Red flags ahead.

Summary

Hacking Humans – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Red flags ahead.
Air Date: July 23, 2026
Host: Dave Bittner
Co-hosts: Joe Kerrigan, Maria Varmazes
Special Appearance: Liz Stokes
Podcast Network: N2K CyberWire

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Episode Overview

This week's episode delves into how deception, influence, and social engineering tactics fuel cybercrime. The team discusses reader feedback, investigates recent scam stories both from listeners and in the field, and shares strategies to recognize social engineering “red flags.” Lighthearted moments—about local pronunciations and Star Trek wisdom—are woven throughout, but the central concern is how everyday people, even seasoned professionals, are vulnerable to ever-evolving scams.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Listener Corrections and Tech Myths [00:44–04:43]

• Discussion of Router “Bricking” Myths ([01:04]):

  • Listener “Bob” corrects a past claim that certain routers (Netgear/TP Link) self-disable at end-of-life.
  • Joe Kerrigan admits error: "I could have sworn I heard somebody say out there that NetLink routers, eventually... will brick themselves." ([01:58])
  • The group clarifies: Manufacturers simply stop providing updates—the hardware continues running as-is.
  • Real-world “bricking” was found only in special government cases (e.g., bricked routers after an Australian internet study) ([03:16]).

• Router Security Recommendations:

  • Joe suggests for non-tinkerers: just buy a new, supported router; for enthusiasts: install open-source firmware for ongoing updates ([04:09]).

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2. Musical Sidebar and Personal Tastes [04:47–07:02]

• The team jokes about musical preferences, the localization of music taste, and why lyrics’ intelligibility matters to some listeners.
• Notable Quote: "Part of me listening to the music is understanding what's trying to be communicated." – Joe Kerrigan ([05:33])
• Humorous back-and-forth about genres they “can’t stand.”

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3. Social Engineering Case Study: Local Government Scam [07:08–11:23]

• Listener “Tony” shares a recent scam he investigated:

  • Attackers impersonated a county planner, using real planning data and official case numbers.
  • Scam email requested a $5,000 “review fee,” directing victims to wire money to a personal account.
  • Telltale red flags:
    • Odd payment methods, refusal to use government channels
    • Inconsistent terminology and metadata on the “invoice”
    • References to the wrong jurisdiction (city vs. county)
  • Key Lesson:

    "Official branding, real case numbers, and familiar processes do not make payment requests legitimate." – Joe Kerrigan relaying Tony’s advice ([08:41])

  • Verification Tip: Always confirm requests for money via a trusted, independent channel.

• Discussion:

  • The double-edged sword of public records—can promote transparency, but also make social engineering easier ([10:19]).
  • The role of AI (LLMs) in scaling up, customizing scams using public data ([11:00]).

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4. The Weaponization of Local Language: Jury Duty Scam Thwarted [13:34–20:37]

• Mallory Sofastai’s report: Jury duty scam in Annapolis, Maryland

  • Scammer called victim with accurate personal data, claiming massive fines for missed jury service.
  • Red flags:
    • Mispronunciation of local place names ("Serve-in" for Severn, "Anna Napolis" for Annapolis) ([15:46])
    • Referenced nonexistent streets, revealing outsider status.
  • The episode highlights how local "shibboleths" and dialect knowledge can help locals spot imposters:

    "The local shibboleths gave the scammer away." – Maria Varmazes ([16:40])

• Humorous tangent on regional pronunciations

  • The hosts share favorite mispronunciations and how locals quickly spot outsiders.

• Potential Scam Evolution

  • The flip side: If scammers mastered local pronunciations, scams could become more credible ([20:37]).

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5. It Can Happen to Anyone: Even Scam Experts [22:44–30:23]

• Case: CBS correspondent Matt Gutman almost scammed

  • Received a convincing call from “bank fraud protection” with insider details.
  • Scammer fabricated a story about insiders at the bank and asked him to withdraw a large sum "for a sting."
  • Social engineering tactics:
    • Urgency: Told not to tell bank staff (“they may be in on it”).
    • Isolation and manipulation using half-truths.
    • Exploited coincidental real-life events (his daughter’s recent fraud) ([24:26]).
  • Gutman realized: "There is no way this is possibly real. That anyone would use a regular civilian for a sting operation at a bank." ([25:18])
  • Warning:
    • Scammers sometimes rob victims after withdrawal, upgrading a phone scam to a physical mugging ([26:18]).
    • These scams are increasingly targeted and personalized via data breaches, social media, and LLMs ([27:23]).

• Expert Prevention Advice ([28:45]):

  • Darius Kingsley (JPMorgan Chase):

    “If you receive a call from someone claiming to be your bank, the best thing to do is hang up and call your bank on the number on the back of your credit card.”
    “Don’t send money... to anyone you’ve only spoken to online or by phone.”

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6. Star Trek Wisdom Applied: The “Shields Up” Mindset [30:59–35:25]

• Listener Submission: Metaphor for Security

  • Drawing from Star Trek, the listener suggests approaching unexpected communications like the captains faced unknown encounters—raising shields, assessing, then acting.

    "When an unexpected caller claims there's a problem... Remember that you have just entered a situation you did not create and do not yet understand. There is no requirement to solve that problem in real time, on their timetable, on their terms..." ([32:54])

  • Key Guidance:
    • “Shields up” doesn’t mean panic—just be cautious and create time and distance to evaluate.
    • Scams succeed when people rush decisions before full understanding.

• Panel Reaction:

  • "Tattoo that on your forehead." – Maria ([33:31])
  • "We should put this in the show closure." – Joe ([35:14])
  • The hosts joke about getting Star Trek actors to record the advice for listeners ([35:32]).

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7. Catch of the Day: Redemption Scam Email [38:28–44:40]

• Sampled Listener Scam Email: "I need your forgiveness"
  • Classic “advance fee” scam:
    • Scammer claims to be a dying cyber-fraudster with lung cancer,
    • Confesses to $450M in fraud, seeks to give away $500,000 to each contact as atonement.
    • "Contact my pastor immediately for your compensation." ([41:24])
  • Tone: Absurdly melodramatic, religious appeals, long run-on sentences, classic hallmarks of fraudulent emails.

