400 episodes and we still have trust issues.
Dave Bittner: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the "Hacking Humans" podcast, where each week we look behind the social engineering scams, 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, Joe.
Joe Carrigan: Hi, Dave.
Dave Bittner: And our N2K colleague and host of the "T-Minus Space Cyber Briefing," Maria Varmazis. Maria.
Maria Varmazis: Hi, Dave, and hi, Joe.
Dave Bittner: We've got some good stories to share this week, but first, a little follow-up here, and I suppose it's not so much follow-up as it is tooting our own horn. [ Beeping ] Today -- yes, fanfare, please. It is our 400th episode.
Maria Varmazis: Woo-hoo!
Joe Carrigan: Amazing. [ Music and Fanfare ]
Dave Bittner: Four-hundred episodes, so we started way back May 31, 2018, just me and Joe.
Joe Carrigan: We've been doing this for eight years, Dave.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, eight years.
Maria Varmazis: Good heavens.
Dave Bittner: That makes sense.
Joe Carrigan: That's a lot of power for a podcast.
Maria Varmazis: That is.
Dave Bittner: That's pretty good, yeah. Yeah, about 50 shows a year, and the title of the show was, "Social Engineering Works Because We're Human." We say that still today.
Joe Carrigan: Yes, we do.
Dave Bittner: Maria's first episode was number 273.
Joe Carrigan: That's right. That was the -- we did a pilot of that to, like, test Maria to see what the audience's reaction would be. [laughter] Everybody was, like, "That is so much better." [ Laughter ]
Dave Bittner: That's true.
Maria Varmazis: That's really sweet.
Dave Bittner: That's true. Yeah, that's true. It was pretty much universal.
Joe Carrigan: Right, yeah.
Dave Bittner: Less Dave and Joe --
Joe Carrigan: More --
Dave Bittner: -- the better.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, right.
Maria Varmazis: I don't think it was less of you two. I think it just -- I just -- I don't know, something. Me being in there enhances you both somehow. I don't know.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, you add a lot to the show.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, thank you.
Joe Carrigan: Thank you for joining us.
Maria Varmazis: Well, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. It's been a joy.
Dave Bittner: So here's to 400 more.
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Maria Varmazis: Yes, indeed.
Joe Carrigan: I made a mistake when I started numbering these scripts. I started it with two zeroes, so we can only go up to 999 episodes.
Dave Bittner: Oh, wow. Do I have to hand out like Y2K stickers when we get up to 900s or something, or something bad will happen?
Joe Carrigan: Or I'm going to have to go back and renumber all the other episodes to start with three zeroes, three leading numbers. Or I can just rely on --
Dave Bittner: You can take your meds.
Joe Carrigan: Right. [ Laughter ] I am probably not doing that. Probably? I'm not doing that.
Maria Varmazis: Don't you have better things that are, like, chicken-related to do with your time?
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Dave Bittner: Oh, yeah. That's true. I've been away for a couple of weeks. How are things going on the chicken front, Joe?
Joe Carrigan: Well, we have -- the rooster is no longer with us.
Dave Bittner: Aww.
Maria Varmazis: Well --
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, we couldn't have a rooster around that was going to attack children. We went on a little vacation, a short vacation, and we had the neighbor kids watching them, so we had to dispatch him before that.
Dave Bittner: Oh.
Joe Carrigan: We did not wind up cooking him because once we plucked him, it was obvious that this was going to be such a small bird, although this guy was enormous in life. I mean, he was so -- I thought he was going to be much bigger than he was, but he wasn't.
Maria Varmazis: It was all feathers and fluff?
Dave Bittner: He was all feathers, no muscle, no meat. [laughter]
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: The story of my life. The story of my life. [ Laughter ]
Maria Varmazis: I was going to say, it describes a few people I knew, but then you went and said it, Dave, and then --
Dave Bittner: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please tip your waiters. Try the veal.
Joe Carrigan: I am still working on the run for the coop. I've gotten all the walls built, and last night I cut the joists for the roof. The hardware cloth should arrive today, hopefully.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: So I'm going to staple the hardware cloth to the walls and put the roof together and then drill the material, the roofing material on, and hopefully, over the weekend, get this thing assembled and then begin disassembling the eyesore that is the run that I designed myself.
Dave Bittner: Like Homer Simpson's car?
Joe Carrigan: Right. Yeah. [ Laughter ] I think I mentioned this before, but my wife said, "If you were to ask a 4-year-old how to draw a house, it would look like that."
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Right?
Maria Varmazis: Wow.
Joe Carrigan: And I was, like, you know, that is a valid criticism. [laughter] I mean, I don't know what I was thinking. There's absolutely no eaves on this thing. There's no awnings or anything, no eaves, so it's got no -- I mean, the center of the coop is protected, or the run is protected, but this new run that is actually from Third Coast Craftsman, I believe. It's a very popular chicken run. It's Third Coast something. If you look it up on YouTube, you'll see it.
Dave Bittner: Okay. All right.
Joe Carrigan: You can buy the plans, and I paid the guy 30 bucks for the plans, and --
Dave Bittner: Do you have a target date in mind for when you want to have the chicken run completed?
Joe Carrigan: Well, actually, I need to get that done probably this weekend --
Dave Bittner: Oh, okay.
Joe Carrigan: Because classes -- last week, I know I said classes begin next week, but they actually did not. That would be this week, but they do begin for me next week.
Dave Bittner: Classes you're taking?
Joe Carrigan: Classes I'm taking, yes, two of them.
Dave Bittner: Oh.
Joe Carrigan: I'm trying to cram that into my life, which is great.
Dave Bittner: Are you looking for another master's degree or are you getting another cert?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, no, a master's in data science.
Dave Bittner: Oh, congratulations. All right. Good for you.
Joe Carrigan: Yep.
