Past, Present, and Future of AI agents
Easy Prey
The intersection of AI and cybersecurity is changing faster than anyone expected, and that pace is creating both incredible innovation and brand-new risks we’re only beginning to understand. From deepfake ads that fool even seasoned security professionals to autonomous agents capable of acting on our behalf, the threat landscape looks very different than it did even a year ago. To explore what this evolution means for everyday people and for enterprises trying to keep up, I’m joined by Chris Kirschke, Field CISO at Tuskira and a security leader with more than two decades of experience...
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You Are Traceable with OSINT
Easy Prey
Publicly available data can paint a much clearer picture of our lives than most of us realize, and this episode takes a deeper look at how those tiny digital breadcrumbs like photos, records, searches, even the background of a Zoom call can be pieced together to reveal far more than we ever intended. To help break this down, I’m joined by Cynthia Hetherington, Founder and CEO of The Hetherington Group, a longtime leader in open-source intelligence. She also founded Osmosis, the global association and conference for OSINT professionals, and she oversees OSINT Academy, where her team trains...
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Anyone Could Walk In
Easy Prey
Sometimes we forget how much trust we place in the little things around us like a lock on a door or a badge on someone’s shirt. We see those symbols and assume everything behind them is safe, but it doesn’t always work that way. A person with enough confidence, or the right story, can slip through places we think are locked down tight, and most of us never notice it’s happening. My guest today is Deviant Ollam, and he’s one of the rare people who gets invited to break into buildings on purpose. He talks about how he fell into this unusual line of work, the odd moments that shaped his...
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The Scam You Never See Coming
Easy Prey
Fraud today doesn’t feel anything like it used to. It’s not just about somebody skimming a credit card at a gas pump or stealing a check out of the mail. It has gotten personal, messy, emotional. Scammers are building relationships, earning trust, and studying the little details of our lives so they can strike when we’re tired, distracted, or dealing with something big. And honestly, most people have no idea how far it’s gone. My guest, Ian Mitchell, has spent more than 25 years fighting fraud around the world and leading teams in the financial sector. He’s the founder of The Knoble,...
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Hacking AI
Easy Prey
AI has brought incredible new capabilities into everyday technology, but it’s also creating security challenges that most people haven’t fully wrapped their heads around yet. As these systems become more capable and more deeply connected to the tools and data we rely on, the risks become harder to predict and much more complicated to manage. My guest today is Rich Smith, who leads offensive research at MindGard and has spent more than twenty years working on the front lines of cybersecurity. Rich has held leadership roles at organizations like Crash Override, Gemini, Duo Security, Cisco,...
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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...
info_outlineWhat happens when the drive to succeed masks deep emotional wounds and addiction? In this episode, Jonathan Schwartz shares a powerful and painfully honest account of how his life unraveled.
Once one of Hollywood’s most trusted financial advisors, Jonathan worked with icons like Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, and Gwyneth Paltrow. On the surface, he had it all. But underneath the success was a secret struggle with gambling and drug addiction that led him to steal millions from the very clients who trusted him most.
His fall from grace was dramatic and public, ending in a prison sentence and the loss of everything he had built. But that wasn’t the end of his story. Today, Jonathan is sober and rebuilding his life with purpose. As Program Director at Altus Rehab, he now helps others find their own way out of addiction and shame. His story is raw, real, and full of hard-earned wisdom for anyone who has ever felt like they couldn’t ask for help.
Show Notes:
- [01:30] Jonathan is a different person from who he was. He grew up in Upstate New York and his father left when he was four. His mom had a lot of stress and took it out on him which created childhood trauma.
- [03:34] Accounting was the subject that he was good at.
- [05:02] Eventually, his cousin gave him a job working in Los Angeles for celebrities.
- [06:33] In 2004, he became a partner in GSO business management. He got a break when Linkin Park was looking for someone in business management. Their success opened up the floodgates.
- [08:37] He began getting more and more A-list clients.
- [09:04] In 2010, he became addicted to gambling.
- [10:01] This eventually led to embezzlement from his celebrity clients. He placed the bet with this bookie everyday for 6 years.
- [13:48] He ended up embezzling about 7 million dollars.
- [14:12] When he stopped gambling he had suicidal ideation.
- [17:05] He always intended to pay the money back.
- [19:37] Jonathan shares a time when the bank wanted to call Alanis.
- [21:03] There was a point when his partners started to notice something wasn't right.
- [22:04] In 2015 he was fired by Alanis, but he continued to give his attention to his A-list clients.
- [24:42] He didn't want to expose anyone to the fact that he was committing crime. He never told a soul.
- [25:07] The dark secret was eating him inside, and he also had to deal with his unresolved trauma.
- [27:12] How Jonathan had to come clean with his wife, because he was scheduled for a lie detector test.
- [28:48] After failing the test, he was facing 23 years in prison. He negotiated a four to six year plea agreement.
- [31:14] He ended up being released early because of COVID.
- [32:11] He struggled to get a job and ended up going back to school, and now he's a marriage and family therapist with an emphasis on addiction and trauma.
- [34:00] In prison he had the opportunity to reflect on his bad decisions and read a lot of books.
- [36:33] He's proud to be sober and a nerd. His trauma is resolved, and he gets to help people in treatment not make the same mistakes that he made.
- [41:34] Celebrities today need to understand not to trust their business manager so quickly and to make sure that they're proactive in their financial affairs and that they're asking for source documents.
- [42:11] Audit your business manager with some level of frequency.
- [48:43] Don't go out and spend all your money. Treat your first dollars as your last dollars.
- [50:56] Jonathan has a book coming out in about 12 months.
Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.