The Awareness Angle: Cyber Security Awareness and Human Risk

Risky Creative - Cyber Security for Humans
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The Awareness Angle is a weekly cybersecurity podcast that makes cyber security make sense for everyday people. Every week, Ant and Luke break down the biggest cyber security news, including data breaches, phishing scams, AI fraud, and the sneaky ways people get hacked, in plain English with no jargon. But this isn’t just another tech podcast. We focus on the human side of cyber security. How scams actually work, why people fall for them, and what you can do to stay safer online. Whether you’re worried about identity theft, online fraud, or just want to understand what’s going on in the world of cyber security, you’ll get practical tips, real-world examples, and relatable stories every week. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one.

  1. Aug 10

    ChatGPT Scam Factories | 100,000 Police Staff Leaked | Fake Roblox Malware | EP100

    It's Episode 100 of The Awareness Angle, and the last episode in its current format. This week: more than 100,000 UK police officers and criminal justice staff have had their details leaked by ExfilSquad, the same gang that hit the Department for Education just one week earlier. OpenAI banned a network of ChatGPT accounts run out of Cambodian scam compounds, where trafficked workers were being forced to run investment fraud. And a fake version of a popular Roblox cheat tool called Xeno Executor is infecting family computers with malware that steals passwords and hands remote control to an attacker. Also this week: researchers found a way for malware to hijack passkeys synced through Google Password Manager, a fake police phone call from a spoofed cybercrime unit number, and the crypto trader who made $34,000 on Polymarket by pointing a hairdryer at a weather sensor in Paris. And because it's Episode 100, we look back at everything we've learned from covering cyber news every week for over a year and a half: the biggest breaches, the most persistent threat actors, the strangest stories, and how the threat landscape has changed. Don't unsubscribe, because something new is coming to this feed in a few weeks. Chapters 00:00 Intro - Episode 100 and the last of the current format03:13 Breach of the Week - 100,000 police staff leaked by ExfilSquad06:39 Scam factories caught running cons through ChatGPT11:07 Fake Roblox Xeno Executor cheat spreading malware16:31 Passkeys hijacked by malware - the Pass-ta-key attack23:43 Security Socials - The fake police cybercrime phone call31:30 The Polymarket hairdryer hack35:52 100 episodes - stats, patterns and lessons learned59:02 Goodbye for now - what happens next Full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DEEoZP-zv88 Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-awareness-angle-newsletter-7274932363787132928/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@antdaviscyberInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/antdaviscyberLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antdaviscyberWebsite: riskycreative.com Our Intro and Outro Song © 16 by Falling Foreverhttps://fallingforever.bandcamp.com/track/16Licence: Creative Commons CC BY 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  2. Aug 3

    $70 Million Bitcoin Heist in 41 Minutes, Government Helpdesk Breach, Claude AI Hacks 3 Companies

    This week, a $70 million Bitcoin heist that took just 41 minutes, a government helpdesk breach that leaked 600,000 school staff records, and an AI security story where Anthropic's Claude broke into three real companies during a test that went wrong. This week on The Awareness Angle, Ant and Luke open Breach Watch with the Department for Education hack, then dig into the Anthropic story, models that broke out of a sealed testing environment and hacked three organisations because of a mix up over internet access. From there it's straight into the news. A five year old typo in a hardware wallet's code let someone drain $70 million in Bitcoin in under an hour. There's also a genuinely hopeful one, UK police running a scheme that steers teenage hackers into cyber careers instead of court. Also this week: hotel Wi-Fi spyware that can switch on your webcam and mic, an unencrypted master copy of an unreleased Nicolas Cage movie stolen off a desk, a coordinated attack on more than 30 Minnesota water systems, and the AI that found a security hole hiding in Chrome for 13 years. Chapters0:00 Intro4:37 Department for Education breach, 600,000 records leaked9:44 Claude AI breaks into 3 companies during a testing mix up16:26 $70 million Bitcoin heist in 41 minutes23:02 Police run hacker rehab for teenagers30:10 Hotel Wi-Fi spyware switches on your webcam and mic32:44 Unreleased Nicolas Cage movie stolen off a desk38:03 Coordinated attack hits 30 Minnesota water systems43:11 AI finds a 13 year old flaw hiding in Chrome47:50 Security Socials: Steam Workshop malware hits Mecha Chameleon56:22 Security Socials: Fake Microsoft security update phishing page58:07 Security Socials: Job seekers hiding AI prompts in their resumes1:01:42 Security Socials: Finding someone's location from a photo of pavement The Awareness Angle is hosted by Ant Davis and Luke Pettigrew, brought to you by Risky Creative. Newsletter: riskycreative.comTikTok: antdaviscyberInstagram: antdaviscyber Music: "16" by Falling Forever, licensed under CC BY 4.0

