As cybercrime grows more sophisticated day by day, so do technical defenses. But great technology is no match for an employee clicking on a simple phishing email. Psychological security is designed to protect the human mind from manipulation that leads to compromises. Today’s guest is Adam Anderson. Adam is chairman of the board for Hook Security and a serial cybersecurity entrepreneur. He is one of the founders of the Psychological Security Movement. Psychological Security or “Psy-Sec,” was bor...
Nov 18, 2020•43 min•Ep. 38
What is it like to be a world-renowned cybercriminal and what motivates them? Today’s guest referred to as the original internet Godfather shares his experience running a cybercriminal empire, going on the run, and ultimately turning his life around. Brett Johnson was responsible for refining modern financial cybercrime as we know it today. After being placed on the United States’ Most Wanted list, captured and convicted of 39 felonies, Brett promptly escaped prison. Captured again, Brett served...
Nov 11, 2020•47 min•Ep. 37
Embezzlement is on the rise, but only a few incidents ever get reported to law enforcement. Why do people steal and how are they doing it? What can business owners do to help prevent these crimes and what should they do if they suspect them? Our guest today is Kelly Paxton. She has more than 25 years of investigation experience and is a certified fraud examiner and private investigator. She started her career in law enforcement as a special agent for the US Customs Office of Investigation in 199...
Nov 04, 2020•51 min•Ep. 36
With the cost of surveillance and mass information gathering becoming cheaper and easier, laws are struggling to keep pace. Who is fighting for transparency and working to protect your digital rights? Our guest today is Danny O’Brien. Danny has been an activist for online free speech and privacy for over 20 years. He co-founded the Open Rights Group and has defended reporters from online attacks at the committee to protect journalists. He is now the Director of Strategy at Electronic Frontier Fo...
Oct 28, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 35
The pandemic has taken an economic toll on millions of lives. People are struggling, people want to help, and others are looking to take advantage of both. Before panicking about your bills or giving to the latest charitable cause, you need to listen to this episode to make sure your money is going where you think it is. Our guest today is Dori Zinn. Dori has been a personal finance journalist for more than a decade with work featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, CNET, Yahoo Finance , and more. H...
Oct 21, 2020•31 min•Ep. 34
Information security is not just technical. There is a human aspect involved and fixing that is more than just identification and awareness. Our guest today is Ira Winkler. Ira is the president of Secure Mentem and the author of the book You Can Stop Stupid . He is referred to as the modern-day James Bond, given his skills both physically and technically in infiltrating organizations. Today, Ira shares with us many of his personal and professional experiences in the area of cybercrime. His valua...
Oct 14, 2020•45 min•Ep. 33
With the 2020 elections right around the corner, do you know who is trying to influence you and how they’re doing it? Listen on to learn about the ins and outs of disinformation, misinformation, interference, and influence. Morgan Wright is an internationally recognized expert on cybersecurity strategy, cyberterrorism, and advanced technology. His landmark testimony before Congress on healthcare.gov changed how the government collected personally identifiable information. He has made hundreds of...
Oct 07, 2020•37 min•Ep. 32
With more and more dating moving online, how do we separate real honest people from those who are misrepresenting themselves and the outright scammers? Our guest today is Kezia Noble. Kezia is a leading female dating and attraction expert for men and author of the bestselling book The Noble Art of Seducing Women. Kezia’s company helps clients learn conversation skills and ways to overcome anxiety in dating situations. Starting in 2009, she has since become a YouTube sensation. She and her team h...
Sep 30, 2020•45 min•Ep. 31
Have you ever received calls either at work or at home where the caller wants you to verify some information about yourself or someone else in the company? This could just be someone updating their records or it could be the start of social engineering. Our guest today is Jack Rhysider. Jack is the host of the podcast DarkNet Diaries: True Stories From the Dark Side of the Internet. His podcast is about hackers, breaches, shadow government activity, hacktivism, cybercrime, and all things that dw...
Sep 23, 2020•40 min•Ep. 30
If your reputation or the reputation of your business gets trashed online, it can have a lasting impact. But there are things that you can do today to limit the impact of negative online statements about you and some of them are easier than you might expect. Our guest today is Chris Silver Smith. Chris is the CEO of Argent Media, a marketing agency focused heavily on reputation management where Chris helps people clean up their reputations in search engines. Chris has also served as an expert wi...
Sep 16, 2020•45 min•Ep. 29
Conspiracy theories are all crazy, right? Well, maybe not. There’s some history as to why so many people believe in them. What we really need is a conspiracy theory detection kit and that’s what we have in today’s episode. Our guest today is Dr. Michael Shermer. Dr. Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine, the host of the Science Salon Podcast, and a presidential fellow at Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101. For 18 years he was a monthly columnist for Scientific Ame...
Sep 09, 2020•41 min•Ep. 28
Long gone are the days of companies giving away coolers on college campuses when students would sign up for high-interest credit cards. Unfortunately, there are still sneaky promotions, fine print, and ways these companies take advantage of unsuspecting customers. Our guest today is Sara Rathner. Sara is a NerdWallet travel and credit cards expert. She appeared on the Today Show , Nasdaq , and CNBC’s Nightly Business Report and has been quoted in Yahoo Finance, Time, Business Insider, and Market...
Sep 02, 2020•33 min•Ep. 27
To what extremes are you willing to go for complete privacy and security? No one takes privacy as seriously as today’s guest, John McAfee. John McAfee is known for founding McAfee Antivirus, being a crypto currency evangelist and a privacy activist. In this episode, John shares the lengths he goes to protect his own privacy with significant unexpected costs. John lives and plays by his own rules and this interview is no exception. If you are sensitive to profanity, I suggest that you head over t...
Aug 26, 2020•37 min•Ep. 26
Twenty years ago, cybersecurity was something that only nerds talked about. Now cybersecurity has gone mainstream. Listen in as we talk about common scams, the recent Twitter hack, and organized crime with Graham Cluley from The Smashing Security Podcast. Graham Cluley has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990’s. He was in senior roles with Sophos and McAfee. In 2011, he was inducted into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame . Graham runs his own award-winning compu...
Aug 19, 2020•41 min•Ep. 25
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve rapidly changed the way we work, how we play, and how we’re educated. This sudden shift leaves us and our families exposed to privacy and security risks we previously hadn’t thought about or planned for. Listen up for any blindspots you might have. Our guest today is Rebecca Herold. Rebecca, also known as The Privacy Professor, has over 25 years of experience in system engineering, information security privacy, and compliance. She has authored 19 books with...
Aug 12, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 24
I’m contacted by people on a regular basis who believe that their devices have been compromised and that they’re being stalked and spied on. Sometimes they’ve misinterpreted what they’re looking at but sometimes they are actually being digitally stalked. Find out what to do about it in this episode. Today’s guest is John Bambenek. John is the Vice President of Security Research and Intelligence at ThreatSTOP and the President of Bambenek Consulting where he provides security consulting, penetrat...
Aug 05, 2020•51 min•Ep. 23
I’ve been telling people for years that they need to implement two-factor authentication wherever possible. Now that you’ve done that, imagine the havoc that would happen if those security codes were sent to somebody else enabling them to access your email, social media accounts, and worse your bank accounts. It is called SIM swapping, porting out, and SIM jacking. Today’s guest is Haseeb Awan. Haseeb is CEO of Efani, American’s most secure and private cell phone service. He is an expert at prot...
Jul 22, 2020•36 min•Ep. 22
Just because someone isn’t trying to scam you out of your hard-earned money doesn’t mean that they don’t see you as a pawn, stepping stone, or a means to an end. Find out how to protect yourself from a narcissist. Our guest today is Dr. Ramani Durvasula. Dr. Ramani Durvasula is one of the world-leading experts on narcissism. She is a clinical psychologist, professor, best selling author, and speaker. She is on a mission to demystify and dismantle the toxic influence of narcissism on all of our l...
Jul 15, 2020•44 min•Ep. 21
We’ve all had that random fraudulent charge show up on our credit card and we wonder how did that happen. Do I need to cancel my credit card? Do I need to get a new one? Today we talk about credit card skimming with Scott Schober. Scott Schober is the president and CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems, a 48-year-old leading provider of advanced world-class wireless test and cybersecurity solutions. Scott is a highly sought after author and expert for live security events, media appearances, and c...
Jul 08, 2020•47 min•Ep. 20
Many of us have seen James Veitch’s comedic YouTube videos of him interacting with email scammers. Today’s guest shares how he helps real-world victims of those scams and he has participated in taking down criminal enterprises. Wayne May is the owner of scamsurvivors.com . He began as a scam baiter in 2005 before concentrating and helping the victims of scams. Scam Survivors was created in 2012 by Wayne along with a small group of like-minded volunteers. He has appeared in the media worldwide as...
Jul 01, 2020•31 min•Ep. 19
Accounting doesn’t sound like a sexy career choice. How about forensic accounting and getting to work with the FBI and Secret Service? Now that’s getting interesting. White-collar crime is typically committed by business or government professionals that engage in fraud, insider trader, embezzlement, or cybercrime. It can destroy companies, individuals, and families. What happens when a murder occurs during these cases? Richard Brody is a professor and chair of the accounting department at the An...
Jun 24, 2020•35 min•Ep. 18
Have you ever wondered what strange things a digital forensic investigator has to dig through? Listen to this episode to find out. Our guest for this episode is Jake Moore. Jake Moore is a cybersecurity specialist for ESET, Europe’s number one internet security and anti-virus company. Jake previously worked in the police force for 14 years investigating cybercrime in the Digital Forensics Unit and Cyber Crime Team in Dorset. In 2016, he was asked to implement cybersecurity advisers in order to m...
Jun 17, 2020•42 min•Ep. 17
I have always been curious as to why so many people fall for scams. What are some of the consistent elements that scammers use to hook us? In this episode, we find out. We talk about the different psychological tactics scammers use to successfully scam their victims. Our guest for this episode is Dr. Stacey Wood. Dr. Wood is a clinical neuropsychologist and full Professor of Psychology at Scripps College in Claremont, California. She is an expert on a number of issues related to neuropsychology ...
Jun 10, 2020•37 min•Ep. 16
Have you ever wondered how hackers find vulnerabilities and how companies can find and fix their own? You will find out today! On average 30,000 new websites are hacked every day. Our guest for this episode is James Kettle. James is the Director of Research at PortSwigger Web Security where he explores new ways to attack websites and designs and refines vulnerability detection techniques for the Burp Suites scanner. James shares his hacking experience and hard work helping companies keep their w...
Jun 03, 2020•29 min•Ep. 15
You have probably heard of multi-level marketing also called MLM or network marketing. A multi-level marketing company is a company that recruits people to sell their products to their network including their friends and family. Network marketers typically buy inventory and then try to sell it. They can also recruit people underneath them and create a triangular shape in which they can collect commissions on the people underneath them who are also making sales. Casey Bond is a certified personal...
May 27, 2020•17 min•Ep. 14
Workplace bullying and violence seldom happens in a vacuum but rather are led up to with warning signs and events. In this episode, I talk with Timothy Dimoff about workplace bullying and violence. Workplace bullying is usually not physical, but it is ongoing. We talk about steps you can take if you are a victim of workplace bullying and ways to prevent it from the very beginning. Timothy Dimoff is president of SACS Consulting and Investigative Services, a high-risk HR and security consulting an...
May 20, 2020•29 min•Ep. 13
Just because something is secure, doesn’t mean that it’s safe. The S in HTTPS doesn’t always mean safe. In this episode, I talk with Casey Crane about trust and encryption. We discussed many practical ways for you to avoid being a victim of a scam. Prevention and knowledge can help stop many attacks before they even begin. Casey Crane is a cybersecurity writer for Hashed Out at The SSL Store. Casey is a regular contributor to Hashed Out with 10+ years of experience in journalism and writing, inc...
May 13, 2020•33 min•Ep. 12
School districts, health care organizations, cities, and towns have all been victims of ransomware. Families have lost access to photo albums of 20 years of memories and personal finances. It can be a very devastating experience. It is very scary to not be able to do your job or access your data. Now attackers are not only threatening to delete your data, but they are also threatening to leak the data. This can cause lawsuits, legal ramifications, and a huge headache for businesses large and sma...
May 06, 2020•46 min•Ep. 11
Identity theft comes in many forms. Children and adults can be victims of identity theft. Each year there are over 9 million identity victims. 1 million of these victims are minor children. The worst part is that we often don’t notice a problem until we need to buy a car, house, or get a college loan. The clean-up process can be costly and time-consuming. Dana Mantilia is the founder of Identity Protection Planning . Dana grew up in the car business. She was running and still oversees her family...
Apr 29, 2020•25 min•Ep. 10
Website attacks are very common. They are often not personal, but they can create a mess for website operators. As website owners and operators, we need website privacy and security especially if we are collecting data and personal information. As I was making more money from my business in 2015, the need for better performance became an issue. I also needed to be able to keep my site up 24/7 and not have to deal with outages. My website started getting sustained 500-bit denial service attacks. ...
Apr 22, 2020•35 min•Ep. 9
