I'm a scammer and need support.

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hacking Humans – "I'm a Scammer and Need Support"

Episode Information:

• Title: I'm a Scammer and Need Support
• Host/Author: N2K Networks
• Release Date: February 20, 2025
• Description: Delving into deception, influence, and social engineering within the realm of cybercrime.

---

1. Listener Support Request for Scam Victims

Timestamp: [01:21] – [09:01]

The episode opens with host Dave Buettner addressing a listener named Dave who reached out for assistance after his friend fell victim to a sophisticated scam. The scam involved a "dream job" deception that resulted in a loss of $70,000. Joe Kerrigan emphasizes the intelligence of victims, stating:

"Your friend did not fall for this because he was stupid, but because he is human and these guys exploited that."
— Joe Kerrigan [01:46]

Maria Varmazes and Joe discuss the availability of support groups, highlighting organizations like AARP and fightcybercrime.org, which offer resources for scam victims. They underscore the traumatic impact of such scams and the importance of having platforms for victims to share their experiences and receive support.

Notable Quote:

"There needs to be a support group for people who've lost money. This is something that needs to be done."
— Joe Kerrigan [08:55]

---

2. High-Stakes Cyber Fraud: Arizona Laptop Farmer

Timestamp: [12:06] – [18:37]

Maria Varmazes presents a compelling story from El Reg Jessica Lyons at The Register, detailing the case of Christina Marie Chapman. Chapman pleaded guilty to orchestrating a laptop farm that funneled $17 million to Kim Jong Un through North Korean cyber operations. This elaborate scheme provided North Korean hackers with credible US-based IP addresses to apply for jobs at major US companies, thereby bypassing standard security measures.

Key Points:

• Scope of Fraud: Over 300 US companies affected, including Fortune 500 giants.
• Methods Used: Deepfake technology, identity theft, and data exfiltration.
• Impact: Generated over $6.8 million for overseas IT workers and caused significant financial and reputational damage to multiple industries.

Notable Quote:

"The conspiracy perpetrated a staggering fraud on a multitude of industries at the expense of generally unknowing U.S. companies and persons."
— Maria Varmazes [13:12]

---

3. The Rise of Romance Scams and AI Manipulation

Timestamp: [19:19] – [27:03]

Dave Buettner introduces an article by Lily Hayne Newman at Wired titled "The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis." The discussion focuses on the increasing prevalence of romance scams and how scammers are leveraging AI to enhance their deceptive tactics.

Techniques Highlighted:

• Love Bombing: Excessive praise and affection to build rapid emotional connections.

  "Love bombing is really common with cults where they will find someone who is in a state of emotional weakness."
  — Dave Buettner [20:53]

• Financial Manipulation: Scammers mention money problems without directly asking for help, prompting victims to offer assistance out of goodwill.

• Use of AI: Organized crime groups employ AI to generate personalized scripts, enabling real-time, multilingual conversations that appear authentic.

Psychological Impact:

• Victims, especially those experiencing loneliness, often struggle to accept the deceit, making it extremely challenging to convince them of the scam's reality.

Notable Quote:

"Victims, especially the ones who are experiencing loneliness, often struggle to accept that the romance is fake."
— Dave Buettner [26:33]

---

4. Recent Scam Incidents and Innovations

Timestamp: [28:00] – [34:37]

Joe Kerrigan shares two intriguing scam stories:

1. IRS Phishing Attempts:

   • Both hosts received identical phishing texts impersonating the IRS, utilizing slight variations in URLs to deceive recipients.
   • Quote:

     "These guys are just out there running this scam with new domains all the time."
     — Joe Kerrigan [29:19]

2. Walmart Self-Checkout Fraud:

   • A thief used a barcode ring to scam Walmart self-checkout systems, registering expensive items like grills at minimal costs.
   • The scammer was eventually caught when trying to make a significant purchase, leading to felony burglary charges.
   • Quote:

     "He got greedy, paid the $0.70 blender and then drove out."
     — Joe Kerrigan [30:27]

Discussion:

• Dave explains the technical safeguards in self-checkout systems, such as weight verification, which typically prevent such frauds.
• The hosts humorously note the challenges of executing these scams without triggering security measures.

---

5. Legislative Advances: Australia’s Anti-Scam Laws

Timestamp: [35:07] – [38:10]

Joe Kerrigan brings attention to significant anti-scam legislation being developed in Australia, as reported by Kat Wong at Aap. The new laws aim to:

• Impose Hefty Fines: Businesses could face fines up to $50 million for failing to implement robust scam defenses.
• Ensure Victim Compensation: Victims will have clearer pathways to seek compensation for their losses.
• Regulatory Requirements:

  • Banks: Must verify the identities of payees to prevent fraudulent transfers.

    "Banks are going to have to confirm the payee identities for people..."
    — Joe Kerrigan [35:12]

  • Telecommunications Companies: Required to detect and disrupt scam numbers proactively.

  • Social Media and Big Tech: Obligated to validate advertisers to ensure legitimate ad placements.

Implications:

• While the legislation is localized to Australia, it could serve as a model for global anti-scam regulations, potentially influencing policies in other countries, including the US.

Notable Quote:

"Businesses could be fined up to $50 million if they do not maintain strong scam defenses."
— Joe Kerrigan [35:12]

---

6. Catch of the Day: Humorous Scambait Exchange

Timestamp: [38:38] – [41:16]

The hosts engage in a light-hearted scambait exchange, parodying the iconic interactions between Hannibal Lecter and his victims. Through this segment, they humorously demonstrate how scammers might initiate conversations, highlighting the absurdity and danger of such interactions.

Excerpt:

Dave Buettner as "Alexander": "I was thinking I would pair your liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti."
Maria Varmazes as "Jane":
"Sorry, I accidentally messaged you because I saved the wrong number."
Joe Kerrigan:
"I think I'll eat your heart."

