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welcome to safety talk personal safety expert Pete Canavan shares his insights and interviews experts who provide simple and effective tips techniques and technologies to keep you safe and secure both online and off here's Pete hello and welcome to safety talk I am your host and personal safety expert Pete Canavan I have over 25 years of personal safety and security experience as my role as the host of the show today's guest is sure to produce a popular episode he's someone who shares my passion for safety in both the digital world and the physical world he's a security expert and private investigator who's fiercely committed to informing educating and empowering people so they can protect themselves and their loved ones from violence and crime in their everyday lives both in their physical interactions with people and their virtual interactions with people and this is something that I am passionate about and do as well and it's going to be a really informative episode here today so Robert Siciliano is the number one best-selling author of and a CEO of a company called safer de SAF Rema and he is also the architect of the CSI protection certification which is a cyber social and identity protection security awareness training program it's a mouthful so it's my pleasure to welcome mr. Robert Siciliano to safety talk welcome Robert thanks for being with us thank you so much Pete so glad you're here because you know improving safety and security is what we are all about here at safety talk and now one of the things that I ask my guests to do is to sort of summarize everything that they do into sort of one sentence that is you know that describes the problem that they solve in the world and it's and it's sort of it's a big thing because you know someone like yourself you do a lot of different things a lot of the other guests we have on you know they may have a lot of different products that their company has but it's a heavy question and it really requires you know that you summarize what it is you do in a compact way and in your case you wrote that you work with both private and public businesses and you teach clients how to keep their money their privacy and their data secure which is awesome against acts of fraud identity theft corporate espionage and purposeful or accidental exposure of private information all of course things that cost companies billions of dollars nationwide and worldwide of course so I really love that statement and want to kind of get your thoughts on that before we dive in with some specifics here yeah well certainly we know that um you know bad guys are looking for their victims 24/7 365 and most of the general public get old moms and dads soccer moms and NASCAR dads families you know they're relatively clueless when it comes to this stuff they don't really have any formal training when it comes to protecting their home or you know if they follow medium-large business or even protecting their business and it's only when someone has a small business or large corporation to protect that they are actually engaged in any type of security awareness training and so what I do is is I provide that security awareness training to basically anybody that will listen to me and it's usually those that have something to lose like you know corporations that hire me to come in and do you know one to two hour keynotes or say the real estate industry continuing education training and I provide them with all the fundamentals so that if a bad guy was to choose them as their next victim which really that's happening all day every day that they'd know what their options are they'd know how to protect themselves they know what links to click or not to click they'd know how to you know look to the right to the left and knowing what's going on behind them when they're walking down the street so I give them you know everything from protecting themselves in the physical to virtual world so that going forward they are a tougher target and that's really all you can do I mean bad guys are always been are and always will be looking for the next victim and all you can do is become a tougher target so they don't select you and that really boils down to you know taking responsibility and recognizing risk and knowing how to avoid and remove yourself from a dangerous situation whether it's online or in the physical world absolutely in stated so well and what I found as well and I'm sure you have is that a lot of people think you know maybe like a small business owner for example you know well you know I only have a small company I'm only doing whatever half a million dollars a year in business and you know so why would somebody want to target me you know I'm not worth their time but they don't understand necessarily that there are these automated systems that just look for vulnerabilities in networks and they don't have any necessary you know they're not necessarily targeting you specifically but they are using automated systems to go out and find vulnerabilities and so if your system at your particular business does not have the latest updates the latest patches the a hardened firewall a properly configured you know network setup or does not using VPNs properly or whatever if a hacker an automated system finds that it's gonna flag it then it's gonna go to you know whoever is you know monitoring and say hey I've you know we we have a system here that has a vulnerability and now they can do something like you know plant ransomware and and take it to the next level so even in your you know somebody is a small business it could be completely detrimental and even put you out of business if you don't have a solid backup with your data and I ransomware attack gets in there encrypts everything and now you know they drop a note on the desktop that says you know you got to pay his 20 grand to get your data back well that could be something that puts that company out of business if they don't have the policies the procedures the systems the backups in place that are going to protect them and so the awareness part of it is so key and something that people need to understand it could be an individual you know identity theft identity theft is something that you talk about a lot and it's something that every single one of us has to be careful of and we have to as you said be careful about what we're putting out there we have to look around us we have to be aware of what's possible from someone who is looking to do us harm whether specifically by targeting the individual or just by going out and sort of shotgunning the approach and finding a way in and now it's like oh I got into this person's account maybe they use the same password over here Oh ah they did and now you're in this account in this account and money gets drained I you know and lives are ruined and that's something that we were trying to stop and prevent from happening right without a doubt it you know in in when you when you began that you said you know you talk to various businesses and individuals and the first thing they say is you know why would they talk you're right and that fundamentally is two different things number one it's that they're invoking on their own the failure of imagination yeah and that that is a security axiom you know the the 9/11 Commission invoked the failure of imagination that we as a as a government as a country we didn't imagine that 9/11 could happen in and of course it did I mean there were some out there that had said you know it's just a matter of time so something happens but nobody wanted to believe it and and because of that failure of imagination we essentially function in a state of denial right and knowing that things can and often do happen and you see it on its most basic level all the time for example if you're watching the 6 o'clock news and they talk about a home invasion they talk about some type of a local tragedy and they begin to interview the neighbors and the neighbors are interviewed by the journalists or the producer whoever and what's the first thing that they say they say well you just didn't think it was gonna happen around here well how do you not it's gonna happen around here it always happens it happens everywhere and it's always the first thing that people say cuz they don't want to think it can happen around here