    "What is the need of money, luxury cars, and houses when you don't have a life?" ([41:24])

  • Hosts note: The honesty “hook” (admitting to being a fraudster up front) is a new twist.
  • Underlying scam: Eventually the recipient would be asked to pay “taxes” or “fees” to claim the fake inheritance/compensation ([44:26]).

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Public Data in Social Engineering ([11:01]):

  "You can suck [public records] up, then you can pump it all into an LLM and say, 'Hey, structure this data so that I can ... aid me in my scam.'"

• On Hi-tech Personalization in Scams ([27:23]):

  “Scammers get this information from social media, public records, and data breaches. ... then use caller ID spoofing ... to bolster their credibility.” – Joe Kerrigan

• On Defensive Posture (“Shields Up”) ([32:54]):

  "There is no requirement to solve that problem in real time, on their timetable, on their terms, within an environment they control."

• On Emotional Appeals in Scams ([41:24]):

  “Please ... find it in your heart to forgive me. ... I am ready and willing to give away all the money and the properties. Besides, what is the need of money, luxury cars and houses when you don't have a life?”

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Actionable Takeaways

• Always verify requests for money or sensitive info through official, independent channels—even if everything else looks legitimate.
• Familiarity with local details (like place name pronunciation) is a powerful tool for spotting outsider scams.
• Pause and evaluate any urgent, unexpected request. Adopt a “shields up” mindset to create time for reflection, not panic or paranoia.
• Even professionals and those alert to scams can be caught when timing and details seem plausible.
• Scams are always evolving—now combining public data, AI, social cues, and psychological tricks for new angles.

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Memorable Moments

• The team’s deep dive into how “shibboleths” (local dialects/terminology) can foil scams—and their own experiences getting pronunciations wrong ([15:46]–[20:37]).
• The Star Trek “Shields Up” metaphor as cybersecurity best practice ([32:45]–[35:25]).
• The playfully dramatic reading of the "I need your forgiveness" scam email ([38:28]–[44:40]).

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For more stories, explanations, and resources, see the links in the episode’s show notes.

Transcript

[Maria Varmazes]

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

[Dave Bittner]

Hello everyone and welcome to the 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.

[Liz Stokes]

Hey, Joe.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Hi, Dave.

[Dave Bittner]

And our N2K colleague and of the T minus Space Cyber Briefing, Maria Vermazes.

[Liz Stokes]

Maria.

[Maria Varmazes]

Hi Dave. And Hi Joe.

[Dave Bittner]

We've got some good stories to share this week, but first let's get into some follow up. We got a couple things here this week, don't we, Joe?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yes, we do. Why don't you read the first one, Dave? Okay, since this is Bob and he wrote in to correct me.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Bob wrote in to say Joe is a big stinky jerk, right?

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, he's out a lot.

[Dave Bittner]

He didn't say that.

[Liz Stokes]

I said that.

[Dave Bittner]

So this will seem much less harsh, Right?

[Maria Varmazes]

Walk that one back.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Liz Stokes]

No, no, Bob wrote.

[Dave Bittner]

It was a kind note from Bob. Bob said in episode 393 of Hacking Humans, Joe is talking about how TP link routers are more vulnerable because unlike Netgear and other router manufacturers, TP Link does not sunset their routers. Bob says, I've used Netgear routers for over 20 years and I've never had a Netgear router stop working. When Netgear ended support for any model, I found no manufacturer, consumer or enterprise Netgear, TP Link, Asus or otherwise. It has a stated policy of disabling or bricking a router once it reaches end of support. End of support universally just means updates stop. The hardware keeps running on its last firmware. The only real world case of routers or hardware going dead were unintentional or involved companies explicitly shutting down a cloud service the device depended on, not a manufacturer. Saying your router no longer works as a matter of policy. So on the specific factual claim, Joe is incorrect.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Joe, Bob is right. So here's the thing. I could have sworn I heard somebody say out there that NetLink routers, eventually, after they go end of life, they will brick themselves.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay?

[Joe Kerrigan]

And I don't know where I heard that. And you know what? I can't find it anywhere. Yeah, so apparently I heard that from some fly by night nonsense source. Probably somebody wearing a tinfoil hat and a conspiracy theorist because I can't find any evidence of it.

[Maria Varmazes]

To be fair. It feels plausible. It does. It feels like it could happen just in the cynical age in which we live, that that would be a thing that could happen.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yes. And I have bricked my Netgear router doing a software update. But that was just doing a software update.

[Maria Varmazes]

That's you doing it. That's different.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I think it's a bad. I think it's a bad update because when I called Netgear and told them about it, they were like, we'll just send you another router.

[Dave Bittner]

I see.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Literally, that's what happened. They sent me another router.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. I did respond to Bob's email. And the only thing that I thought of was that almost simultaneous to talking about this on the show, we had a story on the Cyber Wire about, I think, a few thousand routers in Australia that had been issued to Australian citizens to kind of monitor Internet bandwidth and usage around the country.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Kind of like, makes me feel great.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, I mean, they were done like beacons, you know, just to see if everything was up and running and that sort of thing. And when that program ended, the government bricked those routers intentionally. And people were upset because rather than just ending the program and letting the routers still function as routers, as Bob says, which is what pretty much everybody does, they were intentionally bricked. So I don't know, who knows, there's some kind of liability issue or whatever, but that's the only time I've heard of that. So, anyway, I was thinking. I'm throwing you a rope here, Joe, that maybe you got your wires crossed.

[Joe Kerrigan]

No, I'm serious. I know. I heard this from somebody because right now, looking into DDWR or OPEN WRT for my router, that's out of support, rather than. Rather than buying a new router, I'm just going to put Open WRT on it, which will have software updates for as long as the project is around.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So the security concern will be resolved and I don't have to go out and buy money. And it's fun to do. I like to do it. Yeah. Again, I will say, if you're not the kind of person that likes to tinker like this, just go buy yourself a new router.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And have the best security. So, no, I don't think I have my wires crossed here, but I know some. Maybe somebody. Somebody on one of those videos, videos I was watching made that accusation. And, you know, that's just some guy in his basement.

[Maria Varmazes]

So Bob was right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, Bob. Bob's correct.