Conclusion:

• The segment serves to entertain while subtly educating listeners about the nature of scam communications, urging vigilance and skepticism.

---

Conclusion and Takeaways

• Support Systems Are Crucial: The need for robust support groups for scam victims, extending beyond older demographics to include younger individuals and diverse age groups.

• Evolving Scamming Techniques: Scammers are increasingly sophisticated, utilizing AI and deepfake technologies to bypass security measures and exploit emotional vulnerabilities.

• Legal Measures as a Deterrent: Progressive legislation, such as Australia’s new anti-scam laws, can significantly impact the effectiveness of scam prevention and victim support.

• Vigilance is Key: Awareness of common scam tactics, such as love bombing and financial manipulation, is essential in preventing victimization.

Final Notable Quote:

"If somebody starts giving me a lot of compliments, I'm immediately suspicious."
— Joe Kerrigan [23:20]

---

For More Information:

• To delve deeper into the topics discussed, references to articles from The Washington Post and Wired, as well as resources for scam victim support groups, are available in the show notes.

Stay Informed and Safe!

Transcript

[Maria Varmazes]

You're listening to the Cyberwire Network, powered by N2K.

[Dave Buettner]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to N2K, CyberWire's 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 Buettner, and joining me is Joe Kerrigan. Hey, Joe.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Hi, Dave.

[Dave Buettner]

And our N2K colleague and host of the T Minus Space Daily podcast, Maria Vermazes. Maria.

[Maria Varmazes]

Hi, Dave. And hi, Joe.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Hello, Maria.

[Dave Buettner]

We've got some good stories to share this week, and we will be right back after this message from our show sponsor. And now a few thoughts from our sponsors. At ThreatLocker, the tactics used by cybercriminals are becoming more and more advanced every day. The shift from a default allow approach to a default deny is more critical than ever. This is where ThreatLocker comes in. Stay tuned for how ThreatLocker allow listing and ring fencing has your back. All right, we are back and we have some follow up. Joe, what do we got?

[Joe Kerrigan]

We do. Dave, another Dave wrote in with a request for help. He says, hello, Dave. Joe, I hope you're well, or at least better than a good friend of mine who fell victim to a dream job scam via social engineering. Lost about $70,000. Oh, yeah, that's terrible. My friend is very intelligent, but having listened to most of your podcasts, I know that very well that no one is immune to these scumbags.

[Maria Varmazes]

Exactly.

[Joe Kerrigan]

That is 100% correct. Your friend did not fall for this because he was stupid, but because he is human and. And these guys exploited that. Remember, these people that do this are the bad guys, not the victims. I'm reaching out to you in the hope that you can recommend a scam victim support group. I'm helping my friend understand what happened to them and how common it is. But what they require is immediately is some people to talk to. We're in Australia. I'm currently going through every bit of information they have collected concerning the scam and looking into it all for them doing the investigation. Are you aware of any groups for scam victims?

[Dave Buettner]

Yes.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Okay.

[Dave Buettner]

And I'll have a link in the show notes for a article that the Washington Post did on this very topic on scam victim support groups, and there are many of them out there. I don't know specifically about Australia, but I would imagine this being the era that it is, that probably a lot of them take place online. I understand. You know, time of day between the US And Australia can Be challenging, but I suspect there are local groups as well, but specifically here in the US aarp, which is the. What is it? American association of Retired People. Is that what it is?

[Maria Varmazes]

Retired person.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Retired persons, yes.

[Dave Buettner]

Got it. Got it. Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Now it's just aarp. They took that out.

[Dave Buettner]

Oh, okay.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Because once you turn 50, they start sending you the mail.

[Dave Buettner]

Yes.

[Maria Varmazes]

I started getting it at 29, if that makes anyone feel better.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Really? That somehow does actually make me feel a little bit better.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. You know, when I was. When I was like, you know, 30s, coming around the bend and I get the AARP letter, I'm like someone playing a sick joke.

[Dave Buettner]

Okay? You're just an old soul, Maria.

[Joe Kerrigan]

That's what it is.

[Maria Varmazes]

I've been accused of that before.

[Dave Buettner]

I got them. Yeah, I definitely started getting them around 50. And anyway, they go right in the.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Trash, don't they, Dave?

[Dave Buettner]

Well, you know what? I've also learned that I want to say at like, 55, you can start getting discounts at 50 fast food places. Some places will give you discounts, so I'm not too proud for that.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, yeah. What's the senior discount? I do know this for a fact, that if you go into a Roy Rogers, there's not that many of them left. But if you go into the Roy Rogers with a cowboy hat on and ask for the cowboy hat discount, you will get one.

[Dave Buettner]

Really?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yep.

[Dave Buettner]

Totally you, Joe. Totally you.

[Maria Varmazes]

Jesus.

[Dave Buettner]

You know what? Stop. Okay? How did you find out about this? So how did you find. How did you learn about. Because here's what I'm about imagining. I'm imagining you turning into a Roy Rogers wearing your cowboy hat and saying, announcing proudly, hey, partner, can I have a cowboy?

[Maria Varmazes]

I want a video of this.

[Dave Buettner]

And the person behind the counter going, oh, for God's sake.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Well, you're very close. It's almost like you were there. Because that is exactly what happened. Because I. I do enjoy wearing a cowboy hat.

[Dave Buettner]

Yes.

[Maria Varmazes]

Do you really?

[Joe Kerrigan]

I do.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah. You look good in a cowboy hat. You can. Not everyone, like, I don't think I can pull off a cowboy hat, but I think you can.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And one of my favorite things, this particular cowboy hat is it's a working hat. So it's like one you wear when you're doing yard work.

[Dave Buettner]

Okay.

[Maria Varmazes]

Damn.