Dave Bittner: All right. Well, it is good to be back and even better on our 400th episode. I tell you what. Let's take a quick break here, and we will be right back with our stories. [ Music ] All right. We are back. Since I have been away for a couple of weeks, I'm going to do the honors and lead things off for us this week. My cautionary tale this week comes from Hollywood, where scammers are impersonating famous podcast hosts.
Maria Varmazis: Oh!
Dave Bittner: That hits a little close to home -- to target potential guests. Two people are highlighted in this story. This is actually a story that comes from the Hollywood Reporter. Broadway performer and Sirius XM host -- I said host because his name is Seth, host, Seth Rudetsky -- anybody know who this guy is? I'm not familiar with him.
Joe Carrigan: No.
Maria Varmazis: No, I'm not a Hollywood-knowing-type person, so no.
Dave Bittner: Okay. Well, apologies to Seth if I mispronounced your last name, but he got an invitation to appear on Nikki Glaser's podcast. Now, Nikki Glaser, I do know who she is. She's a very popular comedian, known for -- she's done a lot of those roasts that they do. She's very funny, and nothing about it seems suspicious. He gets podcast requests all the time. This one offered to pay him between $4,000 and $5,000 for the appearance. That would make me suspicious. Nobody's ever offered me that kind of money.
Maria Varmazis: Being paid to be on a podcast, okay. I mean --
Joe Carrigan: I mean, if you're on a big podcast, maybe.
Dave Bittner: Maybe.
Joe Carrigan: For one episode? I don't know how that works, when you have -- because it would be interesting. I don't --
Dave Bittner: I don't know. It seems to me like most of the big podcasts, people go on to promote things.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: So they're not -- I don't think there's any expectation that they're going to make any big money, but what do I know? That's a part of the podcasting world that I know nothing about.
Maria Varmazis: That's a totally different ecosystem, yeah.
Dave Bittner: But what really lured him in was how personal the invitation felt. It referenced his Broadway cruise that he'd done and some previous work. In this article, he says he remembers thinking, oh, they totally know my work, but only later, he realized that the details weren't proof of any legitimacy. They were just part of the scam. So he accepted the invitation. He was introduced to Nikki Glaser's "manager," which I'm putting in air quotes --
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: -- who wanted to do a technical setup over Zoom. There were warning signs. The manager kept his camera off and claimed to be in Pakistan, despite having a British accent. Also, Rudetsky said that he was using an "oddly generic Gmail address."
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Dave Bittner: Eventually, the fake manager started walking him through some Facebook permissions, trying to gain administrative control of his page --
Joe Carrigan: Ah-ha!
Maria Varmazis: Oh.
Dave Bittner: -- and Rudetsky realized something was wrong when all of a sudden, he could no longer log into Facebook.
Joe Carrigan: Oh, the guy actually got control?
Dave Bittner: I guess so.
Maria Varmazis: Wow. Okay.
Dave Bittner: He said he searched online for "podcast scam celebrity Facebook" and immediately found reports describing almost exactly what had happened to him.
Joe Carrigan: Really?
Dave Bittner: Yeah, so the second story here is about Bruce Vilanch. You guys know who Bruce Vilanch is?
Maria Varmazis: I sure do. [laughter] Usually, he has a -- his name has often been sort of a punchline, not in a bad way, but just, sort of, a guy whose name you know, but you don't know why you know it. "It's Bruce Vilanch."
Dave Bittner: He's kind of a "that guy."
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: You recognize him if you see him.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, definitely.
Dave Bittner: He's probably best known -- he filled in the center square on Hollywood Squares after Whoopi Goldberg finished. He was a writer on that show, and he was one of the other squares, and then Whoopi moved on, and he moved into the center square. He's a big-time writer in Hollywood. He writes the Oscars, I believe, every year and also famously known for having written the Star Wars Holiday Special. So we can blame him --
Maria Varmazis: I don't think he wants to claim that one.
Dave Bittner: No. We can blame him for that. He's a name in Hollywood, certainly well-known and respected, but the scheme they came at him with was a requested interview to be interviewed by Terry Gross from NPR's "Fresh Air," and Bruce says that the emails didn't just look convincing. They captured what he thought was Gross' distinctive voice and interview style. He said it was so articulate and so like her. The fake Terry Gross discussed topics she supposedly wanted to cover and demonstrated what appeared to be deep knowledge of Vilanch's career. He thought to himself, well, this must really be Terry. Eventually, the scammers asked for some money.
Maria Varmazis: Right?
Dave Bittner: Yeah, claiming that NPR needed support because of government funding cuts, and he found that request unusual, but he said by then the relationship had built up enough trust that he sent the money.
Maria Varmazis: You can't escape the NPR pledge stuff, even in an email with Terry Gross.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: They find you, no matter where you are. Got it. Okay.
Dave Bittner: Did they send him a tote bag? [laughter] Here's what's interesting. Even after they got his money, they kept preparing him for the interview. They sent him additional questions, they scheduled a recording session, and they even went on a video call. When Bruce logged in, he was looking at some, you know, video conference windows, and there was a man in there who introduced himself, and he said, "Hi, this is Mike. I'll be conducting the interview." and Bruce said, "No, you won't. I'm talking to Terry, or I'm talking to nobody."
Maria Varmazis: Good for you, Bruce.
Dave Bittner: Good for Bruce.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, be a diva.
Joe Carrigan: He knows his value.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: That's right. That's right. Eventually, he contacted WHYY, which is the station that produces "Fresh Air."
Maria Varmazis: "Fresh Air."
Dave Bittner: And they were aware of multiple attempts at this impersonation, so this was a scam that was making the rounds.
Maria Varmazis: Wow.
