July 3, 2025 • 33 mins
Navigating today's digital landscape requires more than just technical knowledge—it demands a vigilant "human firewall" to protect yourself from increasingly sophisticated scams. With cyber attacks occurring every 39 seconds and scam operations projected to reach a staggering $12 trillion by 2025, understanding these threats has never been more crucial.
The landscape of online deception has evolved far beyond obvious Nigerian prince emails. Modern scammers employ multi-layered approaches, gathering small pieces of information through seemingly innocent interactions to build detailed profiles of potential victims. That SunPass toll notification or Facebook friend request might be the first step in a complex scheme designed to manipulate your emotions and exploit your trust.
We dive deep into the mechanics behind today's most prevalent scams. The Haley Welch "hawk tua" cryptocurrency disaster demonstrates how scammers leverage internet fame to create pump-and-dump schemes that leave investors holding worthless tokens. Romance scams employ psychological grooming techniques over months or even years, eventually transitioning into blackmail operations. Charity scams exploit natural disasters and emotional events to collect credit card information under the guise of small donations. Perhaps most insidious are fake antivirus programs that appear legitimate but actively steal your personal information after you've willingly installed them.
What makes these scams so effective isn't that victims are unintelligent—it's that scammers have become experts at manipulating human psychology. They target our natural inclination toward trust, helpfulness, and emotional response. The good news? Understanding these tactics is your strongest defense. By maintaining a healthy skepticism toward unexpected communications, verifying the legitimacy of websites before entering personal information, and approaching online relationships with appropriate caution, you can significantly reduce your vulnerability.
Join us as we break down the anatomy of modern scams and provide practical strategies for protecting yourself in an increasingly treacherous digital world. Your financial security and personal identity depend on your ability to recognize and respond to these evolving threats.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, all right, here we go.
It is that time of the week forthe Global Bob Show.
Global Bob Show, we are thecrossroad of technology and
politics episode 26, and withthe kickoff we brought in a
(00:32):
special guest and her name isHello Shelly, and I cannot
believe the amount of fanfare wegot by having Hello Shelly on
the podcast.
What's really cool is everybodystarted sending me messages and
texts and all kinds of funstuff.
Everybody started sending memessages and texts and all kinds
of fun stuff, saying, hey, canyou bring her back on the show?
And I made it very clear to herthat this is the Global Bob
Show, not the Hello Shelly Show.
So to keep the fans engaged andkeeping her from starting her
(00:58):
own podcast that would begreatly more listened to than
mine I said, hey, well, okay,we'll bring her back, we'll see.
She survived week one, we'llsee if she survives week two.
So, without further ado, helloShelly.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
All right, so she is back.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I'm back.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Back for episode 27.
And yeah, what are we talkingabout today?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
We're talking about how not to be a victim when it
comes to scams.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Oh, scams.
What kind of scams.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Phishing scams Employment, which is a big one.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Employment scams.
I haven't heard of that, butwe'll circle back to it yeah,
charity scams.
Charity Okay.
I've heard of charity scamsOkay.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
The fake antivirus scams.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Fake antivirus scams.
Wow, that's a lot of scams, andthese are all happening online.
I think I talked about this afew podcasts ago but, as we know
, with the Global Bob Show, thatwas years ago and yeah, so I
guess we will revisit the topicand see where this takes us.
(02:20):
So we have lots of differentscams that that that come out.
But, you know, all of thesescams kind of have something in
common, whether it's the fishingscam, the romance scam, which I
I like, that one, the, the, theromance one, because they call
it the honey trap, which is kindof a play on a honeypot, yeah.
(02:41):
And then, uh, there'sinvestment scams and then, of
course, course, you told usabout tech support scams,
shopping I know that that's abig one, shopping, and we'll
break some of some of these downa little more.
Health insurance that's anotherone too that is on the rise now,
because, I mean, our healthinsurance is crazy.
(03:04):
You know, I thought withObamacare, you know Obama was
going to be our mama and he wasgoing to take care of us from
the cradle to the grave, but, uh, but, uh, yeah, I mean even
with the healthcare marketplace,you know, that kind of opened
up for some scammy type stuff.
Um, yeah, you said fakeantivirus, that's, that's one
that, uh, that has been aroundactually for quite some time,
(03:26):
the whole fake antivirus, andwe'll touch on some of these,
and Google AdWords too, whichyou know, and a lot of these
will all be combined together.
You know, we talked about theGoogle AdWords and we said some
antivirus and stuff.
But yeah, we'll unpack all ofthese.
Yeah, we'll unpack all of these, and I think one of the ones
that I didn't quite see comingat a certain angle is the
(03:50):
cryptocurrency scam.
What was that girl's name?
The one that everybody she cameout with a meme.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Haley Welch.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Haley Welch.
Wow, so I'm glad it's HaleyWelch and not Haley Varner,
which is my niece.
My first born niece's name isHaley Varner.
And there I go.
I'm leaking personalinformation out on the internet,
because maybe that could besomething that a scammer uses
against me, right?
Yeah, so Haley Welch.
(04:23):
What?
What was it that Haley wasfamous for, like?
Why did she end up on the?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
internet Uh Hawk to a girl.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Hawk to a.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, uh, uh, she was interviewed like on the street
with her friend, oh yeah, that'sright.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And the, the, the, the girl no-transcript was and,
(05:20):
naturally, like with everythingI'll tell you on the global Bob
show, we we ad lib this.
Naturally, like with everythingI tell you on the Global Bob
Show, we ad lib this.
There's not research going on.
I don't have this big staffbehind me, so if I do get some
of the stuff wrong, or helloShelly if she gets some of the
stuff wrong, then what we'redoing is giving you generalized
(05:40):
antidotes, and so please don'tflame us.
I think we got like threelisteners now between, uh, my
family and friends, so, uh, mythree only listeners out there.
Please don't flame us, but uhyeah, so with oh, there's a term
.
Maybe people don't know whatthat term is.
Like my mom, she probablydoesn't know what that.
(06:00):
What does it mean when someoneflames somebody else?
What?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
does it mean?
When someone flames somebodyelse, that's like not like
hating on them, but like tellingon them maybe, yeah, like
talking trash right, yeah yeah,like.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I'm going to flame you because Do you know who's
one of the biggest flamers in myfamily Is my younger brother,
mj.
Oh my gosh man, he will flameyou in a heartbeat.
So, yeah, I don't know girl,and they knew how popular she
(06:46):
was and things, and they said,hey, you know, you should have
your own cryptocurrency.