[Dave Bittner]

Bob, thank you for the correction. We do appreciate it.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Dave Bittner]

All right, what's next, Joe? You have a little musical follow Up.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, Yeah. I wanted to wait for Maria to get back on this. I want to talk about X Japan.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, my God. Is this real life? Okay, I'm here.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah. Maria, you are correct. That singer is divisive. And I fall on the I do not like that singer side of.

[Liz Stokes]

Yep.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

You're not alone.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah. I will say the rest of the band, pretty. Pretty kick ass. Pretty good. Pretty good music.

[Liz Stokes]

So do they have any instrumentals?

[Maria Varmazes]

They do, actually.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And here's another thing I am not like, I was never a big fan

[Maria Varmazes]

of

[Joe Kerrigan]

a lot of. Like, there's like, all kinds of Swedish metal bands that sing in Swedish and European. I've never been able to enjoy music that is not in English, just because part of me listening to the music is understanding what's trying to be communicated. And if I don't speak the language, I really view music holistically. I want to hear and experience every part of it, including the lyrics. And if I can't really experience that part, then the music carries a lot less for me.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yep.

[Dave Bittner]

This is why you don't have season tickets to the opera, right?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, that's such an excellent point. There are a few sub genres of music that I really don't like. Like, I am not a big fan of death metal, and for the same reason. And I have a whole diatribe, I go on about this mumble. Rap is essentially the death metal of the rap world.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. It comes in.

[Joe Kerrigan]

You can't understand a word anybody's saying. It totally ruins the entire genre. And then generally, like, pop country, I can't stand that. And then opera, I can't listen to that. But just about everything else I can listen to. Oh, and reggae, I don't like that song.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Okay. All right, fair. Yeah. But that's it. Everything else, fair game. And there's a lot of other stuff. And for some reason, like, this doesn't translate to folk music. Like, if there's some kind of folk music, I will listen to that even though I can't understand a word they're saying. Oh, it's weird. I don't know, Dave, but for popular music, I need it to be in English.

[Dave Bittner]

All right, well, moving on.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Sorry. Everybody gets a look into the twisted mind of Joe.

[Dave Bittner]

That's right, that's right. All right, we got one more bit of listener feedback here. What do we got here, Joe?

[Joe Kerrigan]

This was sent to me by Tony on LinkedIn, who is a security engineer. He goes, hey, Joe, how you been? I really enjoy the N2K podcast over the past several years and Hacking Humans has been a particular favorite because of how informative it is.

[Dave Bittner]

It is.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Your podcasts are among the most professional and insightful ones out there. You, Dave and Maria make an incredible team.

[Dave Bittner]

So that's very nice.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Thank you, Tony. That is very nice. In my job. We recently investigated a business email compromise event and vendor payment diversion scam that targeted a local government. I thought your listeners would find it valuable. The attacker impersonated a county planner using publicly available planning and zoning information, including a legitimate case number, to make permit related payment requests appear authentic. The email followed the normal government procedure or processes and terminology, and it was pretty convincing. It claimed a $5,000 review fee was required and instructed the recipient to request wire Instructions by email.

[Maria Varmazes]

$5,000 review fee?

[Liz Stokes]

Holy shit.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I have never had. I've actually gone over and applied for permits and when they look at your. Your stuff, it. That's free.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Liz Stokes]

I don't. I mean, maybe it's different if you're

[Dave Bittner]

like building a skyscraper or something, right? You know, maybe.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. Potentially, I suppose. I'm thinking it's like a shed in the backyard. I'm like, $5,000. Good Lord.

[Liz Stokes]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I found out that if my shed is of a certain size, I don't need a permit where I live now.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Which is cool because I'm probably going to build a shed after I'm done with this. Several warning signs stood out. The attacker insisted on email only communication, refused standard government payment methods, and ultimately convinced the victim to wire funds to what appeared to be a personal bank account rather than an official government one. The invoice also contained inconsistencies, including the metadata suggesting it was created after the state issued date and language that references a city audit process instead of a county one. So you apply for permits at the county level, but this is talking about some kind of city process, so there's an inconsistency there. The evidence points to an external impersonation campaign rather than a compromise of county systems. The biggest takeaway is that official branding, real case numbers, and familiar processes do not make payment requests legitimate. Any request involving money, especially one changing payment instructions or requiring a wire transfer, should always be verified through a trusted independent channel. Best regards and keep up the great work. Thank you, Tony. This is a really good story.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I almost made this my story this week, by the way.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay.

[Joe Kerrigan]

But I have another one. But I'm fascinated by this kind of thing. Somebody went out there, found some information online and said, look, here's all the contact information for this guy that applied for this permit, I'm just gonna try to screw him out of $5,000.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And apparently was successful.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Wow. I guess, I mean, that's the flip side of having this information publicly available.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, yeah, we talk about that frequently.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Now you want transparency in government, especially at the local level.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Maybe I should say now, especially the federal level.

[Liz Stokes]

Just all.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, all levels. Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

Thank you.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Thank you, Dave.

[Maria Varmazes]

And being on the open Internet, one wonders, what have we, Right?

[Joe Kerrigan]

What is that?

[Maria Varmazes]

Pandora's boxes. Yeah.

[Liz Stokes]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, it's like Ben and I over on the Caveat podcast talk about this all the time, that it's a velocity issue. Right. It's because it's on the Internet, you're able to vacuum up all this information so quickly.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Dave Bittner]

Where in the old days you would have had to go down to city hall or the Department of Records.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yep. You know, not only that, but now

[Maria Varmazes]

you can sweat equity. Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

You can suck it all up, then you can pump it all into an LLM and say, hey, structure this data so that I can just give me the information in this structure to aid me in my scam. And maybe you even have an LLM that goes, yeah, sure, I'll help you do that because there are plenty. If you go to hugging face, you can get those LLMs that don't have guardrails on them.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. And if you combine it with just open source information that's just. Maybe open source is not the right word, but information that's just publicly available on the Internet, that's non governmental thinking, like open street view type stuff. The, the barrage that we've seen of, of bad actors doing really gnarly things with people's public information is just really. Oh, I was reading a thread the other day, people asking, it's so annoying that the previous owner of my house opted to blur the house on Google Street View. I can't get it unblurred. Why would anyone choose to do this?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Why wouldn't you choose to do that?

