Hacking Humans

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**Hacking Humans**

Deception, influence, and social engineering in the world of cyber crime.

Latest Episodes:

Sideloading (noun) [Word Notes] Sep 20, 2022

Show notes

The process of installing applications on a device without the use of official software distribution channels.

CyberWire Glossary link: https://thecyberwire.com/glossary/sideloading

It pays to do your research. [Hacking Humans Goes to the Movies} Sep 18, 2022

Show notes

Thanks for joining us again for another episode of fun project brought to you by the team of Hacking Humans, the CyberWire's social engineering podcast. Co-hosts Dave Bittner and Joe Carrigan are joined by Rick Howard in this series where they view clips from their favorite movies with examples of the social engineering scams and schemes you hear about on Hacking Humans. In this episode, Dave and Joe are joined on this episode by guest Tracy Maleeff from Krebs Stamos Group – you may know her on Twitter as @Infosecsherpa. Dave,Joe and Tracy watch and discuss Tracy;s and Joe's clips on this episode. They watch each of the selected scenes, describe the on-screen action for you, and then the team deconstructs what they saw. Grab your bowl of popcorn and join us for some Hollywood scams and frauds.

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

Tracy's clips from "Working Girl"
Elevator scene
Tess and Jack gatecrash a wedding scene
Joe's clip from "Oceans 8"

Is inflation affecting the Dark Web? Sep 15, 2022

Show notes

Dov Lerner, a Security Research Lead from Cybersixgill, sits down with Dave to discuss how inflation hasn't affected the Dark Web, including how the cratering of cryptocurrency may have affected things. Joe and Dave share some follow up from listener Pelle, who writes in about their grandmother who was scammed over the phone for her PIN, among other information, allowing the scammers to get away with much more than money. This week, Joe's story comes from a listener named Kyle, who shared an article about protecting against AiTM (adversary-in-the-middle) phishing techniques that bypass multi-factor authentication. Dave's story is about a new video being released that shares the most common WhatsApp scams and how to avoid them. Our catch of the day comes from listener Vlad, who shares his story regarding an email he received stating he is owed 1 million dollars, and how he's not falling for the scammer’s latest attempt.

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.

Microsegmentation (noun) [Word Notes] Sep 13, 2022

Show notes

A zero trust security technique that isolates application workloads from each other, allowing each one to be protected individually.

CyberWire Glossary link: https://thecyberwire.com/glossary/microsegmentation

Audio reference link: “Micro-Segmentation Masterpieces,” PJ Kirner, Illumio CTO and Co-Founder, Tech Field Day, YouTube, 13 December 2020.

A travel surge and a host of different scams. Sep 08, 2022

Show notes

Greg Otto from Intel 471 joins Dave to discuss the findings of their work on "Cybercriminals preying on a travel surge with a host of different scams." Dave and Joe share some interesting listener follow up from Kevin, who writes in about the deepfakes episode and shares his comments on how scary the topic can be, especially with politicians. Dave shares a story about Charles Egunjobi, an auditor with the D.C. government, and how he fell victim to an online love scam costing elderly U.S. citizens $1.9 million. Joe touches on two stories, one being how a woman down in Texas is able to scam men out of some expensive items with a romance scam, and the other being a story that is warning Pennsylvania residents on a quick moving scam artist moving from state to state. Our catch of the day comes from Jon in California who writes in about about an email scam concerning a local job sent to him and how he needs to apply right away.

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.

Homograph phishing (noun) [Word Notes] Sep 06, 2022

Show notes

The use of similar-looking characters in a phishing URL to spoof a legitimate site.

CyberWire Glossary link:

Audio reference link: “Mission Impossible III 2006 Masking 01,” uploaded by DISGUISE MASK, 28 July 2018.

Is there a growing number of public and private partnerships forming? Sep 01, 2022

Show notes

This week Carole Theriault interviews Chuck Everette from Deep Instinct on public and private partnerships. Dave and Joe share some listener follow up from Rodney who writes in about flexible spending cards and chips inside them as well as sharing technology that helps keep the scammers away. Joe's story follows the trend of fake invoicing, specifically through PayPal and the newest string of scammers getting people to call in about a pending charge. Dave shares a story where people are getting sent fake Microsoft products in hopes to steal information after they plug these products into their computers. Our catch of the day comes from listener William who writes in about getting an increasing amount of emails from fake accounts saying they have charged his card and there is a pending transaction. William shares how the scammers are trying to get him to call in to dispute the charges.

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.

Policy Orchestration (noun) [Word Notes] Aug 30, 2022

Show notes

The deployment of rules to the security stack across all data islands, cloud, SaaS applications, data centers, and mobile devices designed to manifest an organization's cybersecurity first principle strategies of zero trust, intrusion kill chain prevention, resilience, and risk forecasting.

CyberWire Glossary link: https://thecyberwire.com/glossary/policy-orchestration

Audio reference link: “The Value of Using Security Policy Orchestration and Automation,” by David Monahan, uploaded by EMAResearch, 3 April, 2018

Encore: Sometimes, deepfake victims don't want to be convinced it is fake. Aug 25, 2022

Show notes

Guest Etay Maor of Cato Networks joins Dave Bittner to discuss the impact that deepfakes will have on our society, we share some fun feedback on the Lightning Rod story edit, Dave's story talks about how some of the most successful and lucrative online scams employ a “low-and-slow” approach, Joe's story is about 2 Arkansas farmer that scammed investors out of money for wind turbines, but used it for houses, cars and Disney World, and our Catch of the Day is from an unnamed listener with a supposed iPhone invoice.

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.

Anti-cheat software (noun) [Word Notes] Aug 23, 2022

Show notes

Software designed to prevent cheating in video games.

CyberWire Glossary link: https://thecyberwire.com/glossary/anti-cheat-software

Audio reference link: “The BIG Problem with Anti-Cheat,” by Techquickie, YouTube, 5 June 2020