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_outlineTrying to erase yourself from the internet sounds simple until you start counting up old accounts, scattered social media posts, and the hundreds of data brokers quietly collecting and selling your information. The reality is messy, and for most people, the idea of fully disappearing online is more myth than possibility. But there are practical steps you can take to cut down what’s out there and regain some control.
My guest, Max Eddy, is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter who covers privacy, security, and software platforms. For one of his projects, he set out to see how much of his own digital footprint he could realistically reduce. Max shares what he discovered along the way and what worked, what didn’t, and how even small changes can make a meaningful difference.
In our conversation, Max talks about the value of using password managers and email masking, what he learned from testing multiple data removal services, and the emotional side of deleting old social media history. He also explains why perfection isn’t the goal, and how thinking differently about privacy can help you stay one step ahead of scammers, marketers, and anyone else trying to piece together your personal information.
Show Notes:
- [00:50] Max explains why he got into covering privacy and security and what keeps him motivated in the field.
- [03:27] We discuss the Wirecutter project on disappearing online and why it resonated with readers.
- [04:12] Using Have I Been Pwned, Max was able to reduce 350 online accounts down to 27 that needed immediate attention.
- [09:10] Max describes the tactics he used to break the links between his online accounts with fake names, masked emails, and random images.
- [11:55] We talk about data removal services, their limitations, and the challenges of removing certain public records.
- [17:52] We learn how scammers can piece together a person's complete profile from inconsistent, fragmented data from different data brokers.
- [18:54] We discuss how Google's removal tools only make information harder to find, but don't delete it.
- [23:15] We talk about the emotional side of deleting social media history and the automation tools he used to make it possible.
- [29:40] Max discusses the risks of deleting accounts entirely, from impersonation threats to losing important communication channels.
- [32:28] We talk about the value of taking a gradual approach to improving your digital privacy and how small, steady steps are most effective.
- [38:44] Max shares his key takeaways from the project: first, ask why you want to disappear, and second, remember that any effort to reduce data is valuable.
Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.