Dave Bittner: Both of these guys who got fooled, they said, it wasn't so much that they ignored obvious warnings -- although in retrospect, I think we all can see some obvious warnings -- but they said they were fooled because the scammers made them feel recognized. They made them feel important. They made them feel like they were going to be a special guest, so, kind of, stroked their egos.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: I don't know why I'm like this, but -- and maybe it's just because I hate myself, but -- [laughter] for some reason --
Maria Varmazis: Cap the Episode 400, everybody.
Joe Carrigan: That always, that always puts me off when somebody starts stroking my ego.
Dave Bittner: Really, Joe? A guy as handsome as you? [ Laughter ]
Joe Carrigan: That's the first time I've ever heard that sentence. [ Laughter ]
Maria Varmazis: Instant suspicion. I mean --
Joe Carrigan: Right? What do you want, right?
Maria Varmazis: -- I imagine, yeah, these folks being in Hollywood, they're used to people being obsequious, right, or at least --
Joe Carrigan: That's an excellent point.
Maria Varmazis: -- around each other, if not in their direction.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: But, I mean, the work that I'm presuming the AI did -- because AI has not been directly mentioned, but this must have been AI scraping the Internet for everything that these folks have done and just composing a very compelling email. I mean, that's the work that usually a producer does, and that does take, normally, a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of thought --
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: -- but if an AI model is just circumventing all that, then you can sort of -- in your own mind, you're going, oh, someone spent a lot of time putting this information together about me. That makes me feel like I'm worth it. Except, you know, the AI did it in two seconds.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Right, that -- yeah, so especially if you're a public-facing person like both of these gentlemen were, it's really easy to come up with a biography and write up that convincing, ego-stroking letter to make it feel like they're interested in you and only you, and they've put the time in to learn all about you. The story kind of wraps up. They put a button on this. Rudetsky received another invitation, this time from Amy Poehler's podcast, which is another very popular show.
Maria Varmazis: A great show, yep.
Dave Bittner: But he happens to be friends with Amy Poehler, so he called her up and said, "Did you invite me on your podcast?" and she said, "No, I did not."
Maria Varmazis: And I never would; stop calling me.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: How did you get this number?
Dave Bittner: I think some good lessons to learn here -- maybe the primary one is what we, kind of, mentioned -- which is that you can no longer trust just because someone knows a lot about you, that it's actually a personal invitation or interaction because anybody can do that now quickly.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Anything else stand out here to either of you?
Joe Carrigan: Well, I'm not famous, so [laughter] I think the ego stroking -- I don't think it's just Hollywood people that are vulnerable to that, but I could see Maria's point that they're probably used to that kind of treatment from people. I think that works on a lot of people, not necessarily me, as I've said, but me, I'd immediately get suspicious.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: No, that's interesting. It is kind of part of Hollywood lingo, isn't it?
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Sort of, you know, "Love you. Mean it." is the joke out there, yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Right, but the real affection is in time, right? If someone actually takes the time to get to know you and your work, then it's like, oh, maybe that's beyond just, you know, the one thing they know me for. That feels more real.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: I know that I -- again, also, not famous. I am also not famous, but every once in a while, I do get an email from a PR person or something where it's clear they've used AI to, sort of, scrape the Internet for stuff about me. The very first time I got an email like that, I was genuinely like, wow, they did their research on me, and then I figured it out. [laughter] Now that doesn't work on me, but the first time, I was genuinely floored that someone had found all that stuff about me and put it together in a really compelling pitch, and I said, wow. All right. It made me take notice.
Dave Bittner: All right. Well, we will have a link to that story in the show notes. Maria, tell you what. Why don't you share with us next. What do you have for us this week?
Maria Varmazis: Well, I'm doing a Joe, and I actually have two stories, but --
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Maria Varmazis: -- the first one is quick, as Joe would say.
Joe Carrigan: I also have two.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, no, we're both pulling a Joe. My first story is actually just a link that I want people to read because I don't want to go through the whole thing. It's a bit of a foot- -- not a footnote but a continuation of the story that we've been talking about a lot, which is the human trafficking -- the slavery going on at the scam compounds in Southeast Asia. There's a story in The Guardian where they are interviewing people who have managed to flee from these scam compounds, but in many cases, because their passports were confiscated when they were trafficked, they can't leave the countries that they were enslaved within. In many cases, they are homeless, and they are starting to rack up overstay fees by the country that they are stuck in, which is then compelling many of them to, actually, willingly go back into slavery at the scam compounds. It is a horrible, horrible situation, so it's basically from bad to worse. There's not an angle about social engineering for us to cover for the show, but it's a very important human angle. I know a lot of us are invested in understanding how to make things better, and I think this is an important thing for people to know, so I just wanted to mention that. The link will be in the show notes for people to read that story in The Guardian. Okay. For my actual social engineering story, this one is a story out of San Francisco, and it's gotten a lot of press in the San Francisco media ecosystem, in both the SF Cron and KQED. This is about a gentleman, Alvin Tran, who was scammed out of $18,000 in a fake rental listing scam. The thing that caught my attention about this story is Tran, himself, says he's a pretty savvy guy. He feels like most people in his situation would have fallen for the same scam that he fell for, so that's part of why he's publicizing what he experienced. I've got to tell you, when I was reading through the timeline of events of what he experienced, I was pretty sure that, honestly, it would have gotten me too. The red flags were so minor that they were very, very easy to miss, and I honestly -- yeah, this is a tough one. Part of the reason this story feels very timely for me is it is rental turnover season for a lot of us right now who live in college towns, so there's a lot of people coming and going right now in the Boston area, for sure. I also recently did an appearance for Yale University, and I think the number one question a lot of the students and student supporters had was about rental scams, so this is huge, I think, for young people especially, so I just wanted to cover this one. This is a tough one. So let me go through the sequence of events. Like many people, Alvin Tran got a nastygram from his current landlord saying, "Hey, your rent's going up by 20%." So that was the thing that said, you know what? I need to find a new place to live.
