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Speaker 2: You know, we can go out on these live investigations
Speaker 2: and there's fifteen foot tall creatures around and other things
Speaker 2: that are flying around you and you don't even know
Speaker 2: how tall some of those are or how creepy and
Speaker 2: tiny they might be too. They're not. They're not all
Speaker 2: friendly and happy, and I know a lot of people
Speaker 2: think they are there. They're not, And that's just that's
Speaker 2: that's from my research. But it's interesting how you can
Speaker 2: go out and do that, and it's intimidating, takes the courage,
Speaker 2: all that kind of thing. But what's scarier is the
Speaker 2: cybersecurity and what happens when when somebody tries to fool
Speaker 2: you to get your money and they're so darn good
Speaker 2: and you had said it, Malick, who was with us
Speaker 2: tonight to talk about that, you had said it. Where
Speaker 2: with the AI, it's going to get even more it's
Speaker 2: going to be even harder to know the difference because
Speaker 2: these people, now, I mean they just lie right to
Speaker 2: you when they actually have the guts enough to do
Speaker 2: it on a phone call. Uh, but when they even
Speaker 2: put it together in an email it's just it's just
Speaker 2: so hard to tell it apart. So so I'm trusting
Speaker 2: you in this journey because of conversation, because I don't
Speaker 2: even know what to ask when it comes to this.
Speaker 2: It's just awful when it happens. And I know when
Speaker 2: I catch it, you know, it just happens that I
Speaker 2: catch it doesn't mean I catch it all the time.
Speaker 2: I have to make some phone calls to see what's
Speaker 2: going on. And of course now I'm always going to
Speaker 2: be going, Malick, take a look at this. Connie's waking
Speaker 2: me up again. So thank your wife for that. But
Speaker 2: what do you think where do we start the basic
Speaker 2: principles of security?
Speaker 3: I think so, you know, before I was getting ready
Speaker 3: to call on your show, obviously being a little a
Speaker 3: bit nervous this Coast to Coach, right, I I was
Speaker 3: listening to a song from my younger days, just like
Speaker 3: some of the bumper music you know on the Coast
Speaker 3: to Coast. It was love is the Answer about England,
Speaker 3: Dan and John Portcoli, and it's like, yes, this is
Speaker 3: true now when that song came out. But there's just
Speaker 3: it seems like there's less love right, And I think
Speaker 3: what we've got that's replacing the love is greed. It's
Speaker 3: just this incredible yeah, uh, pashion for money and regardless
Speaker 3: of where it comes from or what they have to
Speaker 3: do to get it right. And but we don't want
Speaker 3: to operate from a standpoint of fear right, we don't
Speaker 3: and we don't even want to operate from the standpoint
Speaker 3: of patriot. We don't want to hate anyone, don't want
Speaker 3: to hate these people that are that are coming after us.
Speaker 3: It's it's sad, but it's true. A lot of this
Speaker 3: cyber crime and I can't I couldn't tay the percentages,
Speaker 3: but a significant amount of it is coming from people
Speaker 3: who feel they have no choice to make money wherever
Speaker 3: they are in the world. They can't find legitleman employment
Speaker 3: to make the money they need to take care of
Speaker 3: their families. You know John, Colonel John Alexander, I've gotten
Speaker 3: to know, and he's a guest on the Coast to
Speaker 3: Coast quite a bit. I remember he shared a presentation
Speaker 3: with me years ago that said, like and this was
Speaker 3: years ago, like fifteen years ago probably, and it said
Speaker 3: that a billion people in the world do not have consistent,
Speaker 3: reliable access to potable water to drink now when you
Speaker 3: think about that, this is as basic as it gets,
Speaker 3: is just being able to reliably access drinking water. You've
Speaker 3: got people who can potentially get in some you know,
Speaker 3: do some desperate things. But I told you earlier. I
Speaker 3: got scammed a number, probably a year or so ago,
Speaker 3: and I just it just I don't know it just
Speaker 3: they hit me later it's like why in the world,
Speaker 3: And I see, you know, the indications of it, right,
Speaker 3: And then sure enough someone else tries to reach out
Speaker 3: to me and do a similar thing. And I remember
Speaker 3: kind of scolding this person, right, and they said, you know,
Speaker 3: you're right. I am ashamed, but I don't have a choice.
Speaker 3: I've got to make money for my family. And I
Speaker 3: was like, well, this ain't the way to do it.
