The Ransomware War
Easy Prey
Ransomware isn’t a lone hacker in a hoodie. It’s an entire criminal industry complete with developers, brokers, and money launderers working together like a dark tech startup. And while these groups constantly evolve, so do the tools and partnerships aimed at stopping them before they strike. My guest today is Cynthia Kaiser, former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Cyber Division and now the Head of the Ransomware Research Center at Halcyon. After two decades investigating global cyber threats and briefing top government leaders, she’s now focused on prevention and building...
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Opportunistic Crimes
Easy Prey
Criminals are always adapting. Whether it’s copper wiring stripped from job sites or porch pirates grabbing deliveries in broad daylight, they keep finding new ways to take what isn’t theirs. But maybe prevention isn’t about harsher punishment or more cameras. Maybe it’s about smarter design and understanding what drives people to steal in the first place. My guest today is Dr. Ben Stickle, a professor of criminal justice at Middle Tennessee State University and one of the country’s top researchers on property crime. Before entering academia, he worked in law enforcement, which gives...
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Post Scam Guidebook
Easy Prey
Fraud usually gets talked about in numbers like how much money was stolen, how many people were affected, how many cases got filed. But behind every one of those numbers is a person who’s been blindsided, manipulated, or left trying to rebuild trust in others and in themselves. This episode shifts the focus back to those human stories and the fight to protect them. My guest, Freddie Massimi, has spent more than a decade helping scam victims find both financial and emotional recovery, bringing empathy and understanding to a field that too often feels cold and procedural. As a certified...
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Can You Trust Anything Online
Easy Prey
You think you’d never fall for a scam until you meet someone like Kitboga. He’s a software engineer who’s turned his curiosity about online fraud into a full-time mission to outsmart scammers and protect the people they target. His YouTube channel, The Kitboga Show, has millions of followers and nearly a billion views, thanks to his mix of humor, empathy, and clever ways of exposing how scams really work. In our conversation, Kit opens up about how this all started, what it’s really like to spend hours pretending to be a scam victim, and how organized crime has turned fraud into a...
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Real Time Fraud Detection
Easy Prey
Everywhere you turn, someone’s trying to fake something like an image, a voice, or even an entire identity. With AI tools now in almost anyone’s hands, it takes minutes, not days, to create a convincing fake. That’s changed the game for both sides. The fraudsters have new weapons, and the rest of us are scrambling to keep up. The real question now isn’t just how to stop scams, but how to know who or what to trust online. My guest today, Bala Kumar, spends his days on the front lines of that battle. He’s the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Jumio, a company working to make...
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Child Predator Tactics
Easy Prey
Kids spend more time online than ever, and for the most part it feels normal. They’re gaming, watching videos, and chatting with friends. But hidden in those same spaces are adults who know how to pose as kids, build trust, and push conversations into dangerous territory. Parents might think it couldn’t happen to their child, yet detectives see how quickly an “innocent” interaction can turn into grooming or extortion. That’s the world Detective Seth Cockerham works in every day. He’s been in law enforcement in Texas for close to a decade, and the last few years have been dedicated...
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Identity Trafficking
Easy Prey
Some people are willing to hand over their identities for cash, while organized fraudsters are lining up to buy them. What used to be a matter of stolen credit cards has turned into a global marketplace where personal details fuel large-scale fraud. Now with AI, automation, and deepfakes making impersonation easier than ever, it’s becoming much more difficult to protect identities. To understand how we got here and what can be done, I spoke with Ofer Friedman, Chief Business Development Officer at AU10TIX. Ofer has spent more than 15 years in the identity verification and compliance...
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Technology, Trust & Time
Easy Prey
Technology is moving faster than our ability to process its impact, forcing us to question trust, motivation, and the value of our time. Few people have had a closer view of those shifts than Esther Dyson. With a background in economics from Harvard, Esther built a career as a journalist, author, commentator, investor, and philanthropist, with a unique ability to spot patterns across industries and challenge assumptions before they become mainstream. She is the executive founder of Wellville, a ten-year nonprofit project dedicated to improving equitable well-being in communities across the...