Dave Bittner: Sounds like the Bay Area.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, it truly, truly does, so he does what many of us would do in that situation. He went on the Internet and searched Zillow because Zillow does rentals, and also Craigslist, which is what I would have used back in the day when I was looking for rentals. He was looking specifically for a two-bedroom rental because he had a roommate that he was going to share with. He then found a great apartment that checked all his boxes on Zillow, and he sent an inquiry to the landlord but got no response. Weird, but okay, it happens. Later that day, he continued his search, and he found that same apartment listed on Craigslist. Then he contacted the person who posted it on Craigslist. Sounds great. The next day, Alvin Tran receives an email from someone identifying himself as James Dunlap, and James tells him that there have been over 70 inquiries for this listing -- not unusual for a hot listing in a hot real estate market -- and he invited him to view the apartment in person at 11:30 that day. The email to Alvin was signed with the name Jim, which is a common shortening of James. That's not unusual. At 11:30 that day, Alvin tours the apartment, and he meets a man at the apartment introducing himself as Jim, and several other prospective renters are also at the apartment viewing this wonderful unit, and many of them are signing applications on the spot, so it all seems above board. There's an actual property. The person with the same name as the guy that introduced himself by email is there. It seems above board. Understandably, a hot real estate market and also the neighborhood that Alvin's looking at is like a super-hot neighborhood within San Francisco specifically, so it's competitive. Alvin submitted an application to the Gmail address provided by the supposed landlord. Two days later, Alvin receives notice that his application has been approved. Hooray! And over email, he receives a lease agreement. That seems about normal. That's how I received a lease agreement many years ago, so I would expect similar. He also received instructions to wire $6,200 security deposit plus two months' rent. So two months -- first and last rent plus a deposit -- not unusual. It is a lot of money, but in a hot real estate market like San Francisco or New York or Boston, like, that's pretty standard, and it's in this case around $18,600 -- a lot of money. But yep, he was told to wire that to the landlord. The funds were to be sent to an account called something-something international that doesn't really matter, and it was -- the email was signed by "James Basuino Dunlap." Okay. Not quite the same name, but just about. Like, the middle name --
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, it sounds like the addition of a middle name.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, it sounds like just the addition of a middle name. The last name is still the same.
Joe Carrigan: That would not raise a red flag for me at all.
Maria Varmazis: No. In the following days, he continues messaging the person that he believes is the landlord that he wired money to about moving, logistics, setting up the Wi-Fi, and key pickup -- and he's getting responses to all these messages, so it all seems very above board. Move-in day arrives. He goes to the property to meet the landlord and collect the keys. The problem is nobody shows up, and he calls and texts the person that he's supposed to be meeting with, and all those go unanswered. He thinks to himself, okay, emergencies happen. Maybe somebody died. You know, stuff can happen, so he's giving this person a lot of grace. So he waits until the next morning to figure out what's going on. He sends a message to the original Zillow listing, trying to figure out, was anyone going to answer his phone calls? Is anyone going to answer his texts? Shortly afterwards, he manages to get a message from the actual landlord, whose name is Jim Basuino -- just Jim Basuino. There is no Dunlap at the end of it.
Joe Carrigan: Really?
Maria Varmazis: That Jim responds and speaks with Alvin Tran, and Alvin learns that Basuino, who is, indeed, the legitimate landlord of this unit, never posted it on Craigslist. Basuino was also not the person emailing or texting Alvin. That apartment had already been rented to someone else, and the legitimate landlord did not receive the $18,600 wire transfer. At that point, Alvin realizes that he had, indeed, been the victim of a rental scam. So this is not in judgment, and again, Alvin's been amazing going public with his story, and it's been all over the news locally.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: So kudos to him, no judgment, just data gathering here. I'm wondering, as I was recounting this to you, what were the possible very quiet red flags that came up for you, because they were very quiet? It took me some time to even find them.
Joe Carrigan: One is that it's on Craigslist.
Maria Varmazis: That, to you, is an auto red flag?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Okay. I figured --
Joe Carrigan: I think everything on Craigslist is a scam. It's, like, every time I see a car on there, it's priced way too low, and I'm, like, what happens if I reach out to this person? I just think it's like, oh, yeah, I got the car boxed up, and I'll have it dropped off at your house. I just need a $400 deposit, like they do with the campers and things like that. I have bought, I think, a total of two things on Craigslist. Oh, yeah, I bought one thing and sold another thing, and both of those were standing on a street in Baltimore City with the item or the cash in my hand. Somebody walks up to me and says, "Are you Joe?" And I said, "yep." They handed me -- it was, like, it was a bike pump, and I handed her $10. Then another one, it was a guy pulls up in a car, he goes, "Are you Joe?" And I said, yep. He hands me $50, and I handed him a bike rack, and that was it.
Maria Varmazis: It's pretty low stakes, though. I mean, we're not talking 20K.
Joe Carrigan: We're not talking $20,000, exactly.
Maria Varmazis: No.
Joe Carrigan: Exactly.
Maria Varmazis: No. Yeah, so your immediate red flag is that it's Craigslist; don't trust anything on Craigslist?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: And maybe it's just me old-manning this, you know? But yeah, I just don't trust the platform.
Maria Varmazis: That's fair. To me, Craigslist is a yellow flag. I've had a lot of good experiences with it, but I think that may be market-specific. I think it would be a "proceed with caution," but okay. What about you, Dave?
Dave Bittner: I've used Craigslist successfully, so I don't know that would have been an immediate red flag. I think the lack of response from Zillow, which I would consider to be the more legitimate platform, would give me pause; but then, at the same time, I showed up at the place, met a real live human being, and presumably, toured the place, right?
Maria Varmazis: Yep.
Dave Bittner: So this person has access to the place, and I don't know. Were they just -- I'm speculating, but were they just piggybacking on another tour that was going on, you know?
