Familial Identity Theft
Easy Prey
Identity theft is usually framed as an external threat. Hackers, data breaches, anonymous criminals operating somewhere far away. This episode looks at a much harder reality to face: identity theft that happens inside families, often quietly, over many years, and without immediate detection. The damage isn’t just financial. It reshapes trust, relationships, and a person’s sense of stability long before anyone realizes what’s happening. My guest is Axton Betz-Hamilton, an associate professor of financial counseling and planning whose research focuses on familial and child identity theft....
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Exploiting Trust (Part 2)
Easy Prey
Security failures rarely come from cutting-edge attacks or sophisticated tools. They happen in ordinary moments when someone holds a door, follows an instruction without questioning it, or finds a workaround that makes their day easier. Those small, human decisions are often the real entry points, and they tend to compound over time. This episode picks up the second half of our conversation on exploiting trust with FC Barker, a veteran ethical hacker and physical security expert known for legally breaking into banks, government buildings, and high-security facilities around the world. With...
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Exploiting Trust (Part 1)
Easy Prey
Most security failures don’t start with a dramatic breach or a mysterious hacker sitting in a dark room. They usually start quietly. Someone assumes a system is locked down. Someone trusts that a door shouldn’t open, or that a machine “just works,” or that no one would ever think to look there. Over time, those small assumptions stack up, and that’s where things tend to go wrong. Today’s guest is FC Barker, a renowned ethical hacker, social engineer, and global keynote speaker with more than three decades of experience legally breaking into organizations to expose their blind...
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Surviving a Ransomware Attack
Easy Prey
A ransomware attack doesn’t always announce itself with flashing warnings and locked screens. Sometimes it starts with a quiet system outage, a few unavailable servers, and a sinking realization days later that the threat actors were already inside. This conversation pulls back the curtain on what really happens when an organization believes it’s dealing with routine failures only to discover it’s facing a full-scale cyber extortion event. My guest today is Zachary Lewis, CIO and CISO for a Midwest university, a 40 Under 40 Business Leader, and a former Nonprofit CISO of the Year....
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Why You Fall For Scams
Easy Prey
Why do smart, capable people fall for scams even when the warning signs seem obvious in hindsight? In this episode, Dan Ariely joins us to examine how intuition often leads us in the wrong direction, especially under stress, uncertainty, or emotional pressure. A renowned behavioral economist, longtime professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, and bestselling author of Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, Misbehaving, and Misbelief, Dan has spent decades studying why rational people consistently make choices that don’t serve them. We talk about...
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Mobile Device Threats
Easy Prey
In a world where we’re told to carry our entire lives in our pockets, we’ve reached a strange tipping point where the very devices meant to connect us have become windows into our private lives for those who wish us harm. It’s no longer a matter of looking for the "shady" corners of the internet; today, the threats come from nation-state actors, advanced AI, and even the people we think we’re hiring. We are living in an era where the most sophisticated hackers aren't just trying to break into your phone, they’re trying to move into your business by pretending to be your best...
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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,...
info_outlineEveryone’s talking about AI these days, especially in cybersecurity. Sure, artificial intelligence can boost your defenses, but cybercriminals have noticed too. Now they're crafting phishing emails so believable it’s scary and finding clever paths around spam filters while zeroing in on vulnerabilities you didn’t even realize were there.
Today, Aviad Hasnis joins the show. He's the CTO of Cynet Security and spent years running cybersecurity missions for the Israeli Defense Forces. Aviad’s here to help us figure out what the changing threat landscape really means, whether you're leading a corporate giant or just trying to keep your small business safe.
From passwords getting scooped up to VPN setups from a decade ago that no one updated, Aviad’s seen just about everything go wrong. He also explains why copy-pasting AI-generated code might open you up to attacks you never saw coming. He’s big on education, common sense, and making sure you’re using multiple security layers. These days even one slip-up can give attackers exactly what they're looking for. Aviad also walks us through supply chain vulnerabilities and why they should keep you up at night.
Whether you're the CISO of a Fortune 500 company or you’re running a small team with Bob, the go-to tech person juggling 18 other tasks, this episode is packed with practical insights to help you avoid the next big cybersecurity headache. While AI might be reshaping the cybersecurity landscape, staying secure still comes down to thoughtful planning, human judgment, and making sure someone you trust has your back.
Show Notes:
- [01:08] Aviad has been Cynet's Chief Technology Officer for the past five years. Prior to that, he worked in cyber security for the Israeli Army.
- [02:18] He was always fascinated with computers and technology. When Iran had a technology problem, he realized that cybersecurity was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
- [03:19] Aviad shares a story about his friend's mother being exposed to a scam. She received a phone call from someone pretending to be a police officer. She even installed different executables on her laptop. She didn't realize she was being victimized until she transferred over five grand.
- [06:07] Social engineering is one of the most dominant ways to gain access.
- [08:39] The security implications of using AI.
- [09:30] It's important to have guardrails with how you use AI.
- [10:28] If you're just copying and pasting code you may copy something that could be vulnerable to exploits.
- [11:16] People need to be aware of the types of risk and educate themselves.
- [12:49] Conversations at the C-suite level for implementing AI.
- [13:43] The challenge is to harness AI the right way without replacing people.
- [15:18] It's important to use critical thinking when creating with AI.
- [16:04] AI is helping security by allowing people to consult and get information. You can also introduce vulnerabilities into your application if you just copy and paste from chat GPT without knowing the context.
- [17:05] The bad guys can also use AI.
- [17:56] AI has improved the quality of phishing scams.
- [21:36] Where organizations are missing out when it comes to sniffing out threats. This includes VPNs and SaaS or cloud.
- [22:52] Employees could be using their home computers to connect to the company VPN and then their kids might download some malware or trojan. Companies need to use two-factor authentication when it comes to VPNs.
- [24:11] Email phishing can be another way to steal credentials.
- [27:54] The most effective approach is security layers.
- [30:40] Another security measure is creating profiles where we know where you're logging in from.
- [33:35] Is this doom and gloom for small businesses?
- [34:48] The best solution for small businesses would be to find a company with an all-in-one solution.
- [37:11] The importance of being proactive, so you can act quickly if you see something suspicious.
- [38:24] How the move to the cloud affects security.
- [39:08] Shifting to the cloud is safer.
- [44:20] New threats on the horizon include threat actors utilizing AI. They love to get control of remote applications.
Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.