What the Hack with Adam Levin

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

No one’s too smart for a well designed scam. Case in point, neuroscientist, triathlete Carina who thought the finance bro she met on Bumble was the one for her, but the only real thing was the money she lost.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No one is immune from being scammed. Just ask Tarah Wheeler, founder and CEO of Red Queen Dynamics, a company that specializes in keeping people scam-free. While onboarding a new hire, a process she put in place stopped a scammer despite a serious cyber misstep.  “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Read the transcript here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who better to talk to about pan-African crime syndicates than someone tasked with shutting them down? From drug mules and sextortion to romance scams and spearphishing, this week’s talk with Secret Service Agent “Mark” pulls back the curtain on Black Axe and other crime rings operating worldwide. “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Read the transcript here. 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.  “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Read the transcript here. 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.” “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Presley Rhodes makes a living posting what she calls “the subtle art of the thirst trap.” Popular on Instagram, she uses that platform to draw her most parched followers to OnlyFans where she can get paid. But what happens when a scammer buys access to those images? Nothing good. To hear what happened (and try to figure it out) we talked to someone who was scammed, someone who came to the rescue (former White House CIO and What the Hack guest Theresa Payton) and a United States Secret Service agent working in South Africa to catch the bad guys. “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SNAP food assistance is a lifeline for more than 40 million Americans experiencing food insecurity. In a growing trend, criminals are targeting major security lapses in SNAP fund distribution, stealing millions in aid, so we asked this week’s guests how we can put a stop to it.  “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brett Johnson has been called the Godfather of cyber crime. He was on the FBI’s most-wanted list. And he was on What the Hack before! He returns for a freewheeling conversation about what’s new in cybercrime, how it’s changed and wants you to know how to better protect your digital life. “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Romance scammers spend a lot of time on dating apps, but they almost never meet their targets in person. Christina’s Mr. Right moved quickly. Charming in-person, he lived in the same area and worked in the same industry. It was only after she committed to building a new life with him in Florida that everything began to fall apart.  “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Privacy matters for most of us, but it can be a matter of life and death for some especially when it comes to stalkerware. Electronic Frontier Foundation director of cybersecurity Eva Galperin joined us this week to teach us about the way too common software that can be used to track your every move. “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim Byrne’s vintage industrial furniture designs are a staple for A-Listers and designers around the world, which puts him in the sites of scammers–whether the target is time, money or goods. Listen as we learn how Byrne’s keen eye for the masterpiece lurking in a hunk of old factory equipment helps him spot thieves before they can strike.  “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. 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. “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Retired attorney Marjorie Bloom was minding her own business online when a tech support scam redirected her straight to cybercrime hell. Hear how she lost more than $600,000 in this harrowing tale of a scam turducken.  “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Criminologist David Maimon is in the business of finding out what we should be scared of.  Just when you thought analog bill paying was safe, we learned that check scams are on the rise. And you guessed it: Because artificial intelligence and digital tools are making them way too easy. “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From a pig butchering scam that cost $450,000 to a real estate scam that almost cost a whole lot more, 2023 kept us guessing. With stories sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, and always informative, we’re celebrating the New Year with a look back at some of our favorite moments from the past twelve months.   “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to scams, we usually focus on the How rather than the Why. This week, we spoke to psychologist Dan Simons, co-author of Nobody’s Fool to find out why we’re all much easier marks than we like to think.  “What the Hack with Adam Levin” is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you like it, consider rating us on your favorite podcast service or writing a review. It really helps people find the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many romance scams are smash-and-grab operations, but some scammers play the long game. Author, actress, life coach and cabaret singer Donna Hayes met her dream man online, but after a seemingly perfect courtship and almost $200K in cash changing hands, she discovered the truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ten years after Hurricane Sandy destroyed his beach house on the Jersey Shore, Adam was finally ready to sell the vacant lot. The only problem: It was already on the market. In this whodunnit, we go hunting for the bad guys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shark Week doesn’t have anything on the Christmas scam season. Whether you’re buying something or selling something, there’s a scammer waiting to rob you blind. But there are ways to stay safe. File this week’s episode under: “You can’t say we didn’t warn you.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How dangerous is the internet for children? According to Marija Manojlovic, it’s even worse than we imagined. This week we chart the dangerous freeways and dark alleys of the internet, the hazards they pose specifically to children and what you can do to protect them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With a million followers and several books on kitten care, Hannah Shaw is no stranger to interview requests and the technical issues to which they often give rise. But when a podcaster helped her navigate a “problem” in her Meta settings, Kitten Lady was hacked. Hear how her eye for deceit and nimble action saved the day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s episode a veteran journalist helps us explore our usual beat from a new point of view. CBS Washington Correspondent Major Garrett is the host of “Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen” and an absolutely stellar guide as we parse the similarities and differences between spies and hackers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to keep your car out of your sex life? Jen Caltrider created Mozilla’s “*Privacy Not Included” to help consumers make informed choices about popular products and services we all use—like pervert car companies and data-grabbing toys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We talked to New York Times reporter Emily Flitter about criminals who use deepfakes to rob high-net-worth individuals. Spoiler alert: It’s a lot easier than you might think! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More interested in news than partisan views? Sadly, there’s no app for that. The post-Musk media apocalypse has arrived, and it’s super misinformation-friendly. Media Matters CEO Angelo Carusone joins us to discuss how legit media can add some friction to the fictions that go viral when the world is on fire.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Facial recognition is powered by a special sauce that few people really understand, but one thing is clear: It renders privacy a thing of the past. In her new book Your Face Belongs to Us, New York Times journalist Kashmir Hill explores the ramifications of the human face in cyberspace, and what it means for the future findability of humanity.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever wonder why Too-Big-To-Fail banks get hacked along with a host of other high-visibility targets get compromised, but the White House has never been breached? We did too, which is why we invited Former White House CIO and current founder and CEO of Fortalice Theresa Payton to tell us how to be safer online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kathy Waters is the person you always wondered about: She created one of those days; specifically, World Romance Scam Prevention Day. (Try saying that three times fast.) But seriously, we have covered a lot of love-based bogosity and yet can’t wrap our heads around how it works. Now we know, and you can too if you listen to this week’s episode.  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