Maria Varmazis: I think the Jim he met at the apartment was the legitimate Jim Basuino, but the scammer was saying his name was also Jim, so he was sort of doing a, I don't know, magpie thing. Is that the right bird?
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: That sort of pushes the other bird out of the nest by pretending to be -- I'm probably getting my birds wrong.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: It's starlings.
Maria Varmazis: All the birders are really mad at me right now. I'm bad at this, but, you know, the bird that pushes the legitimate ones out of the nest pretending that it's the baby bird or whatever?
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: The scammer was using the same name, I'm sure, just to obfuscate who's who, but the actual Jim at the showing was the real landlord.
Dave Bittner: Oh.
Maria Varmazis: So when he introduced himself as, "Hi, I'm Jim," Alvin was, you know, believing that that's the Jim he'd been emailing.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: A bit of color to this that I didn't mention is, apparently, at that listing there were so many people. I mean, there were a lot of people there. Alvin said he didn't really have time to talk to the landlord at length, so he had felt like, you know, there really wasn't much ability to go into depth with this guy.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Maybe if he had been able to, he would have been able to put two and two together that he hadn't talked to this guy by email, but again, really hot real estate market, very competitive situation. I mean, you're lucky if you can get in the door. Sometimes there's lines out the door for some of these listings. I mean, it's -- it can be really crazy.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, so if you're the scammer, you could call the person who's renting the apartment, make an appointment to see it, find out when it's being shown by that person, by the legit owner, and then use that information in your fake listing.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, you definitely could, and then in the conversations with people, just send them to the actual legitimate thing.
Joe Carrigan: Since you know the name of the person you're scamming, you could tell them, I'm Alvin Tran, I'll be there at this time, and we'll see you then.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, yep.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So the two people who meet up, it's like a man-in-the-middle attack.
Maria Varmazis: That is exactly what it's like, yes, and in this case, Alvin didn't know all the rest of his conversations were not with the real Jim.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: But if he had shown up, the real Jim would have been like, oh yeah, Alvin, we talked, or whatever. You know, I've been expecting you, so nothing would have come up as a, oh, I don't know who you are.
Dave Bittner: So what other red flags did you note, Maria?
Maria Varmazis: I mean, honestly, the only one -- the only actual solid red flag in this entire story for me was the instructions to wire money. Wiring money was the only time where that would have been a, I don't want to be wiring anybody money, especially for a rental. There are other ways to pay people for rental fees, and wiring is not the way I would do it. This way too risky, but that, I don't think, would pop out to most people, because we, especially with real --
Joe Carrigan: It would pop out to me.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, with real estate transactions, you're often told that that's the way to do it.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: So, I mean, I'm fully on Alvin's side. I mean, I'm not coming down on him at all. This was a really awful scam that checked all -- it really covered its tracks very, very well, and I, honestly, I was reading the KQED story about how to prevent falling victim to a scam like this. I feel like a lot of it is just, hope you get lucky.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: Good luck.
Maria Varmazis: Good luck out there.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, I'm trying to think, could you put money in escrow? You know, like, I put the $18,000 in escrow, and when I get the keys from you, then I will, and I, you know, start moving in, then I'll release it, something like that?
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, I mean, you can use a credit card for a lot of transactions. Like, even for rent, you can -- a lot of landlords will take rent by credit card. That's not unusual.
Joe Carrigan: Who has an $18,000 credit limit on a credit card?
Maria Varmazis: Oh, if you're in San Francisco, and you work in the tech industry, you absolutely have no credit limit. Like, all those guys are on gold or platinum cards, guaranteed, so that's not a thing they need to worry about. But, you know, you can use credit cards for sure, or you can write a frickin' check and just put a stop on the check, but wiring is just -- or Zelle or whatever that is usually the -- you have no recourse if this goes wrong. So yeah, going in escrow is a great idea, and if somebody says, no, I don't want to do that, then that could be a good red flag right there. There was a very interesting quote from the legitimate landlord in the SF Chron that I wanted just to highlight. He said he would never ask tenants to wire that much money, so not that much money, but maybe he would ask them to do some, and certainly not before he had given them keys to a unit. He said, "I feel sorry for the guy. I'm not going to blame him, but wow." That was a direct quote. I mean, the guy's out 20K. That is a lot of money. That is a lot of money. So yeah, to me, the red flag is being asked to wire, but again, it sounds like the legit landlord might have asked them to do the same thing, so ask to put it in escrow. The other one, apparently, the yellow flag is it's on Craigslist. It's a proceed with caution. It doesn't mean it's a scam, but you have to be very careful, so it's a tough one.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, you can see a component of this, though. You can see as the renter, you don't want to be the squeaky wheel.
Maria Varmazis: No.
Dave Bittner: In a hot market, you don't want to be the pain in the butt, so whatever the landlord asks you to do, you're probably just going to do it.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, yep, absolutely. Especially in a super-competitive market where this rental apparently had everything that Alvin was looking for. It had this gorgeous bathroom. I mean, I'm jealous. The way he was describing it, this place sounded amazing. In the super-hot neighborhood that he was trying to get in, this rent apparently is very reasonable, you know? So that's -- I mean, yeah, you don't want to lose it. You don't want to let that opportunity slip through your fingers, so I get it. That is the ultimate time pressure. It's just built into the transaction.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: So, you know, do you want to be the one slowing that down? Because he'll go, you know, I've got 20 other people who are happy to rent this without any trouble at all. Why are you giving me trouble? You can just hear it.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Ugh, a tough one.
Dave Bittner: All right. It is a tough one. All right. Well, we will have a link to that story in the show notes. I'll tell you what. Let's take another quick break here. We'll be right back after this message. [ Music ] And we are back. Joe, you're up. What do you got for us this week?
