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Surviving a Ransomware Attack

Release Date: 01/14/2026

Easy Prey

Most cybersecurity conversations focus on stolen data, breached accounts, and attacks that live entirely on screens. This episode looks at a far more consequential threat: what happens when cyberattacks target the physical systems that keep society running. Power, water, transportation, and manufacturing. When those systems fail, the consequences aren’t just digital. They’re immediate, visible, and sometimes dangerous. My guest is Lesley Carhart, Technical Director of Incident Response at Dragos, a cybersecurity firm focused exclusively on protecting critical infrastructure. Lesley...

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....

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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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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. Zachary shares the inside story of a LockBit ransomware attack that unfolded while his team was still building foundational security controls, forcing real-time decisions about recovery, disclosure, negotiations, and whether paying a ransom was even an option.

We talk about the shame that keeps many cyber incidents hidden, the emotional weight leaders carry during these moments, and the practical realities that don’t show up in tabletop exercises from buying bitcoin to restoring systems when password managers are encrypted. It’s an honest, grounded discussion about resilience, preparedness, and why sharing these stories openly may be one of the most important defenses organizations have.

Show Notes:

[04:05] Zachary Lewis explains why the absence of an immediate ransom note delayed suspicion of an attack.
[06:00] The first technical indicators suggest something more serious is unfolding.
[07:45] Discovering encrypted hypervisors and realizing recovery won’t be straightforward.
[09:30] Zachary outlines when data exfiltration became a real concern.
[11:05] Receiving the LockBit ransomware note confirms the organization has been compromised.
[12:55] The 4:30 a.m. phone call pushes leadership into full crisis mode.
[14:40] Zachary reflects on managing fear, responsibility, and decision fatigue mid-incident.
[16:20] Executive expectations collide with technical realities during the breach.
[18:05] Why “doing most things right” still doesn’t guarantee protection.
[19:55] Cyber insurance begins shaping early response decisions.
[21:35] Bringing in incident response teams and legal counsel under tight timelines.
[23:20] Zachary describes working with the FBI and understanding jurisdictional limits.
[25:10] What law enforcement can and cannot realistically provide during ransomware events.
[26:50] Opening communication channels with the threat actors.
[28:35] The psychological pressure behind ransomware negotiations.
[30:10] Attacker-imposed timelines force rapid, high-stakes decisions.
[31:55] Zachary walks through the practical challenges of acquiring cryptocurrency.
[33:40] Why encrypted password managers created unexpected recovery barriers.
[35:15] Determining which systems could be restored first—and which could not.
[37:00] Lessons learned about backup integrity and offline recovery.
[38:45] The importance of clear internal communication during uncertainty.
[40:25] Balancing transparency with legal and reputational concerns.
[42:10] How staff reactions differed from executive responses.
[43:55] Zachary discusses the stigma that keeps many ransomware incidents quiet.
[45:40] Why sharing breach stories can strengthen collective defenses.
[47:20] MFA gaps and configuration issues exposed by the attack.
[49:05] Why tabletop exercises fall short of real-world incidents.
[50:50] Long-term security changes made after recovery.
[52:30] Zachary offers advice for CISOs facing their first major incident.
[54:10] What preparedness really means beyond compliance checklists.
[56:00] Why resilience and recovery deserve equal priority.
[58:30] Final reflections on leadership, accountability, and learning in public.

Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.

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