This week, hosts of N2K CyberWire Maria Varmazis and Dave Bittner alongside Joe Carrigan are discussing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. We start with some follow up on aggravated identity theft and how it ties to crimes like wire fraud, along with a quick look at shared mailboxes and why sharing login credentials can create security risks. Joe’s got the story of a vishing attack on an Ericsson vendor that exposed sensitive data of over 15,000 people, highlighting the risks of third-party security gaps. Dave’s story is on Meta removing millions of scam ads and accounts while facing scrutiny over whether it profits from fraudulent advertising, highlighting the growing scale of social media-driven scams and pressure from lawmakers to crack down. Maria has the story on how scammers are using AI to impersonate government officials through deepfakes, fake websites, and voice cloning, making fraud more convincing and harder to detect while stealing money and personal information. Our Catch of the Day comes from Reddit where a user has an intriguing conversation with Elon Musk, where he professes his love in a very record amount of time.
Resources and links to stories:
- Ericsson US Discloses Data Breach as Hackers Steal Employee and Customer Data
- That random call saying “you’ve won a prize” is a scam
- Meta says it culled millions of scam ads amid accusations that it profits from them
- Watch out for AI-generated government impersonators
- Grammarly Is Facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over Its AI ‘Expert Review’ Feature
- Warren Buffett didn’t make this video about Canada-U.S. tensions. It's fake and there will be more
- How to Fix a Sticking Door
Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@n2k.com.