[Joe Kerrigan]

It prevents you from. Yeah, I. I actually have multiple cowboy hats.

[Maria Varmazes]

This is like a geek guy rule. It's the fedora. It's a bowler. A cowboy hat. You gotta have a hat.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right, the cowboy hat.

[Maria Varmazes]

I married a fedora guy.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So it's all right, well, that's my preferred distro of Linux, if that counts.

[Maria Varmazes]

You know, I walked right into the Linux. It's fine. It's fine.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So the reed cowboy hat, they're not expensive. You get it for less than 100 bucks and you wear it outside and like when you're about to pull on a branch and you start tapping the cowboy hat with your branch, you go, oh, that's a little close to my head. Don't want to pull on that. Or you can. It has saved me from bonking my head. It's almost as good as a hard hat. It provides a lot of warning. It doesn't provide any of the protection that a hard hat would provide, but it lets me know because my head's getting close. Exactly.

[Dave Buettner]

Which can also, if you're like walking on a trail, help with spider webs.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yep. It helps with. That helps with branches. It does a fantastic job of keeping the sun off your head.

[Dave Buettner]

So I walk in the White House. What a hatchet, please.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yep.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I walk in there and I've been doing some work. I was in Westminster. I don't know why I was up there, but I had my cowboy hat on. And I walk in and I'm like, there's a picture of Roy Rogers on the wall with a white cowboy hat. And I'm wearing my white reed cowboy hat. And I just look at the woman and go, can I get the white cowboy hat discount like Roy over here? And she goes, I can do that with a small.

[Maria Varmazes]

Is there a black hat discount?

[Joe Kerrigan]

I don't know. That's a good question.

[Dave Buettner]

You sold the place up.

[Joe Kerrigan]

That's right.

[Maria Varmazes]

Agree.

[Joe Kerrigan]

My other hat is a black hat. I have a white hat and a black hat.

[Maria Varmazes]

Of course, of course. The black hat discount is you just take it, Right?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah. I just walk in, give me the food, I leave.

[Dave Buettner]

Or you just help yourself to the Fixin's Bar like it's a salad bar.

[Maria Varmazes]

I'm a hacker. Don't mind me.

[Dave Buettner]

Pixels. No. Pickles and ketchup. Yeah, make yourself a pickles and ketchup salad.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

That is a black hat thing to do.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So the long, long end of the story is the AARP runs a couple of groups for runs, scam victim groups. There are also. I would imagine that if you're in Australia, there might be a similar organization for retired people that might have the same kind of thing. I don't know.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah. There's another organization I saw online, and I can't vouch for this, but they're called fightcybercrime.org and they have a romance scam recovery group. So, you know, obviously there's a need for this, and so there are folks out there who are doing it. So, you know, kudos for you, Dave, for being a good friend and trying to help your friend, because this is certainly traumatic, what they've gone through.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And $70,000 is a lot of money.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Joe Kerrigan]

But it is not unrecoverable. I mean, not. You can't. It's not. It depends, actually. It depends on how old your friend is and how much they have and what percentage they lost, you know, but this is not the end of everything. You can recover from this. So don't, you know, don't get disheartened, I guess. I mean, yes, this sucks. If I lost $70,000, I would be absolutely enraged. Yeah. You know, I'd be trying to find out where these guys are and buying.

[Maria Varmazes]

Plane tickets with your cowboy hat on.

[Joe Kerrigan]

With my cowboy hat on, I'd show up with my cowboy hat on.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

All right, partner.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. I think it's interesting that these groups that we've mention are all for pensioner age folks, but I think there need to be more groups. And I'm not saying this is anyone's fault, just I think we're gonna also see more groups for younger folks, because if you're still seeking employment or if you've been the victim of a romance scam and you're, I don't know, a teenager, which is happening a lot too.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Oh, yeah, it's awful. And there needs to be that support group for those teenagers because these boys are just. Are just killing themselves. Literally. Literally a lot of them. Horrible. Horrible when this happens. Yeah. Yeah. There needs to be a support group for this. For that in particular, there needs to be. There should be a support group for people who've lost money. This is. Yeah, it's something that needs to be done.

[Dave Buettner]

They're out there.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And they are out there, but, like.

[Maria Varmazes]

I didn't know of any. Yeah, I'm glad to be online. I appreciate that you both pointed it out because off top of my head, I wasn't aware of any. But there is a need, so.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah. Well, this article in the Washington Post has a number of sources here, so maybe that's a good place to start your journey. I will add, just to put a button on the Roy Rogers thing, that when I was about 8 or 9 years old, I was in a Roy Rogers TV commercial. No way. Yep. I got to meet Roy and Dale. Yep. Really?

[Maria Varmazes]

Who is Roy Rogers? I don't know.

[Dave Buettner]

Oh, my.

[Maria Varmazes]

Wow.

[Dave Buettner]

Wow. Oh, boy.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yikes.

[Dave Buettner]

Joe, what's the name of Roy Rogers? Horse Trigger. Trigger.

[Maria Varmazes]

Was that a trigger warning? Yeah.

[Dave Buettner]

Oh, my goodness. Well, Maria, you. You've got homework, my friend.

[Maria Varmazes]

Do I?

[Dave Buettner]

You have got some homework, if you choose to accept it. Roy Rogers was the most famous of the singing cowboys. So the generation of Joe. And my parents would have gone to weekly serial movies at their local movie theater. And my mom did this.

[Maria Varmazes]

So you pay at a nickelodeon, perhaps one might call it.

[Dave Buettner]

You'd go. You pay a nickel. You'd go to the movie theater and you'd see. And this is literally where the cliffhangers were. You know, every. They'd get in trouble and the movie would be at the end and there'd be a cliffhanger, and so you'd come back the next week. But Roy Rogers was one of the most famous of them, and he was a singing cowboy along with his wife, Dale, and.

