The Bad Guys are after you

In the middle of the 19^th century in the Western United States train robberies became disturbingly common.  Notorious outlaws like Jesse James and Butch Cassidy roamed the West holding up trains for the payroll shipments they were carrying.  This must have been quite problematic for local businesses who were unable to pay their employees because of these bad guys. 

In 2015 we face new challenges to keep our business safe.  Today’s bad guys have given up the black hat in favor of a keyboard and mouse.  As business people, we need to take whatever precautions we can to protect our companies from these very real dangers.

Scammers

The other day, I got the following email from my Dad…

The phone rang at about 8:30 this morning as we finished breakfast.

It was a deep, slightly nasal voice saying that it was our son.  I put Mom on the phone because I do not hear that well.  She did not recognize the voice either, so she asked "Is this E---- or Brian?"  The caller chose E-----.  Things were not going well for him this morning.  He had an accident on the way home from a restaurant.  He broke his nose.  The police smelled alcohol on his breath and now he is in jail.

I was on the Captel phone and mom was on the phone in the kitchen.  I said, sotto voce, to mom that this was a classical scam.   The caller broke the connection at once.

Caller ID was blocked, but the call came from a 12 digit number 573219149117.  Could that have been overseas?

We checked with E-----.  He suggested that Mom should have said "Is this Steve or Harry?"  If the caller had chosen one of those we could have had a shorter, but less interesting, conversation.

We have had two previous scam attempts by e-mail.  In one of them a person pretending to be our friend D-----'s son, H----, said he was stuck in a London hotel.  His credit card was in his luggage and the hotel had impounded the luggage because he couldn't pay his bill.  Could we please send...   E---- pointed out that the e-mail scam was the more popular because the caller did not face the voice recognition hazard.

Scammers can be old or young, they can be male or female, they can approach you on the phone, email, or on the street.  They practice their story and work hard to be very convincing.  Consider that in the above story, the caller explained that his nose was broken.  This provides a plausible explanation why his voice was unfamiliar.

It’s not just my 88 year old parents who are at risk.  Years ago, a scammer caught me in a distracted moment. 

I was in the office early and working on a complex project.  The phone rang and this very believable guy explained that he could save me money on my long distance phone service.  Normally, I just hang up on these guys, but, on this day my mind was elsewhere and I bought into his pitch.  He even explained that he needed to connect me to a third-party verifier but I shouldn’t worry about it.  It was only after I finished the transaction that I realized what had happened and then spent several days unwinding it.

Please remind your staff and your loved ones to remain vigilant.  They should never provide any information to anyone over the phone.  If someone calls and asks for information, no matter how plausible the story, tell them nothing and get off the phone right away.  If the call is legitimate, you should be able to call them back, you look up the number to verify who they are.

Everyone should be aware that banks and the IRS never request personal information by email or phone.   If you get an email that includes a link, even if it came from an apparently legitimate source, it’s best to go to the site from your own saved link or by googling the institution and going to the site from there.

If you think you have been a victim of a scam, it’s important to report it to authorities. 

• Call the police and explain what happened
• Call your bank and see if they can help.  
• The FTC has a website to report scams… go to: ftc.gov/complaint to let them know.

Extortion

Recently, a new form of extortion has emerged that has been surprisingly effective.  Hackers get control of your computer, encrypt all of your files and then threaten to delete them if you don’t pay up. 

Only after you pay will they send you the key to unlock your files.

Organizations as large as the City of Detroit have been caught in this trap (they refused to pay the $800,000 ransom) but the blackmail has proven very effective on individuals and small businesses who reluctantly pay the extortionist fees of $1,000 or less to get back their important files.

After the hacker takes control, it is virtually impossible to get your files back without paying his ransom.  There are, however, things you can do to protect yourself.

 1)      Back up your computer regularly!  I know, I know, everyone knows we should do this but we somehow never really get around to it.  I am as guilty as the next guy in this situation, however, I have, just recently, set up an automatic backup and now have my files saved every day. 

Should my files get held for ransom, I can restore them without consequence.

2)      Don’t follow links in your emails!  I don’t care if you think you know who sent it, following an emailed link is a recipe for disaster. 

3)      Sometimes, when you go to a website, a pop-up will flash a big warning, saying something like “Your computer has been infected with a virus, click here to fix.”  If you click there, you will actually be infecting your computer with the virus you want to remove!  Never click on those links either.

4)      Make sure that your anti-virus software is up to date and that you keep your operating system software updated with all the latest patches.

On this subject, I am afraid those of you that are still holding on tight to Windows XP must let it go.  You are leaving yourself extremely vulnerable by using XP on the internet.  At a minimum, you should be upgrading to Windows 7 and you are probably better off going to 8.1.    The bad news is that your computer and some of your programs may need to be upgraded to support the newer operating systems, but from my perspective, I would rather spend $1000 on new upgraded faster equipment and software than to pay it to an extortionist to unlock your files on your old slow out of date machine.