John DeMay’s son was a normal teenager, which is exactly what a sextortion ring based in Nigeria was counting on when they targeted him. This week’s episode features a conversation about the fatal outcome of a sextortion scam and an important takeaway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all know that the Internets watch you and use what they see to haunt you with doo-dads and tee shirts, but what you may not know is that what you see is just the tip of an evil cyber iceberg (nothing against those endangered geological entities). Lokker CEO Ian Cohen fills us in on just how bad it is “out there.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mom-and-pop stores look like easy prey, but sometimes they bite back. Many successful scams are perpetrated by threat actors who have gained insider knowledge, but this week’s episode takes specialization to the nth degree with a point-of-sale attack. And with disastrous results for the scammer!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Being a gig worker is great if you’re looking for flexibility or you need extra cash. But it can be somewhat less than awesome when something goes wrong, as this week’s guest found out.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to scams, we usually focus on the How rather than the Why. This week, we spoke to psychologist Dan Simons, co-author of Nobody’s Fool to find out why we’re all much easier marks than we like to think.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We get to hear a lot of crazy stories in our line of work, and the best ones are sometimes a little too newsworthy to make it on our show (because–hush, hush–they never made the news). But then we realized, we could tell those stories so long as you can’t guess who they’re about. So, here you go. Our not-so-secret episode of secret crimes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Massimo moved to a new house in Toronto, he faced the age-old problem of what to keep and what to jettison. When he tried selling stuff from the rejection pile he got an offer that was too good to be true. Check out this week’s episode to hear how to spot an online marketplace scam and how to protect yourself both as a buyer and as a seller.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Was she a survivor of sex trafficking at the hands of her mom, a serial victim, Mormon convert, cancer patient, or was she just a liar and a fraud? Coco Berthmann’s story is anything but cogent. Whether it was summoned from the depths of mental illness or deviously designed to swindle friends and well-wishers online is this week’s burning question.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can you imagine being so rich that the check to pay your vacation property tax is four years' worth of full tuition at a public university? Neither can we, but that’s how it found its way into a thief’s life, but not by dint of a super high-tech hack (unless stealing an envelope qualifies as whizbang). This week’s episode will seriously make you want to shred your checkbook.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