And we know all the time I talkabout I don't like
cryptocurrency unless there's autility behind it, right?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And so I guess she was going to come out with the
hock to a coin, if I remembercorrectly.
And so she um, they used herfame and they pumped this thing
up quite a bit.
Now, someone who has made theirown cryptocurrency, such as
myself, that's used for autility, I'm like, okay, well,
what utility could hock touacoin be traded in for?
(07:23):
And I got to be careful.
I got to keep this PG.
If not, then Apple, yeah, apple, we don't want that.
Yeah, they'll get upset withyou and pull you off the podcast
.
But I was like, hey, what wouldyou trade the Haktua coin in?
Well, naturally, there'snothing you traded in.
It had no utility.
So they got it in there, theygot her to hype it all up, and
(07:48):
as soon as this thing went up, Imean, it was making millions
and millions and millions ofdollars.
And then the people thatdesigned the cryptocurrency they
kept a bunch of it back, right,because when you create a
cryptocurrency, you can, sinceyou're the author, you're like,
hey, I'm going to keep like abillion crypto tokens that are
absolutely worthless, by the way, and then I'm going to put the
other ones out there.
And so what happened was isthat it went up real high and
they what they call uh pulledthe rug out from under it and uh
(08:12):
, it went down to next tonothing and and so, really, I
mean, we all know about HaleyWelch and we know about Hawk too
, but she was a victim andeverybody was here's our term.
They flamed her across theinternet, they lit her up and
all she was was a beautiful,naive girl that was used by the
(08:34):
folks that created thecryptocurrency.
There we go there's our firstin-depth she disappeared.
She did.
She had a podcast and she had alot going for her.
She did yeah, I mean, Iactually tuned in to some of her
podcast and she did them likelive, I think.
(08:55):
Who's the girl that was thesinger?
Man I had little butterflies inher hair.
I can picture Jojo Siwa.
Oh, okay, yeah, that I had alittle butterflies in her hair.
I can picture, oh, Jojo Siwa.
Oh, okay, yeah, that was one ofthe best ones.
She was on there with Jojo Siwaand I couldn't believe.
I mean I can't even tell youwhat Jojo Siwa, but I know that
my, my little nieces, they loveduh Jojo Siwa and they had all
(09:17):
the, all the stuff for theirhair and everything.
But it's like I never thoughtthat I would be uh, trying to
listen to a podcast with Haley.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Welch I digress.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, so that is a one where they, they made, they
made millions off of that.
But but let's talk about, um,some of the most common ones, uh
, that that folks get.
I know that lately I've beengetting a lot of them from
SunPass, where we're at now, ohyeah.
Yeah, down here in FloridaSunPass is a big thing and I
(09:50):
know they got all these otherpasses.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Unpaid tolls.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Unpaid tolls.
They text it to you.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And one of the things I've had some of my friends
tell me is that they'll respondto that text message that they
get and say some derogatory term, and or they'll tell them that
you know you're a scammer andthey'll try to communicate with
them.
And, as you know, that's not agood thing to do.
(10:16):
Whether they call you on yourphone or they hit you on a text
message, you don't want torespond back to them because all
you're doing is puttingyourself in another pile.
But you know, just like withany of these scams, what they're
trying to do is figure out whatyour scammability is.
(10:38):
I guess you know.
If you even respond back to it.
Now, you've just shown thatthere's a live person on the end
of that and, uh, now they putyou in a different pile also to
when they do this, uh, scammystuff and they land on your
phone.
Uh, one of the, the, the, thekey things they they understand
(10:58):
is is that you're an Apple useror an Android user, because of
the different um style, like, ifit's an Android, it may light
up green, I think, and blue.
So just from there they knowhey, I got a live person, I have
their phone number.
Uh, that I can.
Uh, you know, and, and alsothey know what kind of device
(11:20):
you have, and then they canstart start packaging up.
You know, and, and also theyknow what kind of device you
have, and then they can startstart packaging up.
And so then the next scam thatcomes along may not be about
tolls.
It may be something to theeffect of hello Shelly.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Hello, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Hello, that's funny, the whole hello Shelly thing, uh
, but but then it may besomething like hey, your Apple
account is past due and the theyknow that you have an Apple
phone or an Android phone andall this does is it builds up
like a dossier or a profile.
So I know that's one and reallythose are called phishing,
(11:54):
aren't they like a generalphishing, so whether it comes in
on email or phone and stuff.
But one of the ones I want totalk about is the romance scam.
Now we understand how beautifulglobal Bob is and I get these
all the time and it comesthrough as a very attractive
(12:21):
woman and she'll send me apicture, whether it's on
telegram or signal, not thatmuch.
I don't know why I don't getthem that much on signal and I
never get them on text.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It's mostly like a social media type platform that
you receive those yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And I know I also started locking down my Facebook
quite a bit.
I don't use Facebook a lot and Iknow I also started locking
down my Facebook quite a bit Idon't use Facebook a lot, but
yeah, it's usually an attractivewoman and then people say, well
, wow, okay, how does she end upon there?
But what folks don't realize isis that all of this can be from
the same person or the samegroup and they're kind of
grooming, right.
So now they know what phone youuse, they know if you're
(12:58):
responding back.
Now they're going to do alittle catfishing there.
Isn't that what it's calledcatfishing?
Yeah catfish, and what they'redoing is basically grooming you
to figure out what things yourespond to, and then it would be
a lot of text messages back andforth.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Like subtle talk.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, subtle talk right, yeah.
Like small talk, a littlechitter-chattering.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Like hey, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I'm like.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Oh, are you having a good day today?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Oh, I'm having a great day.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Me too.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah, Uh.
But it's not just adults thatare getting these.
Uh, there's ones out there thatare targeting young children,
and I, when I say young, I'mtalking about like 16, 17, uh,
years old, and what they'll dois they'll finally become
friends with them and thenthey'll ask like they'll send
them some, uh, some nudiepictures, I guess you would call
(13:53):
it or some compromising uhphotos of themselves, and then
to get that person to send oneback.
Now, I do know a few of my guyfriends none of the girlfriends,
but a couple of my guy friends.
They, they talk to these, thesegirls, and I'm like, and
they're like, well, what does itmatter if I talk to them?
And you know, it's not like,but I'm like, I know, but you're
putting yourself self out there, but what they're trying to do
(14:15):
is get a you to send them apicture.
And, uh, if you send them backa picture, and then they'll ask
for, like, a picture of you in amirror or something that they
can add positive attribution,that it's you Right, Because
they'll say oh, how do I knowthat's really you?
And some of them are even sosophisticated they're asking you
(14:35):
to hold up, like your driver'slicense, but to hold your hand
over the address so they're veryconvincing, right.
Hold your hand over the address, so they're very convincing,
right.
And next thing they do, thenthey move into like an extortion
type route where, oh, I'm goingto put all these out on the
internet.
Or they've already done a lotof research and know what your
social circles are and maybe, ifyou're married or in a
relationship, they know who yoursignificant other is, and they
(14:59):
actually threaten to publishthese like blackmail that's
exactly that's exactly what itis, and so you know you start
off with, uh, something that'svery benign, just chit chat,
knowing they're a scammer.
But before you know it.
If you, um, let your guard down, then you're wrapped up in this
thing.
And what do they say?
Oh, I like, like to get someBitcoin or whatever, hoctua
(15:24):
coins or something.
No, no, no Hoctua, they knowthey know those are useless
coins, but that's what they do.
And then you never get out ofthese scams, right, and so so,
so that's a big one.
Another one is these charityscams, and and we know, living
here in Florida, right, whathappens every year about this
time Hurricanes come through,yeah, storms and stuff.
(15:49):
Yeah, storms and all of us.
You know they play on ouremotions and this is something
that's really important to honein on.
Is these scams most of the timeonly work because of playing on
your emotions, and so they waitfor an event to happen, whether
it's a hurricane here inFlorida or earthquake in
(16:10):
California, tornadoes out West,you name it the Ukraine war.
When that happened, remember, alot of people were feeling
really like patriotic andwanting to help the.
Ukrainians.
And so these scammers.
They will send you something,say, donate a dollar or donate
$2, something like cheap, andyou click on it and you donate
some information.
Well, one of the things thatwas very common is that you
(16:36):
click on the link, it takes youto a page to enter in your
credit card number, a page toenter in your credit card number
.
Well, what they'll do isthey'll have that page made and
it's sending them your creditcard information, all your
information, and then they'remanually punching it into what
they call a virtual terminal.
And so now, not only do youyou're used to when you check
(16:58):
out at, like Walmart or any ofthe legitimate sites we all know
there's a lot of securityaround that, those sites.
So your credit card informationis never actually stored on
Walmart, even if you save yourinformation on there.
It's not technically stored andI don't want to get into all
the details, but they're sort oflike a token that represents
(17:21):
that.
Well, see these scammers, notonly have you given them a
dollar or $2, something benign,but now they have your full
information.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And then later on, say six, eight months from then,
they'll start hitting thecredit cards again and seeing if
anybody notices.
And, uh, we've all done itbefore we sell it.
Like, what's this charge on mycredit card?
It's like it's only two dollars.
Who cares?
But you can, uh, think aboutthat.
If, say, 10 of people willdonate to to them that they send
(17:56):
the messages to, and thenanother you know out of those
folks, they can hit those cardsagain and they just keep keep
cycling it.
Why?
Why we're talking about allthis is that folks say, wow,
that could happen to anybody.
But, uh, how successful arethey?
(18:17):
And they're very successful.
Uh, I was doing a little bit ofa searching not too long ago and
I'm just going off of memoryhere, and one cyber attack or
one of these events happensevery 39 seconds.
Wow, yeah, there's like 12trillion in 2025.
(18:39):
It's a $12 trillion industry.
There was a fact that was aboutlike 27% of folks were
scammable and now it's up to 88%.
And it's not that we're gettingdumber, it's just that they're
getting better and they'refinding other ways to scam you.
(19:02):
But I mean, if you think about$12 trillion, is what this
industry?
Yeah, and it's all illegalmoney.
And then, kind of like, what wetalked about is that it's all
Bitcoin-based,cryptocurrency-based, and, as
you know, it's hard to trackbitcoin down right, and so one
(19:23):
of the one of the scams that I'mvery, very intimate with is, uh
one one that happened to anindividual and, from all uh
research that was done, thatthey were grooming that
individual for almost a year andthey played on that
individual's emotions and itstarted out small, but these
(19:45):
scammers were very, very, verygood.
They created fake documents,they created this whole persona
with different people that thisperson was talking to, and
someone like yourself who is acybersecurity expert you could
(20:06):
look at this and see it, as wesay, down in the South from a
mile away, but when they playedon this person's emotions and
they brought it all together,they ended up getting countless
thousands and thousands andthousands and thousands of
dollars, which is really sad.
But so what we want to talkabout is also just how can you
(20:30):
have I like to call it the humanfirewall?
Now tell us what a firewalldoes on the computer, right?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So a firewall blocks any kind of virus or maybe a
document that has something thatwas put in it.
The computer will just keepthese kind of things out from
accessing into the system.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Right.
So if you think about it inthat respect, I think that folks
need to establish their ownhuman firewall, and you just got
to really, really, really becareful.
So when these charity scamscome around, I can't do anything
.
If you're looking for love, Imean I don't know.
(21:17):
I guess to combat that you needto go down to a bar.
But even nowadays we're seeingsome of these scammers for what
they call the well that'sanother term in the scam.
The well that's somebody that'sreally, really rich, that has
money.
That's just.
You know whatever like they.
They wipe their ass with like$20 bills and crap, maybe even a
hundred dollar bills, and sothese scammers will actually run
(21:40):
operations against them in barsand hotels.
I know in particular, my dadhas a friend that this happened
to, and this was an electronicscam.
This was way back in the daythat they were at a hotel and
there was an attractive ladythere that had taken an interest
(22:00):
in his friend, and my dadactually put a stop to it, which
was really, really awesome.
So when you're out there on theinterwebs, internet, dark web,
wherever you hang out at, justhave your human firewall up.
Just have your human firewallup.
I mean, if things don't soundright, look right.
(22:28):
But you just got to be carefulthat you don't give out these
little trickets of information.
You know, with me I'm a publicfigure and so all of my
information is out there.
So people, these scammers,probably have a nice dossier on
me and so I don't mind tellingyou.
You know, uh, personalinformation, but really I
shouldn't even be doing that.
But uh, I, I understand uh howto operate this and so you want
(22:52):
to have your, your humanfirewall, and and you know who's
really good about this who doyou think in my family probably
has one of the best humanfirewalls outside of me?
Who do you think has one of thebest human firewalls up?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I would say your dad.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Why does everybody always say my dad yeah, he's a
very smart individual but my mom?
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Oh, your mom, my mom, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
She is a cyber ninja.
Actually she's a, maybe.
Maybe I'll give her a new term.
Maybe she's a cyber vigilante,right?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
My mom will get these toll scams, tax scams, and what
does she do?
She takes a picture of it, ascreenshot, and she'll text it
to me and she says, hey, thislooks like a scam.
I'm like, well, mom, unlessyou've been on the New Jersey
turnpike here in the last 10days or whatever, probably, it
(23:49):
probably is a scam.
So she's really really goodabout that.
She'll get these friendrequests on Facebook who's that?
Yeah, who is that?
And she'll take a screenshotand she'll scammer.
Yeah, and she says, hey, uh,this person's only friends with
five other people and so I don'tknow if she's bored or if she's
(24:10):
a cyber vigilante at this point, because, uh, she'll send it.
And I'm like mom, that isawesome, that's way to go.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
And so on the Facebook.
What they're doing is is that alot of folks have their
Facebook locked down and it'skind of like a double-edged
sword.
Well, I got it locked down, butI want, like old friends and
family, to be able to get a holdof me, and so it's like who can
see your stuff?
(24:38):
Friends of friends, and so ifyou're, friends of friends, my
mom's friends of friends, and ifwe're in that little circle all
they got to do they could justsee each other.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Well, they just friend one of us, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
And the next thing, you know, now they have access
to my social network, right,right, right.
And then what are they doing?
They're looking at pictures,they're looking at the to build
up that dossier and stuff.
So, yeah, I mean, I, I know I,I give a lot of shouts out to
mom, but man, I mean, uh, that'sreally good for someone at her
age.
And she doesn't even use acomputer.
(25:09):
Yeah, she doesn't use acomputer.
It's like all uh iPhone andiPad, but still she, she's out
there and uh.
So no, this is not a challenge.
Please do not try to uh fish,mom, and and and and uh see if
you can get something to comethrough, but uh, yeah.
So what I'm telling everybodyis you need to have this, uh,
human firewall in place becauseyou don't want to be part of
(25:33):
this, uh, $12 trillion industry.
That's, um, you know so.
So supporting this industry,that's, um, you know so.
So supporting this.
But you, you mentionedsomething that was, uh, really
key, and this is one that peoplemay not know is the antivirus,
uh scam?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
So tell it, tell us a little bit about the antivirus
scam.
So I think a lot of it comesthrough email, and in the email
they say oh, you know, pleasesign up for a free trial.
Um, for let me throw one outthere Um, kaspersky.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Oh, that's a good one yeah.
That just sounds suspicious.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I know that it does.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So for for y'all that don't know, kaspersky is a
legitimate antivirus uhcorporation it is and they were
out of russia and very popularat one time.
Yeah, they were, they weren'twell, they were cheap and, uh,
they were good, but now we knowwhat's happening in in russia.
But so okay, so they throw itout there and they're like, hey,
come sign up for kaspersky, butwith a y at the end, it has
(26:39):
like an eye exactly, and thenwhat happens?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
you click on the link click on this link and then all
of hey, come sign up forKaspersky, but with a Y at the
end.
It has like an I at the end.
And then what happens?
You, click on the link.
They click on this link andthen all of a sudden, it could
be their computer is infected,gets infected, or maybe it's a
site to put in their information, like credit card information.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, moreover, too, they'll actually let you
download an application.
I've seen this before, so it'sKaspersky with an I instead of a
Y, which is ski, ski, whatever,and they'll actually download
the application.
And when the application comesdown, they use the same logos as
(27:22):
the antivirus and it will comeup and it is scanning your
computer for viruses, but really, what it's scanning your
computer for is for PII.
So, my listeners out there, piiis personally identifiable
information.
Right, and so they're lookingfor names, so security numbers,
(27:44):
addresses, phone numbers, all ofthat stuff.
Because what do we do?
We store it securely on ourcomputer and it's instantly
sending that information back.
And here's the other thing withthe antivirus scam you don't
run two antiviruses on yourcomputer right.
So they know, the people thatare clicking on the link don't
(28:04):
have antivirus, so thereforeit's not going to detect their
malware that they bring down.
And so you think about it'slike, wow, that's pretty cool,
yeah, let's do an antivirus scam.
Not that I want to do anantivirus scam, but you click on
it and it can easily instantlyexploit that computer.
And uh, also, too, you'reactually installing it.
(28:28):
So you're like, hey, I'minstalling this.
And if it does get installedand I'm not going to get into
all the mechanics of it, right,but they're actually signing it,
making it all look legit andstuff, and then it's sending
back that information.
And so, best case scenario,because you don't have antivirus
(28:48):
, that, uh, they've exportedyour computer.
And then, if you actuallyinstall it.
Now they have what they callpersistent access to your
computer.
That means anytime you doanything, your computer, your
laptop lid is open, then theyhave unfeathered access into
that.
So the antivirus scam is reallyone of the ones that I consider
(29:11):
the most dangerous.
Right, because you don't haveantivirus, so you're clicking on
it, right.
But how do they do this?
They go to Google, and thisthis isn't anything bad against
Google or bang or name whateverAlta Vista, remember that old oh
, alta Vista, right, but, butthey go on there and they get
the keywords and there's anadvertisement, and so, like I
(29:33):
talked about with other scams,it plays on your emotions, right
, and it's like, well, I needantivirus.
And so I go searching forantivirus.
I see an ad and this is, uh, youknow, using the Google ad the
uh AdWords and advertisement,and so it looks like it's all
legit because it found it onGoogle, and people that don't
(29:57):
know think that, well, if it'sbeing advertised on Google or
Bing or name your search engine,then it must be legit.
And so what I'm trying to showhere is that it's not a one size
fits all when it comes to ascam.
They have to figure out whatkind of stuff you're interested
(30:17):
in and what state your device isin, and so if they send you a
uh phishing to your phone, thenthey know you click on that link
.
It knows it came from an iOSdevice.
Well, if they send it to anApple phone and you're logged
into iMessenger on your Appleand you click on it, now they
(30:37):
know that you came from a Macdevice and so now they can start
packaging these things together.
So when they do actually putwhat I like to say send you the
goods or the value added codethat it's highly tailored and
high and highly uh and highsuccess rate that you, they're
(30:59):
going to land on that thatcomputer.
All right, well, we're at thebottom of the half hour and, uh,
I'd like to thank everybodythat tunes in, as always.
Please, uh, send us anyfeedback on what you want to
hear from the show.
It looks like uh, hello, shelly, maybe.
(31:19):
Uh, this is her second on thepodcast, so she makes it through
five podcasts in a row.
Maybe we'll invite her to be aco-host.
Uh, we're always looking forpeople to come out on the show
and give us their perspectiveand ask questions.
You don't have to be technical.
I'd love to.
You know, really we need to getwe need to get my mom in here
and get her mic'd up, because Ithink that that would be great.
(31:42):
So Next week, we will talk alittle bit more about the
training series that we're doinghere at the chamber, where
we're going to show folks how toactually use AI for their home,
you know how to do it for, likehome budgets and contracts, and
(32:05):
also in the workplace, and sowe'll be talking a lot more
about that.
So until next time, everybodysay cyber safe and if you have
any questions or commentsconcern, please email us at
global Bobhow at gmailcom.
If you want to go ahead andsend me a phish email or try to
(32:25):
spam me or whatever.
We'll see if you can get throughGlobal Bob's human firewall.
All right, until next time.
All right, all right, here we go.
It is that time of the week forthe Global Bob Show.
Global Bob Show, we are thecrossroad of technology and
politics episode 26, and withthe kickoff we brought in a
(00:32):
special guest and her name isHello Shelly, and I cannot
believe the amount of fanfare wegot by having Hello Shelly on
the podcast.
What's really cool is everybodystarted sending me messages and
texts and all kinds of funstuff.
Everybody started sending memessages and texts and all kinds
of fun stuff, saying, hey, canyou bring her back on the show?
And I made it very clear to herthat this is the Global Bob
Show, not the Hello Shelly Show.
So to keep the fans engaged andkeeping her from starting her
(00:58):
own podcast that would begreatly more listened to than
mine I said, hey, well, okay,we'll bring her back, we'll see.
She survived week one, we'llsee if she survives week two.
So, without further ado, helloShelly.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
All right, so she is back.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I'm back.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Back for episode 27.
And yeah, what are we talkingabout today?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
We're talking about how not to be a victim when it
comes to scams.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Oh, scams.
What kind of scams.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Phishing scams Employment, which is a big one.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Employment scams.
I haven't heard of that, butwe'll circle back to it yeah,
charity scams.
Charity Okay.
I've heard of charity scamsOkay.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
The fake antivirus scams.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Fake antivirus scams.
Wow, that's a lot of scams, andthese are all happening online.
I think I talked about this afew podcasts ago but, as we know
, with the Global Bob Show, thatwas years ago and yeah, so I
guess we will revisit the topicand see where this takes us.
(02:20):
So we have lots of differentscams that that that come out.
But, you know, all of thesescams kind of have something in
common, whether it's the fishingscam, the romance scam, which I
I like, that one, the, the, theromance one, because they call
it the honey trap, which is kindof a play on a honeypot, yeah.
(02:41):
And then, uh, there'sinvestment scams and then, of
course, course, you told usabout tech support scams,
shopping I know that that's abig one, shopping, and we'll
break some of some of these downa little more.
Health insurance that's anotherone too that is on the rise now,
because, I mean, our healthinsurance is crazy.
(03:04):
You know, I thought withObamacare, you know Obama was
going to be our mama and he wasgoing to take care of us from
the cradle to the grave, but, uh, but, uh, yeah, I mean even
with the healthcare marketplace,you know, that kind of opened
up for some scammy type stuff.
Um, yeah, you said fakeantivirus, that's, that's one
that, uh, that has been aroundactually for quite some time,
(03:26):
the whole fake antivirus, andwe'll touch on some of these,
and Google AdWords too, whichyou know, and a lot of these
will all be combined together.
You know, we talked about theGoogle AdWords and we said some
antivirus and stuff.
But yeah, we'll unpack all ofthese.
Yeah, we'll unpack all of these, and I think one of the ones
that I didn't quite see comingat a certain angle is the
(03:50):
cryptocurrency scam.
What was that girl's name?
The one that everybody she cameout with a meme.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Haley Welch.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Haley Welch.
Wow, so I'm glad it's HaleyWelch and not Haley Varner,
which is my niece.
My first born niece's name isHaley Varner.
And there I go.
I'm leaking personalinformation out on the internet,
because maybe that could besomething that a scammer uses
against me, right?
Yeah, so Haley Welch.
(04:23):
What?
What was it that Haley wasfamous for, like?
Why did she end up on the?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
internet Uh Hawk to a girl.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Hawk to a.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, uh, uh, she was interviewed like on the street
with her friend, oh yeah, that'sright.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And the, the, the, the girl no-transcript was and,
(05:20):
naturally, like with everythingI'll tell you on the global Bob
show, we we ad lib this.
Naturally, like with everythingI tell you on the Global Bob
Show, we ad lib this.
There's not research going on.
I don't have this big staffbehind me, so if I do get some
of the stuff wrong, or helloShelly if she gets some of the
stuff wrong, then what we'redoing is giving you generalized
(05:40):
antidotes, and so please don'tflame us.
I think we got like threelisteners now between, uh, my
family and friends, so, uh, mythree only listeners out there.
Please don't flame us, but uhyeah, so with oh, there's a term
.
Maybe people don't know whatthat term is.
Like my mom, she probablydoesn't know what that.
(06:00):
What does it mean when someoneflames somebody else?
What?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
does it mean?
When someone flames somebodyelse, that's like not like
hating on them, but like tellingon them maybe, yeah, like
talking trash right, yeah yeah,like.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I'm going to flame you because Do you know who's
one of the biggest flamers in myfamily Is my younger brother,
mj.
Oh my gosh man, he will flameyou in a heartbeat.
So, yeah, I don't know girl,and they knew how popular she
(06:46):
was and things, and they said,hey, you know, you should have
your own cryptocurrency.
And we know all the time I talkabout I don't like
cryptocurrency unless there's autility behind it, right?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And so I guess she was going to come out with the
hock to a coin, if I remembercorrectly.
And so she um, they used herfame and they pumped this thing
up quite a bit.
Now, someone who has made theirown cryptocurrency, such as
myself, that's used for autility, I'm like, okay, well,
what utility could hock touacoin be traded in for?
(07:23):
And I got to be careful.
I got to keep this PG.
If not, then Apple, yeah, apple, we don't want that.
Yeah, they'll get upset withyou and pull you off the podcast
.
But I was like, hey, what wouldyou trade the Haktua coin in?
Well, naturally, there'snothing you traded in.
It had no utility.
So they got it in there, theygot her to hype it all up, and
(07:48):
as soon as this thing went up, Imean, it was making millions
and millions and millions ofdollars.
And then the people thatdesigned the cryptocurrency they
kept a bunch of it back, right,because when you create a
cryptocurrency, you can, sinceyou're the author, you're like,
hey, I'm going to keep like abillion crypto tokens that are
absolutely worthless, by the way, and then I'm going to put the
other ones out there.
And so what happened was isthat it went up real high and
they what they call uh pulledthe rug out from under it and uh
(08:12):
, it went down to next tonothing and and so, really, I
mean, we all know about HaleyWelch and we know about Hawk too
, but she was a victim andeverybody was here's our term.
They flamed her across theinternet, they lit her up and
all she was was a beautiful,naive girl that was used by the
(08:34):
folks that created thecryptocurrency.
There we go there's our firstin-depth she disappeared.
She did.
She had a podcast and she had alot going for her.
She did yeah, I mean, Iactually tuned in to some of her
podcast and she did them likelive, I think.
(08:55):
Who's the girl that was thesinger?
Man I had little butterflies inher hair.
I can picture Jojo Siwa.
Oh, okay, yeah, that I had alittle butterflies in her hair.
I can picture, oh, Jojo Siwa.
Oh, okay, yeah, that was one ofthe best ones.
She was on there with Jojo Siwaand I couldn't believe.
I mean I can't even tell youwhat Jojo Siwa, but I know that
my, my little nieces, they loveduh Jojo Siwa and they had all
(09:17):
the, all the stuff for theirhair and everything.
But it's like I never thoughtthat I would be uh, trying to
listen to a podcast with Haley.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Welch I digress.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, so that is a one where they, they made, they
made millions off of that.
But but let's talk about, um,some of the most common ones, uh
, that that folks get.
I know that lately I've beengetting a lot of them from
SunPass, where we're at now, ohyeah.
Yeah, down here in FloridaSunPass is a big thing and I
(09:50):
know they got all these otherpasses.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Unpaid tolls.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Unpaid tolls.
They text it to you.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And one of the things I've had some of my friends
tell me is that they'll respondto that text message that they
get and say some derogatory term, and or they'll tell them that
you know you're a scammer andthey'll try to communicate with
them.
And, as you know, that's not agood thing to do.
(10:16):
Whether they call you on yourphone or they hit you on a text
message, you don't want torespond back to them because all
you're doing is puttingyourself in another pile.
But you know, just like withany of these scams, what they're
trying to do is figure out whatyour scammability is.
(10:38):
I guess you know.
If you even respond back to it.
Now, you've just shown thatthere's a live person on the end
of that and, uh, now they putyou in a different pile also to
when they do this, uh, scammystuff and they land on your
phone.
Uh, one of the, the, the, thekey things they they understand
(10:58):
is is that you're an Apple useror an Android user, because of
the different um style, like, ifit's an Android, it may light
up green, I think, and blue.
So just from there they knowhey, I got a live person, I have
their phone number.
Uh, that I can.
Uh, you know, and, and alsothey know what kind of device
(11:20):
you have, and then they canstart start packaging up.
You know, and, and also theyknow what kind of device you
have, and then they can startstart packaging up.
And so then the next scam thatcomes along may not be about
tolls.
It may be something to theeffect of hello Shelly.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Hello, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Hello, that's funny, the whole hello Shelly thing, uh
, but but then it may besomething like hey, your Apple
account is past due and the theyknow that you have an Apple
phone or an Android phone andall this does is it builds up
like a dossier or a profile.
So I know that's one and reallythose are called phishing,
(11:54):
aren't they like a generalphishing, so whether it comes in
on email or phone and stuff.
But one of the ones I want totalk about is the romance scam.
Now we understand how beautifulglobal Bob is and I get these
all the time and it comesthrough as a very attractive
(12:21):
woman and she'll send me apicture, whether it's on
telegram or signal, not thatmuch.
I don't know why I don't getthem that much on signal and I
never get them on text.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It's mostly like a social media type platform that
you receive those yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And I know I also started locking down my Facebook
quite a bit.
I don't use Facebook a lot and Iknow I also started locking
down my Facebook quite a bit Idon't use Facebook a lot, but
yeah, it's usually an attractivewoman and then people say, well
, wow, okay, how does she end upon there?
But what folks don't realize isis that all of this can be from
the same person or the samegroup and they're kind of
grooming, right.
So now they know what phone youuse, they know if you're
(12:58):
responding back.
Now they're going to do alittle catfishing there.
Isn't that what it's calledcatfishing?
Yeah catfish, and what they'redoing is basically grooming you
to figure out what things yourespond to, and then it would be
a lot of text messages back andforth.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Like subtle talk.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, subtle talk right, yeah.
Like small talk, a littlechitter-chattering.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Like hey, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I'm like.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Oh, are you having a good day today?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Oh, I'm having a great day.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Me too.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah, Uh.
But it's not just adults thatare getting these.
Uh, there's ones out there thatare targeting young children,
and I, when I say young, I'mtalking about like 16, 17, uh,
years old, and what they'll dois they'll finally become
friends with them and thenthey'll ask like they'll send
them some, uh, some nudiepictures, I guess you would call
(13:53):
it or some compromising uhphotos of themselves, and then
to get that person to send oneback.
Now, I do know a few of my guyfriends none of the girlfriends,
but a couple of my guy friends.
They, they talk to these, thesegirls, and I'm like, and
they're like, well, what does itmatter if I talk to them?
And you know, it's not like,but I'm like, I know, but you're
putting yourself self out there, but what they're trying to do
(14:15):
is get a you to send them apicture.
And, uh, if you send them backa picture, and then they'll ask
for, like, a picture of you in amirror or something that they
can add positive attribution,that it's you Right, Because
they'll say oh, how do I knowthat's really you?
And some of them are even sosophisticated they're asking you
(14:35):
to hold up, like your driver'slicense, but to hold your hand
over the address so they're veryconvincing, right.
Hold your hand over the address, so they're very convincing,
right.
And next thing they do, thenthey move into like an extortion
type route where, oh, I'm goingto put all these out on the
internet.
Or they've already done a lotof research and know what your
social circles are and maybe, ifyou're married or in a
relationship, they know who yoursignificant other is, and they
(14:59):
actually threaten to publishthese like blackmail that's
exactly that's exactly what itis, and so you know you start
off with, uh, something that'svery benign, just chit chat,
knowing they're a scammer.
But before you know it.
If you, um, let your guard down, then you're wrapped up in this
thing.
And what do they say?
Oh, I like, like to get someBitcoin or whatever, hoctua
(15:24):
coins or something.
No, no, no Hoctua, they knowthey know those are useless
coins, but that's what they do.
And then you never get out ofthese scams, right, and so so,
so that's a big one.
Another one is these charityscams, and and we know, living
here in Florida, right, whathappens every year about this
time Hurricanes come through,yeah, storms and stuff.
(15:49):
Yeah, storms and all of us.
You know they play on ouremotions and this is something
that's really important to honein on.
Is these scams most of the timeonly work because of playing on
your emotions, and so they waitfor an event to happen, whether
it's a hurricane here inFlorida or earthquake in
(16:10):
California, tornadoes out West,you name it the Ukraine war.
When that happened, remember, alot of people were feeling
really like patriotic andwanting to help the.
Ukrainians.
And so these scammers.
They will send you something,say, donate a dollar or donate
$2, something like cheap, andyou click on it and you donate
some information.
Well, one of the things thatwas very common is that you
(16:36):
click on the link, it takes youto a page to enter in your
credit card number, a page toenter in your credit card number
.
Well, what they'll do isthey'll have that page made and
it's sending them your creditcard information, all your
information, and then they'remanually punching it into what
they call a virtual terminal.
And so now, not only do youyou're used to when you check
(16:58):
out at, like Walmart or any ofthe legitimate sites we all know
there's a lot of securityaround that, those sites.
So your credit card informationis never actually stored on
Walmart, even if you save yourinformation on there.
It's not technically stored andI don't want to get into all
the details, but they're sort oflike a token that represents
(17:21):
that.
Well, see these scammers, notonly have you given them a
dollar or $2, something benign,but now they have your full
information.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And then later on, say six, eight months from then,
they'll start hitting thecredit cards again and seeing if
anybody notices.
And, uh, we've all done itbefore we sell it.
Like, what's this charge on mycredit card?
It's like it's only two dollars.
Who cares?
But you can, uh, think aboutthat.
If, say, 10 of people willdonate to to them that they send
(17:56):
the messages to, and thenanother you know out of those
folks, they can hit those cardsagain and they just keep keep
cycling it.
Why?
Why we're talking about allthis is that folks say, wow,
that could happen to anybody.
But, uh, how successful arethey?
(18:17):
And they're very successful.
Uh, I was doing a little bit ofa searching not too long ago and
I'm just going off of memoryhere, and one cyber attack or
one of these events happensevery 39 seconds.
Wow, yeah, there's like 12trillion in 2025.
(18:39):
It's a $12 trillion industry.
There was a fact that was aboutlike 27% of folks were
scammable and now it's up to 88%.
And it's not that we're gettingdumber, it's just that they're
getting better and they'refinding other ways to scam you.
(19:02):
But I mean, if you think about$12 trillion, is what this
industry?
Yeah, and it's all illegalmoney.
And then, kind of like, what wetalked about is that it's all
Bitcoin-based,cryptocurrency-based, and, as
you know, it's hard to trackbitcoin down right, and so one
(19:23):
of the one of the scams that I'mvery, very intimate with is, uh
one one that happened to anindividual and, from all uh
research that was done, thatthey were grooming that
individual for almost a year andthey played on that
individual's emotions and itstarted out small, but these
(19:45):
scammers were very, very, verygood.
They created fake documents,they created this whole persona
with different people that thisperson was talking to, and
someone like yourself who is acybersecurity expert you could
(20:06):
look at this and see it, as wesay, down in the South from a
mile away, but when they playedon this person's emotions and
they brought it all together,they ended up getting countless
thousands and thousands andthousands and thousands of
dollars, which is really sad.
But so what we want to talkabout is also just how can you
(20:30):
have I like to call it the humanfirewall?
Now tell us what a firewalldoes on the computer, right?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So a firewall blocks any kind of virus or maybe a
document that has something thatwas put in it.
The computer will just keepthese kind of things out from
accessing into the system.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Right.
So if you think about it inthat respect, I think that folks
need to establish their ownhuman firewall, and you just got
to really, really, really becareful.
So when these charity scamscome around, I can't do anything
.
If you're looking for love, Imean I don't know.
(21:17):
I guess to combat that you needto go down to a bar.
But even nowadays we're seeingsome of these scammers for what
they call the well that'sanother term in the scam.
The well that's somebody that'sreally, really rich, that has
money.
That's just.
You know whatever like they.
They wipe their ass with like$20 bills and crap, maybe even a
hundred dollar bills, and sothese scammers will actually run
(21:40):
operations against them in barsand hotels.
I know in particular, my dadhas a friend that this happened
to, and this was an electronicscam.
This was way back in the daythat they were at a hotel and
there was an attractive ladythere that had taken an interest
(22:00):
in his friend, and my dadactually put a stop to it, which
was really, really awesome.
So when you're out there on theinterwebs, internet, dark web,
wherever you hang out at, justhave your human firewall up.
Just have your human firewallup.
I mean, if things don't soundright, look right.
(22:28):
But you just got to be carefulthat you don't give out these
little trickets of information.
You know, with me I'm a publicfigure and so all of my
information is out there.
So people, these scammers,probably have a nice dossier on
me and so I don't mind tellingyou.
You know, uh, personalinformation, but really I
shouldn't even be doing that.
But uh, I, I understand uh howto operate this and so you want
(22:52):
to have your, your humanfirewall, and and you know who's
really good about this who doyou think in my family probably
has one of the best humanfirewalls outside of me?
Who do you think has one of thebest human firewalls up?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I would say your dad.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Why does everybody always say my dad yeah, he's a
very smart individual but my mom?
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Oh, your mom, my mom, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
She is a cyber ninja.
Actually she's a, maybe.
Maybe I'll give her a new term.
Maybe she's a cyber vigilante,right?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
My mom will get these toll scams, tax scams, and what
does she do?
She takes a picture of it, ascreenshot, and she'll text it
to me and she says, hey, thislooks like a scam.
I'm like, well, mom, unlessyou've been on the New Jersey
turnpike here in the last 10days or whatever, probably, it
(23:49):
probably is a scam.
So she's really really goodabout that.
She'll get these friendrequests on Facebook who's that?
Yeah, who is that?
And she'll take a screenshotand she'll scammer.
Yeah, and she says, hey, uh,this person's only friends with
five other people and so I don'tknow if she's bored or if she's
(24:10):
a cyber vigilante at this point, because, uh, she'll send it.
And I'm like mom, that isawesome, that's way to go.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
And so on the Facebook.
What they're doing is is that alot of folks have their
Facebook locked down and it'skind of like a double-edged
sword.
Well, I got it locked down, butI want, like old friends and
family, to be able to get a holdof me, and so it's like who can
see your stuff?
(24:38):
Friends of friends, and so ifyou're, friends of friends, my
mom's friends of friends, and ifwe're in that little circle all
they got to do they could justsee each other.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Well, they just friend one of us, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
And the next thing, you know, now they have access
to my social network, right,right, right.
And then what are they doing?
They're looking at pictures,they're looking at the to build
up that dossier and stuff.
So, yeah, I mean, I, I know I,I give a lot of shouts out to
mom, but man, I mean, uh, that'sreally good for someone at her
age.
And she doesn't even use acomputer.
(25:09):
Yeah, she doesn't use acomputer.
It's like all uh iPhone andiPad, but still she, she's out
there and uh.
So no, this is not a challenge.
Please do not try to uh fish,mom, and and and and uh see if
you can get something to comethrough, but uh, yeah.
So what I'm telling everybodyis you need to have this, uh,
human firewall in place becauseyou don't want to be part of
(25:33):
this, uh, $12 trillion industry.
That's, um, you know so.
So supporting this industry,that's, um, you know so.
So supporting this.
But you, you mentionedsomething that was, uh, really
key, and this is one that peoplemay not know is the antivirus,
uh scam?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
So tell it, tell us a little bit about the antivirus
scam.
So I think a lot of it comesthrough email, and in the email
they say oh, you know, pleasesign up for a free trial.
Um, for let me throw one outthere Um, kaspersky.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Oh, that's a good one yeah.
That just sounds suspicious.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I know that it does.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So for for y'all that don't know, kaspersky is a
legitimate antivirus uhcorporation it is and they were
out of russia and very popularat one time.
Yeah, they were, they weren'twell, they were cheap and, uh,
they were good, but now we knowwhat's happening in in russia.
But so okay, so they throw itout there and they're like, hey,
come sign up for kaspersky, butwith a y at the end, it has
(26:39):
like an eye exactly, and thenwhat happens?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
you click on the link click on this link and then all
of hey, come sign up forKaspersky, but with a Y at the
end.
It has like an I at the end.
And then what happens?
You, click on the link.
They click on this link andthen all of a sudden, it could
be their computer is infected,gets infected, or maybe it's a
site to put in their information, like credit card information.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, moreover, too, they'll actually let you
download an application.
I've seen this before, so it'sKaspersky with an I instead of a
Y, which is ski, ski, whatever,and they'll actually download
the application.
And when the application comesdown, they use the same logos as
(27:22):
the antivirus and it will comeup and it is scanning your
computer for viruses, but really, what it's scanning your
computer for is for PII.
So, my listeners out there, piiis personally identifiable
information.
Right, and so they're lookingfor names, so security numbers,
(27:44):
addresses, phone numbers, all ofthat stuff.
Because what do we do?
We store it securely on ourcomputer and it's instantly
sending that information back.
And here's the other thing withthe antivirus scam you don't
run two antiviruses on yourcomputer right.
So they know, the people thatare clicking on the link don't
(28:04):
have antivirus, so thereforeit's not going to detect their
malware that they bring down.
And so you think about it'slike, wow, that's pretty cool,
yeah, let's do an antivirus scam.
Not that I want to do anantivirus scam, but you click on
it and it can easily instantlyexploit that computer.
And uh, also, too, you'reactually installing it.
(28:28):
So you're like, hey, I'minstalling this.
And if it does get installedand I'm not going to get into
all the mechanics of it, right,but they're actually signing it,
making it all look legit andstuff, and then it's sending
back that information.
And so, best case scenario,because you don't have antivirus
(28:48):
, that, uh, they've exportedyour computer.
And then, if you actuallyinstall it.
Now they have what they callpersistent access to your
computer.
That means anytime you doanything, your computer, your
laptop lid is open, then theyhave unfeathered access into
that.
So the antivirus scam is reallyone of the ones that I consider
(29:11):
the most dangerous.
Right, because you don't haveantivirus, so you're clicking on
it, right.
But how do they do this?
They go to Google, and thisthis isn't anything bad against
Google or bang or name whateverAlta Vista, remember that old oh
, alta Vista, right, but, butthey go on there and they get
the keywords and there's anadvertisement, and so, like I
(29:33):
talked about with other scams,it plays on your emotions, right
, and it's like, well, I needantivirus.
And so I go searching forantivirus.
I see an ad and this is, uh, youknow, using the Google ad the
uh AdWords and advertisement,and so it looks like it's all
legit because it found it onGoogle, and people that don't
(29:57):
know think that, well, if it'sbeing advertised on Google or
Bing or name your search engine,then it must be legit.
And so what I'm trying to showhere is that it's not a one size
fits all when it comes to ascam.
They have to figure out whatkind of stuff you're interested
(30:17):
in and what state your device isin, and so if they send you a
uh phishing to your phone, thenthey know you click on that link
.
It knows it came from an iOSdevice.
Well, if they send it to anApple phone and you're logged
into iMessenger on your Appleand you click on it, now they
(30:37):
know that you came from a Macdevice and so now they can start
packaging these things together.
So when they do actually putwhat I like to say send you the
goods or the value added codethat it's highly tailored and
high and highly uh and highsuccess rate that you, they're
(30:59):
going to land on that thatcomputer.
All right, well, we're at thebottom of the half hour and, uh,
I'd like to thank everybodythat tunes in, as always.
Please, uh, send us anyfeedback on what you want to
hear from the show.
It looks like uh, hello, shelly, maybe.
(31:19):
Uh, this is her second on thepodcast, so she makes it through
five podcasts in a row.
Maybe we'll invite her to be aco-host.
Uh, we're always looking forpeople to come out on the show
and give us their perspectiveand ask questions.
You don't have to be technical.
I'd love to.
You know, really we need to getwe need to get my mom in here
and get her mic'd up, because Ithink that that would be great.
(31:42):
So Next week, we will talk alittle bit more about the
training series that we're doinghere at the chamber, where
we're going to show folks how toactually use AI for their home,
you know how to do it for, likehome budgets and contracts, and
(32:05):
also in the workplace, and sowe'll be talking a lot more
about that.
So until next time, everybodysay cyber safe and if you have
any questions or commentsconcern, please email us at
global Bobhow at gmailcom.
If you want to go ahead andsend me a phish email or try to
(32:25):
spam me or whatever.
We'll see if you can get throughGlobal Bob's human firewall.
All right, until next time.
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