Cold weather, hot scams.
Dave Bittner: Hello, everyone, and welcome to N2K CyberWire's "Hacking Humans" podcast, where each week we look behind the social engineering scams, the phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines and taking a heavy toll on organizations around the world. I'm Dave Bittner, and joining me is Joe Carrigan. Hey there, Joe.
Joe Carrigan: Hi, Dave.
Dave Bittner: And our N2K colleague and host of the "T-Minus Space Daily" podcast, Maria Varmazis. Hello, Maria.
Maria Varmazis: Hi, Dave. And hi, Joe.
Dave Bittner: We've got some good stories to share this week, but first, let's get to our follow up. We have no follow up.
Joe Carrigan: Oh, no [laughter]. I'll tell you, the chickens are doing fine, but there's no --
Maria Varmazis: Oh, there it is.
Dave Bittner: Oh, all right. Well, that's fair enough. Fair enough. You know, we had amazing follow up last week. So the follow up is on vacation this week, like the Car Talk guys used to say about the puzzler, right?
Maria Varmazis: Oh, I miss them.
Dave Bittner: I know. I hope it's on vacation. All right, well, in that case, let's jump right into our stories here. And Joe, you have the honors this week. What do you got for us?
Joe Carrigan: I do, and I've got two quick stories. One is from WSBTV, which is apparently some manner of news broadcast station, I don't know, TV, radio. The, it's not really a big story, so I'm going to have another story after this, but there, last week, do you guys, are you guys Verizon users?
Maria Varmazis: Oh, yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Did you suffer from the Verizon outage?
Maria Varmazis: I did not.
Dave Bittner: I did not.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, I'm a Verizon customer, but my service never dropped, but everyone I know was having problems, so I don't know why I was spared.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, my son got hit by this. We are not Verizon customers, so we didn't have a problem with it. But there is a new scam that is following the news, and like any good scammer, these guys know that Verizon had an outage last week, and they're issuing credits to the customers.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So that's what the scam is based on. This is a Verizon credit scam that's targeting customers after the outage. This is from a Georgia sheriff, and apparently it's just a plot to steal money, or identity.
Maria Varmazis: What?!
Joe Carrigan: I mean a scam that would steal money. Who would think of it? But the sheriff's office says people have been getting text messages and emails claiming to be from Verizon, offering the credit to their accounts. So, of course that probably just goes to some fake landing page. You enter your Verizon login credentials, and they are in your account. And if they're in your account, God only knows what they could do then. Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Could they pay my bill for me? That would be nice [laughter]. They're very welcome to do that.
Joe Carrigan: They probably could, but they're not going to do that.
Dave Bittner: Be courteous, yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Pay off the balance on my first --
Dave Bittner: -- rent somewhere. Right. Your mortgage has been paid off. Congratulations.
Joe Carrigan: Yay!
Maria Varmazis: -- and ransomware.
Dave Bittner: Strangers on the other side of the world have paid off your mortgage. Congratulations.
Joe Carrigan: I would love to see that. Now, you're joking, but I have a story that has a happy ending today.
Dave Bittner: Oh.
Maria Varmazis: Okay. All right.
Joe Carrigan: Yes, this story is about a woman named Jeanette Voss, who way back in 2024, 2021 actually, she was 67 years old and she opened up her laptop to watch Netflix. And when she opened up the laptop, there was a page on her website with a siren and a loud blaring noise. It says, Hey, your computer's been hacked and you need to call Microsoft. Here's the phone number. So she called the number and was told that her Social Security number had been compromised and that she needed to protect her financial accounts. And of course these guys are going to help her, until such a time as the US government issues her a new Social Security number.
Maria Varmazis: Right. Okay.
Joe Carrigan: Then they walked her through the process of securing the money, I say in scare quotes, because all they were doing, all she was doing was giving them her money. And she wound up giving them close, well, close to a million dollars, $950,000 dollars.
Dave Bittner: Holy smokes.
Joe Carrigan: This was her life savings. And to do this, they convinced her to go out and get a burner phone, which she then referred to as her bat phone [laughter].
Dave Bittner: I like her spirit.
Joe Carrigan: Right. And these guys work with her for, like, three months to get all this money out of her. And once she had withdrawn all of her stocks and CDs and everything from her retirement funds, she had put them in cryptocurrency wallets that these guys provided. And then at the end of this, they disappear. And because she had made a $950,000 withdrawal from her IRA or from her retirement fund, she now owed taxes on $950,000.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, my God. Sorry, that's insult to injury. Jeez.