Speaker 3: But I'm but I wanted to understand where they're coming from, right,
Speaker 3: some of them, Some of them it is just crime syndicates,
Speaker 3: you know, some of them are. It's nation states that
Speaker 3: are I don't think national states are necessarily targeting US individuals,
Speaker 3: right unless there's a specific reason why we're targetable, And
Speaker 3: for the most part that's not us. But the cyber
Speaker 3: crime games, the electronic crime, they are absolutely targeting anyone, right,
Speaker 3: And so I think from a standpoint again, making sure
Speaker 3: we're not operating out of fear hatred is just being
Speaker 3: the first thing. I think being vigilant the most important
Speaker 3: aspect of security, whether it's physical security, cybersecurity, privacy is
Speaker 3: the human it's us, no one. I'm the biggest threat
Speaker 3: to my own security. Generally speaking, I'm the biggest threat
Speaker 3: to my computer security. If I'm not practicing this proper
Speaker 3: cyber hygiene, then it doesn't matter what any virus I'm using,
Speaker 3: or any other tools or techniques I'm using. If I'm
Speaker 3: not doing I'm supposed to do, then then I'm opening
Speaker 3: myself up and I'm opening my computer up.
Speaker 2: Right, So how do we prevent it? What is it
Speaker 2: that we do, maybe even daily to make sure nothing happens?
Speaker 2: How do we keep ourselves safe?
Speaker 3: Well, I think vigilance. Number one thing is vigilance, right,
Speaker 3: And this is even crosses over into the cyber into
Speaker 3: the physical security world, because one thing, you can't separate
Speaker 3: physical security from cybersecurity. Years ago, companies focused exclusively on
Speaker 3: physical security access control, trying to keep the wrong people
Speaker 3: out of their facilities and their buildings. And then and
Speaker 3: they didn't. They just didn't pay attention to cybersecurity. It
Speaker 3: wasn't an issue. Now it's swung the other way and
Speaker 3: cybersecurity is the buzzword. Everybody's worried about it, and they're
Speaker 3: starting if I'm not careful the neglect physical security you
Speaker 3: have to have. You have to have both, right, I
Speaker 3: tend to think of you can kind of put this
Speaker 3: analogy for both domains, physical and cyber. Think of your
Speaker 3: home or your apartment, wherever it is that you live.
Speaker 3: Whatever's valuable to you is in that is in that
Speaker 3: is in that building, is in that domocile yourself, maybe
Speaker 3: your loved ones, your your treasure possessions, maybe your data,
Speaker 3: your important documents, important photographs, you know, things like that.
Speaker 3: How do you keep people from How do you protect
Speaker 3: the things that are important to you, because again, you
Speaker 3: can't protect everything. You have to prioritize and if you're
Speaker 3: looking at from a physical security standpoint, we had a
Speaker 3: point in my neighborhood where we had regular break in.
Speaker 3: It's like three nights in a row. People were in
Speaker 3: our neighborhood breaking in and I was like, all this
Speaker 3: is crazy. And I have a friend who is a
Speaker 3: physical security expert and we talked and he said, look,
Speaker 3: you can't again again, you can't have perfect physical security,
Speaker 3: but you want to be a hard at target, right.
Speaker 3: You want to be that one that they're like, this
Speaker 3: is not the point if I'm going to break into
Speaker 3: a house, it's not gonna be this one. This one
Speaker 3: looks too difficult. Right. So you've got your lights on,
Speaker 3: you've got your cameras, you've got signed that says you
Speaker 3: have an alarm system, and maybe you keep your portslight
Speaker 3: on at night. That sends a message to whoever may
Speaker 3: be coming through your neighborhood that hey, I'm here, right,
Speaker 3: and I'm I'm and I want you to know I'm
Speaker 3: thinking of you. You may be thinking to me, but
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of you, right. It's like a communication with
Speaker 3: these folks, right. And that's on the physical security side,
Speaker 3: but from cybersecurity side again, taking a look at yourself
Speaker 3: from a digital standpoint, I mean, what do you look
Speaker 3: like on the internet if you're looking at yourself as
Speaker 3: a person, and it doesn't hurt to take a look.
Speaker 3: And we talked about how Tonny, how people can mind
Speaker 3: you and they can start targeting you, maybe even a
Speaker 3: little bit specifically and a lot of think, well I'm
Speaker 3: not that important why I'm being targeted, Well, these things are.
Speaker 3: These things are run I think in campaigns and if
Speaker 3: you take a look at and see what is out
Speaker 3: there about you and maybe your family members on the internet,
Speaker 3: and what happens sometimes is people focused exclusive though I'm
Speaker 3: going to make myself a hard target. And what is
Speaker 3: found out in the corporate world is you've got your CEOs,
Speaker 3: your c spee. Folks, they practice excellent security at their work,
Speaker 3: they practice excellence security maybe for themselves online. But the
Speaker 3: vulnerability is the children, right, or maybe their spouse is
Speaker 3: out there posting all kinds of pictures and things like that.