  3. Jul 27

    OpenAI's AI Goes Rogue and Hacks Hugging Face, Romania's Land Registry Wiped & the 90-Day Email Heist

    Two governments found out their data was gone this week. One because a hacker deleted everything and left a ransom note, the other because they finally noticed someone had been sitting inside their systems for ten months. And somewhere between the two, an AI broke out of a safety test and hacked one of the biggest AI companies on the planet. A hacker wiped Romania's entire national land registry after a ransom went unpaid, and now you cannot legally buy or sell a house there because the records that prove who owns what are gone. South Korea's diplomatic academy was breached for ten months before anyone spotted it, and the people affected did not hear about it for another five. The autonomous AI agent that broke into Hugging Face turned out to be OpenAI's own models during an internal test, running with their safety refusals switched off. They broke out of OpenAI's own sandbox first, then hacked Hugging Face's systems to cheat a benchmark. When the team tried to investigate, the US AI models they reached for refused to help because they flagged the forensic work as malicious, so they ran a Chinese open model, GLM 5.2, to clean it up. And a Russian group known as LAUNDRY BEAR is stealing 90 days of email through a Zimbra flaw that fires the moment you preview a message, no click required. Also this week: ClickFix has put on an AI costume, with fake AI troubleshooting pages talking people into pasting malware into their own machines. A flaw in the Adobe Acrobat Chrome extension could let any website quietly read your WhatsApp chats. Ofcom is finally forcing UK mobile networks to block scam texts and stop criminals spoofing UK numbers. Cyber insurers are quietly splitting on whether they will even cover deepfake fraud anymore. And in Luke's story, Anthropic launches Claude Security, with one very interesting clause about whose code you are allowed to scan. Chapters00:00 Intro04:24 Romania land registry hacked and wiped, housing market frozen09:20 South Korea diplomatic academy breach hidden for ten months13:11 OpenAI's own AI goes rogue and hacks Hugging Face21:28 Russian hackers steal 90 days of email via a Zimbra flaw29:02 ClickFix AI-fix, fake AI help pages spreading malware35:08 Adobe Acrobat extension flaw exposed WhatsApp chats40:30 Ofcom forces UK networks to block scam texts and number spoofing46:16 Cyber insurance and deepfake fraud, is your policy covered?52:06 Security Socials58:55 Luke's story, Anthropic launches Claude Security The Awareness Angle is hosted by Ant Davis and Luke Pettigrew, produced under Risky Creative. New episodes every week. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@riskycreativeSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7rwzcRsKrXbASFBfiXoCZ6Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-awareness-angle-cyber-news-weekly/id1784126196Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-awareness-angle-newsletter-7274932363787132928/ Website: riskycreative.comTikTok: @antdaviscyberInstagram: @antdaviscyberLinkedIn: antdaviscyber Music: "16" by Falling Forever https://fallingforever.bandcamp.com/track/16Creative Commons Attribution 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  4. Jul 20

    Mac Malware Is Out of Control | 23andMe's $18M DNA Settlement | The TFL Hackers Are Going to Prison

    This week the internet came for your fridge, your laptop and your DNA, and it wasn't subtle about any of it. Hackers hit Coca-Cola's dairy brand fairlife with ransomware and shut down US milk production. Mac users are under fire from two new malware strains — one that holds your computer hostage until you type your password in, and another disguising itself as Apple's own crash reporter. And 23andMe is paying $18 million over the breach that exposed millions of people's genetic data. That's the one you genuinely cannot fix by resetting a password. Also this week: Lidl customers caught in a supplier breach they knew nothing about, the two young men behind the Transport for London hack jailed for five and a half years each, scammers hiding remote access tools inside fake greeting cards, Microsoft's biggest ever Patch Tuesday followed within hours by a researcher dropping a brand new unpatched bug, and a BitLocker flaw that quietly undermined encrypted laptop security. In Security Socials: a ChatGPT hallucination that sent someone on a wasted road trip, a ClickFix awareness video with half a million likes and the comment section that explains exactly why we keep talking about this stuff, the AI facial recognition case that put an innocent grandmother in jail for five months, and a law firm that used one shared master password for everything. New episodes every week. Cybersecurity news for humans. Chapters:00:00 Intro01:37 This week on The Awareness Angle03:17 Breach Watch: Lidl supplier breach08:24 23andMe pays $18m DNA settlement13:59 Mac malware ClickLock holds your computer hostage19:45 Mac malware disguised as Apple crash reporter29:26 TFL hackers jailed for five and a half years32:33 Fake e-cards hiding remote access malware37:44 Microsoft's record Patch Tuesday and a fresh zero-day46:44 Coca-Cola fairlife ransomware halts milk production49:27 Security Socials: ChatGPT bike shop fail51:46 ClickFix video with half a million likes54:44 AI facial recognition jails innocent grandmother57:21 GM removes authenticator app MFA1:00:51 Luke's story: the law firm with one password for everything1:04:31 Outro TikTok / Instagram: @antdaviscyberLinkedIn: antdaviscyberWebsite: riskycreative.com