Joe Carrigan: So she was stuck with a huge tax bill. I don't know, I have to talk to my son about this, but I wonder if she can write that off as a loss and say, you know, I don't owe taxes on this because I didn't, you know, yes, I took the income, but I immediately lost it to a scam. So I don't have any money anymore. So she was living on just Social Security checks and actually had to apply for and get food stamps as well, which she didn't really plan on getting. But the story came up, that's the old story. I had to go looking for the old story, but this new story came up, talking about from Vermont Public, she lives in Vermont. It talks, this new story talks about how for four and a half years, she's been living a very frugal life, doing things like unplugging her coffee maker after she makes her coffee, because that's how tight her budget is. She can't have the coffee maker consuming power when it's not running, when it's not making coffee. And there's a bunch of frugality measures. You ever heard about, like, power vampires? Like --
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: -- when your TV is plugged in, it's still drawing just a little bit of current so that it knows when to turn on. So you can unplug your TV and save yourself a little bit of money that way. It's not a lot, but this woman was concerned about it.
Maria Varmazis: I mean, in New England, our energy costs are much, much higher than the rest of the country. So, my mother does this also, even though she's not in dire straits like that. This is actually kind of a normal New England-y thing to do.
Joe Carrigan: Right. It makes sense.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: It makes sense. I've considered it. But, you know, when I sit my ever-widening butt down on the couch [laughter], I don't want to get up again. I just want the TV to come on when I finally find the remote.
Dave Bittner: Right. In between the couch cushions.
Joe Carrigan: In between the couch cushions, right, wherever some kid has stuck it.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Anyway, you know, she had planned on traveling and, you know, visiting friends and everything. Of course, she felt ashamed and embarrassed. In her golden years, largely became, there's a quote in the article, "In her golden years, largely became confined to her small house at the end of a dead-end street." Now, that to me doesn't sound so bad, right [laughter]? You know, this is where I am. Don't bother me. That's me.
Dave Bittner: You have your own, I'm just imagining your wife --
Maria Varmazis: Please scam him.
Dave Bittner: -- in the house, and Joe's out in the backyard in his Unabomber shack [laughter] with his ham radio and his chickens --
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: -- you know?
Joe Carrigan: That's right.
Maria Varmazis: He's living the life. It's what he wants.
Dave Bittner: Coming up with, you know, hundreds of different ways to make eggs.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Solar stove.
Joe Carrigan: Now, every day, 100 different ways to make eggs.
Maria Varmazis: Posting on the Reddit, the subreddit, the Prepper subreddit. Yep. Okay.
Joe Carrigan: Yep.
Maria Varmazis: We got you, Joe.
Joe Carrigan: That's right. So, every day she would check her bank account to make sure nobody else had stolen any money out of her bank account. But on Christmas Eve of last year, 2025, she logged in and she saw that somebody had deposited a seven-figure sum into her bank account. Seven figures. $1,333,000. What had happened was investigators had, with the Secret Service had managed to actually track down the cryptocurrency and managed to get it back when they busted one of these scammers.
Dave Bittner: Wow.
Joe Carrigan: So she was one of 20-plus victims, according to this article, that got her money back. And she got some money back in addition to what she lost. So, she got back, like, $80,000, which is not a good return for four years on almost $1 million dollars. But still.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Plus interest. Yeah. Heck yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Plus a little bit of interest. So, Ms. Voss says that overnight her life has changed. So, good job, Secret Service. Thank you for getting this money back --
Maria Varmazis: That's awesome.
Joe Carrigan: -- for Jeanette Voss. I don't know. I doubt that Jeanette Voss is one of our listeners, but if she is, your name is now out there as someone who has an extra $1.033 million dollars.
Dave Bittner: Thanks to Joe saying it over and over again.
Joe Carrigan: Right. It's in this article. I mean, it's all over the internet.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: And there's another great article in here. Since the crime, Jeannette has struggled to know who to trust. Well, here's who you trust, Jeannette.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Nobody.
Dave Bittner: Aw, Joe.
Maria Varmazis: Joe!
Joe Carrigan: Don't trust anybody. If somebody calls you and says, Hey, your Social Security number's been hacked, just hang up. You know, I --
Maria Varmazis: Tell them to go ham on it. Just enjoy. I mean, at this point, who doesn't have my social? Just go for it.
Joe Carrigan: Right. Everybody has your social. That is, if you live in the United States and you're older than maybe, like, 18 and 2 months old, just believe that your Social Security number is out there and everybody has it. Our "Catch of the Day" has some, is kind of related to the amount of information that's out there about you. But it's, I'm very glad that Jeanette got her money back. I hope this, I don't think this is going to happen to her again. She sounds like she's very wary of these people coming again and she doesn't want anything to do with this, these people stealing the money from her. She is going to do some traveling. Oh, and one of the things she did was she bought some raw-shelled peanuts, still in the shell peanuts for the squirrels in the back who were very comforting for her when she --
Dave Bittner: Aww.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: That's adorable.