[Maria Varmazes]

Wait, his wife's name was Dale?

[Dave Buettner]

Dale Evans?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Was her name Dale Evans?

[Dave Buettner]

Yep.

[Maria Varmazes]

Okay.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah, yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

Forgive me. I'm an immigrant's kid. Anything from before my time, I would.

[Dave Buettner]

And they're sang a song called Happy Trails.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Happy Trails.

[Maria Varmazes]

I've heard that song in my life.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah, that's Roy Rogers.

[Maria Varmazes]

I just lack any cultural contacts in the United States before a certain year. So. I'm sorry, I'm just like. It's blank.

[Dave Buettner]

Well, I tell you, it was a thrill for my mother to meet Roy Rogers in person. So that was the best thing about that day.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And the restaurants are concentrated mostly here in Maryland. Maryland. We are fortunate to live in the state with the most Roy Rogers restaurants.

[Maria Varmazes]

Why do you know that?

[Joe Kerrigan]

I read the Wikipedia article. I don't know. You're getting into something I love.

[Dave Buettner]

He gets a cowboy hat discount. Why wouldn't he know this?

[Maria Varmazes]

I mean, but, like, do you know that. That Marilyn has the most, like. Why is that, like, a thing in your pocket that you have.

[Joe Kerrigan]

It's 22.

[Dave Buettner]

I mean, he doesn't wanna.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I just read the Wikipedia article, like, two weeks ago.

[Maria Varmazes]

Okay. It's like, I have no idea how many Dunkin Donuts are in Massachusetts. I really don't. Like, I feel like I should know that now.

[Dave Buettner]

Well, Joe gets itchy if he's more than a certain number of miles away from Roy Rogers.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So get the old Double R bar.

[Dave Buettner]

All right?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Pickles and barbecue.

[Dave Buettner]

Let's move on. So thank you, Dave, for writing in. We do appreciate it. What a rat hole that was.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yes, thank you for that.

[Dave Buettner]

And again, thank you for being a good friend to your friend. That's great to hear. All right, let's move on to our stories here. Maria, why don't you start things off for us?

[Maria Varmazes]

I just wanted to mention there are apparently over a thousand Dunkin Donuts in Massachusetts. So I've now answered my question. I googled it real quick. All right, there you go.

[Dave Buettner]

You can visit everyone.

[Maria Varmazes]

I don't like their coffee. All right, so my story is a quick follow up, actually, from the story that I covered last week, but also have been talking about now and then about people using essentially the, the latest and greatest and deepfake technology to fraudulently apply for jobs in the United States when they themselves are, I don't know, a North Korean hacker. We've talked about how people have applied for jobs at security companies and actually been successful in infiltrating security companies doing this. And last week we talked about how one software engineer, I'm just summarizing people who missed it. A software engineer actually was a screening out another technical applicant when the guy had like a very obvious deep fake face. It was quite a shocking video, actually. So the story that I have here comes from El Reg Jessica Lyons at the Register. The headline is Arizona. Arizona Laptop Farmer pleads guilty for funneling $17 million to Kim Jong Un. Always love their headlines.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So basically, basically, that's a lot of money.

[Maria Varmazes]

That is a lot of money.

[Joe Kerrigan]

It's going to buy a lot of missiles for that guy.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, that's, that's, that's a really comforting thought. This woman allegedly, no, her name actually is Christina Marie Chapman, but she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. And essentially for over the course of three years, she ran a laptop farm out of her home in order for North Korean hackers or hackers employed by the North Korean state to have a credible US Based IP address for those fake job applicants to have a sort of believable geolocation. So when they're going through the application process with, as a remote employee of a United States company, perhaps they had a convincing deep fake. But you also have to pass other sort of security measures that companies put in place to make sure that you're a legit hire and one of them is checking where your geolocation is. At the very least, make sure you're, you appear to be based out of the United States. It's sort of like a very basic thing. And she just had a whole bunch of laptops in her house to give those hackers that US Based geolocation. And the court documents are actually really interesting read. Which is not a phrase I think I've ever said in my life. I found this really interesting paragraph that I just want to quote if you all don't mind, because I just thought it was so neat. The conspiracy perpetrated a staggering fraud on a multitude of industries at the expense of generally unknowing U.S. companies and persons. It impacted more than 300 U.S. u.S. Companies, compromised more than 60 identities of U.S. persons, caused false information to be conveyed to DHS on more than 100 occasions, created false tax liabilities for more than 35 U.S. persons, resulted in at least $6.8 million of revenue to be generated for the overseas IT workers. And they worked at blue chip U.S. companies, including a top five National Television Network and media company, a premier Silicon Valley technology company, an aerospace and defense manufacturer. Oh, that's very comforting. An iconic American car manufacturer, a high end retail chain, and one of the most recognizable media and entertainment companies in the world. All of which were Fortune 500 companies. The overseas IT workers also exfiltrated data from at least two US companies. A multinational restaurant chain. Maybe it was Roy Rogers and. No, no, don't.

[Dave Buettner]

So assuming they got the barbecue sauce recipe. Joe.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Oh, I hope I can get my hands on that because that is a good barbecue sauce.

[Dave Buettner]

It is.

[Maria Varmazes]

It did. He's like, don't call me. And a classic American clothing brand may have been a cowboy hat manufacturer. Joe, a lot of things are adding up to you. I'm just saying. And the overseas IT workers also attempted to gain employment and access to information at two US Government agencies on three different occasions. Although the court documents noted that they were thwarted due to the agency's enhanced due diligence. How nice. And I was looking at the line items of what each fraudulent employee gained. One employee alone, over three years managed to net over a million dollars as a salary like $814,000. And I looked at the fraudulent names and I was looking for a Gammaria V in case my identity had gotten stolen and was right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Am I in here?