  5. Jul 13

    7 Million Driver's Licenses Leaked, Sainsbury's Facial Recognition Fail, Google Sues Gemini Scammers

    Episode 96 of The Awareness Angle This week an insurance company leaked driver's license numbers for nearly 7 million people because one employee clicked a phishing email. Sainsbury's facial recognition system was 99.98% accurate and 100% wrong about the shopper it publicly kicked out. A 15 year old took down a national anime streaming service with malware ChatGPT helped him write. A Scattered Spider suspect hopped three countries on a VPN and still got caught by a number hidden in every Windows PC. And Google's own AI helped scammers steal $1.9 billion, so now Google is suing people for using Google properly. Ant and Luke break it all down in plain English, no jargon, for anyone who wants to understand what's actually happening in cybersecurity without needing a technical background. Plus this week's Phish of the Week from Hoxhunt and a look at what's trending across security socials. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:17 Housekeeping and the heatwave chat 03:25 Breach Watch: AssuranceAmerica driver's license breach 09:47 Accenture source code breach 13:22 Sainsbury's facial recognition wrongly flags shopper 20:07 15 year old uses ChatGPT to hack Bandai Namco 26:18 OnlyFans creators accidentally clean up hacked gov sites 32:04 Scattered Spider hacker caught by Windows device ID 41:35 Google sues scammers who abused its own Gemini AI 47:30 Quick hit stories 57:17 Security Socials 1:07:42 Luke's story: AI deepfake YouTube channel 1:14:20 Wrap up Newsletter: riskycreative.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/newsletters/the-awareness-angle-newsletter-7274932363787132928 Instagram/TikTok: @antdaviscyber YouTube: @riskycreative Music: "16" by Falling Forever, https://fallingforever.bandcamp.com/track/16, licensed under Creative Commons, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  6. Jul 6

    iPhone 18 Leaked, Aflac Hacked (Again) and a Bank Robber Who Just Asked Nicely

    iPhone 18 Pro design files leaked, Aflac gets hit for the third time in a few years, and a bank robber in London gets away with £117,000 just by wearing the right uniform. This week's episode has a bit of everything. Hackers stole 630GB of unreleased iPhone 18 Pro design files from Apple's manufacturing partner Tata Electronics, proving that even Apple's secrets aren't safe once you outsource the manufacturing. Medtronic tells millions of customers their health data and Social Security numbers were stolen, though the actual medical devices are safe to use. Aflac's Japan business gets breached for the third time in a few years, exposing bank details for 4.4 million people. Scammers register earthquake donation scam sites in Venezuela before rescue teams even finish pulling people from the rubble. Japanese hotel staff get targeted with fake guest complaint emails hiding malware that sits quiet until it's needed. UK hospital cyberattacks jump tenfold this year, a lot of them still exploiting a vulnerability from 2021. Opera launches a browser feature built to stop you hacking yourself, which might be the most 2026 sentence Ant's said all week. Plus PewDiePie tells his followers to ditch ChatGPT for a self hosted AI tool, a Commodore flip phone with no social media, the bank robbery solved by an Uber booked in the thief's own name, a tamper evident jar for storing sensitive items, why blurring your face doesn't actually hide your identity, and what WhatsApp usernames really mean for your privacy. *** Please note - All views and opinions expressed in this episode are our own and do not reflect those of our employers. *** Chapters:0:00 Intro3:16 Medtronic data breach exposes health records6:07 Aflac hack exposes 4.4 million bank details9:37 iPhone 18 Pro design leak from Tata Electronics13:52 Venezuela earthquake donation scams18:21 Japanese hotels hit with malware phishing23:19 UK hospital cyberattacks up tenfold27:13 Opera's Paste Protect stops ClickFix attacks33:50 PewDiePie's Odysseus AI tool40:27 Degoogling and the Commodore flip phone43:09 The bank robber who just asked for the money48:16 A tamper evident jar for sensitive items51:58 Why blurring your face doesn't work54:05 WhatsApp usernames explained Follow The Awareness Angle:TikTok and Instagram: @antdaviscyberLinkedIn: antdaviscyberWebsite: riskycreative.com Music: "16" by Falling Forever, used under CC BY 4.0Track: https://fallingforever.bandcamp.com/track/16Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  7. Jun 29

