on listener feedback this week! Justin shares a thought about how to track gold deliveries with a simple sting operation involving an AirTag. Xray Specs offers a fun response to a theory about scanning plates and running Python scripts, stating they receive similar emails despite not owning a car. Jim Gilchrist recounts his experience with E-ZPass and unpaid tolls, explaining how a failed transponder led to a replacement and noting the prevalence of scam toll messages. Joe shares two gripping stories this week, one being on how the FBI is seizing $8.2 million from a massive romance scam involving cryptocurrency, and second is on a Maryland woman losing millions in a growing "pig butchering" scheme, with the FBI warning that many more victims are at risk. Maria's story is on an East Hartford woman caught up in a federal sweepstakes scam targeting the elderly. The suspects, including one local resident, allegedly stole millions. What did they do, and how did they get caught? Our catch of the day comes from a user on Reddit who shares a message they got from billionaire, and owner of Tesla, Elon Musk.

Not-so-real deals.

This week our hosts, Dave Bittner, Joe Carrigan, and Maria Varmazis (also host of N2K's daily space podcast, T-Minus), are sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. First, we start off with some more follow-up on EZ passes, along with the newest iteration, as Kailey Cornick shares that scammers target phone numbers rather than actual toll users, sending her SUN pass scam texts tied to her old Florida number. Dave shares the story of Palo Alto's Unit 42 researchers uncovering a massive campaign distributing thousands of fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platforms via websites and mobile apps, using brand impersonation, Ponzi-like schemes, and domain fronting to deceive victims, primarily in East Africa and Asia. Maria follows the story of a Queens man arraigned for allegedly scamming a 72-year-old Newton woman out of over $480,000 by posing as a DEA agent and coercing her into transferring her assets under the threat of arrest. Joe came across a Facebook video featuring an AI-generated ad falsely claiming Kelly Clarkson endorsed a weight loss product. These deceptive ads use AI to create convincing deepfakes, making it appear as if celebrities are promoting products they’ve never actually supported. Our catch of the day comes from listener Connor, who flagged a phishing email pretending to be from the Social Security Administration. The email urges the recipient to click a link to view an "important update," but the repetition of the message and a suspicious logo placeholder suggest it's a phishing attempt designed to steal personal info.