Hacking Humans

Latest Episodes:

The DNA dilemma: Unraveling a 23AndMe breach. Jan 04, 2024

Show notes

Alethe Denis from Bishop Fox is talking with Dave and Joe with her take on the 23AndMe breach. Dave and Joe share some follow up from listener Michael, who writes in to share thoughts on our catch of the day from last episode, regarding the voice mail from Spectrum. Dave shares a story on email security, and how human factors have a heavy influence on it, especially with people's vulnerability to phishing and social engineering. Joe has two stories this week, his first story is a good wrap on the holiday's and gift card scams. Joe's second story is a jump on tax season quickly approaching, and how the IRS is helping taxpayers by providing penalty relief. Our catch of the day is a good example of what not to do when phishing/scamming people, luckily the receiver was smarter than the sender.

Links to the stories:

Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

Stolen personality? Dec 28, 2023

Show notes

Matt Lewis from the NCC Group joins to discuss how cybercriminals can decode your personality through AI conversations to launch targeted attacks at you. Dave and Joe share some follow up from listener Sydney, who writes in to share her thoughts on an FCC proceeding and how it could be of greater relevance to IoT security than SBOMs and HBOMs. Dave also shares a story from a listener from last Christmas, sending a warning to holiday shoppers. Dave has two stories this week, he shares one regarding an announcement on holiday scams coming out. His other story follows Zelle finally caving in to provide some relief to scam victims. Joe's story follows new crypto-theft attacks and warns people against the new tactics.

Links to the stories:

Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

The grinch who hacked Christmas. [Hacking humans goes to the movies] Dec 24, 2023

Show notes

Thanks for joining us again for another episode of a fun project brought to you by the team of Hacking Humans, the CyberWire's social engineering podcast. Hacking Humans co-host Dave Bittner is joined by Rick Howard in this series where they view clips from their favorite movies and television shows with examples of the social engineering scams and schemes you hear Dave and co-host Joe Carrigan talk about on Hacking Humans. In this episode, Dave and Rick watch some holiday classics, describe the on-screen action for you, and then they deconstruct what they saw. Grab your Christmas cookies and join us for some fantastic scams and frauds.

Links to this episode's clips if you'd like to watch along:

How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Cartoon)
The Greening of the Grinch (magazine)

Reeling in some phishing trends. Dec 21, 2023

Show notes

Adam Bateman, Co-Founder & CEO at Push Security, is sharing some of the latest phishing trends his team has been observing. Dave and Joe share some listener follow up from Michael, who writes in with a new idea, calling it "eDeception." With the holiday season practically here, Joe shares a story about gift card scams, reminding everyone to be safe this holiday season. Dave's story follows a new iPhone update regarding stolen device protection in an upcoming version of iOS. Our catch of the day comes from listener Van who sent in an audio catch about Spectrum users.

Links to the stories:

Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

chaos engineering (noun) [Word Notes] Dec 19, 2023

Show notes

The resilience discipline of controlled stress test experimentation in continuous integration/continuous delivery environments, CI/CD environments, to uncover systemic weaknesses.

CyberWire Glossary link: https://thecyberwire.com/glossary/chaos-engineering

Audio reference link: Farnam Street, 2009. Richard Feynman Teaches you the Scientific Method [Website]. Farnam Street. URL https://fs.blog/mental-model-scientific-method/

Shielding your inbox. Dec 14, 2023

Show notes

Seth Blank, CTO of Valimail, joins to discuss the implications on email security on behalf of DMARC. Joe and Dave share some follow up regarding Meta, who is the parent company to Facebook and Instagram, and how they are now in a lawsuit over steering predators to children in New Mexico. Joe shares how he was almost hacked, as scammers used Peacock to lure him in. Dave's story continues with popular streaming apps being impersonated, this time with Disney+ falling victim. Joe's story follows the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI, and State and Local Law Enforcement Officials sharing another "Don't click December" PSA. Our catch of the day comes from listener Mauricio, who writes in sharing a phishing email, from "PayPal," saying he has an invoice of almost $600.

Links to the stories:

Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

Encore: remote access Trojan or RAT (noun) Dec 12, 2023

Show notes

From the intrusion kill chain model, a program that provides command and control services for an attack campaign. While the first ever deployed RAT is unknown, one early example is Back Orifice made famous by the notorious hacktivist group called “The Cult of the Dead Cow,” or cDc, Back Orifice was written by the hacker, Sir Dystic AKA Josh Bookbinder and released to the public at DEFCON in 1998.

Small, medium, and large phishing trends of 2023. Dec 07, 2023

Show notes

Mike Price from ZeroFox sits down to discuss what 2023 phishing trends mean for the broader industry as we quickly approach 2024. Dave and Joe share a serious write in from listener Michelle who shares her pleads for her aunt, who she believes is being catfished. Listener Marc also writes in with an email that claims to be from "Walmart," that he is quite suspicious of. Joe's story follows Meta, and how they have designed products to target and harm kids. Dave's story is on bad bots and the dangers they pose with fake businesses that are maximizing their illicit earnings. Our catch of the day comes from listener Konstantin, who shares and email received from scammers claiming to be "McAfee," trying to get payment of almost $600.

Links to the stories:

Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com.

zero knowledge proof (noun) Dec 05, 2023

Show notes

A mathematical method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that something is true, without revealing any information apart from the fact that this specific statement is true.

CyberWire Glossary link: https://thecyberwire.com/glossary/zero-knowledge-proof

Audio reference link: Staff, 2022. Zero Knowledge Proofs [Video]. YouTube. URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qzNe1hk0oY

Encore: The age old battle between social engineering and banking. Nov 30, 2023

Show notes

Chip Gibbons, CISO at Thrive, sits down with Dave to talk about how to defend against social engineering attacks in banking. Dave starts us off this week with a story about Amazon opening up its selling market to Pakistani residents, and what consequences that led to for the organization’s business. Joe's story follows a scam targeting soldiers in the Army. The Army warns against unknown individuals purporting to be noncommissioned officers that are calling said soldiers and asking them for money to fix a "pay problem" and, if questioned, threatening them with a punishment. Our catch of the day comes from listener Manie who writes in about a scam found when trying to download a HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image). The scam involves a fake ad asking for people’s cell phone numbers as soon as they click on a button that reads "download here". Manie shares how after she clicked the ad, she realized the mistake and immediately researched more before proceeding further.

Links to stories:

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.

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