True or False: Scams have reached a crisis point, especially among older adults. The AARP’s Director of Fraud Prevention Kathy Stokes surprised us with the answer: Scammers aren’t ageist at all. In fact, digital natives may be far more susceptible to online crime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A gemologist decided to trademark her company, and, of course, there’s a scam for that. Spoof calls are everywhere, homing in on any money due that can be small-time scammed. This episode applies equally for any government application that involves a public notice: Once your information goes live, it could pop up on the radar of a scammer.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The isolation caused by the Covid pandemic led to record pet adoptions, and more than usual activity online. It was like chum to sharks for scammers who flooded social media accounts with adoption opportunities for popular breeds. This week’s guest, Holly got in touch with us about her friend Carl who joins us too to talk about his St. Bernard-sized scam. To find out about his parting gift, you have to listen! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all got the memo that Social Security numbers are a big part of identity theft, and as more of us take measures to protect against SSN-based crime, scammers found a new favorite tool: your driver’s license. Criminology professor David Maimon discusses all of the above and how Covid made our identities less secure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve been hearing a lot about pig butchering, but hadn’t found a great example until we lucked onto Shreya Datta’s story. In this episode we learn about pig butchering from Shreya who was swindled out of more than $450,000 through an elaborate investment scheme where she won like crazy until she lost everything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we’re celebrating our hundredth episode! Featuring listener questions, Adam, Beau and Travis look back on one hundred episodes of scams, hacks, Tin Foil Swans, experts, novices and dad jokes. A special thanks to you listeners. Come back for another 100! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charlie Webster hosts the hit podcast “Scamanda,” which takes us on a dark journey of discovery with a young woman who pretended to have cancer to bilk Good Samaritans on GoFundMe. Listen to hear the kinds of scams you can find on all crowd-sourced micro donation sites and how to avoid them. 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

Identity theft is the third certainty in life behind death and taxes, but the way scammers come at you changes all the time. That’s why we invited ITRC head Eva Velasquez to fill us in on the three biggest trends in identity-related crime this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jen Destefano’s story made national news. Her daughter Brie was abducted and the kidnappers let them speak to each other to prove it. But while they had demands for big money, they didn’t actually have her daughter. Was it a deepfake, a really good actor or a prank taken way too far?   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we first heard about this, Adam was like, “come on, guys, jury duty scams?.” That said, Travis and Beau didn’t know so much about them. The upshot, an intro to jury scams with a State Department employee who saw it coming, not because he’s a G-man, but because he’s addicted to Halloween decorations. 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.  This episode originally aired December 12, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lola Blanc and Meagan Grainger are the hosts of Trust Me, a podcast about cults and scams, and are this week’s guests. They're here to help us figure out the gooey center of the Venn diagram formed by cults, cult leaders and scam artists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert Kerbeck rubbed elbows with some of the top actors of his time including Calista Flockhart, Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman and George Clooney. But like all working actors, he needed a side gig to survive. This week we talked to starving actor turned millionaire corporate threat actor about the sensitive information he was able to snooker out of his targets.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author, Actor, Comedian Dan Ahdoot is no stranger to What the Hack or actually being hacked. Which is why it’s kind of weird he’s back on the show to talk about how he’s done nothing to keep himself from getting hacked again. (It’s funnier than it sounds.) 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

When he graduated from college, Jason was heading into a big career in television. He had the apartment in the big city, and a wide-open vista of opportunity–and then he got hacked. Check out this week’s episode to hear how a few pieces of purloined mail was a major detour on the way to success and fortune.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may be surprised to hear that celebrity culture extends to catfishing profiles. We talked to the man behind the most-used face in dating scams. You’re going to want to hear what he had to say. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you only learn one thing about cybersecurity, it should be that all new technology, in the wrong hands, is a crime waiting to happen. Rob Shavell of Delete.Me started a company based on this truth. So we decided to have a nice long conversation about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

April’s mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and decided she needed to have some fun. On a dating site, she met a much younger man who owned a diamond mine. What followed was either Stockholm Syndrome or a pastiche of the sunk cost fallacy. Was she addicted to her scammer? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Solana Foundation hype man Austin Federa was kind enough to join us this week to discuss one of the bedrock truths when it comes to money: People like to steal it. Seriously, listen to this one if you think cryptocurrency has its own special category of crime, because you might be missing the forest for the trees.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michelle Dennedy is to privacy what Einstein is to relativity but with the addition of rules that involve proper panty protocols. If there’s a new trend in identity-related crime, she knows about it, has an opinion and can help guide you to a better place without getting got by it. A must-listen episode especially if you’ve ever researched mental health care online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

China’s spying via dirigible is incorrigible but in sync with its many digital deviancies. We tried to get Xi Jinping as a guest this week, but didn’t hear back so we decided to explore the news about Chinese spy balloons in context with other attacks, why it matters (or doesn’t) and why (at least one of us thinks) Mark Zuckerberg is just as bad.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jordan is a classic go-getter. At age 17, he was running a successful e-commerce site reselling knock-off consumer electronics through a website connected to a drop shipping company. Unfortunately, the tidy profit he made on a product that was perfectly legal but a wee bit questionable, put him on the radar of scammers who knew a LOT about him.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the wake of the Great Reset and Covid, millions of people have pursued their dreams of a better, financially stable and less stressful life. Business analyst and author Jill Schlesinger gives us a rundown on how to distinguish these dreams from reality and how to avoid getting scammed in the process.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’ve listened to the show more than once, you know Adam talks A LOT about credit freezes.This week he makes a jaw-dropping (and somewhat shameless) confession: The Great Cred-u-cator only got around to freezing his own credit last week! Hear what his no-shame zone admission can teach us all about the things we don’t do to stay safe online.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Misinformation is almost always born in the primordial slime of the internet, that swamp of blogs, newsletters, and other private discussion groups that most of us never read. Unless most of you happen to be Media Matters.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Britt was starting a new career and between jobs, so there was no money coming in and she stopped checking her bank balances for a while. When she finally did take a look, a substantial piece of her nest egg had vanished. We find out where it went and how the theft may have gone down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Online scams, hacks and the cybersecurity fails that feed them don’t stop for the holidays, and neither do we! That said, a lot of people do take a break this time a year, which is why we’re guest-less this week. But hey, you’ve still got us and there’s plenty of news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As 2022 draws to a close, it’s time for our annual look back at all the guests who made 2022 a special year. Adam, Beau, Travis and Andrew Steven, the man with two first names who’s usually busy producing the show, talked about our favorite moments with Al Franken, Malcolm Nance, Roy Wood, Jr., Deviant Ollam, Dan Ahdoot and others.  Thanks to all of our listeners for a great 2022. We hope you’ve had as much fun listening to the show as we’ve had making it. And if you really like us, please take a moment to tell us about it in a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps people find the show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kate is a reservation school teacher in South Dakota. She’s financially responsible, and understands a thing or two about cybersecurity. Unfortunately, everything she knew flew out the window when her car got repossessed.  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

Bob Sullivan does a lot for his trusty golden retriever Rusty, including the maintenance of a busy social media presence. So, you can imagine his horror after losing his phone and with that his access to Rusty’s account. How’d it happen? Cyber! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jessica Roy’s wallet was stolen in a bar and soon her identity was stolen, too. Listen to this cyber-savvy reporter’s saga about doing everything right to protect herself while crime after crime was being committed in her name. And that was before things took a turn for the worse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Question: What happens when you try to make money off an international crisis by posing as a former Navy signals intelligence guy? Answer: Not much. Just back from Ukraine, Malcolm Nance is a high profile legionnaire, which made him a target for scammers.  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

Jennifer Kraus knows her way around the world, and is not an easy target for scammers, which is why they targeted her mother. Scams these days slip and slide from analog to digital. The one that we’re talking about today cost about $1000. It arrived via snail mail and email to the same home.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You have heard us talk about two-factor authentication, and if you’re not using it wherever possible you should be. Having said that, hackers know how to get around it these days. In this episode, cybersecurity professional Adam Burley is back to tell us the story of a hacked C-suite client whose situation was more sophisticated than it seemed at first.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Philippa’s business software wasn’t working right, so she Googled for tech support and called the first number listed. Almost immediately, hackers were in her computer looking for sensitive data. This week we explore a new attack vector: online ads and business listings used as lures for unsuspecting victims, and how to avoid getting “got” by them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