[Maria Varmazes]

Well, here's. And see, that's my point of view too. However, it was really fascinating reading. Just, just thread after thread of people just going, I don't understand why somebody would opt out of this kind of a convenience. It was like, well, you combine that kind of Google Street View, for example, with all the publicly available information through, you know, your town or your city, and you can make some pretty scary scams that we've talked about a whole bunch of times. So for me, yeah, same as You, Joe. I'd be like, why wouldn't you want to keep that blurred? But in one case, people were saying, hey, I own a business, and now people can't find me. I'm like, okay, yeah, I could see that being annoying, but put a sign out front.

[Joe Kerrigan]

There's a guy in my neighborhood who has a big sharpening service sign right in his front yard. Sharpening service. And I'm like, oh, I might go there and see what he sharpens.

[Maria Varmazes]

Well, he can't sharpen a blurry image.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Good call, Maria.

[Dave Bittner]

I'm so jealous I didn't come up with that one first. Sharpening service for the blurry streets images.

[Maria Varmazes]

That's why I'm here.

[Liz Stokes]

So good. So good.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I didn't know that I was setting that one up.

[Dave Bittner]

All right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

That is awesome.

[Liz Stokes]

Wow.

[Dave Bittner]

All right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Well done, Maria.

[Maria Varmazes]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Two points for Gryffindor. All right.

[Liz Stokes]

All right, I'll tell you what. Let's take a quick break.

[Dave Bittner]

We'll be right back with some stories after this. Stay with us. All right, we are back. And, Maria, you're up first this week. What do you got for us?

[Maria Varmazes]

Well, I've got just a kind of a quick story that I thought was really fun. I guess. This was from Mallory Sofastai in Mallory Sofaste.

[Dave Bittner]

Regular guest on our show.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, my gosh. This is the Mallory.

[Dave Bittner]

Yes, this is the Mallory.

[Maria Varmazes]

All right. This is Yalls territory, so Mallory Sofostai. Sofostai. Oh, my God. I did it twice. Okay, let me try that a third time to get it right.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

This is by Mallory Safoste.

[Dave Bittner]

Nice. Well done.

[Maria Varmazes]

Did I get. Did I get that right?

[Dave Bittner]

That's her.

[Maria Varmazes]

My brain overwrote my mouth when I was just looking at how it's written. And, you know, that's not an easy name.

[Joe Kerrigan]

It isn't? No.

[Maria Varmazes]

As someone with a not easy last name. Yep. I feel a little bit of a shame that I messed that up. But anyway, this one comes from Mallory, and this is. I thought this was a really funny kind of story. I guess it was. Basically, there was a jury duty scam that was targeting a woman in the Annapolis, Maryland, region, and her name is Nadine o'. Drain. What a great name. Just for the record. That's amazing. And the scammer that called her was from a local phone number, and she figured, well, this could be my doctor's office. So that is why she picked up the phone. I was like, okay, she's an elderly woman. I could see that. That line of thinking it makes sense. And the person on the other end of the line was saying that she had missed a jury duty summons. We've talked about scams like this a lot, so that's a sort of familiar script to a lot of us here. And the scammer told her, hey, you failed to appear in court for your jury duty, so we're going to charge you a $4,500 fine and then also contempt of court. We're throwing that in for just good measure, and that's another $4,500 fine. And Ms. O', Drain, thankfully, her antenna went up immediately, going, what? Like this doesn't make a lick of sense? And that was sort of the first red flag for her. But the thing that actually made this scam completely fall apart is my favorite bit of detail. The local shibboleths gave the scammer away. So apparently, the scammer said that he was from the federal court and he pronounced the town or a. See, this is. I'm not from your region, so I don't know how to pronounce any of this.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, we're here to correct you.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yes, please.

[Joe Kerrigan]

This is how we tell People aren't from around here, by the way.

[Maria Varmazes]

That's right. Well, that's how we do for a lot of these things. Right. He said, serve in instead of Severn. I would.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Severn.

[Maria Varmazes]

God, I wasn't even close. Okay, Severin Severn. And then also said, anna Napolis instead of Annapolis. I think I got that one right.

[Dave Bittner]

Anapolis. Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

And then he said that she could pay the fine on a place called Church Street. And she said, well, there is no such plate. It's Church Circle. That said. But he had all of her personal data to validate that. Try and make his claims sound real, like all that public data that we were just talking about. He was trying to make her scared and go, listen, I know all about you. I've got all this info on you. But he clearly had no idea how to pronounce anything locally. And she was going, you're not from around here. I don't think you know what you're talking about, and hung up on the guy. Yep, it was. I just. I love that the local shibboleth gave. Gave this all away.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I've never heard that word. Shibboleth.

[Dave Bittner]

What's shibboleths? Yeah, I don't know that either.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, gosh. Oh, sorry. Maybe I'm misusing the word. My understanding of that word is it's sort of like an ins. That indicates to other people that you are of that in group. So for a lot of us it's knowing how to pronounce local places and the weird way that local places are often pronounced. Like, I have a friend who lives in Hudson Valley, New York, and there's a bunch of really quaint little villages out there that are. Have names that are very familiar, but they're all pronounced exactly the wrong way. Like the town of Milan, New York instead of Milan. Which is why, you know, stuff like that, it just gives you away instantly that you ain't from around there. So I just love that that was how she figured out that the scammer wasn't from around there. And a lot of times you don't. Especially for smaller area, you know, smaller places in a region, you don't have the pronunciation as readily available. So it just gave them away. And I just love that. So I don't know, I thought that was a great little thing to color.

[Dave Bittner]

I have a very kind listener of the Cyberwire who writes. Who is from the United Kingdom and writes me whenever I butcher the name of a small town in the uk.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Dave Bittner]

Because they're all like. And he's very nice about it and I appreciate it.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Smithwicks.

[Dave Bittner]

I do try to. Yeah. Scunthorpe is the one that causes spell check error problems, but.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, Smithix. Right, yeah, yeah, sorry.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Smith. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, there's so many of those. You name a region, everyone's got them. So I just love that. That could actually be. That gave away the game in this case. And she basically.

