Ep. 160 - Security Awareness Series - Go To The Source So There's No Remorse with Adam Levin

This month, Chris Hadnagy and Ryan MacDougall are joined by Adam Levin.  Adam is a nationally recognized expert on cybersecurity, privacy, identity theft, fraud, and personal finance and has distinguished himself as a fierce consumer advocate for the past 50 years. Adam is the former Director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, and currently is the founder of CyberScout and co-founder of Credit.com. He is also author of the critically acclaimed book Swiped: How to Protect Yourself in a World Full of Scammers, Phishers, and Identity Thieves. Adam is also the host of the podcast What the Hack with Adam Levin, where they talk to fascinating people about the most terrifying things that ever happened to them in cyberspace. December 20, 2021

00:00 – Intro 

• Social-Engineer.com - http://www.social-engineer.com/ 
• Managed Voice Phishing - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/vishing-service/ 
• Managed Email Phishing - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/se-phishing-service/ 

• Adversarial Simulations - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/social-engineering-penetration-test/ 
• Social-Engineer channel on SLACK - https://social-engineering-hq.slack.com/ssb 
• CLUTCH - http://www.pro-rock.com/ 
• innocentlivesfoundation.org - http://www.innocentlivesfoundation.org/ 
• Human Behavior Conference – https://humanbehaviorcon.com/ 

03:26 - Adam Levin Intro 

04:37 – How did you get started in the industry? 

07:42 – What has the shift been like in the types of attacks from the 90s until now? 

09:53 – How does the recent Robinhood breach tie into what we’re discussing? 

12:00 – What should people be focusing on when they hear stories like this? 

14:28 – Do these simplistic solutions really work? 

18:45 – What type of advice would you give to companies that have public facing employees? 

20:22 – You said something interesting earlier, “the company has to deal with it empathetically”.  What does that mean to you? 

24:51 – Empathy, continued 

30:22 – What do you see coming in the near future, what types of scams will become popular? 

33:53 – What are some things people can look out for to avoid scams? 

38:20 – Do you find that catastrophe and the emotional factor is used to get people to fall for scams? 

41:39 – Finding Adam on the web: 

www.adamlevin.com 

https://adamlevin.com/what-the-hack/ 

42:57 – What are some action steps corporations can take to protect themselves? 

45:13 – Who is your greatest mentor? 

• Virginia Long, director of Consumer Affairs 
• Ian Cohen – CEO of Lokker, a privacy company 
• Bill Tait – Vice Chairman at Humana 

• Jennifer Leuer – came from Experian 

47:40 – Book Recommendations 

• Condor – TV Show 
• Spy novels (none specifically suggested) authors: Tom Clancy, Brad Thor, Vince Flynn 
• Yellowstone – TV Show series 

• FBI series and all spinoffs 

49:16 – Outro 

• www.innocentlivesfoundation.org 
• www.social-engineer.com 
• www.pro-rock.com