Hacking Humans
Recent Episodes
On Hacking Humans, this week Dave Bittner is on vacation so our two hosts 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. Our hosts start out with some follow up on chicken talk from last week. Maria shares the story of scammers impersonating police officers in England to steal cryptocurrency by exploiting leaked personal data, creating fake fraud reports, and tricking victims into revealing their seed phrases, leading to losses totaling £1 million. Joe has two stories this week, his first one is on a $21 million "Grandparent Scam" in which 25 Canadians were charged for running a scheme from Montreal call centers, posing as grandchildren in distress to deceive elderly Americans into handing over money, with 23 suspects already arrested. Joe's second story is on two people charged in a ticket scam that exploited a loophole in StubHub’s system to steal and resell over 900 tickets—mostly for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour—netting more than $600,000 in profit before being caught by the Queens D.A.'s Cybercrime Unit. We have a special catch of the day this week, where we are joined by N2K's own Ma'ayan Plaut, who joins to discuss going out of business scams.
On Hacking Humans, this week Dave Bittner is on vacation so our two hosts 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 the show with some follow-up from a long-time listener who shared how switching to Publii and Cloudflare Pages saved his wife's psychiatric nurse practice over $120/year in hosting costs after discovering static site generators on Hacking Humans. Joe's story is on a warning from an Oregon woman who fell victim to an online scam while trying to buy hens for her backyard chicken coop amid egg shortages caused by the bird flu, urging others to be cautious and avoid transactions on social media. Maria has the story on the increasing threats targeting sellers on online marketplaces, including phishing campaigns, scams designed to bypass platform protections, and the risks associated with off-platform transactions, all of which emphasize the need for heightened vigilance and security measures. The catch of the day, from Scott, highlights an email invitation that appeared legitimate but redirected to a phishing site designed to steal email credentials, with Scott’s wife recognizing the suspicious nature and forwarding it for further investigation.
Live from Orlando, it's Hacking Humans!
In this special live episode of Hacking Humans, recorded at ThreatLocker’s Zero Trust World 2025 conference in Orlando, Florida, Dave Bittner is joined by T-Minus host Maria Varmazis. Together, they explore the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and cybercriminal exploits making headlines. Their guest, Seamus Lennon, ThreatLocker’s VP of Operations for EMEA, shares insights on Zero Trust security and the evolving threat landscape. Maria's story this week follows the IRS warning about a fake “Self Employment Tax Credit” scam on social media, urging taxpayers to ignore misinformation and consult professionals. Dave's got the story of the Better Business Bureau’s annual Scam Tracker report, revealing that online shopping scams continue to top the list for the fifth year, with phishing and employment scams remaining major threats, while fraudsters increasingly use AI and deepfake technology to deceive victims. Our catch of the day comes from Diesel in West Virginia, and features a scammer who tried to panic their target with a classic “We’ve frozen your account” scam—only to get hilariously mixed up with actual embryo freezing.
I'm a scammer and need support.
On Hacking Humans, Dave Bittner, Joe Carrigan, and Maria Varmazis (also host of N2K's daily space podcast, T-Minus), are once again sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines to help our audience become aware of what is out there. We start off with some follow up from listener Dave who writes in with a call for help after a good friend of his, who fell victim to a dream job scam. They also have a discussion after the Washington Post shared an article on scammers are remorseful and how they have a support group. Maria has a quick follow up from last week, talking about deepfakes, this week, she talks about Kim Jong Un. Dave has a romance scam story this week, talking about how the loneliness epidemic is causing issues. Joe has two stories this week, the first is on a thief using a homemade barcode ring to scam Walmart self-checkouts. Joe's second story is on new protection methods that are out, giving us game changing anti-scam laws. Our catch of the day comes from Reddit after a user posted a conversation they had with a scammer that got a bit out of hand.
On Hacking Humans, Dave Bittner, Joe Carrigan, and Maria Varmazis (also host of N2K's daily space podcast, T-Minus), are once again sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines to help our audience become aware of what is out there. Our hosts start off with some follow up from listener Robert who writes in from the Great White North, who shares how he thinks the U.S. might be stuck in the past with payment tech. Joe's got two stories this week, both on financial crime—Thailand cutting power to Myanmar's billion-dollar scam hubs and the struggle to shut them down for good. Maria has the story of a job candidate who not only used AI-generated answers during a technical interview but also altered his appearance with software—marking the second time this has happened to the interviewer in just two months. Dave sits down with our guest Nati Tal, Head of Guardio Labs, as he is discussing the growing danger of homograph attacks. Our catch of the day comes from listener Kenneth, who got an alarming email from the PayPal Security Team—apparently, he just bought nearly $700 in Bitcoin.
