Still scamming

We have such great tools to solve problems that befuddled us 20 years ago that we sometimes forget the basics. But, the basics, like Cyberhygiene and Cyberawareness are still out there. You wouldn’t think simple scams are being perpetrated and still work, but they do, and are as prevalent as ever. They don’t get the press the big nation-state and corporation breaches do, but they are probably much more numerous.

A person I know recently got an alert from her bank and found her balance low. This was a shock to her as she had not been spending much money the previous week. After sitting down, what was found were many withdrawals of just under $100 at gas stations never visited by the person. They had been very careful with their debit card, not shared or written down any information. Yet, it was compromised. 3 visits to an unnamed bank later, and they had finally recovered the money taken.

Pretty standard stuff. But, you’d think we’d have found a solution to such a simple problem (they have elsewhere in the world).

Another one involves a young child, which is particularly objectionable. Video games for children should be a relatively safe place where the parent doesn’t have to worry about every interaction. However, this isn’t the case. In this particular game, the goal is to collect (“adopt”) as many pets as possible. Except the pets are not free, they cost money. They can also be “hacked” away from you. This is a euphemism for “stolen”. Another activity is to trade pets. However, having traded a pet or pets away, there is no guarantee that the counterpart in the trade will actually honor their trade. It is not a lot of fun as a parent to have to explain the real world and real motivations of people to a young child that shouldn’t have to worry about this yet. It is also costing that child’s account real money as the only way, again, to get more pets and stem the tears is to invest more money. It’s hard to block what seemed an innocuous game once the child is emotionally vested in it and their friends are playing in it.

Scams, one way or another, take advantage of the lack of knowledge of those who are being scammed. It isn’t pretty, but, it’s as old as human nature. I wish we had a technical solution to human greed. But, as long as the motivation for illegal gain is out there, there will be those who find a way to defeat our best efforts.

Whether you are old or young, basic cybersecurity is to be aware of what people are asking you to do, and if its too good to be true, it probably is a lie. Basic cyberhygiene is to share the least amount of your private information you can, question people who ask you for it (“why do need my --- ?”), keep changing passwords as frequently as you can put up with, and to check all you bank accounts as often as you can to make sure only your authorized transactions are in there.