Cyber fraud and its many forms of deceit
Cyber fraud and its many forms of deceit
Transcript
00:00 Cyber fraud is defined as a sweeping term to define illegal or injurious acts committed by hostile personalities on the internet
00:08 with the intent to illegally acquire and/or leverage an individual or company's sensitive information for monetary gain.
00:15 There are several types of cyber fraud, all of them sharing one thing in common,
00:20 the use of technology to execute or commit the crime.
00:24 Among them, phishing, which is a deceptive email set up by an attacker that likely contains fake receipts or password renewal requests.
00:32 Malware or software written to disable or damage one's computer, steal personal information, delete files,
00:39 or create backdoors that allow entry into one's computer to completely gain control of it.
00:45 There's ransomware or an application written to encrypt a victim's files and then demand money to decrypt them.
00:52 Ransomware are usually carried out by way of malicious links or email attachments.
00:57 There's distributed denial of service assault or attack is when an attacker floods a service with internet traffic
01:04 or redundant blasts of information to deny access to online services and sites.
01:10 At least all online users have in their lifetimes been victims of either of these aforementioned cyber crimes.
01:18 To discuss more about cyber fraud, we have with us tonight Art Samaniego, co-convener of Scamwatch Pilipinas live via Vmix.
01:26 Good evening, Art. Thank you for joining us tonight.
01:29 Good evening. Thank you for having me.
01:32 Great. You know, these questions are very timely.
01:35 Thank you for also being part of the creation of Scamwatch Pilipinas.
01:40 You know, this is a citizen's arm, if I'm not mistaken, right?
01:43 Yes.
01:45 Yes, go ahead, please.
01:48 Scamwatch Pilipinas or Scamwatch PH is a cyber security movement intended to educate as many Filipinos as possible.
01:58 So, well, the pandemic has accelerated digitalization and a lot of people, especially senior citizens and children,
02:09 were forced to go online without proper training.
02:13 So, that's why Scamwatch Pilipinas, we want this most vulnerable sector of the society to be armed with necessary knowledge to safeguard their virtual activities.
02:26 Yeah, you know, all of us started from somewhere, right?
02:30 I'm sure that some of us, one or the other, has fallen victim to some forms of cyber crime.
02:35 How about you? What was something that you may have fallen victim to?
02:39 And don't worry, you can be honest.
02:42 Yes, I almost believe a phishing email because it really looks real.
02:48 So, the problem now is that these cyber criminals are really cunning.
02:56 They know what to do now because they are now fully equipped to trick us into doing or into clicking those links that they're sending us.
03:08 Because AI helped these cyber criminals a lot.
03:12 Before, when you see an email that has wrong grammar, you immediately know that these are scams or phishing attempts.
03:22 But now, because of ChatGPT, the criminals are just inputting their prompt and asking ChatGPT to create an email for them.
03:33 So, if you look at it, it's really perfect, really good, and well, this country, even the most tech savvy persons, they can really trust it.
03:45 Yeah, you know, AI really is a huge, huge, huge topic, and it has to do with a lot of cyber fraud instances.
03:56 There are pros and cons. We'll get to that in just a little bit.
03:59 But just to get us started and get the ball rolling, what so far has been the biggest cyber threat concerns for 2024?
04:06 And if any, can you give us some basic phishing and malware tips to keep those watching forewarned and forearmed?
04:15 How can we spot phishing instances and malware instances as well?
04:20 Well, what we're looking at now is ransomware.
04:28 So ransomware will be more sophisticated.
04:31 Well, the hackers will do everything to let people click the links that contain malware and ransomware.
04:40 So, if you say ransomware, it's like what happened to PhilHealth.
04:45 So, they were attacked by this group, and well, some or one of their users clicked a link, and they were victimized.
04:57 But the problem here is that it's not the technology but the people.
05:03 The weakest link of any cybersecurity posture is the people.
05:07 So what happened with, well, let's give another example, PhilHealth.
05:12 Their endpoint security was expired months ago after that incident.
05:23 So, somebody was tricked. Somebody was, well, nagoyo, naloko, and clicked a link.
05:33 That's why they were infected.
05:34 So, our advice to people and to the organization is that be careful in anything that you click.
05:42 So, you must be very careful if you see some link sent to you via email or via SMS or instant messaging, your messenger apps.
05:54 Please be careful in clicking those things because it could contain a malware.
05:59 And that malware could be a ransomware or could be a virus or anything that could harm your computer
06:05 or anything that will crawl inside your computer or your phone and get your financial transactions and e-wallet apps.
06:16 So, let's be careful.
06:18 Yeah, Art, of course, like you mentioned, it is really important.
06:23 It always starts with the vigilance of the individual.
06:26 So, are there any anti-malware or security software that you can recommend even from the safety of your mobile phone or any digital device?
06:36 It's always safe to have an antivirus.
06:42 So, always use an antivirus.
06:44 But the most important thing is that you do not go to some suspicious sites.