Maria Varmazis: Isn't that sweet? I love her already. She's so great.
Joe Carrigan: If my dog caught me feeding peanuts to squirrels, she would be very cross with me. She'd be like, I don't know who you are, but we kill those things. We don't let those things near the house.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Those things are evil.
Maria Varmazis: Joe, can we go back to something at the beginning of the story that I think is worth us talking about a little bit --
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, absolutely.
Maria Varmazis: -- before we move on? One of the first things that you mentioned was that a message appeared on her screen with a siren-like screech, and then she got those pop-ups that tell her that she's been hacked.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: And I think there's something to be said that, what does it look like if you've been hacked for real? People don't actually know because --
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: -- they think of, you know, Hollywood depictions. So for those of us who have some idea of how things work in this realm, we would go, Oh, that's ridiculous. You know, there's not going to be a siren.
Joe Carrigan: Right, there's not anything that happens.
Maria Varmazis: That's right, but a lot of people don't know that.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, you're --
Maria Varmazis: -- and they think that there's a signal that, Hey, you've been hacked, that it's going to be obvious in some way.
Joe Carrigan: Yes, that's correct. There is usually, if the attacker is good or even modestly equipped and your system is vulnerable, you really won't notice that anything is going on. You might notice that your system slows down. That is a telltale sign, like, you're spending a lot of time waiting for applications to load or waiting for some data processing to happen. But if you're just using your computer for streaming Netflix, say, or even, you know, writing emails and surfing the web, that's not a very processor-intensive thing. So, your computer can do that and run the malicious software in the background.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Now, the big problem there is that you might have something on your computer like a keylogger that is taking information from when you log into a bank website or something like that. So, the solution for that is hardware-based two-factor authentication. And using, or even if they only offer you a code over your phone, that's better than nothing.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Multifactor authentication is how you protect that.
Maria Varmazis: And it's also worth just saying on a macro scale, if somebody is, if you are actually being actively attacked or hacked in some way, the attacker doesn't want you to know that they're there.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Like, they usually are going to go through great pains to make sure that they are not detected and that they can hang around as long as possible without you knowing.
Joe Carrigan: Correct.
Maria Varmazis: So, the idea of sirens and stuff is, like, that's theatrics and it's not what's going to actually happen.
Joe Carrigan: Right. This is just a web page that plays a sound.
Maria Varmazis: Oh yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And when she called the number that was on the screen, the person, it doesn't say how but the person was able to get the sirens to stop.
Dave Bittner: Oh [laughter].
Joe Carrigan: I mean, that could have been something as simple as --
Maria Varmazis: Crafty action in the corner.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, control F to close the tab and you're done, right?
Dave Bittner: I wonder if they could help stop the voices in my head.
Maria Varmazis: Ctl+alt-Delete.
Dave Bittner: Did I say that out loud?
Joe Carrigan: That was a thought you should have shared.
Dave Bittner: Or is that one of my voices? I don't know. Who knows.
Joe Carrigan: Anyway, congratulations, Jeanette. I'm glad you got your money back, and just remain vigilant because your name is out there and these guys know now that you have this. So, you're going to get calls from people pretending to be police. You're going to get calls from people pretending to be Microsoft. It's just, maybe get a new phone number.
Dave Bittner: Well hats off to the folks at the Secret Service.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, that was excellent work.
Dave Bittner: I actually met someone from the Secret Service about a week or two ago.
Joe Carrigan: Really?
Dave Bittner: Yeah, they were here in the office doing some cyber business.
Maria Varmazis: Bidness.
Dave Bittner: But they were also a fan of this show --
Joe Carrigan: Oh good!
Dave Bittner: -- and of the CyberWire, so I was able to chat about that and hopefully we'll find a way to have them on sometime soon.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, I'd like that.
Dave Bittner: We'd learn a lot about what goes on behind the scenes with the Secret Service.
Joe Carrigan: I'd love to know that. I'm fascinated by money laundering.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And they do a lot of investigation into that.
Dave Bittner: They do. They do.
Joe Carrigan: You know, my son just started his grad school for finance and accounting. He's going to Hopkins.
Dave Bittner: Oh, nice.
Joe Carrigan: We were joking about that last night. My wife and I were like, We should bust into his room and, like, be behind him with a beer bong. Woo hoo, college! And, you know, of course we did not do this. You know, he would never have forgive us. Yeah, it's, grad school is a completely different thing than undergrad.
Dave Bittner: Oh, that's what I've heard. Yeah. Yeah. Never did it, but I've heard.