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The Global Scam Battle
Easy Prey
Cybercrime continues to evolve in sophistication and scale, with attackers running their operations much like businesses. From ransomware gangs with customer support desks to AI-generated phishing campaigns that erase traditional red flags, scams are becoming harder to detect and stop. In this episode, David Bittner, host of the CyberWire Daily Podcast, shares his perspective on the changing landscape of fraud and cyberattacks. Drawing on his background in media, theater, and podcasting, as well as years of reporting on security issues, he explains how both criminals and defenders are using...
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AI Supercharges Scams
Easy Prey
Cybercriminals are accelerating their attacks in ways that weren’t possible a few years ago. Artificial intelligence is giving them the ability to spin up phishing campaigns, voice clones, and deepfakes in minutes instead of days. As a result, the gap between what’s genuine and what’s fake is closing fast, making it harder for both individuals and organizations to defend themselves. I’m thrilled to welcome Brett Winterford, Vice President of Okta Threat Intelligence. Brett has had a front row seat to these changes. His team analyzes identity-based attacks and delivers insights to help...
info_outlineScammers are getting smarter, understanding the psychology behind social engineering and the challenges companies face every day can help keep networks secure. This episode will show how to anticipate these threats and secure networks against ever-changing vulnerabilities. We’ll focus on practical, real-world solutions to protect data and trust.
Dr. Jared Smith joins us to share his insights from his role leading research and development at SecurityScorecard. He also co-founded UnCat, a B2B accounting technology company serving thousands of customers and teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and NYU. His experience shows why social engineering is so effective and how companies can adapt to a world where attackers are always refining their techniques.
This episode shows how even small oversights or minor issues can lead to big breaches. Dr. Smith shares concrete steps to strengthen defenses, and why we need both technical solutions and employee awareness. By looking at the psychology behind the attacks, he’ll show that staying one step ahead depends on using smart security tools and a culture that recognizes vigilance at every level.
Show Notes:
- [01:19] Jared is a distinguished thought researcher at SecurityScorecard. He's built systems and helps vendors monitor and secure their networks. He also has a PHD in computer science. He focuses on Border Gateway Protocol or BGP.
- [02:16] He was also a high clearance government national security researcher.
- [03:02] Jared shares a story about how sophisticated phishing scams are becoming.
- [08:43] How large language models are making more sophisticated social engineering possible.
- [10:26] The importance of thinking about cybersecurity needed in the next 10 years.
- [11:02] BGP is like the plumbing of the internet. BGP poisoning breaks the typical internet traffic route. It's very nuanced traffic engineering that uses the Border Gateway Protocol.
- [13:34] BGP is also useful when you have multiple internet connections and one goes down.
- [14:20] The most sophisticated DDoS works are called link flooding attacks, where they identify links that have a certain amount of bandwidth, and they flood that specific border gateway protocol link, effectively segmenting the internet in those places.
- [15:39] Managing DDOS attacks and where the traffic comes from.
- [16:02] Being aware of botnets, because they are what's rented out or being used for these attacks.
- [17:32] Lizard Squad launched DDoS as a service.
- [21:00] Attackers try to get the actual IP addresses from behind a CDN.
- [23:41] How AWS has the ability to manage large amounts of traffic.
- [25:24] There are some DDoS that just require sending enough traffic to fill up the buffers on the other side of the application.
- [28:15] The size of a botnet for DDoS to take down a big network like X. We explore potential paths for these attacks.
- [32:21] We talk about the uptick on attacks during tax season. A large accounting firm with a lot of clients could be spoofed.
- [36:50] The predominant attacks are coming from organized cybercrime groups and ransomware groups.
- [45:40] The vast majority of large networks taken out are usually a result of user error.
Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.