AUSTIN (KXAN) — Don’t let a scammer ruin your holiday spirits. Each year, thousands of people become victims of holiday scammers who wait for the opportunity to exploit people.
As we prepare for the holiday season, buyers and sellers should watch out for those trying to rob you of your money.
On Monday, KXAN’s Will DuPree spoke with cybersecurity expert and a former FBI agent, Eric O’Neil, about identifying holiday scammers and how to protect yourself from them.
Read the edited version of the transcript below. You can watch the full interview in the video player above.
Will DuPree: Why are there so many cyber attacks right now and what would you say is driving those?
Eric O’Neil: The biggest reason is because there are so many cyber criminals; cybercrime right now is the fastest growing business on earth.
The dark web — which is where cyber criminals can hide behind anonymous servers, and launch attacks, and steal our money and put it in their pocket — has been growing astronomically.
Cyber crime business is very good for the bad guys. Right now, the cost of cyber crime moving through the dark web is $14 trillion, and a lot of people want to share that prize.
DuPree: That is a huge amount of money, unfortunately, stolen from people. So what are some of the most common ways that cyber criminals are using to try to hack people, especially over the holidays?
O’Neil: Over the holidays is when we have to be the most careful because it’s the best quarter for cyber criminals in their year. They start in October around Halloween, and they move all the way through New Year’s and taking advantage of all of the different holidays in between. Then, of course, they keep going through Valentine’s Day in February.
So, what do we look for?
They’re using different tactics to deceive us. That’s why I say that if we want to stop them, we need to think like spies; we need to think like the attackers.
What they want to do is create a sense of urgency, create some sort of benefit that we feel like if we don’t take advantage of, we’re going to be missing out. They don’t want you to think that’s the most important thing.
They might say, for example, as you’re scrolling through social media you stop on this great ad, the perfect present that you desperately want to buy: “It’s now 70% off, but it’s only available for the next hour. Click here immediately to take advantage of this.”
They don’t want you to spend time to look at it and think, ‘maybe this is something that’s too good to be true.’ So what they’re using is deception to fool us into trusting something we know we shouldn’t.
DuPree: Yeah, that too good to be true part really sticks out.
In your book, you also wrote that there are no hackers, only spies. You spoke about that, but talk to us about what you mean by that exactly.
O’Neil: So what I want to explain by that is for my readers and everyone to elevate their thinking, not to think of our attackers, our cyber criminals, of some kid in a basement typing away at a keyboard.
Cyber attackers and cyber criminals today are sophisticated. They have the anonymity of the dark web to launch attacks from. They’re large and they’re using the best tactics from espionage. In fact, some of the cybercrime gangs have hired intelligence officers from foreign intelligence services to help teach them how to launch these very deceptive attacks.
So if we want to stop cybercrime, we have to stop thinking about just one kid attacking us, but think of large organizations coming after us, groups of individuals who are doing reconnaissance and launching attacks that deceive us and the clicking or opening attachments we shouldn’t.
DuPree: How can we prevent all of this? What are some of the most simple ways that people can do to protect themselves and their information and their finances?
O’Neil: There are a few things that you must do and these include the internet hygiene things. Be careful where you are on the internet. Be extremely wary when you’re on social media. That is a proving ground and a fertile ground for cyber attacks.
Turn on your multi-factor authentication everywhere. I can’t say that enough. I know people hear it all the time, but it turns out most people do not turn that second level of protection after your password, like the text that comes to your phone.
Use credit cards. When you are buying during the holiday season, use your credit card; They give you fraud protection.
If you’re using your debit card and the attacker steals your debit card number and your information, which is what they’re trying to get, they can clean out your bank account and you may not get that back. And never send a wire or another payment that you can’t recover if you’re defrauded.
Most importantly, as you’re doing all of these things and you’re thinking, develop what I call in my book a cop instinct. If it doesn’t feel right, if there’s all this pressure to do something, stop. Don’t give in to the pressure to click on links and open attachments and send your money places you may never be able to recover it from. Don’t give in to the pressure to click on links and open attachments and send your money places you may never be able to recover it from.
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