On Hacking Humans, Dave Bittner, Joe Carrigan, and Maria Varmazis (also host of N2K's daily space podcast, T-Minus), are once again sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines to help our audience become aware of what is out there. This week, the team shares follow up about FEMA and Hurricane Helene relief. Dave's story is about romance scams involving an impersonator of a WWE star scamming a grandfather out of their...

Enjoy this encore episode. A security architecture that incorporates the cloud shared responsibility model, a vendor provided security stack, an SD-WAN abstraction layer, and network peering with one or more of the big content providers and their associated fiber networks.

Maria Varmazis, host of N2K's daily space show T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe to share the story of the five types of social engineers Deanne Lewis encountered while tending bar, revealing how each barroom personality reflects a common cybersecurity threat. Our hosts share some follow-up from a friend of the show, JJ, who reports a rise in tech support scams targeting non-tech-savvy users by locking their screens and persuading them to call scammers, often leading to credit card fraud and...

Welcome in! You’ve entered, Only Malware in the Building. Join us each month to sip tea and solve mysteries about today’s most interesting threats. Your host is Selena Larson, Proofpoint intelligence analyst and host of their podcast DISCARDED. Inspired by the residents of a building in New York’s exclusive upper west side, Selena is joined by N2K Networks Dave Bittner and Rick Howard to uncover the stories behind notable cyberattacks.  Being a security researcher is a bit like being a...

Enjoy this encore episode.  The practice of emulating known adversary behavior against an organization's actual defensive posture.

Happy Halloween from the team at N2K Networks! We hope you share in our Halloween tradition of listening to the Malware Mash. You can check out our video here. Lyrics I was coding in the lab late one night when my eyes beheld an eerie sight  for my malware threat score began to rise  and suddenly to my surprise... It did the Mash  It did the Malware Mash  The Malware Mash  It was a botnet smash  It did the Mash  It caught on 'cause of Flash  The Malware Mash  It did the Malware...

Maria Varmazis, host of N2K's daily space show T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe to share the story of a relentless wave of political donation texts that go well beyond simple annoyance, revealing an unsettling impact on vulnerable populations. CNN's investigation exposes how these texts, with their urgent and personal tone, have led seniors, including those with dementia, to make thousands of donations—sometimes unknowingly amassing hundreds of thousands of dollars for campaigns. Joe's story...

Please enjoy this encore episode of Word Notes. A layer seven security orchestration platform deployed at the boundary between internal workloads slash data storage and untrusted sources that blocks incoming and outgoing network traffic with rules that tie applications to the authenticated user and provides most of the traditional security stack functions in one device or software application.

Maria Varmazis, host of N2K's daily space show T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe to share the story of how ESET Research revealed that Telekopye, a scam toolkit used by cybercriminals, has expanded its operations from online marketplaces to accommodation booking platforms like Booking.com and Airbnb. Joe’s story is on the elaborate "blessing scam" targeting older Chinese women, where scammers pose as spiritual healers to swindle victims out of their valuables by convincing them their loved ones are...

Please enjoy this encore of Word Notes. A network designed to obfuscate the location of a cyber adversary's command and control server by manipulating the domain name system, or DNS, in a way that rotates the associated IP address among large numbers of compromised hosts in a botnet.

Maria Varmazis, host of N2K's daily space show T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe to share the story of how cybercriminals are exploiting the chaos following Hurricane Helene in Florida by launching scams and phishing attacks. Veriti’s research highlights three key threats: FEMA claim scams, phishing using hurricane-related domains, and malicious files disguised as FEMA documents, all targeting vulnerable individuals. This week, Joe's got three hard-hitting stories lined up! First, U.S. authorities...

