Hacking Humans

A cryptoqueen on the run and the cons she got away with.

This week Carole Theriault sits down to interview author Jamie Bartlett on his book, "The Missing Cryptoqueen - The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It." Dave and Joe share some follow up from listener Dustin who shares an interesting experience he had involving his child's medical documents and how easy it was to obtain them, making scams even easier. Joe's story follows a young teen hacker and how they allegedly were able to hack Uber and Rockstar Games. Dave has got the story on Queen Elizabeth II and how giving condolences could lead you right into a scam. Our catch of the day comes from us here at the CyberWire. We received an email from one Vladomir Petrova, a citizen of Ukraine, which gets more suspicious the longer the email reads.

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The rise in fraudulent online content.

Guest Jane Lee, Trust and Safety Architect from Sift, joins Dave to discuss the rise of fraudulent online content and fake crypto platforms. Dave and Joe share some listener follow up regarding the debate over "mum" versus "mom" and who speaks which pronunciation more. Dave has two stories this week, one story follows a Twitter thread about a man who shared his story about selling a desk on Facebook and the dangers that come with that. His second story is about how hackers are using a clever new phishing technique to create email threads with multiple responses to trick potential victims into thinking bogus messages are legitimate. Joe shares the story of the new way hackers get information, positioning themselves in the middle of your browser between the server and your computer. Our catch of the day has a little bit of everything from Peter, who writes in about an email he received that pulled out all of the stops to get him to give over his information.

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Is inflation affecting the Dark Web?

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.

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A travel surge and a host of different scams.

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.

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Is there a growing number of public and private partnerships forming?

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.

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