Joe Carrigan: But anyway, the thing I wanted to say was often I've said this before, but often when I'm talking to people that want to get into law enforcement, I tell them you want to get the attention of the FBI and, like, as a good candidate for there, major in computer science or major in accounting, one of those two fields. Don't major in criminal justice, because the FBI needs people, and I imagine the Secret Service also needs people, who can trace the money and do the computer forensics, because that's how these crimes are committed now, is they're all done with computers. And the ability to be able to track blockchain transactions across probably multiple blockchains. I imagine these guys probably tumbled this cryptocurrency and all that. And if they're doing it on public blockchains, it's pretty easy to track that stuff down. And even if they're doing it on privacy-preserving blockchains, there's still ways that they have of doing that. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but if you're on a public ledger, like, on the Ethereum ledger or on the Bitcoin ledger, all those transactions are just out there for the public to see. There's not really a lot of privacy that goes on in those cryptocurrencies.
Dave Bittner: All right. Well, we will have links to all of Joe's stories --
Joe Carrigan: Yep.
Dave Bittner: -- here in the show notes. I tell you what, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. [ Music ] Dave Bittner: I am up next. And I want to start off with a leading question for the three of us.
Joe Carrigan: All right.
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Dave Bittner: I know I was, so just speaking for myself here. I am just bombarded with these ads for these weight loss drugs that are all the rage --
Maria Varmazis: Yes.
Dave Bittner: -- right? I think the category is the GLP-1 drugs.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: And Ozempic is the, probably the most well-known brand name.
Joe Carrigan: Yes, the ads are fantastic. They always show you somebody doing something really cool and creative, like painting a mural or something.
Dave Bittner: Yes, in slow motion.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Because they have to fill the ad time.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. For all the disclaimers they have.
Dave Bittner: Right, right. So we're in agreement that we've seen these.
Joe Carrigan: Yes, absolutely.
Maria Varmazis: Yes.
Dave Bittner: We've seen these ads. They're everywhere. And I have spoken to friends who are on these drugs and love them. Like, they work. In fact, the most common description my friends I've asked about it, they say, It's a miracle drug. Like, it works, I've lost the weight, and I'm really happy, and, you know, it's all that kind of thing. Which is wonderful, you know? Like, it is. I mean, that is a miracle for people who have had challenges losing weight, keeping it off, all that stuff, you know, how to contribute to better health.
Joe Carrigan: Jim Gaffigan, in one of his standup routines, said he was on it for a while. He was trying to lose weight and somebody said, That's cheating. He goes, Look, I'm just trying not to die.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Cheating death.
Joe Carrigan: Right. Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, so the downside is that these drugs are expensive.
Joe Carrigan: They are, yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Extraordinarily expensive.
Dave Bittner: And for most people, they're not covered by insurance unless you're using them to treat diabetes.
Joe Carrigan: Right, you have to have some kind of comorbidity, they call it.
Dave Bittner: Right, right. So if you want to just get on one of these drugs to lose weight, it's expensive. Hundreds of dollars a month, even thousands of dollars per month, depending on what you're doing, how you're doing it, and all that good stuff. So, of course this means that this is a category that is ready and loaded for scammers.
Joe Carrigan: Really?
Dave Bittner: And they're doing just that.
Joe Carrigan: It's the new Viagra, if you will.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, that's a good way of thinking of it.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, that's a good way of putting it, actually.
Joe Carrigan: Because when Viagra came out, man, my inbox got filled up. Before spam filters got really good.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: My inbox would just absolutely fill up with fake Viagra ads.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'd say another miracle drug. It's a great time to be alive, Joe.
Joe Carrigan: That's right.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, but, you know and so people want these, and, but they also want to try to get a deal and save money. So according to this story that we will link to here, the Better Business Bureau has been tracking lots of reports from consumers who were sold, and I'm going to use scare quotes, "discounted diet medication". So, the scam falls along the lines of a lot of things that we track here. Typically, you're scrolling, where are you scrolling, Joe?
Joe Carrigan: On Facebook.
Dave Bittner: Facebook [laughter].
Joe Carrigan: You're minding your own business on Facebook.
Dave Bittner: You're scrolling and minding your own business on Facebook. And one of these ads comes up that says, Good news, you can get one of these miracle drugs for a fraction of what it would cost to get elsewhere. And so they have an example here of a person who was actually searching for this medication, and they came across an ad which took them to a website that was offering the drug. They had to fill out a pre-screening application. They had to submit their insurance information. And they had to pay a fee that was over $500 --
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: -- for approval.
Joe Carrigan: Which adds up, right? I mean, at least that makes sense. Although you really don't have to get a fee, I don't know. What's the approval for? What are they saying the approval's for?
Dave Bittner: Well, I mean, you have to get a prescription, right? So that has to happen. And I could see that taking some time. But it turns out that the fine print, which, as we know from the poet Tom Waits, the large print giveth and the fine print taketh away.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: The 500 fee turned out it was for a website membership. So they were joining a club. And the actual medication would cost more out of pocket. So the $500 was just for the opportunity to spend more money. And of course they'd agreed to all this in the EULA. Because nobody reads that.