Speaker 3: Case in point, I was asked to take a look
Speaker 3: from an open source intelligence side. Had a person who
Speaker 3: was starting to become a rioting star in the agricultural business,
Speaker 3: and we're like, let's just take a look at this
Speaker 3: person from a standpoint of vulnerability. Well, just a nice
Speaker 3: general person, probably in their late thirties. But within a
Speaker 3: fairly short order I found this individual's complete full name data, birth,
Speaker 3: same for their spouse, same for all of their children,
Speaker 3: got the address of their home, got their other Malian address.
Speaker 3: I was able to find a blueprint to their home.
Speaker 3: I was able to find this person's I think had
Speaker 3: a direct relative that died. I was able to find
Speaker 3: that person's Social Security number and date of death. I
Speaker 3: was able to find the schools that their kids went to,
Speaker 3: pictures of their kids, and I'm like, this is this
Speaker 3: is all out there and it was completely easy to find. Right.
Speaker 3: It may not matter if you're not if you're not
Speaker 3: that well known, but once you become a well known person,
Speaker 3: that stuff becomes very important. So taking a look again,
Speaker 3: not saying that you know some of us are we
Speaker 3: think that we're a low profile. And that's another part.
Speaker 3: This is maintaining a little profile. But for some people
Speaker 3: you can't help the fact that you're that you're well known,
Speaker 3: at least on some level. But take a look and
Speaker 3: see what is out there about you. Connie, you and
Speaker 3: I talked about an E two emails that I recently
Speaker 3: received that I felt a little bit targeted. The email
Speaker 3: had my name, and it had my my phone number, my
Speaker 3: obviously had my email address, and it had my residential address,
Speaker 3: and then there was an attachment that had my name
Speaker 3: dot pdf. I wonder the world is this? So I
Speaker 3: take a look at this thing. Now, I didn't. My
Speaker 3: first thought was they want me to click on this
Speaker 3: attachment open it up so they can infect my computer
Speaker 3: with malware. But I took that I and I would
Speaker 3: recommend anybody be careful if they're going to try this.
Speaker 3: But I right clicked on that attachment. I saved it
Speaker 3: to my desktop, and then I uploaded it to a
Speaker 3: psyche called virus Total, which is free to anyone. You
Speaker 3: don't have to pay, you don't even have to sign
Speaker 3: up for it. And I let that site run a
Speaker 3: a scan like like about sixty some different security vendors
Speaker 3: of this PDF file or whatever it was. It's called
Speaker 3: the sayd pdf does not mean it's a PDF, right,
Speaker 3: anyone can spoof the file extension on an attachment. But
Speaker 3: I saw that, Oh that's good to know.
Speaker 2: Se No, that's good to know. I didn't know that,
Speaker 2: so that's good to know.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well they could they could label a dot PDF
Speaker 3: and it's actually a dot exe, which is an executable
Speaker 3: which we when you put on it, it actually executes.
Speaker 3: That is, if your whatever your your an a virus
Speaker 3: solution doesn't stop it. So I looked opened up this
Speaker 3: this PDF up and basically it was it was an
Speaker 3: extortion note to me, and they had a picture of
Speaker 3: my well, it wasn't a picture of my house, they
Speaker 3: messed that part up, but it was a picture in
Speaker 3: my street. They accused me of looking at inappropriate sites.
Speaker 3: They said they had access to my camera, maybe on
Speaker 3: my computer, maybe on my phone, not likely, right, And
Speaker 3: they said he said they were using Pegasus software because
Speaker 3: that's in the news right nation states are using that
Speaker 3: to spyle dissidents and political rivals. And they threatened to
Speaker 3: expose all of this to all my social media. They
Speaker 3: said they had all my contact It was just it
Speaker 3: was over the top, right, and they want me to
Speaker 3: pay them two thousand dollars or something. And then I
Speaker 3: got another one not long after that, And then we
Speaker 3: found out later that they seemed to be targeting some
Speaker 3: folks in the area. Came out on the news, but
Speaker 3: that was targeted. From the standpoint, someone did a little
Speaker 3: bit of research on me, and I don't think they
Speaker 3: were targeting me specifically, but I think that some company
Speaker 3: was was being hired as a service to go out
Speaker 3: and do this and create these lists that probably had
Speaker 3: an email that had the name, phone number, address. Maybe
Speaker 3: this semi customized extortion note to send out the folks
Speaker 3: right to get someone's attention, right, because when you see
Speaker 3: all this information, you're like, wait a minute, if somebody
Speaker 3: they been spying on me, or they going around my house,
Speaker 3: well none of that's really the case, but it was
Speaker 3: just to try to scare me.
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