On Hacking Humans, Dave Bittner, Joe Carrigan, and Maria Varmazis (also host of N2K's daily space podcast, T-Minus), are once again sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines to help our audience become aware of what is out there. This week, Maria shares two stories this week, the first is from "PayPal" saying they are owed over $200. The second comes from LinkedIn where a gentleman shares the terrifying story of losing everything all because of a scam. Joe's story is on text message scams where strangers pretend to know you, building trust over time to lure victims into schemes like cryptocurrency fraud; he advises ignoring unknown messages, blocking suspicious numbers, avoiding links, and protecting personal information. Dave's story follows Silent Push Threat Analysts tracking "Payroll Pirates," a group leveraging phishing campaigns targeting HR systems like Workday to redirect payroll funds by using search ads, spoofed websites, and credential harvesting, as they alert organizations and share threat intelligence to counter these sophisticated attacks. Our catch of the day comes from a phishing scam email claiming to offer a $1.75 million compensation fund via the "United Bank for Africa," requiring victims to share personal and banking details under the guise of an IMF directive.

Resources and links to stories:

• “Wrong Number” Text Scams on the Rise
• Hunting Payroll Pirates: Silent Push Tracks HR Redirect Phishing Scam

You can hear more from the T-Minus space daily show here.

Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@n2k.com.