[Dave Bittner]

What's up your way, Maria, that gives a dead Massachusetts. Yeah.

[Liz Stokes]

Are there any up there?

[Dave Bittner]

I'm sure people aren't particular about it, the locals or anything.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, definitely not. People don't get all up ons about how you pronounce Worcester or Peabody or Billerica or. Yeah, but I know we're not unique in that. I think every region's got stuff like that.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I thought about making a video going how Marylanders know you're not from around here. And there's all kinds of things like this. Like we. I'm sorry, Maria, I stepped all over it. You were going on, but.

[Maria Varmazes]

No, I just. I was. I was thinking about the differences in how you pronounce the same town in two different regions. Like, I know in Pennsylvania it's Lancaster, but there's also a Lancaster, Massachusetts.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

But if you pronounce it Lancaster in Pennsylvan will run you out of town. Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

You have to say Lancaster.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, Lancaster.

[Joe Kerrigan]

My son in law is from that region and very adamant about. It's Lancaster.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yep. But Lancaster, Massachusetts. Yep.

[Dave Bittner]

It's true.

[Joe Kerrigan]

What. And there's. I know. There's Monticello, New York, and then Jefferson's plantation.

[Maria Varmazes]

Monticello. Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Is Monticello in Virginia. They're both spelled exactly the same. And the way. The thing that makes me know immediately when someone is not from around here is when they say Ellicott City.

[Dave Bittner]

Yes. I was gonna say the same one.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Ellicott City. We don't say Ellicott. We say Ellicott.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. I tell people Ellicott rhymes with delicate.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

Interesting. Well, there's so many. It's like infinite amounts. And, you know, it's a 50. 50 on. If you're gonna get it right half the time. So I wonder when AI will catch up to understanding these sort of local. In jokes, in pronunciation. I mean, I keep using the word shibboleth because I really don't know what else to call this. I'm sure there's a better word for it, but that's just sort of how I think of them.

[Dave Bittner]

We've got another town not far from here that's pronounced Bowie.

[Maria Varmazes]

Bowie.

[Dave Bittner]

But it's spelled Bowie. Like David Bowie. Like David Bowie. Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, I would not. I would never get that right.

[Dave Bittner]

No.

[Maria Varmazes]

Why would you go for David Bowie?

[Dave Bittner]

Right. No, why would you? Yeah. There's no reason you would.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah. There's a university there. Bowie State.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And people from out of town call it Bowie State.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

And those people are wrong.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yes, they are. They just pronounce Cool.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, I guess. Flip side, though, if you did pronounce everything correctly and you were from that area, that would give more credence to the scam. So I suppose that could be weaponized in that way, too. But in the. Thankfully, it worked in Ms. Odraine's advantage, so I'm glad to hear it.

[Dave Bittner]

When I was a student at the University of Maryland, there's a building there called Tolliver hall, and it's spelled Taliaferro. And that was how you knew the freshmen on campus. They'd ask you. And I was one of them, how

[Liz Stokes]

do I get to Taliaferro Hall?

[Dave Bittner]

And they'd look down and shake their head at you ruefully.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And that. And the. You can tell the freshman girls. Cause they were still carrying purses. And then the freshman guys would always have two straps of their backpack on.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, okay.

[Maria Varmazes]

That's very. Of its time, Joe.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

The straps of the backpack thing.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. I think they're They've gotten over that one.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, yeah. That doesn't. I don't think that's a thing anymore, actually.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I don't think a lot of high school girls carry purses anymore, but back in the 80s, they sure did.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. I don't think young people care about one strap. No, no, no. They like having their spines going in the right direction.

[Dave Bittner]

That's right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah. I've adapted. Now with my backpack, I have to wear two straps. I can't just sling it. One strap. I put it on and my wife makes fun of me. And being a child of the 80s yourself. Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

Does anyone under the age of 40 know what the heck we are talking about?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Probably not.

[Maria Varmazes]

I really wonder.

[Dave Bittner]

Joe's backpack is the size of a, you know, international shipping containers.

[Maria Varmazes]

That is true. I have seen it. It scares me. I feel bad for your spine.

[Dave Bittner]

I have a zip code. Joe's backpack.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

Does it qualify as a weapon? In some situations, I'm sure it could.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, sir? You're going to try to carry that on the plane?

[Joe Kerrigan]

I do have a hard time getting through the TSA with it multiple times.

[Maria Varmazes]

I don't doubt it.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Although I do get comments. This is an awesome backpack. And I tell them this is the best backpack I've ever owned.

[Liz Stokes]

All right.

[Dave Bittner]

Anyway, let's move on.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Okay.

[Dave Bittner]

We'll have a link to Maria's story in the show notes. Joe, you're up. What do you got for us?

[Joe Kerrigan]

I have something that has a lot of similarity to Maria's story, but this comes from our it can happen to anyone department.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay.

[Joe Kerrigan]

This happened to Matt Gutman, who is a CBS chief correspondent for their news department.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Here's the thing about him. He frequently covers scams. So he posted on x that on July 10th that he. A tweet. I just. I guess. What is it now called? An X. It's not a tweet anymore. If you're not on Twitter, I don't

[Dave Bittner]

know what you call it.

[Joe Kerrigan]

All right.

[Dave Bittner]

Exclamation.

[Joe Kerrigan]

You're helping Dave. I just got scammed. So here's what happened to him. He had a call from his bank from the Fraud Protection Department. And Fraud protection is in quotes here. And it said, people are illegally withdrawing money from your account is what the person on the phone said. And this person had a name, a badge id, which I don't know why a bank employee would have a badge ID and not an employee number. But here's the most interesting part, is that they had insider knowledge about his bank account. They had some other Information that was convincing enough. And what he said is, we suspect that there is significant fraud activity at the branch where you bank. So the caller told him that the fraudsters are inside the bank and he had to help catch them. So here's what you do. You go to your local bank, you take out a big pile of cash, and that will prompt the scammers to act inside the bank.