Joe Carrigan: Like I said earlier, I have two stories. The first one comes from News 4 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: I'll read the headline. It is, "Jacksonville Woman Sues VyStar. Alleges Credit Union Failed to Properly Investigate $42,000 Impersonation Scam. This woman's name is Mary Maier, and she is filing this lawsuit on August 14th based on stuff that happened in November of last year. She says unknown persons gained access to her online banking and changed her password, and then later contacted her posing as VyStar representatives and told her to surrender her debit card to a courier, right?
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: So far, I don't know that VyStar has done anything wrong here, but then between November 13th and November 20th, this complaint says these people drained about $42,000 from Maier's checking, money market, and savings accounts through a series of internal transactions/transfers. So when you have a money market, that's something you buy, and then you have to sell it, and usually wait a day to get your cash out, so they did that. Then they made ATM withdrawals and retail purchases all across Jacksonville and South Florida. The suit lists hundreds of large purchases and ATM withdrawals, and Maier says that the pattern of transactions was inconsistent with her normal usage. That's where she starts to have a complaint or, I think, a leg to stand on here. The complaint says that VyStar's internal records showed unauthorized devices accessed her account at about 1 p.m. on November 13th before the impersonation call and that her password was changed without her knowledge, although we don't know how VyStar would know that. Here's another thing that is interesting, is that Maier's attorneys are saying that VyStar has disabled security controls for marketing reasons and failed to apply fraud alerts, right? So Maier reported the activity to VyStar on November 20th, and VyStar denied her claim, saying this is your losses because you gave your debit card to somebody and shared your account information.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: The suit also says VyStar never provided a written explanation, which they're required to do under federal rules, and never supplied the documents, and they gave a provisional credit for less than the disputed amount and later blocked access to the credit card. They've also said that Maier sent a second notice and a formal document request by certified mail in June of this year, but they didn't do anything, and they failed to investigate. That's what the suit is saying. The suit is -- this is what is interesting about this is that, you know, even though Maier fell victim to a scam here, this bank did -- or this credit union, did virtually nothing to help her. I think that's why she has a good leg to stand on here. I'm not a lawyer. Maybe we should have Ben on, Ben Yelin from the "Caveat" --
Maria Varmazis: "Caveat," yeah.
Joe Carrigan: -- because she's alleging they violated the Electronic Fund Transfer Act by not doing some of the things you're supposed to do. VyStar has a comment in this. I'm not going to read it because it just, you know, is the regular corporate gobbledygook that these guys put out every single time something like this happens. "Well, we don't respond to litigation and" --
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, they get so much use from that one, yep.
Joe Carrigan: Right, yeah, so I don't know. One of the things she's looking for is treble damages. I had to look that up.
Maria Varmazis: Triple.
Joe Carrigan: That's triple the damages, right?
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So she's looking for attorney's fees, three times the damages because under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act, she is entitled to ask for that. I think every bank and credit union manager that listens to this show should pay attention to that one fact. They probably already know that. I'm not telling you anything new. I didn't know this until today, but, you know, if you're a credit union or a bank and you don't do something after -- you don't follow the regulations, you're opening yourself up to this kind of a lawsuit.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, I would suspect that this would probably end with some kind of a settlement --
Joe Carrigan: I would imagine.
Dave Bittner: -- because I've heard of that happening many times, but who knows?
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: This reminds me -- the way that this went down reminds me: My wife and I were recently traveling in upstate New York. We were up there for a wedding. This reminds me of the added utility of password managers because we were in New York for this wedding. We're staying at a hotel somewhere, and there was something I needed to log into. I honestly don't recall what it was, but it was something-- one of my important accounts, let's call it.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: So I go to log in and my password manager pops up to automatically fill in my information, and it does so, but it stops and it says, hold on. You're not where you usually are geographically --
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Yep.
Dave Bittner: -- so we're going to throw some extra roadblocks in the way here, some speed bumps.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: You're going to have to log in to your password manager. You're going to have to -- just a few extra steps to slow me down and verify that I am who I say I am before it would allow me to log in. I thought to myself two things. I thought, ugh, this is a pain in the butt.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: But the other thing I thought was, this is great.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, it's doing what it should be doing, yeah.
Dave Bittner: Exactly.
Maria Varmazis: Both can be true, yep.
Joe Carrigan: I'm more secure, but I hate it.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, so I resented the slowdown, but in the end, I took a deep breath and said, you know what? This is great, and I think it's one of those things that a good password manager can do that we don't think about -- that extra layer of protection that it can provide, looking at things like geography, like time of day. You know, Dave never logs into his bank account at four in the morning. What's going on here? That's odd.
Maria Varmazis: From Timbuktu.
Dave Bittner: Right, exactly.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: So anyway, that's what this reminded me of was having been in that situation and, perhaps, could -- had this woman had those tools backing her up, maybe it would have gone a different way for her. Obviously, I'm not shaming her or blaming her in any kind of way.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: I'm just wondering, you know?
Joe Carrigan: Would that have helped?
Dave Bittner: Yeah, exactly.
Joe Carrigan: No, I don't think so.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: It sounds like these people targeted her, and they knew what they were doing.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Yeah. All right. What else you got, Joe?
Joe Carrigan: So I got -- this one is going to be quick. This is from Payments Dive and Lynn Marek over there, and we talk about this from time to time, and I wanted to bring this up again. It talks about when you think about who's going to be scammed more often, do you think older people or younger people?
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Of course, the answer counterintuitively is actually younger people. The frequency is going to be higher among younger people. The damages are going to be higher among older people.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, yes.
Joe Carrigan: This story cites a Fed study that I then couldn't find the link to. That Fed study talks about another organization survey that went out and asked a bunch of Gen Z consumers if they believe they can recognize a scam, but then these people demonstrated poor skills in verifying whether an online request was legitimate. Young people are exposed to these new experiences, and thus, this kind of threat -- this threat model, this attack surface -- when they're doing things like opening new financial accounts, finding a new job, or renting their first apartment, right? We had Maria's story about renting an apartment, and I don't know. I mean, that's such a masterfully crafted scam. I hope I don't sound like I admire these people. I'm just like -- I don't. They're wretched human beings, and they need to be brought to justice, but it was so well done. I don't know that I wouldn't have fallen for that one.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, yeah, same.