[Maria Varmazes]

There is a JO C. Oh, no.

[Dave Buettner]

There you go.

[Maria Varmazes]

Completely for real. So maybe it really was Ray Rogers. Instead I got one.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Now I gotta go look at the court documents.

[Maria Varmazes]

I just gave you homework. You gave me some and I've given you some. So there you go.

[Dave Buettner]

Wow.

[Joe Kerrigan]

No Dave B though, right?

[Maria Varmazes]

No, there was no Dave B. I was looking for a Dave B. And a Maria V. Nothing. But there's a Josie. So.

[Dave Buettner]

Okay.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Well, I haven't heard anything from the IRS about my tax returns not being right so far.

[Dave Buettner]

Well, yeah, because, you know, don't hold your breath, Joe.

[Joe Kerrigan]

They'll send you a letter, like, when you submit your tax returns, and they go, you left this W2 off your tax return. Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

I'm sure Doge is right on it right now. So. Just right.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So I guess they'll do that. I don't know. I have to talk to my son. That would be what I would expect, would be, because he's an accountant.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, there you go.

[Joe Kerrigan]

What do I know? Yeah, cybersecurity stuff, not accounting stuff.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

He got upset with me the other day because I got a tax document. I said, I'll put this on my IRS pile. And he goes, you mean file? No, on my desk. Just a pile of documents.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

I just did my taxes last night. So I relate. Yeah, it was. I. This story, I thought was just an interesting add on to how sophisticated these efforts are getting that we keep covering. And in case there was any question, this woman 100% knew what she was doing, so she pled guilty. And, oh, boy, is that data chain there. A lot of communications where she absolutely knew what she was doing. So it's not like her laptops got hijacked or something.

[Dave Buettner]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

She was part of a very sophisticated thing.

[Joe Kerrigan]

A bunch of laptops in her house. Right?

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, yeah. I just wanted to make sure in case anyone's going, oh, maybe she didn't know. She did. She knew what she was doing. There was a lot of them. I was actually trying to figure out how many laptops there were because I wanted to get a sense, but I couldn't figure that out. Maybe I missed it, but if anyone knows, I bet it was a lot.

[Dave Buettner]

What a terrible thing to be involved with. Like a. You know.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah. She may not train your.

[Dave Buettner]

Your countrymen.

[Joe Kerrigan]

She may not have known it was North Korea that was doing it, but maybe she did.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah. I mean, I don't think she's earned the benefit of the doubt.

[Maria Varmazes]

Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, I'll agree with you on that.

[Dave Buettner]

All right, well, we will have a link to that story in the show notes. My story this week comes from Wired. This is an article by Lily Hayne Newman, whose work I always enjoy over at Wired, and it's titled the Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis. And it's about romance scams and the proliferation of those. But what really caught my eye, and why I think it's worth sharing, is this is a good article that you can send around and send to your friends and family, your loved ones, because it really does go through the highlights of what's going on with romance scams, how to avoid them, the types of manipulation they use. So I thought it'd be nice for us to go through it together here. One of the things they highlighted, which I guess is not surprising, is that more and more of these scammers are using AI in their scammer operations. They're using AI generated profiles on dating apps. Organized crime groups in Southeast Asia are using these AI tools to generate personalized scripts in real time conversations using multiple languages. And both the FBI and Google are reporting that AI has just made it easier for these folks to do what they do faster with a lot more volume. So I thought I'd go through a list of some of the techniques that they use for these romance scams. Love bombing.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yep.

[Dave Buettner]

You ever been love bombed?

[Joe Kerrigan]

No, this never happened to me.

[Maria Varmazes]

Well, lucky I have. Yep.

[Dave Buettner]

And love bombing is. Well, so we should explain what it is. This is one of these excessive terms of endearment to build fast emotional connections. So people will often love bomb when they are trying to get you to join a group. Love bombing is really common with cults where they will find someone who is in a state of emotional weakness and they will just pepper this person with compliments and love and make the person feel like they're important and they're loved and provide them with connections. And it's effective. It works. Especially if someone's in a bad place.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yes.

[Dave Buettner]

So they do that. They ask a lot of personal questions, which is a way to gain trust with the person. To say, I'm your confidant, you can tell me. I know, hey, it's none of my business, but I'm just wondering. They feign vulnerability. This is a lot of scammers pretend to have been scammed themselves to appear trustworthy. So they'll say, you know, I am hesitant to get into this relationship with you because I've been hurt so many times before. In fact, I got scammed one time and I lost a bunch of money and I sure would, you know, I'm nervous that you're trying to do that to me. Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

That's interesting. They turned the table on that. Yeah. And that is probably very disarming to the person that is being scammed.

[Dave Buettner]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

It sure is. Because it's awfully close to the real. How real connections are often made is with that sharing of vulnerability. Right. So.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

But if you're only, you know, Showing your belly briefly, it sort of gives the scent of. I'm really mixing metaphors, but sort of makes you feel like you're trustworthy. But it's only, it's, you know, it's. It's brief. Right, right. Yeah. It's. It's amazing though, that it, when you try to describe this as someone who's going through it, I'm sure maybe you've done this, Dave. Also, it does sound a lot like, well, this is how real people connect with each other. But it's just like, it's slightly off, it's slightly different. Yeah, it's tough.

[Dave Buettner]

This article mentions financial manipulation where they will mention money problems but they won't directly ask for help. So they wait for the victim to offer assistance rather than ask for it.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Because that way it's the victim's idea.

[Dave Buettner]

That's right.

[Maria Varmazes]

Right. Yeah. Just lead them to water.

[Dave Buettner]

You're not triggering the thing in the victim's mind that says, this person is asking me for money. All you're doing is talking about your troubles. And out of the goodness of their heart, the victim says, well, I have money. Why don't I just send you some and you can pay me back later? You know, that, that sort of thing, that's what they take advantage of.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I'm always reminded of Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

When he's at the, the table with the woman on the train and he's, oh, these prices, you know.