Maria Varmazis: We all read that so carefully.
Dave Bittner: Right, exactly. And so this person says, I want to quote them here, they say, "I feel that I was deliberately delayed and ignored past the three-day window." There was a three-day refund available.
Joe Carrigan: I see.
Dave Bittner: So they were ignored past the three-day window so they could cite the three-day window as a policy and keep the $500. And of course the drugs never came. So, there are multiple versions of this. There are some where you never get the drugs. There are some where you will get something that claims to be the drugs, but it's not. It's, I'm just going to say, a sugar pill or, you know, something that's not --
Joe Carrigan: Hopefully that's what it is.
Dave Bittner: Well, yeah. I mean, it wouldn't be in these folks' interest to provide you with anything that would actually do you harm.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Because that would really get, you know, somebody seriously after them.
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Dave Bittner: They're looking for you to be embarrassed and just move on. Or they're looking for you to start taking the medicine and have a nice placebo effect and --
Joe Carrigan: Yep.
Dave Bittner: -- drop some weight and think, Hey, this is great.
Joe Carrigan: The placebo effect is real and measurable.
Maria Varmazis: Tell all your friends.
Dave Bittner: Maybe I'll buy some more, yeah. So, the lesson here is just, or the message here, rather, is just be careful of these things, especially on Facebook. There are so many ads for these medicines. If you want to pursue this, and lots of people are, talk to a friend who's done it successfully. Talk to your doctor, of course.
Joe Carrigan: Absolutely.
Dave Bittner: I understand a lot of people are having success going to med spas to get this, where, you know, you can either get the shots, they've got some pills available now, and so, but just, you don't want to mess with your health, and this is not the kind of thing you want to buy online --
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: -- from a source that you have no recourse with.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, it requires a prescription. You can't just, yeah, it's not OTC. Like, you have to talk to a doctor about it.
Joe Carrigan: Right, and for good reason. There's a number of side effects with this. There's risks with the drug. I've talked to my doctor about it. She seems to think that I should just, you know, buckle down and lose the weight, which I've been trying to do.
Dave Bittner: Stupid doctor.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. Come on, man, give me the pill.
Dave Bittner: I know. Can I just throw money at this problem?
Joe Carrigan: Right [laughter]? She's more of a holistic doctor.
Dave Bittner: I don't have time for that. I like her a lot, though. She's really good. But, you know, if you're really interested in these drugs, a lot of the comorbidities, not just diabetes, but, like, high blood pressure -- Yep.
Joe Carrigan: If you have high blood pressure, that can be a comorbidity. If you have a history of blood clots, like, some people in this room might. It might be a comorbidity.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Lots of things could be comorbidities.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, if you can get your insurance to kick in on it, I mean, more power to you. That's great. Yeah, so I think that's everything I wanted to cover here. Just be careful. It's, you know, this is a drug. You're putting it in your body.
Joe Carrigan: That's right.
Dave Bittner: Get it from a legit place. Even the temptation to save money is understandable, but this is not something you want to mess around with.
Joe Carrigan: When I was getting my undergrad, I had a psychology teacher who had a great saying. He said, The only control you have over a drug is whether or not it goes into your body or not. Once you put that drug in your body, you're in for the ride.
Dave Bittner: Oh, yeah.
Joe Carrigan: He was talking more about other --
Maria Varmazis: Recreational drugs.
Joe Carrigan: Recreational drugs.
Maria Varmazis: I don't think he was talking about prescription drugs at that point.
Joe Carrigan: He actually was talking about, like, psychoactive prescription drugs, you know.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, I see.
Joe Carrigan: Things like Prozac and other things, but he made it clear he was talking about, you know, recreational drugs as well. And, you know, once you take it, once you do that, once you put it in your body, that's, whatever's going to happen is going to happen.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So keep that in mind, even with these fake drugs.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah, boy, there's, yeah, endless number of stories of people going on those rides.
Joe Carrigan: My favorite thing about these prescription ads, which I hate, by the way.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Is just how they gloss over all the side effects, you know?
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: Rare cases, death has been reported.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: And they say with such a cheery tone, right?
Maria Varmazis: You could die. You might not. It's okay.
Joe Carrigan: This medication might kill you. I mean, I don't think Ozempic or any of the other ones have, any of these other weight loss drugs have that as a side effect, but they do have other side effects.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Don't take Ozempic if you're allergic to Ozempic. Well, how am I supposed to know unless I take it?
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: If I'm allergic to it or not.