    GTA 6 Scams, Scattered Spider & The AI Plugin That Fooled Every Scanner

    GTA 6 scams launched within hours of pre-orders going live. Scattered Spider's teenage hackers pleaded guilty for the TfL attack, and one of them was hacking US hospitals while on bail. And a fake AI plugin passed every security scanner because the malware only switched on after the check was done. This week on The Awareness Angle: why attackers are borrowing your trust instead of breaking it, what the TfL case tells us about where the real hacking talent is, and why a clean security scan no longer means what it used to. Also this week: 630GB of Apple and Tesla manufacturing secrets stolen from their supplier, three million Texans had driving licence numbers taken from a hunting licence database, fake receipts appearing in the Shop app for purchases you never made, ClickFix malware hitting Gizmodo readers through a compromised account, the White House app federal workers can't delete from their phones, and the cybersecurity firms including Huntress and HackerOne who got hacked through a marketing tool. 00:00 Intro01:35 This week on The Awareness Angle02:52 Breach of the Week: Apple and Tesla supplier hacked, 630GB leaked07:43 Breach of the Week: 3 million Texans' driving licences stolen11:01 Fake receipts in the Shop app18:29 Scattered Spider guilty plea: TfL hack and US hospital attacks23:00 GTA 6 scams29:06 The AI plugin that passed every security scan36:46 Gizmodo ClickFix attack43:25 White House app on government phones48:57 Cybersecurity firms hacked through Klue54:09 Topic: Hosting malware on ChatGPT's own domain57:37 Topic: The TikTok inheritance scam DM1:02:13 Topic: Your address on the floor of a corner shop1:05:28 Topic: Google AI gets it wrong1:08:14 Topic: Luke's email from the US Defence Counterintelligence Agency Subscribe for weekly cybersecurity news made for humans, not just IT teams. The Awareness Angle is an independent podcast by Risky Creative, hosted by Ant Davis and Luke Pettigrew. Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-awareness-angle-newsletter-7274932363787132928/Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7rwzcRsKrXbASFBfiXoCZ6Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-awareness-angle-cyber-news-weekly/id1784126196TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@antdaviscyberInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/antdaviscyberLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antdaviscyberWebsite: riskycreative.com Our Intro and Outro Song © 16 by Falling Foreverhttps://fallingforever.bandcamp.com/track/16Licence: Creative Commons CC BY 4.0

  8. Jun 22

    The FBI Built a Fake Town, $3.5 Billion Lost to Scammers & a School Breach Hitting 11 Million Kids

    This week the threats are getting bigger and the defences are getting stranger. A criminal gang hit a school system that holds records for eleven million kids, Americans lost a record three and a half billion dollars to imposter scams, and the FBI built an entire fake town just to train agents to fight cybercrime. Plus earbuds that could be listening in, malware hiding in Steam wallpapers, a nasty new Android banking trojan, your cheap streaming box secretly working for criminals, and Google quietly deciding to use your IP address for ads. Chapters00:00 Intro03:01 Breach of the Week — Infinite Campus / ShinyHunters07:56 Imposter Scams — $3.5 Billion Record13:45 The FBI's Fake Town — Kinetic Cyber Range18:50 Bluetooth Flaw — Beats Studio Buds24:20 Steam Wallpaper Malware28:17 Android Banking Trojan — Rokarolla35:14 Popa Botnet — Cheap Streaming Boxes39:11 Google — IP Address Ad Targeting42:24 Security Socials — Fake iOS Virus Pop-up46:10 Security Socials — Claude Age Verification56:05 And Finally — Whale Song Captcha, Cloudflare Lava Lamps & SETI@home The Awareness Angle is an independent podcast by Risky Creative. Subscribe for weekly cybersecurity news made for humans, not just IT teams. Find usNewsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-awareness-angle-newsletter-7274932363787132928/Website: riskycreative.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@antdaviscyberInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/antdaviscyberLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antdaviscyber Our Intro and Outro Song © 16 by Falling Foreverhttps://fallingforever.bandcamp.com/track/16Licence: Creative Commons CC BY 4.0

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About

The Awareness Angle is a weekly cybersecurity podcast that makes cyber security make sense for everyday people. Every week, Ant and Luke break down the biggest cyber security news, including data breaches, phishing scams, AI fraud, and the sneaky ways people get hacked, in plain English with no jargon. But this isn’t just another tech podcast. We focus on the human side of cyber security. How scams actually work, why people fall for them, and what you can do to stay safer online. Whether you’re worried about identity theft, online fraud, or just want to understand what’s going on in the world of cyber security, you’ll get practical tips, real-world examples, and relatable stories every week. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one.

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