This week, while Maria is on vacation, Dave Bittner and Joe Carrigan are joined by Michele Kellerman as they discuss the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. Dave brings us a lively follow-up from his recent theater outing the conversation circles back to chicken talk. Michele also highlights the work of Blood Cancer United sharing insight into their mission and impact. Dave’s story is on the SLAM method, a simple phishing-defense framework that teaches users to evaluate suspicious emails by checking the sender, links, attachments, and message for common signs of deception and social engineering. Michele’s got the story on a potential turning point in online scams, where rising pressure—from revelations that Meta Platforms has profited from fraudulent ads, to banks and regulators like Jerome Powell and Scott Bessent warning about systemic risks—suggests liability may soon expand beyond banks to include social media, telecoms, and other upstream players. Joe’s story is on two cousins, Shray Goel and Shaunik Raheja, who pleaded guilty in a nationwide $8.5 million scheme using fake listings, double bookings, and last-minute cancellations across platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo to maximize profits while deceiving thousands of travelers. On our catch of the day, A Reddit user shares a message they got from a scammer posing as their child.
Resources and links to stories:
SLAM Method for a Comprehensive Phishing Prevention Guide
Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenue
Banks cannot save the UK financial system from fraud alone
Bessent, Powell warned bank CEOs about Anthropic model risks, sources say
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