Joe Carrigan: I think they have to put that in there for legal coverage, you know, if you ever take it and you have an allergic reaction, and then you see the ad and you go, Wow, maybe that allergic reaction wasn't so bad. They have to say it.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's another one that gets me, which is side effects may include viral infections.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Shouldn't the side effect be reduced resistance to viral infections?
Joe Carrigan: Right. Like a lot --
Maria Varmazis: -- induce a viral infection.
Dave Bittner: Right, like, the drug doesn't come with the viruses, you know, as a candy coating.
Joe Carrigan: Unless there's --
Maria Varmazis: Can you imagine?
Joe Carrigan: -- something wrong with the purity standard.
Dave Bittner: Maybe.
Joe Carrigan: I want to say purity laws, but that's a German thing for beer.
Maria Varmazis: I feel like there's bigger problems if we're talking about the purity of a drug being, yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Right, I mean, but you know, there's sanitation regulations for like the delivery, because these are all injectable. I think one of them is coming out as an oral pill you can take.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, it's out now.
Joe Carrigan: Okay.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, so it's like 100 bucks a month instead of whatever it was, you know, 100 bucks a week.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: So, yeah, I mean, look, I am and I don't think there's any shame in any of these things.
Joe Carrigan: No, if you can lose --
Dave Bittner: It helps you get where you want to be.
Joe Carrigan: If you can lose the weight through a drug, that's fine.
Dave Bittner: Great. Great time to be alive.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Just that these options are there.
Joe Carrigan: Correct.
Dave Bittner: All right. That is my story this week. I tell you what, let's take a quick break here to hear from our show sponsor. We will be right back after this message. [ Music ] And we are back, and that means, Maria, it is your turn. What you got for us this week?
Maria Varmazis: Well, I, in typical New Englander fashion, I want to talk about the weather. Right now it is 8 degrees Fahrenheit where I am, which I did calculate in Celsius. It's negative 13 degrees Celsius. So I'm cold. It's cold out. We're in a really bad cold snap right now for a lot of us in the northeast of the United States and in North America. And that comes with it really high utility bills. That's been a big topic of discussion for a lot of people that I know. Because it was cold starting, unusually so, not just regular winter cold, but even in December we've had a really bad cold snap. So people's utility bills are quite high, and that means a lot of people can't really afford to pay them. And then what often happens is there are people who maybe are afraid that their heat will get shut off by their utility. And when I was thinking about what story to do for today, I was recognizing that a lot of tax documents are coming in. I was thinking of doing the liturgical calendar tax season stuff, but I'm going to do the utility shutoff scams instead today.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Maria Varmazis: Because they come around every year in the winter, and they always get a bunch of people. And I think it's just worth reminding folks that they're happening right now, and a number of news organizations, at least around the United States, are warning people through utility companies of certain bad practices to be aware of. So the scams that happen around this time of year are basically shutoff scams. Where someone gets a phone call, a text message, or even someone showing up to your place of residence in person saying, Unless you pay us right now, right now, there's that urgency, we are going to turn off your heat. And of course, it being as cold as it is, that is a very, that is a life-threatening threat. So utilities go through pains to mention that shutoffs are never, you know, sudden. People will have a lot of written warning. And on top of that, there are a lot of states where it is literally against the law for utility to turn off your heat in cold winter months. So --
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: -- that is just something to put a pin in. But if you live in a place where heat is something that is literally needed to live, and in a lot of cases, there are laws protecting you from a shutoff. And there's a lot of steps you can take to work with the utility to get some kind of payment through, even if you can't afford to pay your heat in full. So if someone shows up to your door threatening heat shutoff right away unless you pay them in crypto or debit card or gift cards. Utilities don't ever accept payments in those ways. And there is no reality to your utility or your heat being shut off within minutes. But of course if someone's at your door, that's a very scary thing. So that's, you know, that makes it seem very serious. But you can just close the door and walk away. And then find --
Dave Bittner: Especially if they've got a reflective vest and a hard hat.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, and a clipboard. The clipboard is often, yeah. I used to get, in the place I used to live, I lived in a very dense neighborhood, like a lot of very, very housing dense neighborhood. And we used to get these scammers to our door all the time. They would really scare people. It was either the shutoff scam or another one, but they would look very official and they would have a badge and everything. And the police would have to come out pretty much weekly and say these people are actually scammers. But certainly they wouldn't be out there if it wasn't working on somebody. So, if you ever have questions about whether or not your utilities are in danger of being shut off, find the number on your utility bill, because certainly you've gotten one of those, and call that number directly. Don't do anything door to door or text or someone calling you out of the blue. It's a scam for sure. And then another scam that goes around that's a utility scam this time of year is saying that you're actually owed a refund, which sounds like great news. You overpaid on your exorbitantly high utility bill and you're going to get money back? Wow!
Joe Carrigan: I'm in!