Joe Carrigan: Like, but opening a financial account, I'm not doing that unless I can physically walk into a branch. I am -- every time I see an ad for, hey, we're a 100% online bank. I'm like, no, thank you. That is the absolute last thing I want. Or "We're a bank with no branches in your neighborhood." No, I don't want that either.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: So finding a new job, I'm not talking to anybody unless -- well, actually, I will talk to somebody, but I'm not accepting a job offer unless I've been to your place, and I'm going to show up there every day. I'm not a remote work kind of guy. I just don't find that that's very productive. These things are not going to work on me, and it's probably because I'm older, right?
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Young people are going to do this. Typical scams that are directed at youth, and this is one that would absolutely just fly right by me as well: exclusive online deals like flash sales or limited-edition drops. Every time I see, like, Nike's dropping a limited-edition set of shoes and people are then buying them up and then scalping them for like ten times the price. I'm like, what kind of a knucklehead pays $3,000 for a pair of shoes that are, essentially, a $300 pair of shoes? Maybe they're great. I mean, I paid $200 dollars for my shoes that I'm wearing right now, and that is the most I've ever spent on shoes.
Dave Bittner: Call him "Moneybags Carrigan."
Maria Varmazis: All right, Joe. All right.
Joe Carrigan: Spend that money.
Maria Varmazis: If you're going to go after one of the three of us, go for Joe, just FYI.
Joe Carrigan: Right, right. I have to spend that money because if I don't, my feet hurt.
Dave Bittner: Right. Right. This isn't a fashion statement.
Joe Carrigan: No.
Dave Bittner: It's a recognition of your age --
Maria Varmazis: All right.
Joe Carrigan: It is --
Dave Bittner: -- and poor bodily condition.
Joe Carrigan: I am not happy that I can't wear a cheap pair of sneakers anymore.
Dave Bittner: Right, right. Oh, yeah.
Joe Carrigan: I even bought some cheap shoes at a Skechers outlet and cannot wear them.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, I feel that way about Vans because I like Vans.
Joe Carrigan: Vans are cool looking, too, right?
Dave Bittner: You know, I just like Vans, but they're just -- there's nothing inside of Vans. They're just flat. You know, great for skateboarding. They do exactly what they're supposed to do, but nope, can't do it anymore.
Joe Carrigan: Did you wear Vans in high school?
Dave Bittner: I did, yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, I was the big high-top kind of guy.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: Like, you know, like my role models in Anthrax. Other scams they're likely to fall for is job offers with high pay, minimal qualifications, and immediate hiring --
Maria Varmazis: Yep.
Joe Carrigan: -- and convenient and timely apartment rentals are quick things.
Maria Varmazis: Yep.
Joe Carrigan: Some red flags that elude these Zoomers, and I love calling them Zoomers: being pressured to act immediately. That is -- something like an older person is just, you know, when you're talking about a new job, or opening a new financial account, or renting an apartment, an older person I think is going to be like, no, I'm not doing that right now. I've got other things I have to get done. Whereas a younger person might be like, yeah, yeah, I'll get that done for you right now; asked to share personal information or lured into using an untraceable payment method such as gift cards --
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: -- or probably cryptocurrency as well.
Maria Varmazis: I think what's interesting about the personal information thing, and I remember that -- I'm a Millennial, so I'm not a Zoomer, but I remember in my 20s, I was sitting in some meetings, like marketers meetings, where I was one of the youngest people in the room and there was this whole attitude of, well, Millennials won't care about their personal information. They'll just give that up. You know, they just don't care about that kind of thing. They'll tell anyone anything you want to know. It's not a big deal. I remember thinking at the time, like, you say that right now because we're in our 20s, and we don't really have much to lose, but it's different as you get older. I wonder with the Zoomers, if that's also both a combination of a function of just their age, and also, maybe a bit of fatalism of there's a breach every other second. Who cares if my information is out there because it's already out there?
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, I hear that one a lot, too, so I have to wonder.
Dave Bittner: Interesting. All right. Well, we will have a link to that story in the show notes. 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 /scambait subreddit, and this one is titled "Scammer Got Scammed."
Dave Bittner: Okay, Maria, you want to do this one with me?
Maria Varmazis: Sure, so am I green?
Dave Bittner: You be the green, yep.
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Dave Bittner: That seems to be the matronly --
Maria Varmazis: The matron.
Joe Carrigan: Are you going to do a matron voice?
Maria Varmazis: I'm not -- do I need to? Do I not come with one pre-installed?
Dave Bittner: All right. I'm not walking into that.
Maria Varmazis: Don't touch that one with a 20-foot pole, yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Yes. I've already touched that wire and regret it.
Maria Varmazis: Let me just put it this way: I'm not in my 20s anymore, and I know it. It's all right.
Dave Bittner: All right.
Maria Varmazis: "Hey, love. Got your message. Thanks for letting me know. Is this Chris or Luke, and what happened to your phone?"
Dave Bittner: "Hey, Mum. It's me, Chris. I'm using my broken old phone. It does not let me accept calls. I accidentally smashed my other phone with my old number."
Maria Varmazis: "You're always so clumsy with your stuff. You're going to just have to buy a new one then. Where are you? What time are you coming home?"
Dave Bittner: "I went to Telstra, need to pay 900 off my contract, and buy a new phone with insurance on my new phone, which totals up to 3,400."
Maria Varmazis: Thirty-four hundred, why so much? What phone did you buy?"