[Dave Bittner]

Right. Okay.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And now they give him a little bit of isolation here. They say, don't tell anyone at the bank because they may be in on it. Right, Right. So now here's the interesting part. Matt was actually convinced, based on the caller's knowledge of his account and a little bit of coincidental timing, there had been some recent fraud activity on his daughter's account. Which, you know, we talk about this all the time as well. This is a numbers game for these scammers.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And when you, when you think to yourself, how could somebody fall for this? Well, think about Matt's situation. Matt's daughter just had actual fraudulent activity on her bank account. Here's the bank saying, oh, now they're doing something to your account.

[Dave Bittner]

He's primed.

[Joe Kerrigan]

He's primed already by his circumstances, not by anything else. These guys didn't have to do that.

[Maria Varmazes]

It's coincidence, but they got lucky.

[Joe Kerrigan]

It is just a coincidence.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So he goes to the bank and he went to the teller and he starts withdrawing funds. And then this thought occurs to him. He goes, I'm going to quote the article, there is no way this is possibly real. That anyone would use a regular civilian for a sting operation at a bank.

[Liz Stokes]

Good thought.

[Joe Kerrigan]

It just dawned on. Yeah, yeah, right.

[Liz Stokes]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

I mean, but also he's a journalist, so I mean, maybe they're thinking he could be help. I mean, I could imagine him going as a journalist. Maybe I could help with the sting. And this is a scoop or something.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

Nothing else is going to make a great story. Which it did.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Which it does.

[Maria Varmazes]

Which it did. But not for the reason he thought. Yeah.

[Liz Stokes]

Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So thankfully he had thought this before it was too late. And he didn't lose any money. But he said the scary thing was that he found out that these scammers often call, make these calls, and then they know what you look like. And when you walk out of the bank, they rob you. I mean, it's an old up close and personal robbery.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. Dang. Kind of retro.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

Cause you just get mugged. Oh, my God.

[Liz Stokes]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Just get mugged after, you know, go take $5,000 out of your bank account. And then you walk out of the bank with $5,000 cash, and somebody sticks a gun at you and says, give me the money.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

That's terrifying.

[Joe Kerrigan]

You're like, what money? He says, we know you just withdrew $5,000 from your bank account.

[Dave Bittner]

Because we're on the inside.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Because we're on the inside.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

The story has a quote from Joshua Copeland, who is an adjunct professor at Tulane University, and he teaches a bunch of stuff, including risk management and cybersecurity. He says the traditional phone scams typically involved contacting large numbers of individual with generic narratives, and contemporary scams are increasingly personalized. And Copeland called this a deliberately orchestrated social engineering operation rather than a random call. So this is something that these people targeted. Now, I'm gonna put a bet that these guys had some kind of information, because Copeland says that scammers get this information from social media, public records, and data breaches.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And then they use some kind of caller ID spoofing, which for some reason is still a thing.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yep. Gosh.

[Joe Kerrigan]

To bolster their credibility.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And I'm gonna bet that behind the scene, what these guys are doing is they're taking all this data and pumping it into another LLM, and they're coming up with all these different cases where they can just start with a very targeted and probably much more. Well, I'm gonna not say probably a much more successful, higher rate of success script that they can talk to somebody and convince them that they're real. So there's a great bit of advice in here that comes from Darius Kingsley, who is the head of consumer fraud and scam prevention at JPMorgan Chase. And he says if you receive a call from someone claiming to be your bank, the best thing to do is hang up and call your bank on the number of the back of your credit card. And he also provided another simple rule to follow that should protect you from most types of scams. Don't send money. Avoid sending money to anyone you've only spoken to online or by phone. So that's. I don't know. I think that's. That's probably good advice. I still like to do a lot of things by cash and check in person, but I don't know. I don't know. What do you guys think about this? I mean, I think this is good advice, generally speaking.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. I'm curious about how they got information about his bank account. So I'm curious for the two of you. Do either of you still get paper accountings from your bank mailed to you?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yes.

[Maria Varmazes]

I don't think I do.

[Dave Bittner]

No, I don't think I do either. But it seems to me like that could be a way. If I had somebody keeping an eye on your mailbox.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

That has definitely happened to me in the past where some stuff that was in the mail or recycling caused issues later for scammers.

[Dave Bittner]

I hadn't thought about recycling. Yes, yes.

[Maria Varmazes]

Recycling.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I do spread those documents.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, yeah. You know, I got lazy. I remember thinking, there's no way anybody's going through my trash.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

This was years ago. I learned the hard way that actually. Yes. So it can happen. Happened to me. So.

[Dave Bittner]

Because if somebody just had a bank statement, they could say, you know, well, I'm looking at the, you know, you were at the grocery store two weeks ago and you spent this amount and.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

You know, how would they know that?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right.

[Dave Bittner]

So maybe it's something like that. Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

It could be just simple as.

[Maria Varmazes]

Something as simple as a. His information was lost in a breach and he hadn't changed his password. I mean, yeah, people do it. Yep.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, absolutely. On your bank account. Multi factor authentication.

[Liz Stokes]

Factor authentication, please.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yes, indeed.

[Dave Bittner]

Anything having to do with money.

[Maria Varmazes]

All that good stuff. Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

Anything having to do with money.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

All right, well, interesting story. And we'll have a link to that in the show notes. I'll tell you what, let's take a quick break here. We'll be right back after these messages. All right, we are back. And my story this week actually generated from an email I got from one of our regular listeners. This is a listener and regular contributor. This is someone who enjoyed a career in federal law enforcement, but requests anonymity. I know who this person is, so I can vouch for them, but they don't want their name used on the show. So I respect that.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dave Bittner]

And I thought this was pretty clever. Now, Maria, I know you are a Star Trek fan.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

Now, which is your. When I say Star Trek, which is your Star Trek?

[Maria Varmazes]

I mean, the one that is mine is the Next Generation. But I have to say my favorite is Deep Space Nine.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay. Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

Which I know gets people going. But Next Generation is the one I grew up with. So.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, I like Next Generation. That's probably my favorite.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I am also more of a Star Trek person than Star Wars.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, I'm definitely more of a Star wars person than a Star Trek person. In fact, I remember the first time my neighbor kid asked if I wanted to go see this new movie, Star Wars. I thought to myself, eh, that sounds a lot Like Star Trek, and I don't like Star Trek, but all right, I'll go. Little did I know how much it was going to change my life.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, you're kind of an equal opportunity Trek and Wars fan.