Thinking past the US 2024 Presidential Election, In part three of the series, Rick Howard, N2K CyberWire’s Chief Analyst and Senior Fellow, discusses reducing the impact of propaganda in the future elections with Perry Carpenter, Chief Human Risk Management Strategist at KnowBe4 and host of the 8th Layer Insights Podcast, Nina Jankowicz, Co-Founder and CEO of the The American Sunlight Project, and Scott Small, Director of Cyber Threat Intelligence at Tidal Cyber. Check out Part 1 &...

Enjoy this Word Notes encore. The process of converting plain text into an unrecognizable form or secret code to hide its true meaning.

Maria Varmazis, host of N2K's daily space show T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe to share the story of a South Carolina couple, and how they were devastated to discover their vacant land in Concord, Massachusetts was fraudulently sold by thieves who posed as them, with the new owners already building a home on the property, prompting a lawsuit and an FBI investigation. Our hosts share some follow-up on two intriguing listener contributions. John blocks Google ads using NextDNS, which catches ad...

In preparation for the US 2024 Presidential Election, Rick Howard, N2K CyberWire’s Chief Analyst and Senior Fellow, discusses recent international propaganda efforts in the form of nation state interference and influence operations as well as domestic campaigns designed to split the target country into opposing camps. Guests include Nina Jankowicz, Co-Founder and CEO of the The American Sunlight Project and Scott Small, Director of Cyber Threat Intelligence at Tidal Cyber. References: Scott...

Please enjoy this encore episode of Word Notes. Software or hardware that records the computer keys pressed by a user. 

Rick Howard, N2K CyberWire’s Chief Analyst and Senior Fellow, discusses personal defensive measures that an average citizen, regardless of political philosophy, can take in order to not succumb to propaganda. References: David Ehl, 2024. Why Meta is now banning Russian propaganda [News]. Deutsche Welle. Jeff Berman, Renée DiResta, 2023. Disinformation & How To Combat It [Interview]. Youtube. Niha Masih, 2024. Meta bans Russian state media outlet RT for acts of ‘foreign interference’...

Welcome, witches, wizards, and cybersecurity sleuths! You’ve entered, Only Malware in the Building. Join us each month to brew potions of knowledge and crack the curses of today’s most intriguing cyber mysteries. Your host is Selena Larson, Proofpoint intelligence analyst and host of their podcast DISCARDED. Inspired by the residents of a building in New York’s exclusive upper west side, Selena is joined by N2K Networks Dave Bittner and Rick Howard to uncover the stories behind notable...

Enjoy this encore of Word Notes. Digital assets that are cryptographically protected on a blockchain and contain unique identification codes and metadata that makes them one of a kind.

It's all in the details, folks. Pay attention to those and you can avoid unnecessary stress. Dave Bittner, Maria Varmazis, and Joe Carrigan swap stories on email password-stealing attacks, Google ads scams, and fake banks this week. The team shares follow up from listener Steven from the UK about the hazards of shoulder surfing when they received their new debit card with all PII on the same side of the card. A friend of the show JJ shared a story and a warning about fake checks. Never accept...

Enjoy this special encore episode. The use of two or more verification methods to gain access to an account.

This week, Dave and Joe share some listener follow-up from Clayton about credit card fraud and the potential issues with automatic update services that some cards provide. Dave's story is on sextortion scams targeting spouses, where scammers claim a partner is cheating and provide links to fake "proof." Joe has two stories this week, the first one is on how Police in Lebanon County arrested an alleged grandparent scammer after a sting operation. Joe's second story is on scam victims being...

Enjoy this special encore episode. A programming technique where the developer doesn't specify each step of the algorithm in code, but instead teaches the algorithm to learn from the experience.

Maria Varmazis, host of N2K's daily space show T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe to share the story on the "Hello pervert" sextortion scam, where scammers now use threats of Pegasus spyware and photos of victims' homes to intensify their demands. We have quite a bit of follow-up today. Scott from Australia shared how self-service checkouts now display scam warnings when purchasing gift cards to prevent fraud. Jim highlighted a vulnerability in YubiKey encryption libraries that allows key cloning...