Dave Bittner: "I don't need to pay 3,400. I just need to pay $900 for the cancellation fee, because I'm cancelling my contract, or else I have to pay 3,400, which I don't want to."
Maria Varmazis: "Why are they charging you? Didn't you have insurance on the last phone? I think Dad and I got it for you when we got you the phone."
Dave Bittner: "They're charging me because I ended the contract early. That's why. They said I need to pay 900 today. I was going to ask you if you could pay it off for me. I'll pay you back when I get access to my bank."
Maria Varmazis: "Okay, makes sense. Where's your wallet and your cards?"
Dave Bittner: "I forgot them. I didn't think I would need them today. That's why I messaged."
Maria Varmazis: "Shouldn't leave home without them, should you? Not smart, Chris. You still haven't paid me back for the $2,000 you owe me still. When am I getting that?"
Dave Bittner: "I know. I'll pay you back all at once. I'm sorry. Do you have your card with you by any chance?"
Maria Varmazis: "I hope so. Dad won't be too happy about this."
Dave Bittner: "I know."
Maria Varmazis: "I have my cards, yes. Where are you? I can come to you and sort this out."
Dave Bittner: "I'm at Telstra with the manager. He's with me now."
Maria Varmazis: "Which store?"
Dave Bittner: "He said he can process it manually through their system, but because I'm the contract owner, I have to do it because I'm liable. Could I borrow your card for now since I don't have mine with me?"
Maria Varmazis: "Yes, I know that, but which store are you at?"
Dave Bittner: "The one in town."
Maria Varmazis: "Thanks, Captain Obvious, but there are about a dozen Telstra stores. Which one? Chris, I'm disappointed in you. You broke another phone, and want more money? I'll give it to you, but it's the last time. When do you get paid?"
Dave Bittner: "The one closest to home, and I know, man. I'm sorry, and I get paid on Friday. I can pay some of it back on Friday if that's okay."
Maria Varmazis: "So Telstra store at the Remex Centre?"
Dave Bittner: "Yeah, can you quickly send me a picture of your card? I'm going to quickly pay for this. I don't have battery left on this phone. I'm coming to see you right after."
Maria Varmazis: "Okay. Wait a second. I'll get my purse."
Dave Bittner: "Okay. Are you still there?"
Maria Varmazis: "Yes. One sec. I had a call."
Dave Bittner: "Okay. No problem." Joe, you want to describe the image of the credit card?
Joe Carrigan: Yes. How am I going to say this?
Maria Varmazis: Well, it's a MasterCard, first of all.
Joe Carrigan: Yes, it's a MasterCard. It has a number on it, and the numbers for the bank are correct, but the rest of the number is all eights, and it is "Mr. Goe F-K Yourself Scammer."
Dave Bittner: That's the name.
Maria Varmazis: That's the name.
Joe Carrigan: That's Goe, G-O-E.
Maria Varmazis: Mr. Goe.
Dave Bittner: Mr. Goe F-K Yourself Scammer.
Maria Varmazis: "How about them apples, scammer? Maybe next time you" -- [laughter] "Maybe next time, check who you send these messages to, since I'm a guy, loser."
Dave Bittner: That's pretty good.
Joe Carrigan: It looks like he had AI generate this.
Maria Varmazis: I mean, who doesn't have Photoshop just at the ready to whip this kind of thing?
Joe Carrigan: I mean, I wouldn't waste my time in Photoshop to do this. That's actually tedious. You can just say to AI, make me a dummy card, and here's the name I want to appear on it.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, this is much funnier, though.
Maria Varmazis: It sure is.
Joe Carrigan: I mean, then it'll make you a picture, and you copy and paste.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Yeah. All right, so before we move on, any obvious red flags here from the person trying to elicit this scam?
Joe Carrigan: One of the things that stuck out to me that would actually make this more effective is he starts out talking about $300 -- or a $3,000 bill that he's got to pay and then drops the price down to $900, right? So you're, like, $3,000? Actually, I thought this guy would have done what I do whenever my kids say, "I need money." They say, "Hey, Dad, I need $100." I'm like, "$90? What do you need $80 for?"
Dave Bittner: Right. [laughter]
Joe Carrigan: So he didn't do that, but the other guy did this to him. You know, he said I don't need $3,800 now. I just need the 900. I think that is more likely to get someone who is already into this and buying it, that it makes it more likely to work.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: It's almost like a sense of relief.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, you know what's funny? What stood out to me immediately with this is the, "Hey, love, got your message," and then the two Xs in the message. It's hard to describe, to say that part out loud, but to me, that's very UK coded. It's very English --
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: -- and then the word mum, M-U-M, instead of mom, and yet the money was, I need 3,400 with no denomination mentioned, and then it was $3,400 was the switch, whereas I would have assumed this was in England or the UK.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, it could be Australia.
Maria Varmazis: Could be.
Joe Carrigan: They use the same dollar sign.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, maybe, could be Australia. That's true, but "mum," to me, I was, like, that's not -- if we're assuming American or North American, I -- that's just, I wouldn't have assumed. Yeah, it could have been Australian. That's true.
Dave Bittner: The thing that stood out to me was the attempt to keep the mom from coming to the store. The mom said, "I'll meet you there," and the person just said, no, no, I need this now. Just send me the image, no, no, no, no, no. You know, because obviously the person isn't actually at the store.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, I'll be right there in two minutes. What's the issue?
Dave Bittner: Right. Right. Exactly.
Maria Varmazis: I'll be there with a sandwich and a blanket.
Dave Bittner: Which is what my mom would do, right?
Maria Varmazis: Don't do anything. Don't find anything --
Dave Bittner: Don't move.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, don't move, you dummy.
Dave Bittner: I'll be right there. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, that is our Catch of The Day. We will have a link to that in our show notes, and of course, we would love to hear from you. If there's something you'd like us to consider for the show, you can email us. It's 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 Eiban. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Tré 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 ]
