N2K Networks

Hacking Humans

News EN ↓ 821 episodes

Deception, influence, and social engineering in the world of cyber crime.

Be sure to visit the podcast's website and support the creator: thecyberwire.com

Author

N2K Networks

Category

News

Podcast website

thecyberwire.com

Latest episode

Oct 22, 2026

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Episodes

How scammers weave deception into everyday life. 22.08.2024

Maria Varmazis host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe to share her story on how AI-generated scams have infiltrated the world of crochet and other crafts, selling fake patterns that often result in impossible or frustrating projects. Dave's story is on the rise of "digital arrest" scams in India, where criminals posing as law enforcement officers coerce victims into making p...

decryption (noun) [Word Notes] 20.08.2024

Enjoy this special encore of Word Notes. A process of converting encrypted data into something that a human or computer can understand.

Navigating dark waters and deceptive currents. 15.08.2024

Maria Varmazis host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe to share her story from listener Chloe, who shared a post she found on a social media platformed called "Bluesky," where a company is asking for photos and videos of your children to help AI smarter. Our hosts share some listener follow up on how a scammer impersonated a government official to deceive a woman into convert...

denial-of-service attack (noun) [Word Notes] 13.08.2024

Enjoy this encore episode: A cyber attack designed to impair or eliminate access to online services or data.

Phishing for votes. 08.08.2024

Maria Varmazis host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus, joins Dave to share her story on how recent research by security firm Veriti reveals a phishing campaign targeting Trump’s 2024 supporters, soliciting cryptocurrency donations through fake WinRed-branded domains, with limited transactions and some activity traced to China. Dave and Maria share some follow-up from a listener, including sugge...

AI: The new partner in cybercrime? [OMITB] 06.08.2024

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 t...

cold boot attack (noun) [Word Notes] 06.08.2024

Please enjoy this special encore episode of Word Notes. A type of side channel attack in which an attacker with physical access to a computer performs a memory dump of a computer’s Random Access Memory or RAM during the reboot process in order to steal sensitive data. 

This is 300! 01.08.2024

This week we celebrate 300 episodes! Maria Varmazis host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe and shares a PSA on the CrowdStrike outage. Her story focuses on the Olympics, as this was the first week the Olympics started, and she shares about a recent fraud campaign that is targeting iPhone users in India, posing as India Post through smishing attacks. Our hosts discuss some fo...

Encore: cloud computing (noun) [Word Notes] 30.07.2024

On-demand pay-as-you-go Internet delivered compute, storage, infrastructure, and security services that are partially managed by the cloud provider and partially managed by the customer.

Healthcare hassles and hefty heists. 25.07.2024

This week, Maria Varmazis host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe, as they celebrate Maria joining the Hacking Humans podcast every week! Maria's story is from a listener this week who writes in with a story on an IT company that is a third party for a healthcare company, and the dangers that can come from that. Dave and Joe share some listener follow up from Michael, who sha...

Encore: APT (noun) [Word Notes] 23.07.2024

An acronym for Advanced Persistent Threat to describe hacker groups or campaigns normally, but not always, associated with nation state cyber espionage and continuous low-level cyber conflict operations.

Welcome to a new age in digital deception. 18.07.2024

This week, Maria Varmazis host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus, joins Dave and Joe, as they celebrate Maria joining the Hacking Humans podcast every week! Maria's story is on supplement scams, as there has been a significant surge in health-related supplement scams on social media platforms, utilizing advanced technologies like AI-generated images and deepfake videos to promote fake products...

Encore: backdoor (noun) [Word Notes] 16.07.2024

An undocumented or publicly unknown method to access a computer system undetected or to break a cypher used to encode messages.

The costly consequences of communication scams. 11.07.2024

This week Dave shares a story on Business email compromise (BEC) scams, and how they are a major threat, costing $26 billion annually. The story shares how it's crucial for employees to verify suspicious emails through a secondary channel and for companies to foster transparent communication to mitigate such risks. Joe shares two stories with us this week. The first is from a listener named Jay, w...

Encore: watering hole attack (noun) [Word Notes] 09.07.2024

From the intrusion kill chain model, a technique where the hacker compromises sites commonly visited by members of a targeted community in order to deliver a malicious payload to the intended victim.

Encore: AI versus AI. 04.07.2024

Blair Cohen from AuthenticID joins Dave to discuss how generative AI and authentication go hand in hand. Joe and Dave share some follow up from listener Robert who discusses an ad for a device that uses ChatGPT to record phone calls on your device. Dave helps his dad out with his computer and shares the tale. Dave also shares a story this week on the FBI warning against scammers who are posing as...

Operation Endgame: The ultimate troll patrol. [Only Malware in the Building] 02.07.2024

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 t...

Encore: network telescope (noun) [Word Notes] 02.07.2024

Network observation systems designed to monitor globally unreachable but unused Internet address space or the Deep Web in order to study a wide range of interesting Internet phenomena.

Public pianos and private scams. 27.06.2024

This week Joe and Dave share some interesting follow up from a few episodes ago where Dave shared his love for baby grand pianos and how scammers we're using that to lure people into traps. Listener George wrote in to share about a show on UK Channel 4, called "The Piano," it's a music competition where visitors play a public piano in a train station, judged by hidden famous pianists, with winners...

Encore: SOC Triad (noun) [Word Notes] 25.06.2024

A best practice for framing cyber intelligence critical information requirements that recommends collecting and consolidating data from three specific sources: endpoint, network and log.

From dark shadows to main stage. 20.06.2024

Brandon Kovacs, a Senior Red Team Consultant at Bishop Fox, is talking about how Artificial Intelligence is shaping the future of social engineering. Listener Adina wrote in to share their thoughts on an earlier episode on Google. Dave share's listener Tony's write in for his story this week. Joe and Dave discuss some questions Tony shared about preparing for an overseas trip when his bank account...

Encore: supply chain attacks (noun) [Word Notes] 18.06.2024

Also known as a third-party attack or a value-chain attack, advisory groups gain access to a targeted victims network by first infiltrating a business partner's network that has access to the victim's systems or data.

False flags and fake voices. 13.06.2024

This week we are joined by Maria Varmazis, host of the N2K daily space show, T-Minus. Maria's story covers the escalating efforts of pro-Russian propagandists to tarnish the Paris Summer Olympics and erode Western support for Ukraine, employing bold tactics like using AI to mimic Tom Cruise's voice. Joe and Dave share quite a bit of listener follow up, the first on is regarding the AirBnB story fr...

Encore: taint analysis (noun) [Word Notes] 11.06.2024

The process of software engineers checking the flow of user input in application code to determine if unanticipated input can affect program execution in malicious ways.

Spotting social engineering in the shadows. 06.06.2024

This week, we are joined by Dr. Chris Pierson CEO at Black Cloak, and he is talking about some of the social engineering attacks his team is tracking. Joe's story follows how Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed the financially motivated cybercriminal group Storm-1811 misusing the client management tool Quick Assist in social engineering attacks. Dave share's the story of the lure of a free...

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