Maria Varmazis: That sounds great. I would like that money yesterday. Yeah, free money? Yeah, that sounds fantastic. And there is a utility in Kentucky actually that was just warning about this recently saying, the scammers are calling people saying you've overpaid your bill and look, we're going to prove to you that we're legit by mentioning the routing number for your bank. All we need in return is your account number or maybe your Social Security number just to get that money to you to process the refund. And just worth noting that routing numbers for banks are public information. You can find this very easily on any bank's website. So that is not privileged info that proves anything about who anyone is who's calling you. That's something I can find in a two-second web search. So yeah, if by some miracle you are owed money by your utility, they know how to get that money to you. They don't need you to prove anything [laughter].
Dave Bittner: Right. Chances are they're going to give you a credit.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, that's what it is. They're not going to give you the money.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, goodness, no. No.
Joe Carrigan: We're going to keep the money and just give you a credit on your bill.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Yes, that's correct. So the safest move is always hang up or close the door, and call the number on your bill and make sure that you're talking to someone official that way. Never, ever trust somebody to just coming to your door unexpected or calling you unexpected. And if things are complicated for you because you're not sure you can pay, or maybe you are behind on your bills, keep in mind that many, many states have protections in place for you. So, it is the kind of thing you have to opt into. The utilities are not going to often offer this information to you that, their self. But sometimes the protections are not just by state, but also by city within the state as well. So whether you are an owner or a renter, in a lot of cases if you live in a place where it gets cold, there is something available to you most likely to help protect you from a utility shutoff. So if you get a utility --
Joe Carrigan: I will bet --
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, go ahead.
Joe Carrigan: I will bet that if there's some kind of program out there that pays your bill, the utility company would be happy to let you know about that because they're going to get their money.
Maria Varmazis: I imagine they would rather get paid than not. That's true.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Especially in some cases there are payment plan options. It's true.
Joe Carrigan: Yes, payment plan they might not be so enthusiastic about. But if there's, like, some kind of public funding program that says, Hey, if you're having a hard time making your bill and it's cold, we'll pay some of that for you.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And, you know, that way the utility company can get their hands on some money.
Dave Bittner: There are a lot of energy assistance programs out there.
Joe Carrigan: There are.
Dave Bittner: But, you know, you have to, yeah. So --
Maria Varmazis: You have to look for them in many cases.
Dave Bittner: -- worth seeking out.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Yeah. It's, and if you are actually in eminent risk of having your utilities turned off, that's where, you know, your local or state reps, they should be able to help you with that. That is literally what they're there for.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: But if you if you are contacted by a scammer, utilities actually really want to know. So in addition to reporting it to the FTC, a lot of, your utility would actually love to know if you've been hit up by a scammer because then they can put out a warning to other customers and just be aware of that. So, there actually are things you can do to help combat that. So, just be aware and stay warm.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, gosh. Brace yourself.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Yep.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, I mean, it's just awful to think about people who are already struggling, and they're struggling and they're cold, and scammers come along and try to take advantage of that weakness to make it even worse.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, they're just trying to make a buck for themselves.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Yes, they are.
Dave Bittner: All right, well, we will have a link to that story in the show notes. And of course we'd love to hear from you. If there's something you'd like us to consider for the show, please email us. It's HackingHumans@N2K.com. Joe, Maria, it is time for our "Catch of the Day". [ Soundbite of reeling in fishing line ] [ Music ]
Joe Carrigan: Dave, our "Catch of the Day" comes from the Phishing subreddit. It's a text message that someone received. I'm going to go ahead and say it. This person has her battery at 33% [laughter].
Maria Varmazis: And 201 unreads.
Dave Bittner: Does that make you anxious, Joe, 33%?
Joe Carrigan: It does. It's a little low. And you're right, Maria, 200. I mean, who is this? Is this me? Did I send this in? Two-hundred and one unread messages?
Maria Varmazis: Unreads. That sounds crazy.
Joe Carrigan: I got a text message from my cousin last Thursday and I just now saw it today. I've got to call her back. Hey, sorry, I missed that. It was in there with all the alerts from the credit card companies going, Hey, you bought this. Hey, you paid this. Hey, you did that. And, yeah.
Dave Bittner: My son is, my oldest son is one of those people who lives his life with his phone perpetually at 5%. I don't know how he does it. I don't know how you live that way.
Joe Carrigan: I don't know either.
Dave Bittner: It's just always, you know, he gets in my car, he's like, Do you have a charging cable? He walks in my house, Hey, do you have a charging cable? And I've given him spare batteries. I've given him, you know, but it's just --
Joe Carrigan: Have you ever given him a charging cable? Maybe that's what he needs.
Dave Bittner: Well, yes. Well, that's the thing. They all sort of, you know, grow legs and disappear.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, that happens to all my charging cables too.