[Dave Bittner]

I suppose I am, but Star wars is closest to my heart. But I do love, particularly Next Generation Star Trek. At any rate, what our listener wrote in about was, I think, very interesting guidance and metaphor for the kind of things we talk about. They said, looking back, one of the things that stands out to me about Captain Kirk, and I will add, and Captain Picard, is that when an unknown spacecraft suddenly appeared on the view screen, his first response was not to assume hostile intent, but neither was it to assume friendly intent. He recognized a simple reality. He did not yet understand the situation. His response?

[Maria Varmazes]

Maria, Shields up. Shields up or yellow alert, as I think they introduced in the 90s.

[Dave Bittner]

Yes. Yes. Not because he knew there was a danger, because he did not yet know. Our listener says, I think there's a lesson here for how we handle unexpected phone calls, text messages, emails, and other inbound communications. When an unexpected caller claims there's a problem with your bank account, your computer, taxes, package, or anything else of consequence, remember that you have just entered a situation you did not create and do not yet understand. There is no requirement to solve that problem in real time, on their timetable, on their terms, within an environment they control.

[Maria Varmazes]

Damn. Tattoo that on your forehead. That's just brilliant right there.

[Joe Kerrigan]

My goodness.

[Dave Bittner]

We should make T shirts.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. Yes. Preach. That's so great. Yep.

[Dave Bittner]

He goes on, he says, instead, this is an unknown situation. Shields up. Understand the situation. Adjust your posture accordingly. Shields up does not mean panic, paranoia, or assuming everyone is a scammer.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yes. Yes, Joe.

[Joe Kerrigan]

That's for me, isn't it?

[Maria Varmazes]

I have a question. I like how you instantly fessed up.

[Dave Bittner]

You're like, yeah, Mr. Kerrigan, I am your mailman. It is my job to put these letters in your mailbox.

[Liz Stokes]

Stop bringing those bills to my house.

[Dave Bittner]

I am wearing a United States Postal Service uniform.

[Maria Varmazes]

You can buy those on Amazon.

[Dave Bittner]

I'm driving a postal truck.

[Maria Varmazes]

Probably also get that on Amazon.

[Joe Kerrigan]

How Jesus is. My steering wheel is on the right side of the car. That's just a British car.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, that's right.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, my God.

[Dave Bittner]

It means adopting a protective posture until you understand what you're dealing with. Slow things down. Create time and distance, maintain control of the situation, then decide what happens next. Many scams succeed because people feel compelled to act before they understand. The moment someone tells you there's a problem is often the moment your shields should go up.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Interesting.

[Dave Bittner]

Wow.

[Joe Kerrigan]

This is great.

[Maria Varmazes]

Absolutely brilliant. Yep.

[Dave Bittner]

I got this email and read through it and immediately wrote back and said, said, can I use this on the show? He was like, yes, please, please.

[Maria Varmazes]

We should just read this every week.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, perfect. Honestly, we should put this in the show. Closure. Remember, there's no need for. There's no requirement that you solve a problem in real time on the caller's timetable, on their terms, in an environment they control.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yep.

[Dave Bittner]

You know what somebody should do is make refrigerator magnets.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

Somebody should reach out to Bill Shatner and say, listen, can you please read this for us?

[Liz Stokes]

Oh, wow.

[Maria Varmazes]

Can you imagine if we could get him to read this?

[Joe Kerrigan]

That would be awesome.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh, we can't afford it, though. But it would be amazing.

[Dave Bittner]

We'll get producer Liz on it. To Patrick Stewart, maybe Shatner.

[Maria Varmazes]

Patrick Stewart definitely cannot afford Patrick Stewart.

[Liz Stokes]

I don't know.

[Dave Bittner]

Are there any Star Trek captains who are down on their luck right now who might need.

[Liz Stokes]

I don't know, Web. Haven't worked in a while.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Shatner's doing a lot of commercials.

[Liz Stokes]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Scott Bakula.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

Who played the Borg Queen. Maybe we can get her. Oh, I don't know. The Borg Queen. What's Michael Doran up to these days?

[Maria Varmazes]

He's still working. Oh, we could probably get Michael Dorn.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, yeah, he's a good guy.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Brent Spiner. We could probably get Brent Spiner.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah. I would die. Just for the record, I would actually die. So, you know, don't think I could handle it. Or John de Lancie. I would also actually die.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Or John de Lancie. Oh, yeah, that would be good.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you imagine Q telling you this? Q telling you that I would die?

[Joe Kerrigan]

What does Q care? He'll just go around your shields anyway.

[Dave Bittner]

That's true.

[Maria Varmazes]

If you don't like the laws of physics, you can just change them.

[Liz Stokes]

Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Shows up in the mariachi band, puts cigars in your hand.

[Dave Bittner]

I do. I do like Q for all those reasons.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yep.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And John de Lancie kills that. I mean, just is so good in that.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, he's really good.

[Maria Varmazes]

We can maybe get Robert Picardo. Oh, man.

[Dave Bittner]

Robert Picardo.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Robert Picardo. Yep, yep.

[Dave Bittner]

What about Wil Wheaton? He's nerdy enough.

[Joe Kerrigan]

No,

[Maria Varmazes]

I will not stand for Wil Wheaton the slander. He's amazing. I love him. No, don't be mean to him. I don't like that.

[Joe Kerrigan]

As long as I can say, shut up, Wesley, we're good.

[Maria Varmazes]

No, no, don't say that. That's so mean.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, okay. Well, Joe, you're off the show. Yeah, sorry it's come down to this.

[Maria Varmazes]

Listen, we're talking Star Trek. I'm gonna stand up for Wesley. He was a kid.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, yeah. What's he doing on the bridge?

[Maria Varmazes]

That's not his fault.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yeah, I know. That's the writer's fault. Yep.

[Maria Varmazes]

Lame Jean Roddenberry.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, again, thanks to our listener for sending this in. Good stuff and yeah, absolutely. Appreciate it. And thanks.

[Maria Varmazes]

Jonathan Frakes. That's who we should get to read Jonathan Frakes.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Be good.