[Dave Buettner]

Oh, right, right, right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And he never asked her, but she buys him lunch. And Michael Caine watching him and rolling his eyes.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah. Fun movie.

[Joe Kerrigan]

It is a fun movie.

[Maria Varmazes]

It's such a good movie. I love it.

[Joe Kerrigan]

It's good. But this is the way I feel every time someone starts talking about money problems to me. And, you know, I don't want to say I'm invulnerable to all this stuff, but if somebody starts giving me a lot of compliments, I'm immediately suspicious.

[Maria Varmazes]

If somebody.

[Dave Buettner]

Because of how well you know yourself.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

When you've got crap, low self esteem, you're like, yeah, this guy thinks I'm on the take. Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Maybe that's the issue.

[Dave Buettner]

The joke's on you. I've got more self loathing than you can possibly break through.

[Joe Kerrigan]

That is true.

[Dave Buettner]

True.

[Maria Varmazes]

But the other thing is, I know you're lying.

[Joe Kerrigan]

The.

[Dave Buettner]

What was it?

[Joe Kerrigan]

What was the second one that they did not. Not the love bombing, but asking personal questions. Asking personal questions. Nothing, nothing will shut me down quicker than that.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

You know, that's Cause we're from the Northeast, Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Maybe. Maybe it is.

[Maria Varmazes]

I was raised by a woman from.

[Joe Kerrigan]

New York, and she was like, why are you asking that question would be something my mom would ask.

[Dave Buettner]

Okay. Interesting.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yes, that is. I mean, that's why a lot of us have that frosty reputation. But people don't understand that is completely out of self preservation. If you start asking me for something and you're a stranger, I meet you on the street. I am always very suspicious until proven otherwise.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Because my wife and her family are from West Virginia, and they initially found me to be very rude.

[Maria Varmazes]

No, you. No, Absolutely not.

[Joe Kerrigan]

They love me now.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, that's good.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah. But initially they're like, that guy, he. But I think you're right, Marie. It's the Northeast. It's a New York City kind of thing. New York. Well, up in the Northeast, where you will say, why are you asking that kind of question? What makes you think that I want to answer that question?

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. When I was a freshman in college in New York, a lot of my friends were Korean American. That was just how it ended up. And I remember on the second week of school, one of my friends who was from the suburbs, she met up with us and basically said, you know, there was this guy I met on the subway, and he needed like 50 bucks for a thing. So I just gave it to him. And there's no way he could have been a scammer because he spoke Korean like I do. And we all just kind of went like, are you serious? No, just instantly she just trusted him because he also spoke Korean. It's like you got taken. Are you serious?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah. That common language bond. We've had stories on here about that.

[Dave Buettner]

Yep. Yeah, true.

[Joe Kerrigan]

You know, exactly. You're in a. In a. I think. Was it. Was it England or was it. I don't think it was in England.

[Maria Varmazes]

It was here in the U.S. yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Was it?

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

Well, it happens everywhere, but. Oh, no, no, you're right. That story specifically was in England. That's right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

The Cantonese. Because Cantonese is not the majority language. Mandarin is what most people speak, I think, in China. But so if you speak Cantonese, you're already part of a smaller population globally, and now you're in England speaking Cantonese.

[Dave Buettner]

Right, right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I mean, yeah.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

But it was.

[Dave Buettner]

This article wraps up with some discussion of the psychological impact and how the victims can be susceptible to this. So they point that scammers use language that is similar to coercive controllers and abusers, which I guess is not surprising that they have that ability to manipulate.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Someone emotionally, they are coercively controlling and abusing somebody.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah, that makes sense. It says the victims, especially the ones who are experiencing loneliness, often struggle to accept that the romance is fake. And the police say it is extremely difficult to convince victims that they're being deceived. Yep.

[Maria Varmazes]

Or worse. Or worse. They know they are. And they're like, I don't care because this is better than nothing. I've seen that a few times. That's always like, oh, I don't even know what to do about that one.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah, yeah. There was a famous story from years ago about someone who was before the online era. He was doing basically romance scams through pen pals. And this was this guy's living was, you know, having pen pals that we pretended to be women. And when he finally got arrested and brought to in front of a judge, more than one victim said that they didn't really feel victimized, like it was entertainment to them, you know, like it was worth it. So, I mean, what a strange. It's a strange thing for us to ponder.

[Joe Kerrigan]

But.

[Maria Varmazes]

But it's real humans for you. Yeah, it's real. Yep.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah. Silly humans. All right. We will have a link to that story in our show notes. We're going to take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor, so let's return to our sponsor. ThreatLocker. Threat Locker is a zero trust endpoint protection platform that strengthens your infrastructure from the ground up. Where traditional cybersecurity tools require you to create a list of things you don't want to run, Threat Locker enables you to easily curate an allow list of everything you need in your environment and network and block everything else by default. With ThreatLocker allowlisting and ring fencing, you gain a more secure approach to blocking exploits of known and unknown vulnerabilities. ThreatLocker provides zero trust control at the kernel level that enables you to allow everything you need and block everything else, including ransomware. The ThreatLocker Zero Trust Endpoint Protection platform deploys in a learning mode that analyzes the operations of your company using machine learning to assist you in developing your allow list for approved applications. What they can do on the endpoint, what can interact with your data, and even east and west network traffic. We thank ThreatLocker for sponsoring our show. And we are back. Joe, you are up. What do you got for us this week, Dave?

[Joe Kerrigan]

I got three things, which is a lot of things, but they're all really short. Okay, first one is the two weeks ago I talked about my office mate, Michelle Getting a text message.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yesterday or two days ago, I got the exact same text message on my phone. These are both on our work phones. And with just a different URL, a different domain, everything else was the same.