Dave Bittner: So, but I don't know, 33% probably wouldn't cause me anxiety because it's probably at least half a day worth for me, but.
Joe Carrigan: Well, that's 13% above the low-power situation.
Dave Bittner: Oh, I see. So if you go in there, you don't want to see that notice, right?
Joe Carrigan: Right. Hey, we're switching to low power. No!
Dave Bittner: No, no. I might slow down my scrolling speed? Oh, no. Anyway.
Joe Carrigan: All right, so this is just a text message that somebody got. We're going to use the name that's in here. I mean, we can't.
Dave Bittner: I'll change the name.
Joe Carrigan: You'll obfuscate.
Dave Bittner: To protect the information.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, yeah.
Dave Bittner: It says, all right, it goes like this. I need to take a deep breath.
Maria Varmazis: Is there any punctuation in this?
Dave Bittner: There is one bit of punctuation. There are two bits of, yeah, three, three, three punctual, punctuals? I don't know [laughter].
Joe Carrigan: Two of them are exclamation points.
Dave Bittner: I was trying to, yeah. Trying to sound erudite and just achieved the opposite.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Sometimes brain don't think so good.
Dave Bittner: No, no. All right. Here we go. "Hello, Mr. Jenkins. This is Chief of Police Steven Cox with the city of Nichols Hills Police Department. And I'm contacting you in regards of a complaint that was made against you that we need to discuss as soon as possible pertaining to possible criminal charges that could be filed against you. Exclamation point. I need you to contact me back immediately or I will have to dispatch an officer over to your place of residence at 123 Main Street to bring you into custody. I repeat, if I am not contacted back within the next five to ten minutes, I will be having you arrested and bought into custody. Mr. Jenkins, this is your only and final warning before we proceed with moving forward." It's really bad when someone threatens to proceed with moving forward.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, so I did a real quick search.
Dave Bittner: Yeah?
Joe Carrigan: And Steven Cox is in fact the chief of police at Nichols Hills, Oklahoma.
Dave Bittner: Really?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: So there is some factualness to this.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Do you know the name of your chief of police for your town or city?
Joe Carrigan: Nope.
Dave Bittner: I do.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, I don't either.
Dave Bittner: I do. I'm friends with him.
Joe Carrigan: Oh, okay.
Maria Varmazis: I'd wager most don't.
Joe Carrigan: I used to know one of the fire chiefs in Montgomery County.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: One county south, but he's since retired and it's my brother. So.
Dave Bittner: Oh, there we go.
Joe Carrigan: So what's interesting here is that the name which you redacted and the address which you also redacted are probably correct.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Right? That this is probably some data breach and they just looked up where this person lives and they Googled that town's police department, found out what the name of the police chief is, so that if you go and check who's the chief of police, then you see Steven Cox. The chief of police is never going to personally message you.
Dave Bittner: Probably not.
Joe Carrigan: He's pretty busy.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: By text.
Joe Carrigan: By text.
Dave Bittner: By text.
Joe Carrigan: Also, if you're ever going to get arrested in real life, if the cops are ever going to come to get you, they are not going to warn you about it.
Dave Bittner: Right. Right.
Joe Carrigan: They're just going to show up and take you into custody.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: If you don't call me back in the next five to ten minutes, I will be having you arrested. Doesn't matter if you're on the can, doesn't, you better text me back right now.
Dave Bittner: Right. Why aren't you texting me back?
Maria Varmazis: Like my kid when she wants a snack, like, come on!
Dave Bittner: Right, right.
Joe Carrigan: I need you to take me back right now. If this was me, I think I'd respond, You'll never take me alive, copper [laughter]. Come back with a warrant.
Dave Bittner: Right. Yeah. And the other thing that strikes me with this one is you have to reply in the next five to ten minutes.
Joe Carrigan: Right. Well, that's the artificial time horizon. These scammers want their money now, Dave.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Another telltale sign of this that our listeners can't see is that every single word of this is capitalized.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: So.
Joe Carrigan: That's because it's all a title to a book.
Dave Bittner: Right. Right. Right. Not only is there no punctuation or very little, but it's all capitalized. Yeah. So. All right. Well, that's a good one. And of course, again, we would love to hear from you. If there's something you'd like us to consider for our "Catch of the Day", please do email it to us at HackingHumans@N2K.com. [ Music ] And that is our show brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing world of cybersecurity. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to HackingHumans@n2k.com. This episode is produced by Liz Stokes. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. We're mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Tre Hester. Peter Kilpe is our publisher. I'm Dave Bittner.
Joe Carrigan: I'm Joe Carrigan.
Maria Varmazis: And I'm Maria Varmazis.
Dave Bittner: Thanks for listening. [ Music ]
