You may think you would never fall for a scam, but with artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology, thieves are always learning new ways to trick you. So we need to be learning new ways to fight back! They can even use your own social media posts to trick you.
Scams are becoming way more realistic, so you fall for them. Cybersecurity expert Tim Howard with Fortify Experts joined Amy Davis for an Ask Amy Episode to talk about the newest cyber scams and what you can do to protect yourself.
Be wary of the creative way thieves are using AI
“They can take a clip of you. Let’s let’s give you an example. For instance, say your daughter, maybe your your teenage daughter, has a poem that she’s reading and you think it’s really cute. So you posted on Facebook. Well, they can take a 15 second clip of that, that audio and even the visual. And they can create an avatar that sounds like her and looks like her,” explains Howard.
“And they then can post your, send you a video saying, ‘Hey, mom, I’m in trouble. I really need you to send me money to get me out of trouble.’ Or, you know, somebody is either kidnaped me or I’m in jail. Or maybe I’m with my friend and we’ve broken down, and I just need you to Venmo me, you know, $100 so that we can get a new tire. And so these are things are going to it’s going to actually happen. It’s already happening right now,” said Howard.
How can you even prevent this from happening? Howard says one way is to create a family code word. So if you get a call like this from someone claiming to be a loved one, you can ask for them to say that secret family code word.
3 ways to protect yourself from cyber scams
1. Know about two step sophisticated scams
Howard explains how these cyber thieves change up the way they do things.
“It’s no longer just about if you click on the wrong link, usually it’s a secondary thing. So they’ll contact you personally and say, I’m going to send you a link. And now you’ve authorized them to send you a link. And when it comes in you’re like, okay, I’ll click on that.”
“Because I talk to that person. They’re not a stranger anymore,” said Amy Davis.
“That’s exactly right. And so this is it’s like a two tier scam. They’re way more successful because most of us have gotten pretty good about not clicking links. But if somebody sent you something, all of a sudden, it’s a lot easier to click on. "
2. Watch what you have on your computer
Howard says don’t save important documents with personal information right on your desktop. It may be tempting because you want easy access to these documents. But, having them on the desktop means if thieves get access into your device they can also easily grab the documents.
3. Change your habits on passwords
When it comes to passwords, Howard says don’t re-use the same ones. Your best bet is to allow your computer to choose your password for you.
“Start allowing your computer to use its own password generators or or maybe even the authenticator. You’ll see Microsoft and Google have their own authenticators. And we’re trying the world is trying to move to what we call a password passwordless society. So you’ll see some of your applications that no longer use passwords, but they’ll send you a code and then you link in every time you log in, they send you a code, right? And you don’t even need a password anymore. Yeah, that’s actually more secure than trying to use a password.”
Often people may not use the password generator because they worry they won’t remember the password when they log on to another device. Howard says it’s okay if you have to just reset the password each time if you don’t know it.
Howard also explains how to stop sharing so much personal information from your devices.