[Dave Buettner]

Okay.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Including the www.irs.gov prefix of that URL. It's just a new domain. That's it. Everything else was the same. So these guys are just out there running this scam with new domains all the time. And apparently it's working because they're still doing it. Next thing I have is an interesting story about a thief who used a barcode ring to scam Walmart self checkout. So he had a ring with a barcode printed on the ring. So when he would run something over the scanner, it would ring up as a 70 cent can of great value tomato soup.

[Maria Varmazes]

Now, points for innovation, right?

[Joe Kerrigan]

That's what the police said.

[Maria Varmazes]

I am the police.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right. So how he got caught was he rang up a $300 grill.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, he got greedy.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, he got greedy, Exactly. Paid the $0.70 blunder and then drove out. And of course Walmart has security, right? They're watching. There's always somebody watching something at Walmart. And I don't know if you have the. If you've ever been to a Walmart, Dave, you ever had to. You ever been to a Walmart, Maria?

[Dave Buettner]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

You go and use her self checkout because that's pretty much all that's open and it's got a camera facing you.

[Dave Buettner]

Right? Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, my kid loves to dance in those camera views. She always waves and dances.

[Dave Buettner]

She does it.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I always tell those people on the.

[Maria Varmazes]

Camera, honestly, me too. I'm like, you're probably bored if you're looking at this.

[Dave Buettner]

Hi.

[Maria Varmazes]

Dancing, an elevator, all of that.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Give somebody, they said, okay, that guy's walking out of here with a $300 grill paying 70 cents. Loss prevention says, I'm just gonna call the police, gets the license number. The police tail him home as soon as they get home, as soon as the police find him, he says, yeah, I just use this ring to ring it up. And they now charged him with felony burglary. Okay, so that's my second story.

[Dave Buettner]

So first of all, like Maria said, points for cleverness.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Correct.

[Dave Buettner]

I mean, but the thing that I wonder about is, my understanding is with self checkout is that somehow they're calibrated to the weight of the thing being purchased. So if you scan a can of beans that weighs 16 ounces, you put that on the little platform where the bagging stuff is and it reconciles the can of beans with what it thinks it's supposed to weigh. So if you have, I don't know, a little box of toothpicks that's different than a can of beans or a greeting card or something, something like that, that doesn't weigh very much.

[Joe Kerrigan]

You know, Dave, I've seen these, I've used these self checkouts, things that insist that you put the item on the scale. You know, the bagging scale.

[Dave Buettner]

Yes.

[Joe Kerrigan]

But I've never tried to like put something of a different weight on there. Like, you know, buy a. Scan a can of soup and then put a gallon of milk on there, which is like eight, eight times the weight of a can of soup.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

How do you weigh a grill?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, you don't weigh a grill. You have to skip bagging.

[Dave Buettner]

And so, like, for example, because I use the self checkout all the time at my local grocery store and sometimes I will buy, let's say a 12 pack of cans of soda. Right. Which doesn't need to go in a bag. And so they're calibrated for. When you ring something like that up, it says put it in the bagging area or back on your cart. So it knows that that's something that might not go in a bag.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Okay.

[Dave Buettner]

And if you put. And it's okay with you putting it in your cart, something else like a can of beans, it's not okay with you just putting it back in your cart. It wants you to put that in the bagging area. And I've also had it say to me an unexpected item is in the bag.

[Maria Varmazes]

An expected item in the bagging area.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah, right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Well, I'm going to check that now.

[Dave Buettner]

So you're going to do some A B testing?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, do some a B testing on this.

[Maria Varmazes]

Don't get arrested. Don't get arrested.

[Dave Buettner]

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Joe is no longer allowed in the Walmart.

[Joe Kerrigan]

There's other reasons I'm not allowed in the Walmart.

[Dave Buettner]

You know what's going to happen?

[Maria Varmazes]

Cowboy hat.

[Dave Buettner]

You know what, here's what's going to happen. Our friend Mallory Safoste, who from the local affiliate is going to be showing a blurry picture of a man in a white cowboy hat sprinting out of the Walmart with security people chasing after him. And I will have to pretend like I don't know who that is.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right. There was one time I was watching the news and they put up a picture of a guy who had gone into a gym and broken into a bunch of lockers and stolen like $1,000 worth of watches out of the locker. Yeah, this guy looked exactly like me.

[Maria Varmazes]

And I was like, oh man, there goes that alibi.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right?

[Maria Varmazes]

I mean, I mean it was a.

[Dave Buettner]

Nice watch you sold me though, Joe. I have to say.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I showed it to a co worker of mine, he says that guy looks like you. I'm like, I know. He stole watches out of a gymnasium.

[Dave Buettner]

Well, fortunately, nobody's gonna catch you at a gym.

[Maria Varmazes]

That's right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Not gonna catch me at a gym.

[Maria Varmazes]

Dang.

[Dave Buettner]

All right, what's your last story?

[Joe Kerrigan]

If you weren't gonna say it, I was.

[Dave Buettner]

What's your last story?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Last story is a little bit of good news out of Australia.

[Dave Buettner]

Okay.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And this actually kind of ties back in with our letter from Dave, but Australians. This is from Kat Wong at aap. There is game changing anti scam laws to protect consumers and they are working on passing this law in Australia. Businesses could be fined up to $50 million if they do not maintain strong scam defenses. Also victims will have clearer pathways to compensation. So there are three fronts of this, three things we're talking about. The law establishes scam prevention framework that banks and telecommunication companies and media organizations, social media organizations have to do with the have to. The guidelines are going to have to follow. The first one is that banks are going to have to verify who they're sending the money to, when they're sending money for a person. Now these regulations haven't finalized yet but the bank is going to have to is they're going to have to confirm the payee identities for people that are now that will help get, you know, if you think you're sending money to your grandson who's calling you from a Mexican prison. Right, yeah.