WTH superfan Fumiko dated a sniper she met on the triathlon circuit who was not awesome and left her with questions that Oprah could have answered with great aplomb, but she asked us because, well… We don’t know. But we’re super grateful to have a superfan.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Penetration testing may sound a little skeevy, but it is a term of art in the security business. Physical penetration testing….well. Deviant Ollam is a big name in that world with well-documented adventures in getting into places that are supposed to be, well, impenetrable.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Beau goes on a road trip to the Big House in Michigan where he ran afoul of a parking scam outside the third-largest sports arena in the world. We’re going to have to call this one a limited bandwidth / zero available parking scam. Check it out. 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.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Red Queen Dynamics founder Tarah Wheeler knows a thing or two about smashing norms in the cybersecurity industry. But as a human being, she also has some experience being compromised. You’ll definitely want to tune in as she tells us about her own goal as a cybersecurity executive, and how she practices cybersecurity in her own life.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joelle was on the launch team for the What the Hack podcast, so she knows a thing or two about scams. But when her credit card was hit for thousands of dollars, even we didn’t know what happened–that is, until Travis figured it out (sort of). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Investigative journalist and podcaster Andrew Gold talked to us before about the way magicians work. His second appearance on the show explores a more serious topic. This is not an easy listen, but Germany’s controversial approach to potential sex offenders raises some privacy and ethics issues that are central to the topics we discuss on WTH. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Caitlin Brodnick hosts the ScamWow podcast where she talks about what we talk about, and she has a must-listen podcast. When she’s not in front of a microphone, she spends a lot of time trying to figure out if Reality TV is actually real. Here’s what we found out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All Dara Starr Tucker wanted was an affordable place to live not quite in the center of things–a place to breathe easy. When she found what looked to be a dream rental for a third of her budget, she was excited, but when she got there her Spidey-sense told her to run. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to privacy, Ann Cavoukian is a legend. She created Privacy by Design during her tenure as Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, which landed her in the upper echelon of cybersecurity peeps. And she’s Raffi’s sister! Check it out.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you followed the news in the early 2000s, you probably remember the ShadowCrew cybercrime group. Brett Johnson rolled with them. These days he’s on the right side of the law, helping people avoid getting hacked, scammed and otherwise crimed… You don’t want to miss this one.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Looking for the blue checkmark on Instagram is the easiest way for consumers to tell if they are dealing with a cloned account, but it’s not so easy to get. The site provides crucial exposure to creatives of all stripe. The problem is scammers are everywhere.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rudy Shepherd was not used to selling his own work online. He had a gallery for that. But when the relationship with that gallery ended, he had to fend for himself, giving new meaning to the phrase, “learning on the job.” Listen in as he takes us on a tour of the Zelle hell with a scammer who knew just what to say.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are tens of millions of small and medium-size businesses in the United States alone, and depending on their state incorporation, many are in danger of business identity theft.  Andy Pham is an American hero by many standards, for sure with regard to the right to become wildly successful. He’s truly living the American Dream. Having grown up in Communist Vietnam for the first ten years of his life, his mom sent him to the United States where she believed he would have a better life and avoid being drafted into the war in Cambodia. She was right. His story of success is eye-popping, but what happened to him on the scam front is almost beyond belief. Download the latest episode to hear how a nasty dentist managed to steal a five million dollar project from Pham, and how he got it back.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Time flies when you’re having fun talking to people from all walks of life about getting scammed, hacked or otherwise cyberbamboozled. It seems like yesterday that we launched What the Hack with Adam Levin, but, this week marks our first anniversary! With highlights and noteworthy moments, our anniversary show is like a chocolate sampler, minus the gross ones with orange jelly that Travis likes.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michelle Waters was a middle school teacher before getting into the teaching tools business, so she has nerves of steel. But when her Facebook account was misappropriated and badly misused, she learned that even veteran teachers have a melting point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Covid-19 pandemic put millions of people out of work and put billions of dollars in unemployment benefits up for grabs. What was a lifeline for the unemployed became a goldmine for scammers. In this episode, the scammer sometimes rings twice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Social engineering is still a new term for some people. We break it down in this episode by focusing on how reporters and magicians use it. (Get it? There’s a trick involved!) Check out this wide-ranging conversation with journalist Andrew Gold that covers shamans, a classic girlfriend’s mother tale and nose picking.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may have a little deja vu since Beau is constantly trying to get scammed, but in this episode, Adam, Beau and Travis talk about the scams they’ve stared down in the past–and of course Beau talks about the scam he fell for.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An ugly divorce becomes fertile ground for an ex’s hacking skills as Hope is persistently compromised by forgotten backdoors to old devices and even a secret dressing-room camera. Hear how he kept getting in and what you can do if you’re worried about cyberstalkers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever wonder if your phone was listening to you? Have you stared at one of your smart home cameras and got the vibe that you were in the first act of a horror movie? Well, this episode proves that the worst you can imagine is just one bad relationship away! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices