Question: What happens when you try to make money off an international crisis by posing as a former Navy signals intelligence guy? Answer: Not much. Just back from Ukraine, Malcolm Nance is a high profile legionnaire, which made him a target for scammers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
No deep fake here. This week, Al Franken does his own impersonations of Bernie Sanders, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, Sherrod Brown and Susan Collins in this mock Senate Hearing featuring Siri (played by the actual voice-over talent Susan Bennett) and Al’s fellow SNL alum Laraine Newman playing the part of Alexa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jennifer Kraus knows her way around the world, and is not an easy target for scammers, which is why they targeted her mother. Scams these days slip and slide from analog to digital. The one that we’re talking about today cost about $1000. It arrived via snail mail and email to the same home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You have heard us talk about two-factor authentication, and if you’re not using it wherever possible you should be. Having said that, hackers know how to get around it these days. In this episode, cybersecurity professional Adam Burley is back to tell us the story of a hacked C-suite client whose situation was more sophisticated than it seemed at first. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Philippa’s business software wasn’t working right, so she Googled for tech support and called the first number listed. Almost immediately, hackers were in her computer looking for sensitive data. This week we explore a new attack vector: online ads and business listings used as lures for unsuspecting victims, and how to avoid getting “got” by them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
WTH superfan Fumiko dated a sniper she met on the triathlon circuit who was not awesome and left her with questions that Oprah could have answered with great aplomb, but she asked us because, well… We don’t know. But we’re super grateful to have a superfan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Penetration testing may sound a little skeevy, but it is a term of art in the security business. Physical penetration testing….well. Deviant Ollam is a big name in that world with well-documented adventures in getting into places that are supposed to be, well, impenetrable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week Beau goes on a road trip to the Big House in Michigan where he ran afoul of a parking scam outside the third-largest sports arena in the world. We’re going to have to call this one a limited bandwidth / zero available parking scam. Check it out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you have never listened to Chris Hutchins explain how to get free travel, you’ve probably been paying too much for your vacations. Turns out, a threat actor was listening to him and stole his miles. Download this week’s episode to hear how he hacked the situation to score even more points. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Red Queen Dynamics founder Tarah Wheeler knows a thing or two about smashing norms in the cybersecurity industry. But as a human being, she also has some experience being compromised. You’ll definitely want to tune in as she tells us about her own goal as a cybersecurity executive, and how she practices cybersecurity in her own life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Joelle was on the launch team for the What the Hack podcast, so she knows a thing or two about scams. But when her credit card was hit for thousands of dollars, even we didn’t know what happened–that is, until Travis figured it out (sort of). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Investigative journalist and podcaster Andrew Gold talked to us before about the way magicians work. His second appearance on the show explores a more serious topic. This is not an easy listen, but Germany’s controversial approach to potential sex offenders raises some privacy and ethics issues that are central to the topics we discuss on WTH. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Caitlin Brodnick hosts the ScamWow podcast where she talks about what we talk about, and she has a must-listen podcast. When she’s not in front of a microphone, she spends a lot of time trying to figure out if Reality TV is actually real. Here’s what we found out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
All Dara Starr Tucker wanted was an affordable place to live not quite in the center of things–a place to breathe easy. When she found what looked to be a dream rental for a third of her budget, she was excited, but when she got there her Spidey-sense told her to run. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When it comes to privacy, Ann Cavoukian is a legend. She created Privacy by Design during her tenure as Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, which landed her in the upper echelon of cybersecurity peeps. And she’s Raffi’s sister! Check it out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you followed the news in the early 2000s, you probably remember the ShadowCrew cybercrime group. Brett Johnson rolled with them. These days he’s on the right side of the law, helping people avoid getting hacked, scammed and otherwise crimed… You don’t want to miss this one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Looking for the blue checkmark on Instagram is the easiest way for consumers to tell if they are dealing with a cloned account, but it’s not so easy to get. The site provides crucial exposure to creatives of all stripe. The problem is scammers are everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Rudy Shepherd was not used to selling his own work online. He had a gallery for that. But when the relationship with that gallery ended, he had to fend for himself, giving new meaning to the phrase, “learning on the job.” Listen in as he takes us on a tour of the Zelle hell with a scammer who knew just what to say. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There are tens of millions of small and medium-size businesses in the United States alone, and depending on their state incorporation, many are in danger of business identity theft. Andy Pham is an American hero by many standards, for sure with regard to the right to become wildly successful. He’s truly living the American Dream. Having grown up in Communist Vietnam for the first ten years of his life, his mom sent him to the United States where she believed he would have a better life and avoid...
Time flies when you’re having fun talking to people from all walks of life about getting scammed, hacked or otherwise cyberbamboozled. It seems like yesterday that we launched What the Hack with Adam Levin, but, this week marks our first anniversary! With highlights and noteworthy moments, our anniversary show is like a chocolate sampler, minus the gross ones with orange jelly that Travis likes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Michelle Waters was a middle school teacher before getting into the teaching tools business, so she has nerves of steel. But when her Facebook account was misappropriated and badly misused, she learned that even veteran teachers have a melting point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Covid-19 pandemic put millions of people out of work and put billions of dollars in unemployment benefits up for grabs. What was a lifeline for the unemployed became a goldmine for scammers. In this episode, the scammer sometimes rings twice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Social engineering is still a new term for some people. We break it down in this episode by focusing on how reporters and magicians use it. (Get it? There’s a trick involved!) Check out this wide-ranging conversation with journalist Andrew Gold that covers shamans, a classic girlfriend’s mother tale and nose picking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You may have a little deja vu since Beau is constantly trying to get scammed, but in this episode, Adam, Beau and Travis talk about the scams they’ve stared down in the past–and of course Beau talks about the scam he fell for. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
An ugly divorce becomes fertile ground for an ex’s hacking skills as Hope is persistently compromised by forgotten backdoors to old devices and even a secret dressing-room camera. Hear how he kept getting in and what you can do if you’re worried about cyberstalkers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ever wonder if your phone was listening to you? Have you stared at one of your smart home cameras and got the vibe that you were in the first act of a horror movie? Well, this episode proves that the worst you can imagine is just one bad relationship away! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Adam was a guest on the Date/Able podcast recently, and he had a lot of fun. With a head full of “The Tinder Swindler,” he invited them to be guests on What the Hack to discuss something near and dear to our hearts: Gutting faux-meo catphishers for fun and whatever the opposite of not-losing money and precious time looks like for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jeff Williams has been on the cybersecurity beat before it had a name. Currently the Global Head of Security at Avast, Jeff was working the ramparts at Microsoft in the mid-oughts when he was tasked with bombing the botnets and making spam email a thing of the past. Your inbox reveals the outcome, but the journey will make you safer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Retired Secret Service Chief of Staff Brian Ebert is back to talk about the time two Romanian hackers accidentally hit security cameras with ransomware that were monitoring the inauguration of Donald Trump. Hear how a sketchy Amazon vendor selling smoking guns (the culinary kind) led the Secret Service to the hackers days before the inauguration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ConsumerMan Herb Weisbaum is a veteran protector of all things scammable. On this week’s episode, he joined us to talk about crypto scams. If you invest in crypto you might want to check your accounts to make sure your dough's still there, because there are a lot of ways for it to go walkabout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