06:50 So, even if you have the strongest antivirus in your system, but you still click links that were sent to you by your friends or by anybody online, you will still get infected.
07:05 If you will still go to the porn sites with lots of malwares, you will still get infected.
07:12 So, it's an attitude to be safe because no amount of technology could save you if your attitude is not changed.
07:24 If we are still clicking when you still believe those job offers with P3,000 hourly rate.
07:35 So, if anything is being offered to you that's too good to be true,
07:40 well, that's a scam.
07:42 Let's avoid it.
07:44 Yes, I actually remember there is this one messaging app.
07:49 I'm not going to mention it, but I've been receiving numerous phone calls about business opportunities.
07:54 So, I guess the only way to do it is to block it.
07:56 You have to be proactive, right?
07:58 You can't be victimized.
07:59 Yeah, and of course also for individuals with Apple devices, they say there's no virus for Apple, right?
08:08 But I still have an antivirus and anti-malware software.
08:13 We need to help ourselves.
08:14 So, Art, you mentioned earlier that AI is also detrimental to cyber threats and cyber security.
08:23 But of course, we cannot avoid it.
08:25 It is the future. It is the now.
08:27 It is pretty much affecting everything that we do, work, play, how we communicate with each other, the entire shebang.
08:33 Where do you think AI is going to make its biggest impact in the country?
08:39 Is it going to be in data analytics, cyber security like you mentioned?
08:43 Tell us your thoughts.
08:44 Now, AI is making an impact, especially in education.
08:51 So, the problem is if good people can use AI,
08:57 cyber criminals are also using AI to create programs.
09:02 For example, if a cyber criminal would like to send messages and he does not have a database of phone numbers,
09:12 you can only ask, well, chat GPT or BARD to create a program for you that could generate numbers.
09:21 So, it is that fast and it will just take 19 lines for a program to create or generate those numbers.
09:30 And these numbers will then be put inside an SMS blaster.
09:37 If people will answer or people will send SMS messages to that number,
09:46 what the cyber criminals would do is that just transfer the number that answered them to the next column
09:54 and put a label that says "It's alive."
09:58 So, if your number is placed in that column, you will be a victim of scammers.
10:04 That's how AI could really make the lives of the cyber criminals easier.
10:10 Art, this is something that I think a lot of individuals, especially in the country, would like to know.
10:18 Coming with the future elections just around the corner,
10:21 AI may or will have a huge impact also on social media, especially with the creation of deepfakes.
10:29 Of course, deepfakes are the digitally altered bodies and creating fake sound bites.
10:34 How do you think this could potentially affect future elections?
10:37 Well, it's like fake news.
10:43 People need to know how to identify if it's deepfake or not.
10:51 There are a lot of programs and software that could detect the proliferation of deepfakes.
10:58 So, for the Philippines, it won't really affect the elections.
11:06 Deepfake could not affect the elections because it's really difficult to create these things.
11:12 It's really obvious.
11:14 If you see the technology now, if you see the deepfake, you can really identify immediately.
11:21 For example, if you look at the eyes, they don't blink.
11:27 They look like normal people.
11:32 So, for now, I think there's nothing to worry about.
11:37 But we really need to be vigilant because technology is really developing really fast.
11:43 So, maybe tomorrow or next week, there will be improvement in this kind of technology.
11:54 Yeah, you know, Art, I think what has pulled me through the years to not fall victim to scams, but I have, honestly, is to maybe always verify.
12:04 What are the key attitudes to have to not fall victim to the scams?
12:08 And what is a number that we might call to report such scams?
12:12 The first thing that we tell our friends, especially the senior citizens, is that they need to be skeptical of unsolicited communications.
12:23 So, you should be skeptical.
12:25 So, if you receive an email, you receive messages or call from the unknown sender or caller, never give your personal information.
12:34 So, that's first, be skeptical.
12:36 Second, you need to protect your personal information.
12:39 You need to be very careful about your information, especially the ones you share online.
12:48 Don't share.
12:50 And number three, our advice is use strong and unique passwords.
12:55 So, switch the internet how to do it.
13:00 And the last one, we always tell people, you should report.
13:06 Because if you will not report if you have been scammed,
13:10 you will be a victim of cybercrime, it's like having the COVID.
13:16 The next person that will be affected will be the people who are close to you, your family, your friends, your co-workers.
13:26 Because the cybercriminals, after attacking you, they will attack those people who are closest to you.
13:33 They will be the ones who will be in debt, who will be the ones to borrow money, who will ask for favors.
13:37 So, we should report and you need to call hotline 1326.
13:42 That's the number of CICC, the Cybercrime Investigation Coordinating Center.
13:47 Experts, cyber security experts will answer and assist you with your problems.
13:56 All right, thank you so much Art Samaniego.
13:58 Unfortunately, we are out of time.
14:00 I was just about to ask you about the love scams in time for February.
14:03 But anyway, there's no more time.
14:05 Thank you so much Art Samaniego, co-convener of Scamwatch Pilipinas.