[Dave Buettner]

Know your customer regulations.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Exactly. But this is no other people's customers. Telecommunication companies will be required to detect and disrupt scam numbers which, which I'm surprised is not something that we can just do. But it isn't apparently. And then the social media companies and other big tech companies are going to have to validate that they are selling ads to legitimate people, which I think Google's not going to like. But no good.

[Dave Buettner]

It's good to see the burden shifted more towards the, the providers here.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, I agree. All right, so now this is an Australian law. I don't look for anything like this to happen in America anytime soon, I would say. But yeah, it's a good step forward. If Australia gets this law passed and puts these compliance problems or compliance regulations in place, they may have an ancillary.

[Dave Buettner]

Impact on Us could be a model for the world.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Could be a model for the world, but it could also just be that, you know, Google doesn't want to have a different regulations set for everybody, so they're just going to go have a, have a validation ad, ad verification process that they follow.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And then we get to benefit from that because of Australia. I don't know if that's the case. I would like to think that's the case, but I would say the companies like Google and Meta, they're, they don't care. They, they really. I, I have become very jaded about this, Dave and Maria. I, I really, I really think that they know that they're profiting from scam ads and they just don't care. They would rather have the money.

[Maria Varmazes]

I think you're right.

[Dave Buettner]

There's a lot of evidence to support that claim.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. I was like, that's not even a spicy take. I think that's just facts. Straight facts. Yeah.

[Dave Buettner]

All right, well, we will have a link to all of your stories in the show notes and of course, we'd love to hear from you. If there's something you'd like us to consider for the show, you can email us. It's hackinghumans2k.com Joe, Maria, it is time for our catch of the day.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Dave, our catch of the day comes from R. Scambait on Reddit and the user is second hundred K. It's a scammy text exchange.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah. All right, Maria, you want to start us off here?

[Maria Varmazes]

All right. I guess I'm the scammer, huh?

[Dave Buettner]

You are the scammer, yes.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, fun. Okay, what is dinner?

[Dave Buettner]

I was thinking I would pair your liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

[Maria Varmazes]

Hi, Alexander. I'm Jane.

[Dave Buettner]

Hello, Jane.

[Joe Kerrigan]

It's a pretty good Hannibal lecture.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, I mean, that's eerie as hell. Hello. Nice to meet you here. Are you Alexander?

[Dave Buettner]

Yes. Have you ever seen blood in the moonlight, Jane? It appears quite black.

[Maria Varmazes]

No, no, I never saw. Sorry. No, I never saw it.

[Dave Buettner]

On a related note, I must confess, I'm giving serious thought to eating your cousin.

[Maria Varmazes]

Very nice, Alexander. Your name is the same as my friend. Heart emoji.

[Dave Buettner]

Very nice indeed, Jane.

[Maria Varmazes]

Sorry, I accidentally messaged you because I saved the wrong number.

[Dave Buettner]

Remarkable girl. Jane, I admire your courage. I think I'll eat your heart. And it ends there. End scene.

[Maria Varmazes]

Why are you so good at that? That's so terrifying, right?

[Dave Buettner]

I don't know. Just a little inner psychopath, you know, Just channeling my inner psychopath.

[Maria Varmazes]

That movie scared the. Oh, my God.

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Anthony Hopkins. Best Hannibal ever.

[Dave Buettner]

Saw that one in the theater, and let me tell you, it's a tough one. Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yes.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah.

[Dave Buettner]

What's the little dog's name?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Precious.

[Dave Buettner]

Precious.

[Maria Varmazes]

Precious.

[Dave Buettner]

Just more Precious.

[Maria Varmazes]

Precious.

[Dave Buettner]

More Precious.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I think it was Precious, right?

[Dave Buettner]

Yeah. You know, it's Precious. All right. It was Precious. All right. Well, that is our catch of the day. And again, we would love to hear from you. If there's something you'd like us to consider for the show, please email [e-mail] but I guess we should. Do we need to explain what the scam is that was going on here as is our. Or are we all just too weirded out to.

[Maria Varmazes]

No, no.

[Joe Kerrigan]

This is the beginning of the wrong number scam. Oh, I misdialed, but. And then they start doing. This is what I did. This is the kind of person I was messing with a couple months ago when I was in Texas actually buying my white cowboy hat.

[Dave Buettner]

You have a strategic cowboy hat reserved?

[Joe Kerrigan]

I have a place I go, Dave.

[Dave Buettner]

Oh, I see.

[Maria Varmazes]

You have a place you go.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yes.

[Maria Varmazes]

Where everybody knows there's a Roy Rogers.

[Dave Buettner]

Is there a Roy Rogers on.

[Joe Kerrigan]

On.

[Dave Buettner]

On site?

[Joe Kerrigan]

No, there's no Roy Rogers in Texas. This place is called Harry's. It's in San Saba, Texas.

[Dave Buettner]

Okay.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, my God.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Go upstairs and see Inez.

[Dave Buettner]

You go in and they say, hi, Joe. Like, you're like Norm at Cheers.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, everybody knows his name.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I mean, they see me, like, once a year, but they still remember me.

[Dave Buettner]

I'll bet they do. I'll bet they do. And of course, we want to thank this week's sponsor, Threat locker. Go to threatlocker.com HH and check out their Zero trust endpoint protection platform. That's the words threat and locker with no space.com HH where you can request a demo and neutralize the threat of malware running on your devices, is. All right, 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 cyber security. 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 hackinghumans2k.com this episode is produced by Liz Stokes. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester. Peter Kilpe is our publisher I'm Dave Bittner.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I'm Joe Kerrigan.

[Maria Varmazes]

And I'm Maria Varmazes.

[Dave Buettner]

Thanks for listening.