[Maria Varmazes]

How about he does a great shield up Guinan telling you to shield. Okay, I'll stop now. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

[Dave Bittner]

You know, my wife actually spoke with Whoopi Goldberg on the phone once.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Really?

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, really? Yeah, yeah, it's very nice. She was very nice. As you would expect, I would imagine.

[Maria Varmazes]

That's cool.

[Dave Bittner]

All right, we would love to hear from you. If there's something you'd like us to talk about on the show, please 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 was sent to us by a listener named William. And the subject of this email is I need your forgiveness in all caps. Maybe I should just yell claims to come from someone named Mr. James Morrison. But I don't know, I'm gonna guess it isn't from someone named James.

[Dave Bittner]

All right, do you want me to do the honors?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yes.

[Maria Varmazes]

Good luck.

[Dave Bittner]

Go like this.

[Liz Stokes]

I need your forgiveness. I am an Internet fraudster and scamming people for the past 22 years. I made over $450 million over the years with all kind of expensive cars, houses and living extremely rich life. I made so much money from scamming people. But now I realize that nothing good lasts forever and no amount of money can buy life. I've been hospitalized for months on a life supporting machine over lung cancer and my doctor said I less than 48 hours on this earth.

[Dave Bittner]

Yesterday my pastor visited me at the

[Liz Stokes]

hospital and while he was praying he told me to confess my sins and ask God for forgiveness.

[Dave Bittner]

Then I confessed to my pastor how

[Liz Stokes]

on I used to scam people and how I made over $450 million from defrauding people through Internet. Then my pastor said that I needed to give all those money and properties away, especially to those I defrauded. But unfortunately most of the people I defrauded are late now. But I have decided to split all those money to everybody found on my

[Maria Varmazes]

computer contacts that's one sentence, isn't it?

[Liz Stokes]

It is. I have listed all the email names on my contact list and decided to compensate all the people I found on my contact list with a sum of $500,000 each. And to be honest, 90% of the people I defrauded was from America. So I'm doing exactly what my pastor said, that I should return all those money back to those I collected. Defraud. Before I can seek the face of the Lord. I have selected all the American contact details on my computer and yours was among them. Probably you and I might have something in the past, but that I can't remember anymore. Because all that matters to me now is pay back this money so I can be free to seek the face of God. And for these reasons, I have already concluded an arrangement with my bank to pay the sum of $500,000 each to any name submitted by my pastor. The bank can only make payment to only those names submitted by my pastor as I have handed all the payment transaction to him is the only one I can trust at the moment of knowing that I might not even be alive in the next 48 hours as the doctor said. So I will advise you to kindly contact my pastor with below details.

[Dave Bittner]

Name Rev.

[Liz Stokes]

Pastor Francis Easy of Living Faith Church of God. Please, you have to contact my pastor immediately for your compensation of half a million dollars from me. And also find it in your heart to forgive me. And if this is all I have to do for God to have mercy on my soul and forgive me. And I am ready and willing to give away all the money and the properties. Besides, how does the need. What is the need of money, luxury cars and houses when you don't have a life? It's better I return all this money rather than leaving it at the bank for those corrupt bank managers or even the government to take over all my assets when I'm gone. So please, you have to contact my pastor for your $500,000 compensation.

[Dave Bittner]

And do remember to forgive my mistakes as I'm not sure if I will still be alive for the next 48 hours. Just like my doctor said. Yours truly, James Morrison, AKA Hush Puppy.

[Liz Stokes]

Can I get a hallelujah?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Hush Puppy.

[Liz Stokes]

So wow, you know, it's a shame.

[Dave Bittner]

With all that money he couldn't afford any punctuation, right?

[Maria Varmazes]

He's gonna die from running out of breath.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Right?

[Dave Bittner]

I was gonna die from running out of breath.

[Joe Kerrigan]

And you don't even have lung cancer like this guy does.

[Dave Bittner]

No.

[Maria Varmazes]

Oh my God.

[Dave Bittner]

Wow.

[Joe Kerrigan]

What the heck?

[Dave Bittner]

Well, a lot going on here. I mean, this is a scam we've seen before, right? This is the please help me give away my money scam.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yep.

[Dave Bittner]

Pretty common.

[Maria Varmazes]

Won't anyone take this free pile of money? Gosh.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, I can't find anyone. I say this is a new twist on it.

[Liz Stokes]

It is.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I've not seen this one before.

[Liz Stokes]

No.

[Joe Kerrigan]

A lot of reaching out to or trying to appeal to people's religious sensibilities here.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So it's. Yeah, go ahead, Maria.

[Maria Varmazes]

I was gonna say, I really like that it actually starts by disarming you, saying, hey, I'm actually an Internet fraudster. So you read it and you're going, okay, they're starting out honestly.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, Right.

[Maria Varmazes]

It's a kind of an interesting tactic, Dick. Yeah, very interesting.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. And, yeah, lots of. Well, obviously no punctuation and some sporty English. So going to say this went through some kind of translation engine. Yep. Not a recent one.

[Joe Kerrigan]

I will ask, what does it profit a man if he gain the world yet lose his soul?

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

So this. I mean, this seems in line with a lot of thinking, but it's far from small o orthodox thinking, if you understand what I'm saying.

[Maria Varmazes]

I appreciate the clarification. Thanks, Joe.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Not a reverend.

[Dave Bittner]

So what would likely happen if we engaged with these folks?

[Joe Kerrigan]

Oh, they're just going to give you advanced fee scams.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Joe Kerrigan]

You know, that's all it is.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. They're going to ask you for money. In order to get the big money, you have to give them a little bit of money, which is this case would probably be a few thousand dollars.

[Joe Kerrigan]

Yep.

[Dave Bittner]

You would never see again.

[Joe Kerrigan]

That's right.

[Dave Bittner]

All right, well, again, thanks to our listener William, for sending that in. That was a great one. And we would love to hear from you. You can email us. It's hackinghumans2k.com

[Joe Kerrigan]

foreign.

[Dave Bittner]

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 cybersecurity. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your favorite podcast app.

[Liz Stokes]

Please also fill out the survey in

[Dave Bittner]

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 Bittner]

Thanks for listening.