What the Hack?

Jeff Williams on the business of moving money: who gets blocked, what slips through, and why checking the right boxes doesn’t always mean a win in the nascent AI-powered sanctions compliance space. From fentanyl money to shell companies, we follow the (often filthy dirty) money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a young engineer uncovered a sizeable click fraud situation at Google, he discovered a bigger problem; namely, the perverse ingenuity that drives online fraud and scams. "Big Breaches" author Neil Daswani joined us to talk click farms, data breaches, AI exploits, and the big picture of cybercrime today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cybercrime expert Gary Warner joins to discuss Nigerian confraternities, the "campus cults" rooted in idealism that morphed into a multi-billion dollar transnational organized crime network. Learn about the "money blessing," the coded language and insider access, and the elite thug playbook for exploiting trust. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When scammers tried to steal Graceland, it seemed like a fluke, but deed fraud is very much on the rise. Del Denney of the Land Trust Company explains how criminals steal homes and how to stop it from happening to you. Plus, we revisit Adam Levin's wallet ripper about a twice-targeted beachfront property. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forensic expert Heather Barnhart (SANS Institute) decoded Osama Bin Laden's phones and helped convict quadruple murderer Brian Kohberger. Learn how surviving her own harassment fueled her mission, plus the digital "pattern of life" hack and simple steps to combat AI deepfakes and stay safe online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marketing visionary Seth Godin explains how the Internet got hijacked by an attention-stealing spam economy that keeps us in an endless loop of badly targeted marketing. Godin's anti-spam playbook: demand companies earn your attention with awesomeness, and break the digital slop loop that broke the Internet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A locked account. A call for help. What happened next left Tony questioning everything he thought he knew about the Internet. This week is about trust, technology, and how quickly things can unravel when those we count on aren’t who they seem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former federal prosecutor Tom O’Malley takes us inside the strange, high-stakes world of modern fraud—where victims are presumed guilty, families lose fortunes, and the fight against global crime rings starts at home. Three lessons that could make a difference. Voting: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signal4_finalists_finalistnotification_092325&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2025/individual-episodes/genre/thought-leadership Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every click, swipe, and post fuels the data economy. Credit cards, apps, even maps—our lives are scraped, stitched, and sold. It feels like a heist, and sometimes it is. Identity Theft Resource Center CEO Eva Casey-Velasquez insists the picture isn’t entirely bleak. This week we talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of data brokers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It started with a slow roll of weird emails and phone calls. And then award-winning filmmaker Dan Sturman found himself in the crosshairs of serious hackers. With parallels to another case of mistaken identity and an assist from security expert Reuben Moretz, this week we explore bad social engineering. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feeling watched? Join us as Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark breaks down the new reality of digital surveillance. From school apps to AI scams, we dive into how companies collect your data and how to take control of your online privacy. The war for privacy is real—and it's a fight you can't afford to lose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A fake Microsoft pop-up cost Ken Westbrook’s mom her life savings. But they scammed the wrong family. Westbrook is former CIA. These days he’s sounding the alarm on how foreign crime rings steal billions from Americans with smishing campaigns, scareware, and gift cards. We talked about solutions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this second installment of our DEF CON two-parter, we talked to SocialProof Security CEO Rachel Tobac about how and why people are often the weakest link in so many cybersecurity protocols and how making yourself a harder target will cause most threat actors to move on to an easier mark. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At DEF CON’s Social Engineering Village, contestants have 22 minutes to charm real employees at real companies into revealing real details that could lead to a breach. We step inside the booth to see how persuasion, improv, and psychology fuel both ethical hacking and the rise of cybercrime worldwide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurtis Minder knows the dark web better than most—and he’s not just watching from the sidelines. As a ransomware negotiator, he’s helped victims talk their way out of seemingly impossible situations. This week, we explore how cybercriminals operate, what makes them tick, and what you need to know to avoid becoming their next target. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A not-entirely innocent moment at a concert set the internet on fire. But what if that was just a symptom of a bigger problem? New York Times journalist Kashmir Hill, author of Your Face Belongs to Us, helps us explore the chilling reality of ambient surveillance, and how facial recognition could be the end privacy as we know it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Online fraud isn't just annoying; it's a national crisis. Last year alone, it may have siphoned $158 billion from the U.S. economy. This episode features AARP's Kathy Stokes, who reveals how fraud has morphed into a sophisticated, global operation and what's being done to fight back against this evolving threat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fortune Magazine's Amanda Gerut offers a deep dive into the secret army of remote IT workers funding North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Explore the hidden world of laptop farms, the criminal identity theft targeting freelancers, and the shocking human cost. It's a chilling scheme with law enforcement and freelancers trapped in the crossfire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Ben Winters, director of AI and Privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, for a front-row seat to the chaotic world of AI regulation where dirty data, aggressive lobbying, and public confusion drive a "winner takes all" vibe. From shady therapy bots to data-fueled discrimination, Ben reveals the urgent need to create guardrails for AI before it jumps the tracks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kristin got scammed because she didn't want to give a puppy mill her business. This classic digital scam has it all: fake breeders, phony shipping agents, and a non-existent air-conditioned crate. Kristen reveals how her scammers used trust, urgency and emotion, to close the deal. Listen to her story and what you can do to avoid getting duped yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you have never listened to Chris Hutchins explain how to get free travel, you’ve probably been paying too much for your vacations. Turns out, a threat actor was listening to him and stole his miles. Download this week’s episode to hear how he hacked the situation to score even more points. (This episode originally airdropped September 26, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every part of life that comes in contact with the Internet is tracked, packed and sold to a a seemingly infinite network of data brokers. Caitlin Sarian AKA Cybersecurity Girl joined us this week to discuss why scrubbing your information is trickier than it sounds and what you can do about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nicole Perlroth’s book This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends is a masterpiece on the topic of cyberwar and the zero-day hacks that make it deadly. Join us as we explore with Perlroth a cyberscape where mistakes are weaponized, backdoors abound and we all have zero degrees of separation from spies and the people they spy on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if your digital footprint made you a target? Jack Rhysider, host of "Darknet Diaries," shares how a fan turned his online presence into a personal puzzle—revealing just how easily your privacy can be pieced together and exploited. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As technology is integrated deeper into classrooms, the lines between education and data privacy have been destroyed by for-profit data miners. This week, privacy advocate Shannon Edwards reveals how educational apps harvest sensitive information from children, commodify their data, and what parents can do to fight it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ransomware is a type of malware that allows hackers to commandeer data on a device or an entire network. Increasingly, the threat actors behind these crimes set their sites on mission critical targets. We talked about it with renowned cybersecurity expert Keren Elazari this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve all been there. You see something perfect online, you do all the clicks and then think, “Wait, was that legit?” Scam-lite transactions are the way of the web these days, whether it’s direct-from-manufacturer or super-sticky subscriptions, we have your back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From elections to ransomware, CISA Director Jen Easterly breaks down the threats to America’s critical infrastructure and what’s being done to stop them, sharing along the way her journey from the real-life battlefield to the frontlines of cybersecurity. This is a rare glimpse into the most pressing threats America faces—and a compelling story about Director Easterly’s own experience being targeted.. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Think you’re too savvy to get scammed? Author and activist Cory Doctorow explains how we’re all one muffaletta and a malfunctioning jet door away from falling prey to the most basic of cons. He joins us this week to talk about that and to fill us in about his new book, “The Bezzle.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the biggest threat to your privacy wasn’t some hacker in a hoodie—but a spy trained to infiltrate your life? Former FBI operative Eric O’Neill, the man who took down spy Robert Hanssen, explains how digital spies target us, offering along the way real-world tips to protect ourselves in a world where everyone’s a potential target. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI is everywhere – in the news, on our devices, assisting us, making life easier for us, and for criminals, too, harnessing AI to swindle people more efficiently. What’s next? We dive into the dark side of AI and ask two experts: Could AI commit the perfect crime? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karen Johnson is a catfisher-turned-scam avoidance coach turned–you guessed it–catfishing victim. The scam that got her is a classic, opening the door to a Pandora’s Box of the usual advice about avoiding the most common scams out there. But the thing that really got us thinking is the role AI played in almost every aspect of this week’s show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a Daily Show correspondent, comedian Roy Wood, Jr. knows a thing or two about fake news and truthiness as well as the truth-and-a-half that is comedy. By skewering the media and the people in the news, he has special insight into how misinformation affects the way we think about the world and what we know. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Max McCoy stumbled on a $47 million swindle that starts just north of the Oklahoma panhandle and bounces to Australia before things get really confusing in a haze of small town corruption, secretive law enforcement and competing theories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erin West is the Deputy District Attorney in Santa Clara County, California, and the founder of Project Shamrock. Whether she’s prosecuting eye-popping SIM-swap money grabs or putting large-scale pig butchering operations out of business, her stories and experience can help you stay safer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt is on a mission to kill Section 230, the legal shield that lets social media giants profit from chaos. If engagement-driven algorithms are fueling harmful content for the sake of profit, is it time for the U.S. to take bold action to rein in the Internet? (You know the answer, but this is a must listen!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kara Swisher has been covering Silicon Valley since the early days, and she’s made a ton of enemies the old fashioned way (by telling the truth about the new robber barons of our digital lives). In a new memoir called Burn Book, she pulls the curtain back on a world run by powerful babies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Privacy expert Jen Caltrider reveals how those shiny new AI gadgets with their mind-bending tech—not to mention the social media apps capturing every moment—are a privacy nightmare. Is going analog the only safe option? Learn how to protect your data from the prying eyes of Big Tech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No deep fake here. This week, Al Franken does his own impersonations of Bernie Sanders, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, Sherrod Brown and Susan Collins in this mock Senate Hearing featuring Siri (played by the actual voice-over talent Susan Bennett) and Al’s fellow SNL alum Laraine Newman playing the part of Alexa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever wonder why facial recognition is so accurate? Well, one reason is the shocking amount of personal data it needs (think: all the world’s snapshots), and that’s why Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark is taking aim at the industry behind that technology. We also review Charity’s top scams to watch for this year, and other topics near and dear to our own scam-hating hearts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From cyberbullying to harmful algorithms, the risks are real. This week, Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal join us to discuss their bipartisan bill—the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Together, they’re taking on Big Tech to ensure the safety of children online. Tune in to hear how KOSA could change the digital world for the better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kristen Bride’s 16-year-old son died by suicide after being cyberbullied on Snapchat. Setting her sites on anonymous messaging apps that intentionally traumatize children, Bride heads to Washington DC to fight for change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ava Smithing was eleven when she saw a swimsuit on Pinterest that she liked. That innocent click turned into an eating disorder. How? This episode explores the most dangerous thing children face today: Algorithms. On a mission to hold Big Tech accountable, Ava shares her journey as an activist with us, including her recent role providing Congressional testimony in support of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We look back at the internet’s scariest moments, the boldest defenders, and the most surprising tech twists of 2024—groundbreaking legislation, international scam-rings, and the growing fight to make the internet a safer place for everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chester Frilich lost everything to scammers, and he didn’t just lose his money—he lost hope, too. Bob Sullivan joins us to recount this devastating case, revealing the IRS’s unintentional role in punishing victims, and how advocacy and legislation could turn things around. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when social media platforms prioritize engagement over safety? How do drug dealers exploit apps like Snapchat to target teens? Amy Neville lost her son Alex to counterfeit Oxycodone pills that were laced with Fentanyl. He bought them from a Snapchat user. She talked with us about this hidden crisis and her mission to reform social media and protect future generations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tarah Wheeler lost her security badge. Deviant Ollam picked his way into "secure" spaces. Together, they show how humans make or break security and why layering defenses is key to surviving inevitable mistakes. What happens when security fails because of us? Two experts dive into the blind spots in physical, digital, and human security—and why fixing them starts with being honest about our mistakes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if your digital footprint made you a target? Jack Rhysider, host of "Darknet Diaries," shares how a fan turned his online presence into a personal puzzle—revealing just how easily your privacy can be pieced together and exploited. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This holiday season, privacy expert Jen Caltrider reveals how those shiny new AI gadgets under your tree with their mind-bending tech—not to mention the social media apps capturing every moment—are a privacy nightmare. Is going analog the only safe option? Learn how to protect your data, and your holidays, from the prying eyes of Big Tech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices