June 3, 2025 • 50 mins
Data breaches give scammers a chance to orchestrate social engineering attacks against unsuspecting victims. The data can be purchased in bulk, and is then used by scammers as a token of credibility to gain trust.
Several different types of scams typically pop up after the breach, some are more sophisticated than others. It pays to know what to expect.
Dr. Martina Dove article:
https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/data-breaches-opportunistic-scammers-what-you-should-watch-for
Let’s Talk About Scams is broadcast live Tuesdays at 8AM PT on K4HD Radio - Hollywood Talk Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Let’s Talk About Scams TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Let’s Talk About Scams Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional / legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted sources and references; however, R.O.S.E. Resources / Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to a scam.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/let-s-talk-about-scams--6483699/support.
Several different types of scams typically pop up after the breach, some are more sophisticated than others. It pays to know what to expect.
Dr. Martina Dove article:
https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/data-breaches-opportunistic-scammers-what-you-should-watch-for
Let’s Talk About Scams is broadcast live Tuesdays at 8AM PT on K4HD Radio - Hollywood Talk Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Let’s Talk About Scams TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Let’s Talk About Scams Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional / legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted sources and references; however, R.O.S.E. Resources / Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to a scam.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/let-s-talk-about-scams--6483699/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
legal counseling, professional service, or any advice.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
You should seek the services.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational
purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional
legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted
sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard the
(00:45):
elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to
a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must listen
show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and their
loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday at am Pacific time
on K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose,
(01:05):
and her guests will provide valuable insights and practical tips
on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And
now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Welcome back, everybody, I'm Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose Resources
Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly. You can find more information
on our website at Roseadvocacy dot org. You can find
our social media links. You can also scroll down to
the bottom of the homepage and sign up for our
emailed newsletter and or our mailed newsletter. And so today
(01:44):
we are going to talk about data breaches and how
those help scammers and what you can what you should
watch for, and what you can do after you've been
notified of one. And I have a guest with me today,
doctor Martina Doves. She's been on before, so Doctor Martina
(02:05):
Dove is a research and behavioral science lead at Charms
Security and the off author of the Psychology of Fraud, Persuasion,
and Scam Techniques. With a background in psychology, her expertise
lies at the intersection of deception, social engineering, and the
psychological mechanisms of persuasion. Her work explores the cognitive and
(02:28):
behavioral factors underlying fraud, compliance, and victimization. So let's uh,
let's welcome Martina.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Hi everyone, Hi Martina, how are you. Hi? I'm fine,
Thank you and thanks for having me yet again. I
love coming and talking of us comes great. I am
going to check really quickly on my audio because for yeah, here,
(02:57):
I gotta hang on one second. That might be better.
I was having a hard time here. That is much better.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Okay, all right, now I can hear you in my
earphones now, all right, So data breaches. I saw that
you had just recently made a post on LinkedIn about
hearing about a data breach that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Was Apple, Facebook, Google.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I think there was a lot of major companies involved.
So tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Yeah, I mean, you know, data breaches happen all the time.
I think this is just now a face like a
fact of life. I don't know that there's a company
out there that hasn't been reached at some point. True,
And they are very very important because they do allow
commers to not only with the stolen details, which get
(03:59):
hard stedn't used, but the GIFs comers a novelty factor
to kind of approach you with, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Right, Okay, And but this latest one, it sounded like
it hit a bunch of really major major players that
a lot of people would have accounts with. I mean
kind of like Amazon has millions of people, Facebook has
millions of people Google does, Apple does, Right, So I
think it was kind of a jackpot breach for the hackers,
(04:34):
and then it's going to automatically be a jackpot for
the scammers.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Right, Yeah, it's it's really unfortunate. Like you said, there
are tons and tons of people that have Apple iPhones,
that have Apple accounts, that have Facebook accounts, and we
all use different things like I use my Google, you
know account for email. I use Facebook to you know
(05:00):
that Google email to get into Facebook, I use you know,
so so it's all connected, and I spent I must say,
I spent a good couple of hours changing password across
like most of the things that I have, just in case,
because if somebody gets access to your email, they can
then maybe get access to your Facebook and so on
(05:21):
and so forth and use or use the pieces of
those information to actually persuade you to give them more. Right.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
So that that's an interesting point that you made.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
There is a lot of accounts.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
When you go to sign in, it allows you it'll
ask you if you want to sign in through Google
or do you want to sign in through Facebook, not
necessarily having to put your user you know, your username
and password in.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Right, there.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
So if you're using Facebook or Google to sign in
to a lot of other accounts, now you not only
have to change your Facebook and your Google and your
Apple password and all that, You've got to go to
all those other accounts that you've used Google or Facebook
to sign in with and change all of that information.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Yeah, it's advisable to do that. I mean, I I
you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that a commera's going
to attack you from all sides, because at the end
of the day, they'll do whatever's easier for them, you know,
and it's easy, quick and easy. But I think it's
always advisable. I always think if you have an email
that you're banking with too, always change like any data
(06:29):
bridge that you heard about, always change your passport for
that email. It's you know, you know, better to be
saved than sorry, just in case.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Well, right, because even if you use your email for
the username, right, and you might have a different password
for your bank accounts or any financial accounts. But if
someone was able to get into your email, then they
could they could be one step closer to trying to
(06:58):
get into your financial accounts.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Yeah, I mean, like you mentioned, if somebody gets access
to your email. You may you still may have access
to the emails, but this person is logging in as you,
and maybe they can manipulate a lot of the times,
Like if somebody is really motivated, they'll they'll just your
settings so you're not even getting alerted, you know, and
(07:23):
so like they'll change the email that usually alerts you
or something like that, and then they can change the password,
and like, so it's it's it's it's all connected. And
I think, you know, we need to think about every
time we want convenience. You know, that costs us and
I think that's one way that we pay for that convenience.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, yeah, and you know it is.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
There's a lot of things out there that are convenient, right,
but you have to think of all of the risk.
And it might not be just the risk associated with
that particular program or app. It could be because things
are so connected and if you're using your email right
to log in, or you're using the same password, it's
(08:10):
all connected. Because if one's breached, you know, they're not
just going to use it on just one account. They're
going to put it in their software and find all
these other accounts that you've reused logins on because they know.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
I read these articles that these tech companies put out
every year about password statistics, and the one that I
just read said and it was at least half, maybe
if not more, people are still using the word password
for their password or one, two, three, four, five six,
(08:45):
And sometimes they just choose that. Other times that might
be the default password that a company has, and when
they sign up for it, they're not automatically then directed
to change their password.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I think that's true that that companies really need to do.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Right, If you're going to have.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
A password, a default password like that, then it should
be when someone logs in for the first time, they
should automatically be redirected to change their password.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Yeah, And I think I think the organizations are getting
better at that, and like they are asking you to
choose a strong password. So like, I think we have
gotten a lot better at like you know, but I
think what I would like to see as well, a
lot of the times it gets really tricky with passwords
as well, where like every single company has their own
(09:38):
you know, like format of how they want the password,
and sometimes it's really really difficult to you know, account
for all of the formats and and remember them. So
this is why I think people default to the simplest
thing that can remember, which then obviously make it vulnerable.
And I'll tell you a funny story, and I'm not
going to mention which relative, but one of my relatives
(10:00):
has passwords that like it's literally almost like the name, surname,
and date of birth, and like I'm constantly telling them
don't do that. I know, for obvious reasons, but yeah,
it's it's you know, like I'm having to sort of
tell people like don't you know, like you know, and
then people just you know, unless you have been breached,
(10:22):
unless your details were stolen, you have this sense of like, oh,
what happened to me? Like why would somebody? I hear
that a lot? Who would want my stuff? Like who
would want to get into my Facebook? Well it's not
about you, but for example, you know, like I posted
something on LinkedIn when this breach happened, and I posted
on my Facebook saying to people like, hey, expect your
(10:44):
friends texting you and saying they need money, right, And
that's exactly what happened. Immediately one of my friends said,
I just got a Whatsap message from a friend asking
to lend her, you know, like one four hundred dollars
and you know, she luckily said can you call me back?
And then obviously was suspicious and so my message. But
a lot of the times when people breach your Facebook,
(11:06):
you it doesn't harm you in so many ways, but
it harms your friends because then this camera will be
posting on your behalf to your friends asking for money.
So I think, you know, that's something that I think
people need to understand. Even if your Facebook doesn't you
don't have anything to steal on a Facebook, think about
how you're getting a message from let's say your cousin
(11:31):
on Facebook that they're in trouble, they've been kidnapped, they've
been harmed, and they need money, you know, would feel
And I think that's that's kind of like I think
people don't really think further than just like, well, I
don't have anything, you know, I hear that so many stuffs.
I don't have anything to steal. I don't care, you know,
But I think, yeah, it's like what you said, we
(11:52):
all connect. It's all connected right about.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
It is great because it's convenient to have everything connected,
right and and we like convenience. It makes it more
simpler to do what we want to do online and
not have to worry about navigating through a password manager,
right if that's not working appropriately, or however you store
(12:14):
your passwords. But so it's interesting. There's a gentleman here
in town that I work with. He sponsors some he
sponsors our program to take our program out to some
different communities. And we were just I was just doing
a presentation with him yesterday and he told it was
for his clients, and he told his clients about how
(12:38):
he got a call from one of his friends who
lives in another state. It's a state where this gentleman
grew up in and his friends saw that his sister
was advertising this vehicle for sale. The price made it
seem like it was a fire sale type thing, like
I have to get rid of it, you know, it's
a low price because I need the money whatever, And
(12:59):
he was really interested in it, and he just for
whatever reason, said I'm going to call my friend and and.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Ask him about this.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
And so he did and he's like, hey, you know
your sister's selling this vehicle, you know, online and on Facebook,
and and he was like, no, she's she's been hacked,
her Facebook's been been hacked. It's not her, But he
said he got that call from a couple different friends.
They were ready to send the money, right, and it
would have been thousands of dollars, but something made them
(13:32):
call him to say, Hey, your sister's selling this. It's
a really cheap price. What's going on?
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Right?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
And and so it doesn't necessarily affect his sister, but
guess what her friends are going to get affected because
they can lose through no fault of hers, right, no
fault of hers, But but it can affect your friends
that they then affect your friends.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Yeah, And I think like one thing that I I,
you know, I always advocate in terms of the data breaches, right,
Like it's not just the data that gets stolen, Like I,
you know, always say this. Comers really love any novel situation.
If there's a some kind of a natural disaster that
will hit people with charitiescams, if there's a you know,
(14:20):
like during COVID, we had tons of websites selling you know,
imaginary like masks and things like that and hands the
analyzer and sanitizer like miracle cures, like people who buying
vitamins or something like that. And one of the things
that that like happens during like after a breach. Uh,
(14:42):
it gives comers that ability to call you and pretend
it's a bank warning you about the breach and to
transfer the money to some other account for safe keeping
or something like that. So it gives them a narrative
that can manipulate, uh. And then you get tons of
phishing emails too, Like for example, yesterday I got a
(15:05):
text from my CEO my company and can you talk?
And I'm like, I know it's not you, you know, but
like it happens so quickly after the bridge was announced,
you know, so you get lots of phishing emails, lots
of like SMS from your bank, or let's say, Apple
will text you and say, hey, we've been breached. Can
you please you know, change your password through this link,
(15:29):
you know what I mean. So it's kind of like
stuff like that. There's recovery schemes. If you're defrauded straight
after the data bridge, you may then get a recovery
scheme offered to you. Hey, like you've lost this money,
we can help recover the funds. And then some commers
will kind of like get you again, so it gives
(15:51):
them more than just your data. Data is just that
to enhance credibility when they call you, so that they
can say, hey, you know we know your past, do
we know your email? That we are who we are, Yeah,
but it also gives them this narrative that I can
exploit to right.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah, And you know, I talked to a lady here
that she got that very call a couple of years ago,
pretending to be from the bank that there was fraud.
It dealt with fraud versus a data breach. But there's
fraud on your account. And you know, they convinced her
to to you know, verify everything, and then said we
(16:27):
need to we need to move the money out of
your account into another account for safe keeping until we
can get rid of this fraud. And you know, she
wanted to go to the bank, and they convinced her
that no, because we feel it's one of the employees
at the bank that's committing this fraud. And they sound
so legitimate, and they say, you know, pretty similar to
(16:50):
what a bank would say if that really was happening,
to make it so believable, like you said, right, and
they very well. It might have all started from data
bridge where they got her information, but then they used
it as there's fraud going on with your account and
all that she ended up thing seventy five percent of
her life savings.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yep, I mean no, definitely. I had a similar case.
I spoke to a victim in the UK. And this
is another thing that like it's nothing to do with
the with the with the data breaches or anything like that,
but it's like to do with like a public information.
So for example, this person has just recently sold the
house and had a lot of money in the account
(17:34):
and these public these are public records. You know, people
can find out who sold, you know, so so scammers
will use things like that to then target the individual
that can purchase your details from somebody else. Link the data.
There are data brokers that linked data. You know, so
you have name, they'll link it to this to the address,
(17:54):
to IP address to your computer, you know, like it's
you know, they are legitimate a brokeers that do that
for purposes of targeting from legitimate companies for us stounding
and marketing exactly exactly. And so like she got called
by somebody pretending to be from the uh you know,
the financial like you know, authority that is like a
(18:20):
very I think it's called the Financial Conduct Authority in
the UK. It's like it's a it's an authority like
body that governs all of the banks and anything financial, right,
so kind of like FINRA and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
In one of like yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Then talking to her for about a month and a
half every single day updates like what's happening with her
account that there's a suspect inside a fraud. She was
speaking not to one but to two people. So now
another person is is supporting what the first one is saying,
so you believe it more. And then suddenly there's an incident, right,
(18:57):
like you know the person is going to do it tonight,
you have to move the money. And basically, you know,
she the coach of what to say when she goes
to the bank, absolutely, but she believed that everybody at
the bank could be a suspect because they still didn't
find out who it is. So you know, it's like
(19:21):
like I think a lot of the times bank have
you know, bank may be a surprise when they try
to intervene and they don't understand why a person just
doesn't take the word right. But you have to understand
the amount of manipulation that goes in before that carefully
goes in before, because if somebody called you and just
(19:41):
told you one thing on a first phone call, you
would go like, who are you right? You know it's already.
If somebody called you and said, hey, Joyce, you know,
like please transfer this money because like this inside the
fraud in the bank, you would go, who are you exactly?
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Transfer money right exactly.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
But if somebody keeps calling you for a whole month daily,
two different people updating you on what's going on with
the investigation, and you start to believe it, you know,
it's very difficult to intervene, you know, and then of
course banks often will just intervene in a very literal
way instead of actually prodding what's happening, and then it
(20:20):
ends up just like not being very successful because by
that time the victim is groomed and it can be devastating.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Like you said, yeah, I was just going to say,
it's like a grooming effect like they do with the
romance scam and the pig butchering scam, you know, where
they take the time to groom before they actually then
start wanting you, you know, with transfer your money, however,
they want it done right. So you had mentioned like
(20:48):
the text message that someone had said they received from
a friend asking for money after this data breach. Are
there other things that you see, specific scams or you know,
like emails or anything like that that have a tendency
to happen right after these breaches.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Yeah, I think, like you need to look for any
kind of phishing text or emails, and I think the
most frequent one will be email or a text will
pretend to be from the body that was breached, from
the entity that was bridged. So like let's say if
it's the Mobile or Apple, you will get like emails
that will talk about the bridge saying, oh, in a
(21:28):
recent data breach, please verify your details. You know, so
they will actually use the data bridge as an excuse
to contact you and try to sort of like tell you, hey,
it's a legitimate company just contacting their customers to let
them know like any company would. So a lot of
the times as well, people don't understand that when a
(21:49):
data bridg happens, sometimes the company it's not yet aware
that it happened, so that may take some time exactly,
it may take some time to be the discovered that
somebody has n'tered your infrastructure or something like that if
you're a big company, so like any kind of things
like that. But you you know, I'm absolutely positive that
(22:11):
your details are immediately sold on too, so you by
various other things too. So it could be unrelated phishing emails,
offers to buy things, or you know, anything else like medical.
You know, it can be something unrelated to but there'll
be an up tick in you know.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Uh see enough the amount right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
So you know, at the presentation yesterday that I had mentioned,
a lady had asked a question and we were talking
about how your information gets out there and data breaches
is was the first one we talked about. And it's like,
you know, you can't control when a company gets breached,
but you can control the information you give to a company, right,
(22:54):
And you just want to make sure the information you're
giving is absolutely necessary to do whatever it is you're
doing with that company, and and don't be afraid to
ask questions. But you know, she she had asked the question,
you know, is is government doing anything two to help
stop this or to you know, to put things in
(23:17):
play to make uh, to make the penalties harsher to
make it more of a deterrent.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Have you heard of anything that that.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Maybe they're working on, maybe some recent bill or law
that's been passed that.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Yeah, I know, you know, I don't know of any
specific like recent bills, but I know that comes are
a big, big problem for banks, and they are desperately
trying to figure out the way how to intervene, you know,
and and and there are many companies that you know,
like I've just joined a company that is actually looking
to account for the human element and how do we
(23:58):
prevent how do we enterect being in a good way.
So I'm happy to say that I'm seeing more awareness
around scams and how humans get exploited. So that's one thing.
A second thing as well, like there are there are
differences in companies, right, so anything governmental, anything to do
(24:19):
with like heavy leak. Uh, you know, spaces and entities
that are that have to adhere to compliance, okay, you know,
such as hip hop or medical or you know some
other compliance for like you know, banking industry. A lot
of the times they keep those details what's called on
prem on premise, which means that it's very difficult to
(24:43):
infiltrate that if you're a malicious actor, okay, right, because
the network doesn't allow like there's no communication between the
outside network or you know, like things are not in
a cloud and able.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
To you know, easier to penetrate.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
So yeah, the servers are like on the premise somewhere
and they're not communicating with anything outside, or at least
they limit the amount of things that can communicate with
things like that. So that's that doesn't exclude the insight fraud, right,
Somebody on the insight could also you know, be a
malicious actor as well. So when you see these breaches
(25:21):
that usually happened with things that perhaps don't have the
most sensitive of details. But if you do have your
let's say Apple account, I have my credit card connected
to it because I'm purchasing you know, so you do
have this sensitive information even with with like these other
(25:42):
things that get breached. So it's really important to you know,
like you said, maybe don't give them. You know, a
lot of these companies they know they aspa date of birth.
I always try to shield the mind. Unless you're my
bank or you're my doctor, I don't think you need
to know exactly like you don't have to wish me
a happy birthday, Like I'm okay, you know, I'll be fine. Yeah,
(26:10):
But those are the things like I would. I always
say to people just like inventor, inventor birthday, that it's
not your birthday, but it's like maybe you know, same year,
but not the same month or a day, or you
can you know, like invent a birthday that you like
when you have to put it on a form, you
have to put it on a.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Form, right, and you want to be truthful, right, Yeah, And.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I think one big thing that I've come across, and
it always really puzzles me, right, I when you work
as a contractor, let's say you accept a contract at
a company you're a consultant or something like that, you
will be dealing with a recruiter that it's like part
of a company, let's say, and that company will always say, hey,
(26:52):
can you give me your partial day to birth and
your last for digits of the SSM for our internal
tool and this tool is just management tools so that
they you know, they're like if they have two people
with the same name, like they can differentiate. Yeah, But
then I'm thinking, why can't I just invent a pin
right that it's not my assistant number, like forges by
(27:15):
which you can call my bank and authenticate me. You know, absolutely,
I invent things for that too, like I'll have a
digit that I give them that it's not my assess So, like,
I think a lot of these companies don't really think
from the security standpoint at all.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Well, right, you know, because they probably have a lot
of different apartments, right, and you have one department that's
going to do this and they feel they need this,
and okay, well the last four of your Social Security
number is going to be a way that I can
that I can try. I can, you know, track your
account in case somebody has the same name.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
And it's actually interesting you mentioned that I was at
one of my doctors recently and they actually had two
different patients, same name, Joyce Petrowski, same birth date, everything, day, month, year,
but the middle initial was different. And I was sitting
(28:13):
there thinking, Wow, is this accurate or is this maybe
somebody trying to impersonate me?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Right?
Speaker 3 (28:22):
And it was interesting because they were telling me about
the results of some lab work and I'm like, that
test does not even sound familiar. When was that lab
work done? And he told me the date, and I'm like,
you know, you have someone else's information in my account
because I wasn't even in the country on that date
to go have labs done, right, And so that's how
(28:43):
I found out about it.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Wow, so somebody use your medical insurance.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I don't know that was, you know, on them to
figure out. I think what happened was someone in the
office saw the name in the birthday and ended up
putting it in my account instead of the other person's account,
not realizing they were that close. Right, That's what I think.
But how easy would it be for someone.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Else to do that?
Speaker 3 (29:11):
It could But so you're right, I totally agree. Like
the I R S they very well could use the
last four digits of your Social Security number because they
have everybody's right from filing taxes. Yeah, but they came
up with this identity theft pin identity protection pins right,
the six digits.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
They give you a new one every year.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
And so they've they've gotten on board with that, and
I exactly.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
I mean, like you can just as easily in a
job tool like I can invent a pin, so it'll
be almost the same, like the same as my SSN number, right,
that it's unique to me, and it's very unlikely somebody
is going to have somebody with the same name data
Bert or whatever. Like it's right, they're exactly the same thing.
But like one thing that really, you know, like it's
(29:58):
funny you mentioned your you know, like this mishap with
the club results. One of the things that I'm always
really cautious about and always upsets me a little bit.
When you're queuing, let's say, you know, the hospital or
a doctor's office or something, there's people behind you. I
can hear what the person is telling the receptionist.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Oh right.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
They'll always say to you, hey, tell me your you know,
pie the number or whatever and you know, date of birth.
And I'm like, I'm telling you all, like I'm telling
you you know, and then I'm having to confirm my
name and somebody behind.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Me here can hear it all, I know.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
And like I was kind of thinking, if you want
to just hang out, you can just like really take
down these details and then tell it. And it's you know,
so I always take out my card and give it
to them, you know, And like I'll say, I would
prefer if you just take the information from here and
if you want to confirm something that's not on a card,
(30:57):
then like I'll confirm my you know.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
I just show it to me and I'll say yes, no.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
But I shouldn't be shouting my data birth and my
life the number like for everybody like those. You know,
people don't realize how much commerce even if I if
they just hang around, then they see that and and
and take that down. H you know, somebody can misuse it.
It may not even an organized criminal, but like, you know,
(31:24):
I could be hit by okay, she was like in
the radiology. I could be hit by a scam that afternoon.
That'll look realistic because they'll quote because you were there, right, Yeah,
it's not exactly. It's not just perfect timing on their part.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
They knew you were there and so then they can
target you with a specific scam. Yeah. I mean, it's
it's just crazy. You know, I think you you almost
have to try to think like a scammer, right and
and I just think that you know what, I didn't.
I wouldn't put anything past them, right, So for them
to be hanging out for an hour or so and
(32:02):
not being you know, seen that they're hanging out in
an office to hear. I wouldn't put it past them.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
I just I mean, you know, like it's probably not realistic,
but you know, like because it's so easy to steal
that information, you know, But I'm kind of yeah, it's
sortally olver the other. But then I'm thinking, if I
was a smart camera, right and I wanted to make
sure that I'm very realistic, I would do that, you know,
(32:30):
knowing what I know about cameras and stuff, because the
more you know of contextual information about somebody, the more
realistic the call will sound, and the quicker you're going
to get to what you need.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
With that rate, the quicker you're going to make it
more believable that they're going to think you're authentic and
you are who you say.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
You are, absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
It's now you mentioned something earlier that you were starting
to see a lot more people seem to be more
aware of the scams. I think that's fantas fantastic because
I think the first step in protecting yourself is one
realizing that you are a target, and you very well could.
(33:10):
I don't care how smart you are, I don't care
how savvy you are any I don't care how less
amount of money, more amount of money you have. Everyone's
a target and everyone needs to realize that they are
and that they could become a victim. And then it
gets into you need to be aware and educated, right,
And so I'm so happy to hear that you're seeing
(33:31):
that that people are more aware.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I'm seeing, like, I think what's exciting that's happening is
that the organizations such as banks, my realizing that you know,
scams at becoming a huge problem, right, and so like
there's like where's even just a decade ago, or less
than a decade ago, personal fraud was just kind of
(33:55):
like dismissed by the fraud professionals, you know, it was like,
well that's your response for you know, sending this money.
Whereas now I think there's there's I feel like there's
more empathy coming from the professionals, and there's more interest
in understanding of the manipulation that goes into it. It's
no longer I think we're changing the slight shift, you know,
(34:19):
in how the society is viewing, you know, scam victimization.
And I'm really pleased about that. Yeah, that's really great.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Yeah, I know one of our other advisory board members
did a video on that recently, she had happened to
see a post somebody made an anonymous post on the
next door app about being a victim, and they kind
of went through the things and not all the people
that were commenting, but some of the people were just downright.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Mean and blaming hum or her.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
For the situation they got into. And it was like,
you better be careful because you know what you might
be the next one and then you're gonna.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Be like, oh wow, sh right. Yet believe with a
lot more empathy, I think.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Not just like I mean, that's just not very nice
as a human being, but I also can explain that,
I can explain it in a psychology way, right, So
people do that, like we always we have to think
about ourselves in a positive light that you know that
kind of like posters are self esteem and it's like
(35:27):
makes us a function in human being because if we
didn't have a self esteem, we would be depressed and
we wouldn't feel good about ourselves and we would not
be you know, we wouldn't be good. Yeah, exactly. So
people tend to have this belief that it wouldn't happen
to them because they want to control, like they want
to feel like they have the control. It's an illusion
(35:48):
of control. It's a quality bias. Right, People want to
believe that they could control situations that around them, right, So,
like you see that not just with the fraud victimization,
but also with victims of sexual crimes. Like she was
out at ten pm. She deserved it, she was wearing
this dance, like we try to rationalize it. And the
(36:10):
reason why we rationalize it is maybe not that we
want to be mean to that victim, but it's almost
a fear in us, and we're controlling for that fear.
Like if I'm not out at ten pm, if I'm
not wearing that.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Exactly, Yes, you're rationalizing why that couldn't happen to Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
So I think a lot of the times people turn
on a broad victims because they want to believe it
wouldn't happen to them. But I've actually found that people
who hold that belief, right, people who have a strong
belief that comes only happened to valible people and stuff
like that, actually more vulnerable because it makes them less careful.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
You know, yeah, yes, it lets their guard down, right,
you know. And speaking of that, you know, I've seen
some online. I've just come across some different people, whether
they're in the education unit, like maybe a college professor
in their class is doing a program or project, that's
(37:11):
what I want to say. They're doing a project, you know,
or something like that, and they come up with like
a checklist, you know, like how vulnerable are you or
how much at risk are you to be defrauded or scammed?
And it's like, on the surface, I don't like those.
And the reason is, I mean, some of the questions
in there might be really good questions, and they might
(37:33):
they might make you think about, well, yeah, I need
to fix my email because I am at risk. So
it's an you know for that, But on the surface,
I don't want people if they take it and get
a really low score so they have like a low risk,
I don't want them to let their guard down because
(37:53):
the minute they let their guard down and think, oh
I have a low risk, you know, it's very rare chance.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
It's going to happen to me. That's and it's going
to happen, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
I think, like I mean, depending on whether you're just
doing research for the sake, like you know, like whether
you want to see how many people feel it wouldn't
happen to them, and then you manipulate it something else,
and like if it's a real research or is it
some kind of a thing. Because every single fraud victim
that I've ever spoken to, every single one, first thing
they said to me, I never thought this would happen
(38:24):
to me because I'm a smart person. Yeah, right, And
I think, like we need to learn from that, right.
So if you are asking a very literal question, do
you think you're vulnerable? Everybody's going to say no. And
it's only when they scammed that they realize their own vulnerability.
And some don't even realize that. I've spoken to some
victims who say, hey, I accept as part of life,
(38:47):
and you know, I'm not going to change anything about me.
I still want to believe the rest in people. So
like a lot of the time is individual, but a
lot of people only start paying attention to scam advice
or fraud advice for education when they are scammed, because
I think it's one of those things in our lives
we like to feel because you're I think it's that
(39:10):
social stigma that connects being a victim of a scam
with being stupid or gullible.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Or something like that, right, and that we need to
change the guest.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
I mean that's and I'm trying in these presentations, right.
I mean it's like I try to reinforce scams have
nothing to do with intelligence, because if they did, you know, yes,
they have something to do with money, but if it
was really based on intelligence, they would somehow be tricking
you into taking an IQ test to see how you scored,
(39:39):
and they're only going to go after the ones that
score low. Right, everybody's a target, right, everybody.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Well, I will tell you something quite interesting about that too. Right,
there is actually a research out there that, okay, hypothesizes
that you know, in the olden day, like the olden
days I'm talking about like a decade ago or more, right,
there would still be emails that were like, hey, I'm
a Nigerian print someone like wanting to you know, so
(40:08):
there were a lot of like bank officials from Nigeria.
There was even like I think there was an email
circulating like a Nigerian astronaut lost in space or something
like that. Okay, Yeah, they were incredibly stupid, incredibly just
like non believable emails. But the sad thing is, right,
(40:29):
like there's a hypothesis and it was like a chess
done by Microsoft that like sometimes commers sent such obvious
scams to identify the most vulnerable victims. So they are
going after people who maybe have early on set on
dementia or some other cognitive disabilities, or they really don't
(40:51):
know they're not Internet sava so they've never come across
anything like that, or you know, they're catching, you know,
socifically identifying people who will then be hit with other scams,
you know.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
What I mean, that are really more vulnerable for reasons
beyond their control.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
So I think there is that the equivalent of an
IQ test you mentioned, right, Yes, It's like there is
definitely And you know, that's something that I always try
to talk about when I go to talk to elderly
people or people that are, you know, in the latest
stages of your life. I don't like the words elderly
because you can be in the latest stages of your
(41:31):
life and still be quite young in the mind and
heart and you know, like exactly. But one of the
things that like why they're so so viciously targeted is
because they're the stage of the life where they are
financially stable. The paid off their mortgages, they have ansions.
They are very lucrative. So just by the sheer volume
of scams send to people of their demographic will mean
(41:54):
the statistically one will pay off.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
That And that makes total sense. And you know you
can you can. You can buy list of people. You know,
you can tailor it down based on demographics, you know,
a bunch of different demographics and things. And so they
can buy list of people that are specifically sixty and above,
(42:18):
or they could do eighty and above or ninety and above,
thinking that maybe they'll be more vulnerable because things are
going on beyond their control, right with their mind or
their whatever.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
Yeah, no, that's definitely And I think, like I think,
you know, this is my hypothesis. I don't have any
solid evidence. But for example, when you think about sextortion
emails just even a few years ago, they were being
sent via email to grown ups, you know, grown nuts
saying like you've been caught, you know, like visiting webs
(42:51):
that you shouldn't. Your family is going to be notified,
your people, your work are going to be notified. So
now sextortion is aimed at teenagers. And then I was
thinking to myself, like and it's it's really harmful. But
I was thinking to myself, if somebody targeted me as
a teenager, I wouldn't have any money to give them,
So like, why is it the teenagers are targeted? Probably
(43:12):
because you know, like teenagers nowadays get more money, they
have more gadgets, they can leverage, you know, like they
have more pocket money maybe that they can.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
They have access they have access to or they have
access to the exactly.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
Yeah, because like if somebody hit me when I was sixteen,
like I'm you know, I don't know what I would
give them, my walkman or something. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, well true, I mean it's and plus you know,
they say that your brain is not fully developed until
you're what it was twenty five, Now they're saying twenty
eight or something like that. So yeah, you know, there's
a lot of things. But we've only got a couple
of minutes left, and I want to get to this
article that you wrote.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Was it it's.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
The data breaches, a chance for opportunistic scammers and what
you should watch for. It looks like it was September
third of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
Yeah, I wrote it. I think, Yeah, like I ended
up writing that article. It's still current now in terms
of advice. I think it was the data bridge by
Tim Mobile at that time, and that after that data breach,
I've seen tons and tons of like people texting me,
you know, for big bushing scams and stuff like that.
(44:25):
But like all of the advice in that article, if
you share with your you know, like quite the audience,
that advice still stands.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
So that's why I kind of republished it recently on
my LinkedIn because it's you know, it happens up to
every data bridge, you.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Know, exactly.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Yeah, And I do have it in the show notes.
I have the actual link that somebody will be able
to access. It was a really really good article. You know,
beware of social media campaigns and websites pretending to be
fraud recovery services. I think I just saw when I
was download hoading some public service announcements from the FBI.
(45:03):
I think one of the ones they had in the
last maybe three or four years dealt exactly with that,
you know, fraudulent companies trying to entice you that they
can get your money back when they're obviously not going
to be able to the only people that can do
that are going to be law enforcement and or the
attorneys or the attorney general, district attorneys whoever are doing
(45:25):
the prosecution.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
So it's also very very difficult to recover funds.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Oh, it is absolutely, I mean the organized crime, yeah, yeah,
it's There was a couple here in Arizona that were
arrested I think maybe two years ago, three years ago,
and they went through all of their you know, hearings
and all that stuff, and it was for I think
medicare fraud and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
And they had a lot of assets.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
You know, they were here in the States, and so
they had used the money to like buy vehicles and houses,
and so they had a lot of property that was
then able to be seized and sold. But it's sold
for pennies on the dollars, so if anybody was getting
anything back, you were only getting pennies on the dollar back.
But the majority of these scams, the money is out
(46:15):
of the country and it's gone, right.
Speaker 4 (46:18):
Yeah, I would say like a couple doing that, that's
a small time crook, you know, like organized crime, like
big butchering scams that originate in Vietnam, Like the money
is gone and like you know, and the cross border
element makes it very difficult to recover anything.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Well, it does, because you're adding a whole other layer
into the investigation. You have to work with that local
law enforcement, and sometimes they're very happy to work with
our law enforcement.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Other times they're not as excited.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
They have bigger fish to fry per se, right, and
so they're not necessarily interested in allocating resources to help
our law enforcement trying to find these perpetrators. Yeah, it
just adds a whole other layer of complexity to it
and makes it all the more difficult.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
But we are getting to the end of the time.
It went really quickly.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
I know it always does. It's always fun.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
Yeah, So thank you so much for coming back on.
I really appreciate it, and I want to have you
back on on a regular basis. You have has your
new book come out? I know you said you were
working on updating it.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
Yeah, I'm updating it. There's no date yet, but you
might as well wait for the for the updated version
because I added a lot of things on AI. How
AI is going to affect us and stuff like that. So, okay,
there are a lot more case studies that have of
newer scams and things like that. So I would say,
if you think you know purchasing the book, uh, just wait,
(47:47):
wait a couple of months. Okay, there'll probably be a
new audition.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
And the book is the Psychology of fraud, persuasion and
scam techniques.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Scam techniques.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
So is it going to be like have a number
two after it, or volume two or something.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
It's going to be volume two, and it's like a
different color, Like I have a trademark image that I love.
It's the same image, but it's going to be a
different color. It's going to be purple instead of turquoise,
so you can recognize if it's going to be a
second edition.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Okay, all right, very good my book.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
Now it's still okay, But like if you are thinking
of purchasing, I would wait for the second edition.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
Just yeah, there'll be a lot more information and with
AI that's huge, and it's so confusing to tell what's
real and what's artificially generated. And it'll be out really quickly,
and you know what's you could probably write a book
every day, right because this stuff changes so quickly.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
True, maybe not a book, but like a short short.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
A short novel every day every week or whatever, but right,
because it changes so rapidly it does. Anyways, Well, thank
you so much. I really appreciate you being on and
we're going to have you back soon. Okay, awesome, all right,
thank you, take care. All right, thank you everybody for
joining us today. I hope you got some more information
(49:07):
on data breaches and what to do. Doctor Martina Dove
is a valuable source of information. The link to her
article is going to be in the show notes, so
click on that and read her article. But just know
when data breaches happen and you get that information or
you hear about it, just know that there's going to
(49:27):
be an uptick in people trying to email you, the
phishing or the texting they call the schmishing, or you know,
the voice over the phone and all of that stuff.
So you just have to be a little bit more
on aware of that. You could have an uptick in
that and be on the lookout. You should always have
(49:47):
your guard up and be on the lookout for what's
going on. Don't forget to get on our website, Roseadvocacy
dot org, look for the resources, follow us on social media,
and sign up for our newsletter. Thank you, and you
guys will be enjoying Brian Watson for the next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
All right, take care.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Well that's all the knowledge for this episode. Tune in
every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on KFOURHD Radio
at KFOURHD dot com as Joyce explores a variety of knowledge.
So you have the power to make scam protection your
healthy habit and until then, feel free to reach out
to Joyce and let's talk about scams.
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
legal counseling, professional service, or any advice.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
You should seek the services.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational
purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional
legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted
sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard the
(00:45):
elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to
a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must listen
show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and their
loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday at am Pacific time
on K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose,
(01:05):
and her guests will provide valuable insights and practical tips
on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And
now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Welcome back, everybody, I'm Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose Resources
Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly. You can find more information
on our website at Roseadvocacy dot org. You can find
our social media links. You can also scroll down to
the bottom of the homepage and sign up for our
emailed newsletter and or our mailed newsletter. And so today
(01:44):
we are going to talk about data breaches and how
those help scammers and what you can what you should
watch for, and what you can do after you've been
notified of one. And I have a guest with me today,
doctor Martina Doves. She's been on before, so Doctor Martina
(02:05):
Dove is a research and behavioral science lead at Charms
Security and the off author of the Psychology of Fraud, Persuasion,
and Scam Techniques. With a background in psychology, her expertise
lies at the intersection of deception, social engineering, and the
psychological mechanisms of persuasion. Her work explores the cognitive and
(02:28):
behavioral factors underlying fraud, compliance, and victimization. So let's uh,
let's welcome Martina.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Hi everyone, Hi Martina, how are you. Hi? I'm fine,
Thank you and thanks for having me yet again. I
love coming and talking of us comes great. I am
going to check really quickly on my audio because for yeah, here,
(02:57):
I gotta hang on one second. That might be better.
I was having a hard time here. That is much better.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Okay, all right, now I can hear you in my
earphones now, all right, So data breaches. I saw that
you had just recently made a post on LinkedIn about
hearing about a data breach that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Was Apple, Facebook, Google.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I think there was a lot of major companies involved.
So tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Yeah, I mean, you know, data breaches happen all the time.
I think this is just now a face like a
fact of life. I don't know that there's a company
out there that hasn't been reached at some point. True,
And they are very very important because they do allow
commers to not only with the stolen details, which get
(03:59):
hard stedn't used, but the GIFs comers a novelty factor
to kind of approach you with, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Right, Okay, And but this latest one, it sounded like
it hit a bunch of really major major players that
a lot of people would have accounts with. I mean
kind of like Amazon has millions of people, Facebook has
millions of people Google does, Apple does, Right, So I
think it was kind of a jackpot breach for the hackers,
(04:34):
and then it's going to automatically be a jackpot for
the scammers.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Right, Yeah, it's it's really unfortunate. Like you said, there
are tons and tons of people that have Apple iPhones,
that have Apple accounts, that have Facebook accounts, and we
all use different things like I use my Google, you
know account for email. I use Facebook to you know
(05:00):
that Google email to get into Facebook, I use you know,
so so it's all connected, and I spent I must say,
I spent a good couple of hours changing password across
like most of the things that I have, just in case,
because if somebody gets access to your email, they can
then maybe get access to your Facebook and so on
(05:21):
and so forth and use or use the pieces of
those information to actually persuade you to give them more. Right.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
So that that's an interesting point that you made.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
There is a lot of accounts.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
When you go to sign in, it allows you it'll
ask you if you want to sign in through Google
or do you want to sign in through Facebook, not
necessarily having to put your user you know, your username
and password in.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Right, there.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
So if you're using Facebook or Google to sign in
to a lot of other accounts, now you not only
have to change your Facebook and your Google and your
Apple password and all that, You've got to go to
all those other accounts that you've used Google or Facebook
to sign in with and change all of that information.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Yeah, it's advisable to do that. I mean, I I
you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that a commera's going
to attack you from all sides, because at the end
of the day, they'll do whatever's easier for them, you know,
and it's easy, quick and easy. But I think it's
always advisable. I always think if you have an email
that you're banking with too, always change like any data
(06:29):
bridge that you heard about, always change your passport for
that email. It's you know, you know, better to be
saved than sorry, just in case.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Well, right, because even if you use your email for
the username, right, and you might have a different password
for your bank accounts or any financial accounts. But if
someone was able to get into your email, then they
could they could be one step closer to trying to
(06:58):
get into your financial accounts.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Yeah, I mean, like you mentioned, if somebody gets access
to your email. You may you still may have access
to the emails, but this person is logging in as you,
and maybe they can manipulate a lot of the times,
Like if somebody is really motivated, they'll they'll just your
settings so you're not even getting alerted, you know, and
(07:23):
so like they'll change the email that usually alerts you
or something like that, and then they can change the password,
and like, so it's it's it's it's all connected. And
I think, you know, we need to think about every
time we want convenience. You know, that costs us and
I think that's one way that we pay for that convenience.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, yeah, and you know it is.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
There's a lot of things out there that are convenient, right,
but you have to think of all of the risk.
And it might not be just the risk associated with
that particular program or app. It could be because things
are so connected and if you're using your email right
to log in, or you're using the same password, it's
(08:10):
all connected. Because if one's breached, you know, they're not
just going to use it on just one account. They're
going to put it in their software and find all
these other accounts that you've reused logins on because they know.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
I read these articles that these tech companies put out
every year about password statistics, and the one that I
just read said and it was at least half, maybe
if not more, people are still using the word password
for their password or one, two, three, four, five six,
(08:45):
And sometimes they just choose that. Other times that might
be the default password that a company has, and when
they sign up for it, they're not automatically then directed
to change their password.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I think that's true that that companies really need to do.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Right, If you're going to have.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
A password, a default password like that, then it should
be when someone logs in for the first time, they
should automatically be redirected to change their password.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Yeah, And I think I think the organizations are getting
better at that, and like they are asking you to
choose a strong password. So like, I think we have
gotten a lot better at like you know, but I
think what I would like to see as well, a
lot of the times it gets really tricky with passwords
as well, where like every single company has their own
(09:38):
you know, like format of how they want the password,
and sometimes it's really really difficult to you know, account
for all of the formats and and remember them. So
this is why I think people default to the simplest
thing that can remember, which then obviously make it vulnerable.
And I'll tell you a funny story, and I'm not
going to mention which relative, but one of my relatives
(10:00):
has passwords that like it's literally almost like the name, surname,
and date of birth, and like I'm constantly telling them
don't do that. I know, for obvious reasons, but yeah,
it's it's you know, like I'm having to sort of
tell people like don't you know, like you know, and
then people just you know, unless you have been breached,
(10:22):
unless your details were stolen, you have this sense of like, oh,
what happened to me? Like why would somebody? I hear
that a lot? Who would want my stuff? Like who
would want to get into my Facebook? Well it's not
about you, but for example, you know, like I posted
something on LinkedIn when this breach happened, and I posted
on my Facebook saying to people like, hey, expect your
(10:44):
friends texting you and saying they need money, right, And
that's exactly what happened. Immediately one of my friends said,
I just got a Whatsap message from a friend asking
to lend her, you know, like one four hundred dollars
and you know, she luckily said can you call me back?
And then obviously was suspicious and so my message. But
a lot of the times when people breach your Facebook,
(11:06):
you it doesn't harm you in so many ways, but
it harms your friends because then this camera will be
posting on your behalf to your friends asking for money.
So I think, you know, that's something that I think
people need to understand. Even if your Facebook doesn't you
don't have anything to steal on a Facebook, think about
how you're getting a message from let's say your cousin
(11:31):
on Facebook that they're in trouble, they've been kidnapped, they've
been harmed, and they need money, you know, would feel
And I think that's that's kind of like I think
people don't really think further than just like, well, I
don't have anything, you know, I hear that so many stuffs.
I don't have anything to steal. I don't care, you know,
But I think, yeah, it's like what you said, we
(11:52):
all connect. It's all connected right about.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
It is great because it's convenient to have everything connected,
right and and we like convenience. It makes it more
simpler to do what we want to do online and
not have to worry about navigating through a password manager,
right if that's not working appropriately, or however you store
(12:14):
your passwords. But so it's interesting. There's a gentleman here
in town that I work with. He sponsors some he
sponsors our program to take our program out to some
different communities. And we were just I was just doing
a presentation with him yesterday and he told it was
for his clients, and he told his clients about how
(12:38):
he got a call from one of his friends who
lives in another state. It's a state where this gentleman
grew up in and his friends saw that his sister
was advertising this vehicle for sale. The price made it
seem like it was a fire sale type thing, like
I have to get rid of it, you know, it's
a low price because I need the money whatever, And
(12:59):
he was really interested in it, and he just for
whatever reason, said I'm going to call my friend and and.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Ask him about this.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
And so he did and he's like, hey, you know
your sister's selling this vehicle, you know, online and on Facebook,
and and he was like, no, she's she's been hacked,
her Facebook's been been hacked. It's not her, But he
said he got that call from a couple different friends.
They were ready to send the money, right, and it
would have been thousands of dollars, but something made them
(13:32):
call him to say, Hey, your sister's selling this. It's
a really cheap price. What's going on?
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Right?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
And and so it doesn't necessarily affect his sister, but
guess what her friends are going to get affected because
they can lose through no fault of hers, right, no
fault of hers, But but it can affect your friends
that they then affect your friends.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Yeah, And I think like one thing that I I,
you know, I always advocate in terms of the data breaches, right,
Like it's not just the data that gets stolen, Like I,
you know, always say this. Comers really love any novel situation.
If there's a some kind of a natural disaster that
will hit people with charitiescams, if there's a you know,
(14:20):
like during COVID, we had tons of websites selling you know,
imaginary like masks and things like that and hands the
analyzer and sanitizer like miracle cures, like people who buying
vitamins or something like that. And one of the things
that that like happens during like after a breach. Uh,
(14:42):
it gives comers that ability to call you and pretend
it's a bank warning you about the breach and to
transfer the money to some other account for safe keeping
or something like that. So it gives them a narrative
that can manipulate, uh. And then you get tons of
phishing emails too, Like for example, yesterday I got a
(15:05):
text from my CEO my company and can you talk?
And I'm like, I know it's not you, you know, but
like it happens so quickly after the bridge was announced,
you know, so you get lots of phishing emails, lots
of like SMS from your bank, or let's say, Apple
will text you and say, hey, we've been breached. Can
you please you know, change your password through this link,
(15:29):
you know what I mean. So it's kind of like
stuff like that. There's recovery schemes. If you're defrauded straight
after the data bridge, you may then get a recovery
scheme offered to you. Hey, like you've lost this money,
we can help recover the funds. And then some commers
will kind of like get you again, so it gives
(15:51):
them more than just your data. Data is just that
to enhance credibility when they call you, so that they
can say, hey, you know we know your past, do
we know your email? That we are who we are, Yeah,
but it also gives them this narrative that I can
exploit to right.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah, And you know, I talked to a lady here
that she got that very call a couple of years ago,
pretending to be from the bank that there was fraud.
It dealt with fraud versus a data breach. But there's
fraud on your account. And you know, they convinced her
to to you know, verify everything, and then said we
(16:27):
need to we need to move the money out of
your account into another account for safe keeping until we
can get rid of this fraud. And you know, she
wanted to go to the bank, and they convinced her
that no, because we feel it's one of the employees
at the bank that's committing this fraud. And they sound
so legitimate, and they say, you know, pretty similar to
(16:50):
what a bank would say if that really was happening,
to make it so believable, like you said, right, and
they very well. It might have all started from data
bridge where they got her information, but then they used
it as there's fraud going on with your account and
all that she ended up thing seventy five percent of
her life savings.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yep, I mean no, definitely. I had a similar case.
I spoke to a victim in the UK. And this
is another thing that like it's nothing to do with
the with the with the data breaches or anything like that,
but it's like to do with like a public information.
So for example, this person has just recently sold the
house and had a lot of money in the account
(17:34):
and these public these are public records. You know, people
can find out who sold, you know, so so scammers
will use things like that to then target the individual
that can purchase your details from somebody else. Link the data.
There are data brokers that linked data. You know, so
you have name, they'll link it to this to the address,
(17:54):
to IP address to your computer, you know, like it's
you know, they are legitimate a brokeers that do that
for purposes of targeting from legitimate companies for us stounding
and marketing exactly exactly. And so like she got called
by somebody pretending to be from the uh you know,
the financial like you know, authority that is like a
(18:20):
very I think it's called the Financial Conduct Authority in
the UK. It's like it's a it's an authority like
body that governs all of the banks and anything financial, right,
so kind of like FINRA and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
In one of like yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Then talking to her for about a month and a
half every single day updates like what's happening with her
account that there's a suspect inside a fraud. She was
speaking not to one but to two people. So now
another person is is supporting what the first one is saying,
so you believe it more. And then suddenly there's an incident, right,
(18:57):
like you know the person is going to do it tonight,
you have to move the money. And basically, you know,
she the coach of what to say when she goes
to the bank, absolutely, but she believed that everybody at
the bank could be a suspect because they still didn't
find out who it is. So you know, it's like
(19:21):
like I think a lot of the times bank have
you know, bank may be a surprise when they try
to intervene and they don't understand why a person just
doesn't take the word right. But you have to understand
the amount of manipulation that goes in before that carefully
goes in before, because if somebody called you and just
(19:41):
told you one thing on a first phone call, you
would go like, who are you right? You know it's already.
If somebody called you and said, hey, Joyce, you know,
like please transfer this money because like this inside the
fraud in the bank, you would go, who are you exactly?
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Transfer money right exactly.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
But if somebody keeps calling you for a whole month daily,
two different people updating you on what's going on with
the investigation, and you start to believe it, you know,
it's very difficult to intervene, you know, and then of
course banks often will just intervene in a very literal
way instead of actually prodding what's happening, and then it
(20:20):
ends up just like not being very successful because by
that time the victim is groomed and it can be devastating.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Like you said, yeah, I was just going to say,
it's like a grooming effect like they do with the
romance scam and the pig butchering scam, you know, where
they take the time to groom before they actually then
start wanting you, you know, with transfer your money, however,
they want it done right. So you had mentioned like
(20:48):
the text message that someone had said they received from
a friend asking for money after this data breach. Are
there other things that you see, specific scams or you know,
like emails or anything like that that have a tendency
to happen right after these breaches.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Yeah, I think, like you need to look for any
kind of phishing text or emails, and I think the
most frequent one will be email or a text will
pretend to be from the body that was breached, from
the entity that was bridged. So like let's say if
it's the Mobile or Apple, you will get like emails
that will talk about the bridge saying, oh, in a
(21:28):
recent data breach, please verify your details. You know, so
they will actually use the data bridge as an excuse
to contact you and try to sort of like tell you, hey,
it's a legitimate company just contacting their customers to let
them know like any company would. So a lot of
the times as well, people don't understand that when a
(21:49):
data bridg happens, sometimes the company it's not yet aware
that it happened, so that may take some time exactly,
it may take some time to be the discovered that
somebody has n'tered your infrastructure or something like that if
you're a big company, so like any kind of things
like that. But you you know, I'm absolutely positive that
(22:11):
your details are immediately sold on too, so you by
various other things too. So it could be unrelated phishing emails,
offers to buy things, or you know, anything else like medical.
You know, it can be something unrelated to but there'll
be an up tick in you know.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Uh see enough the amount right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
So you know, at the presentation yesterday that I had mentioned,
a lady had asked a question and we were talking
about how your information gets out there and data breaches
is was the first one we talked about. And it's like,
you know, you can't control when a company gets breached,
but you can control the information you give to a company, right,
(22:54):
And you just want to make sure the information you're
giving is absolutely necessary to do whatever it is you're
doing with that company, and and don't be afraid to
ask questions. But you know, she she had asked the question,
you know, is is government doing anything two to help
stop this or to you know, to put things in
(23:17):
play to make uh, to make the penalties harsher to
make it more of a deterrent.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Have you heard of anything that that.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Maybe they're working on, maybe some recent bill or law
that's been passed that.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Yeah, I know, you know, I don't know of any
specific like recent bills, but I know that comes are
a big, big problem for banks, and they are desperately
trying to figure out the way how to intervene, you know,
and and and there are many companies that you know,
like I've just joined a company that is actually looking
to account for the human element and how do we
(23:58):
prevent how do we enterect being in a good way.
So I'm happy to say that I'm seeing more awareness
around scams and how humans get exploited. So that's one thing.
A second thing as well, like there are there are
differences in companies, right, so anything governmental, anything to do
(24:19):
with like heavy leak. Uh, you know, spaces and entities
that are that have to adhere to compliance, okay, you know,
such as hip hop or medical or you know some
other compliance for like you know, banking industry. A lot
of the times they keep those details what's called on
prem on premise, which means that it's very difficult to
(24:43):
infiltrate that if you're a malicious actor, okay, right, because
the network doesn't allow like there's no communication between the
outside network or you know, like things are not in
a cloud and able.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
To you know, easier to penetrate.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
So yeah, the servers are like on the premise somewhere
and they're not communicating with anything outside, or at least
they limit the amount of things that can communicate with
things like that. So that's that doesn't exclude the insight fraud, right,
Somebody on the insight could also you know, be a
malicious actor as well. So when you see these breaches
(25:21):
that usually happened with things that perhaps don't have the
most sensitive of details. But if you do have your
let's say Apple account, I have my credit card connected
to it because I'm purchasing you know, so you do
have this sensitive information even with with like these other
(25:42):
things that get breached. So it's really important to you know,
like you said, maybe don't give them. You know, a
lot of these companies they know they aspa date of birth.
I always try to shield the mind. Unless you're my
bank or you're my doctor, I don't think you need
to know exactly like you don't have to wish me
a happy birthday, Like I'm okay, you know, I'll be fine. Yeah,
(26:10):
But those are the things like I would. I always
say to people just like inventor, inventor birthday, that it's
not your birthday, but it's like maybe you know, same year,
but not the same month or a day, or you
can you know, like invent a birthday that you like
when you have to put it on a form, you
have to put it on a.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Form, right, and you want to be truthful, right, Yeah, And.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I think one big thing that I've come across, and
it always really puzzles me, right, I when you work
as a contractor, let's say you accept a contract at
a company you're a consultant or something like that, you
will be dealing with a recruiter that it's like part
of a company, let's say, and that company will always say, hey,
(26:52):
can you give me your partial day to birth and
your last for digits of the SSM for our internal
tool and this tool is just management tools so that
they you know, they're like if they have two people
with the same name, like they can differentiate. Yeah, But
then I'm thinking, why can't I just invent a pin
right that it's not my assistant number, like forges by
(27:15):
which you can call my bank and authenticate me. You know, absolutely,
I invent things for that too, like I'll have a
digit that I give them that it's not my assess So, like,
I think a lot of these companies don't really think
from the security standpoint at all.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Well, right, you know, because they probably have a lot
of different apartments, right, and you have one department that's
going to do this and they feel they need this,
and okay, well the last four of your Social Security
number is going to be a way that I can
that I can try. I can, you know, track your
account in case somebody has the same name.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
And it's actually interesting you mentioned that I was at
one of my doctors recently and they actually had two
different patients, same name, Joyce Petrowski, same birth date, everything, day, month, year,
but the middle initial was different. And I was sitting
(28:13):
there thinking, Wow, is this accurate or is this maybe
somebody trying to impersonate me?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Right?
Speaker 3 (28:22):
And it was interesting because they were telling me about
the results of some lab work and I'm like, that
test does not even sound familiar. When was that lab
work done? And he told me the date, and I'm like,
you know, you have someone else's information in my account
because I wasn't even in the country on that date
to go have labs done, right, And so that's how
(28:43):
I found out about it.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Wow, so somebody use your medical insurance.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I don't know that was, you know, on them to
figure out. I think what happened was someone in the
office saw the name in the birthday and ended up
putting it in my account instead of the other person's account,
not realizing they were that close. Right, That's what I think.
But how easy would it be for someone.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Else to do that?
Speaker 3 (29:11):
It could But so you're right, I totally agree. Like
the I R S they very well could use the
last four digits of your Social Security number because they
have everybody's right from filing taxes. Yeah, but they came
up with this identity theft pin identity protection pins right,
the six digits.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
They give you a new one every year.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
And so they've they've gotten on board with that, and
I exactly.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
I mean, like you can just as easily in a
job tool like I can invent a pin, so it'll
be almost the same, like the same as my SSN number, right,
that it's unique to me, and it's very unlikely somebody
is going to have somebody with the same name data
Bert or whatever. Like it's right, they're exactly the same thing.
But like one thing that really, you know, like it's
(29:58):
funny you mentioned your you know, like this mishap with
the club results. One of the things that I'm always
really cautious about and always upsets me a little bit.
When you're queuing, let's say, you know, the hospital or
a doctor's office or something, there's people behind you. I
can hear what the person is telling the receptionist.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Oh right.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
They'll always say to you, hey, tell me your you know,
pie the number or whatever and you know, date of birth.
And I'm like, I'm telling you all, like I'm telling
you you know, and then I'm having to confirm my
name and somebody behind.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Me here can hear it all, I know.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
And like I was kind of thinking, if you want
to just hang out, you can just like really take
down these details and then tell it. And it's you know,
so I always take out my card and give it
to them, you know, And like I'll say, I would
prefer if you just take the information from here and
if you want to confirm something that's not on a card,
(30:57):
then like I'll confirm my you know.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
I just show it to me and I'll say yes, no.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
But I shouldn't be shouting my data birth and my
life the number like for everybody like those. You know,
people don't realize how much commerce even if I if
they just hang around, then they see that and and
and take that down. H you know, somebody can misuse it.
It may not even an organized criminal, but like, you know,
(31:24):
I could be hit by okay, she was like in
the radiology. I could be hit by a scam that afternoon.
That'll look realistic because they'll quote because you were there, right, Yeah,
it's not exactly. It's not just perfect timing on their part.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
They knew you were there and so then they can
target you with a specific scam. Yeah. I mean, it's
it's just crazy. You know, I think you you almost
have to try to think like a scammer, right and
and I just think that you know what, I didn't.
I wouldn't put anything past them, right, So for them
to be hanging out for an hour or so and
(32:02):
not being you know, seen that they're hanging out in
an office to hear. I wouldn't put it past them.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
I just I mean, you know, like it's probably not realistic,
but you know, like because it's so easy to steal
that information, you know, But I'm kind of yeah, it's
sortally olver the other. But then I'm thinking, if I
was a smart camera, right and I wanted to make
sure that I'm very realistic, I would do that, you know,
(32:30):
knowing what I know about cameras and stuff, because the
more you know of contextual information about somebody, the more
realistic the call will sound, and the quicker you're going
to get to what you need.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
With that rate, the quicker you're going to make it
more believable that they're going to think you're authentic and
you are who you say.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
You are, absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
It's now you mentioned something earlier that you were starting
to see a lot more people seem to be more
aware of the scams. I think that's fantas fantastic because
I think the first step in protecting yourself is one
realizing that you are a target, and you very well could.
(33:10):
I don't care how smart you are, I don't care
how savvy you are any I don't care how less
amount of money, more amount of money you have. Everyone's
a target and everyone needs to realize that they are
and that they could become a victim. And then it
gets into you need to be aware and educated, right,
And so I'm so happy to hear that you're seeing
(33:31):
that that people are more aware.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I'm seeing, like, I think what's exciting that's happening is
that the organizations such as banks, my realizing that you know,
scams at becoming a huge problem, right, and so like
there's like where's even just a decade ago, or less
than a decade ago, personal fraud was just kind of
(33:55):
like dismissed by the fraud professionals, you know, it was like,
well that's your response for you know, sending this money.
Whereas now I think there's there's I feel like there's
more empathy coming from the professionals, and there's more interest
in understanding of the manipulation that goes into it. It's
no longer I think we're changing the slight shift, you know,
(34:19):
in how the society is viewing, you know, scam victimization.
And I'm really pleased about that. Yeah, that's really great.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Yeah, I know one of our other advisory board members
did a video on that recently, she had happened to
see a post somebody made an anonymous post on the
next door app about being a victim, and they kind
of went through the things and not all the people
that were commenting, but some of the people were just downright.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Mean and blaming hum or her.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
For the situation they got into. And it was like,
you better be careful because you know what you might
be the next one and then you're gonna.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Be like, oh wow, sh right. Yet believe with a
lot more empathy, I think.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Not just like I mean, that's just not very nice
as a human being, but I also can explain that,
I can explain it in a psychology way, right, So
people do that, like we always we have to think
about ourselves in a positive light that you know that
kind of like posters are self esteem and it's like
(35:27):
makes us a function in human being because if we
didn't have a self esteem, we would be depressed and
we wouldn't feel good about ourselves and we would not
be you know, we wouldn't be good. Yeah, exactly. So
people tend to have this belief that it wouldn't happen
to them because they want to control, like they want
to feel like they have the control. It's an illusion
(35:48):
of control. It's a quality bias. Right, People want to
believe that they could control situations that around them, right, So,
like you see that not just with the fraud victimization,
but also with victims of sexual crimes. Like she was
out at ten pm. She deserved it, she was wearing
this dance, like we try to rationalize it. And the
(36:10):
reason why we rationalize it is maybe not that we
want to be mean to that victim, but it's almost
a fear in us, and we're controlling for that fear.
Like if I'm not out at ten pm, if I'm
not wearing that.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Exactly, Yes, you're rationalizing why that couldn't happen to Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
So I think a lot of the times people turn
on a broad victims because they want to believe it
wouldn't happen to them. But I've actually found that people
who hold that belief, right, people who have a strong
belief that comes only happened to valible people and stuff
like that, actually more vulnerable because it makes them less careful.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
You know, yeah, yes, it lets their guard down, right,
you know. And speaking of that, you know, I've seen
some online. I've just come across some different people, whether
they're in the education unit, like maybe a college professor
in their class is doing a program or project, that's
(37:11):
what I want to say. They're doing a project, you know,
or something like that, and they come up with like
a checklist, you know, like how vulnerable are you or
how much at risk are you to be defrauded or scammed?
And it's like, on the surface, I don't like those.
And the reason is, I mean, some of the questions
in there might be really good questions, and they might
(37:33):
they might make you think about, well, yeah, I need
to fix my email because I am at risk. So
it's an you know for that, But on the surface,
I don't want people if they take it and get
a really low score so they have like a low risk,
I don't want them to let their guard down because
(37:53):
the minute they let their guard down and think, oh
I have a low risk, you know, it's very rare chance.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
It's going to happen to me. That's and it's going
to happen, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
I think, like I mean, depending on whether you're just
doing research for the sake, like you know, like whether
you want to see how many people feel it wouldn't
happen to them, and then you manipulate it something else,
and like if it's a real research or is it
some kind of a thing. Because every single fraud victim
that I've ever spoken to, every single one, first thing
they said to me, I never thought this would happen
(38:24):
to me because I'm a smart person. Yeah, right, And
I think, like we need to learn from that, right.
So if you are asking a very literal question, do
you think you're vulnerable? Everybody's going to say no. And
it's only when they scammed that they realize their own vulnerability.
And some don't even realize that. I've spoken to some
victims who say, hey, I accept as part of life,
(38:47):
and you know, I'm not going to change anything about me.
I still want to believe the rest in people. So
like a lot of the time is individual, but a
lot of people only start paying attention to scam advice
or fraud advice for education when they are scammed, because
I think it's one of those things in our lives
we like to feel because you're I think it's that
(39:10):
social stigma that connects being a victim of a scam
with being stupid or gullible.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Or something like that, right, and that we need to
change the guest.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
I mean that's and I'm trying in these presentations, right.
I mean it's like I try to reinforce scams have
nothing to do with intelligence, because if they did, you know, yes,
they have something to do with money, but if it
was really based on intelligence, they would somehow be tricking
you into taking an IQ test to see how you scored,
(39:39):
and they're only going to go after the ones that
score low. Right, everybody's a target, right, everybody.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Well, I will tell you something quite interesting about that too. Right,
there is actually a research out there that, okay, hypothesizes
that you know, in the olden day, like the olden
days I'm talking about like a decade ago or more, right,
there would still be emails that were like, hey, I'm
a Nigerian print someone like wanting to you know, so
(40:08):
there were a lot of like bank officials from Nigeria.
There was even like I think there was an email
circulating like a Nigerian astronaut lost in space or something
like that. Okay, Yeah, they were incredibly stupid, incredibly just
like non believable emails. But the sad thing is, right,
(40:29):
like there's a hypothesis and it was like a chess
done by Microsoft that like sometimes commers sent such obvious
scams to identify the most vulnerable victims. So they are
going after people who maybe have early on set on
dementia or some other cognitive disabilities, or they really don't
(40:51):
know they're not Internet sava so they've never come across
anything like that, or you know, they're catching, you know,
socifically identifying people who will then be hit with other scams,
you know.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
What I mean, that are really more vulnerable for reasons
beyond their control.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
So I think there is that the equivalent of an
IQ test you mentioned, right, Yes, It's like there is
definitely And you know, that's something that I always try
to talk about when I go to talk to elderly
people or people that are, you know, in the latest
stages of your life. I don't like the words elderly
because you can be in the latest stages of your
(41:31):
life and still be quite young in the mind and
heart and you know, like exactly. But one of the
things that like why they're so so viciously targeted is
because they're the stage of the life where they are
financially stable. The paid off their mortgages, they have ansions.
They are very lucrative. So just by the sheer volume
of scams send to people of their demographic will mean
(41:54):
the statistically one will pay off.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
That And that makes total sense. And you know you
can you can. You can buy list of people. You know,
you can tailor it down based on demographics, you know,
a bunch of different demographics and things. And so they
can buy list of people that are specifically sixty and above,
(42:18):
or they could do eighty and above or ninety and above,
thinking that maybe they'll be more vulnerable because things are
going on beyond their control, right with their mind or
their whatever.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
Yeah, no, that's definitely And I think, like I think,
you know, this is my hypothesis. I don't have any
solid evidence. But for example, when you think about sextortion
emails just even a few years ago, they were being
sent via email to grown ups, you know, grown nuts
saying like you've been caught, you know, like visiting webs
(42:51):
that you shouldn't. Your family is going to be notified,
your people, your work are going to be notified. So
now sextortion is aimed at teenagers. And then I was
thinking to myself, like and it's it's really harmful. But
I was thinking to myself, if somebody targeted me as
a teenager, I wouldn't have any money to give them,
So like, why is it the teenagers are targeted? Probably
(43:12):
because you know, like teenagers nowadays get more money, they
have more gadgets, they can leverage, you know, like they
have more pocket money maybe that they can.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
They have access they have access to or they have
access to the exactly.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
Yeah, because like if somebody hit me when I was sixteen,
like I'm you know, I don't know what I would
give them, my walkman or something. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, well true, I mean it's and plus you know,
they say that your brain is not fully developed until
you're what it was twenty five, Now they're saying twenty
eight or something like that. So yeah, you know, there's
a lot of things. But we've only got a couple
of minutes left, and I want to get to this
article that you wrote.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Was it it's.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
The data breaches, a chance for opportunistic scammers and what
you should watch for. It looks like it was September
third of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
Yeah, I wrote it. I think, Yeah, like I ended
up writing that article. It's still current now in terms
of advice. I think it was the data bridge by
Tim Mobile at that time, and that after that data breach,
I've seen tons and tons of like people texting me,
you know, for big bushing scams and stuff like that.
(44:25):
But like all of the advice in that article, if
you share with your you know, like quite the audience,
that advice still stands.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
So that's why I kind of republished it recently on
my LinkedIn because it's you know, it happens up to
every data bridge, you.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Know, exactly.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Yeah, And I do have it in the show notes.
I have the actual link that somebody will be able
to access. It was a really really good article. You know,
beware of social media campaigns and websites pretending to be
fraud recovery services. I think I just saw when I
was download hoading some public service announcements from the FBI.
(45:03):
I think one of the ones they had in the
last maybe three or four years dealt exactly with that,
you know, fraudulent companies trying to entice you that they
can get your money back when they're obviously not going
to be able to the only people that can do
that are going to be law enforcement and or the
attorneys or the attorney general, district attorneys whoever are doing
(45:25):
the prosecution.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
So it's also very very difficult to recover funds.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Oh, it is absolutely, I mean the organized crime, yeah, yeah,
it's There was a couple here in Arizona that were
arrested I think maybe two years ago, three years ago,
and they went through all of their you know, hearings
and all that stuff, and it was for I think
medicare fraud and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
And they had a lot of assets.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
You know, they were here in the States, and so
they had used the money to like buy vehicles and houses,
and so they had a lot of property that was
then able to be seized and sold. But it's sold
for pennies on the dollars, so if anybody was getting
anything back, you were only getting pennies on the dollar back.
But the majority of these scams, the money is out
(46:15):
of the country and it's gone, right.
Speaker 4 (46:18):
Yeah, I would say like a couple doing that, that's
a small time crook, you know, like organized crime, like
big butchering scams that originate in Vietnam, Like the money
is gone and like you know, and the cross border
element makes it very difficult to recover anything.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Well, it does, because you're adding a whole other layer
into the investigation. You have to work with that local
law enforcement, and sometimes they're very happy to work with
our law enforcement.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Other times they're not as excited.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
They have bigger fish to fry per se, right, and
so they're not necessarily interested in allocating resources to help
our law enforcement trying to find these perpetrators. Yeah, it
just adds a whole other layer of complexity to it
and makes it all the more difficult.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
But we are getting to the end of the time.
It went really quickly.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
I know it always does. It's always fun.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
Yeah, So thank you so much for coming back on.
I really appreciate it, and I want to have you
back on on a regular basis. You have has your
new book come out? I know you said you were
working on updating it.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
Yeah, I'm updating it. There's no date yet, but you
might as well wait for the for the updated version
because I added a lot of things on AI. How
AI is going to affect us and stuff like that. So, okay,
there are a lot more case studies that have of
newer scams and things like that. So I would say,
if you think you know purchasing the book, uh, just wait,
(47:47):
wait a couple of months. Okay, there'll probably be a
new audition.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
And the book is the Psychology of fraud, persuasion and
scam techniques.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Scam techniques.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
So is it going to be like have a number
two after it, or volume two or something.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
It's going to be volume two, and it's like a
different color, Like I have a trademark image that I love.
It's the same image, but it's going to be a
different color. It's going to be purple instead of turquoise,
so you can recognize if it's going to be a
second edition.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Okay, all right, very good my book.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
Now it's still okay, But like if you are thinking
of purchasing, I would wait for the second edition.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
Just yeah, there'll be a lot more information and with
AI that's huge, and it's so confusing to tell what's
real and what's artificially generated. And it'll be out really quickly,
and you know what's you could probably write a book
every day, right because this stuff changes so quickly.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
True, maybe not a book, but like a short short.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
A short novel every day every week or whatever, but right,
because it changes so rapidly it does. Anyways, Well, thank
you so much. I really appreciate you being on and
we're going to have you back soon. Okay, awesome, all right,
thank you, take care. All right, thank you everybody for
joining us today. I hope you got some more information
(49:07):
on data breaches and what to do. Doctor Martina Dove
is a valuable source of information. The link to her
article is going to be in the show notes, so
click on that and read her article. But just know
when data breaches happen and you get that information or
you hear about it, just know that there's going to
(49:27):
be an uptick in people trying to email you, the
phishing or the texting they call the schmishing, or you know,
the voice over the phone and all of that stuff.
So you just have to be a little bit more
on aware of that. You could have an uptick in
that and be on the lookout. You should always have
(49:47):
your guard up and be on the lookout for what's
going on. Don't forget to get on our website, Roseadvocacy
dot org, look for the resources, follow us on social media,
and sign up for our newsletter. Thank you, and you
guys will be enjoying Brian Watson for the next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
All right, take care.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Well that's all the knowledge for this episode. Tune in
every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on KFOURHD Radio
at KFOURHD dot com as Joyce explores a variety of knowledge.
So you have the power to make scam protection your
healthy habit and until then, feel free to reach out
to Joyce and let's talk about scams.
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