and so that they don't think it it's because they don't want to think it and maybe they just didn't imagine it and when painful I think for what happens is it's too painful for people because they feel overwhelmed it's like well you know why would somebody target me maybe they will target me but what can I do about it and they kind of leave it at that yeah and it's much more comfortable to not think about it and it's much more comfortable to function in that state of denial to put it completely out of your mind and say I mean and this is you know a fundamental is that it can't happen to me and when when people you know think in those terms they are setting themselves up to be the bad guys next victim and that's just not OK first and foremost to recognize it can happen to me it does happen around here whether that's tennety your data your your you know company's information your home and when you think that yes it can't happen to me in and then you put systems in place you do the necessary steps you know perform the necessary steps to make sure it doesn't again becoming a tougher target you reduce that risk and you know the bad guys I got somebody like I said they're just not gonna go after you or if they do go after you they approach you know too many layers of protection therefore you know you divert them they go after somebody else and every single victim always says the same thing I never thought it would happen to me and and it's so true and it's because people don't think it's gonna happen to them until it does and every single victim says the same thing so like in my martial arts training with my my students I tell them that we're training not if something happens we're training you for when something happens and that simple little shift in mindset from an if to a when makes it more concrete and it makes it more real and the same thing has to be done in all sorts of training like in the cyber security realm or an identity theft or in data loss or anything it's not a matter of if it's when and it sort of becomes such a cliche but when you look at it through that lens of knowing that it will happen it's going to happen and you need to be prepared for it when it does and it changes the mindset and it lets people I think it's it lets them digest it a little bit you know it's a tough pill to swallow right so it allows them to digest a little bit more easily even if it is a little bit more uncomfortable and and that's really what it is people caught up in their lives you know you're dealing with your kids running around you're worrying about your job you're worrying about bills you're worried about holidays you're worried about whatever the next thing is right and it's like well I don't have time to think about like is my data secure or all my accounts good do I have everything backed up that I need properly in my business you know we all have a million things that distract us on a daily basis but if we don't make the time to be proactive in protecting ourselves and taking that personal responsibility like you said right it's all about personal responsibility because right no one's going to protect you but you right unless you've got a bodyguard in which case they're not gonna be there all the time anyway right there could be certain times they won't so we have to be personally responsible and it's it's something that it's so much easier to deny it and to ignore it until it happens and then it's too late and and our job is to let people know it's not too late you can start learning today some of the things that you need to do and you start out by assessing what those risks are to you personally right if you're a business owner or if you're an individual or anybody in between you know what is it that you're most concerned with what is the the greatest likelihood of something happening to you is it that you're gonna be robbed is it gonna be a home invasion is it you know something with a business that you're in or what not so lake looking at those risks and then sort of you know ticking them off it's like okay have I done this yes great I've done this no well to get it on the list and figure out what those priority is honor yes fundamentally it fundamentally does boil down to personal responsibility right you and I know that and then and then once you start you know talking about all these various risks right and people say well I don't I don't want to live like that I don't want to be paranoid right and and that's the funniest thing to me because if you understand what paranoia actually is and if you've actually met somebody whose power that's a distance right they are mentally ill and security is the complete opposite of being paranoid security is about being in full whereas paranoia is out of control and so once you wants people like you and I you know provide this level of perspective and and we kind of slow down and back up a little bit and say in just so you know like the chances of something bad happening to you are actually really slim you know there's a slim chance that these things can happen to you but there's a chance and so the same way and the same reason why you put your seatbelt on is because you know there is a chance that these things can happen you put your seatbelt on just to you know be smart to be safe and you're not being paranoid you put your seatbelt on you're being smart and being smart is logging your doors and stalling a home security system investing in identity theft protection engaging in a credit freeze understanding the fundamentals of information security and personal protection once you engage in these basic philosophies these basic you know steps again you reduce that risk you don't have to worry about these things is now you've put these various systems in place and Benjamin Franklin once said that to be safe is never to be secure and what that basically means is like you always have to be on your toes you always have to be aware you can't think okay well I am a hundred percent safe I have nothing to be concerned about therefore we are cool well yeah you know sir you sure yeah but no you really have to be on your toes but that does not mean being paranoid it does not mean that your heads on a swivel it means you are aware of your environment you are aware of these various risks you're doing that the basic things to protect yourself your business your family and so forth and that you know you have become a tougher target and it's it's all about preparation because when you're prepared and you know what to do in a bad situation guess what there's no more fear there's no more uncertainty in fact the exact opposite holds true right you gain confidence because if there is a problem you're like for example a cyber security program for a business if you are hacked okay you will be hacked chances are and find a lot of businesses are and they don't even know it so if that happens when that happens right if you have those procedures in place and so you know so you can sort of rest easier knowing that when there's an event you've already mapped out the procedures and the plans to deal with that so it allows you to have the exact opposite effect on yourself and your business your employees etc because people know there's a plan in place right it's no different than a fire drill or some an evacuation or being prepared with wearing a seatbelt or having car insurance in case you get in an accident these are things that we do to make sure that we know we have a plan in place for when the unthinkable happens right and that could be a very bad physical altercation it could be a very bad digital problem but if you know what to do the fear goes away right because we know what fear stands for right false evidence appearing real that's all it is and when you take the fear away and you take the uncertainty away and you have awareness and a plan and you're prepared and you can't be prepared you know that like one of my phrases is the t
me to prepare is before the need arises well active yeah you have to be active and as an expert in personal security right you teach people how to prevent assault right and and once a person understands how to physically debilitate or once you understand your own personal power and how if you are attacked from behind or the side or an attacker came up front you go for the eyes or throat the groin and you know how to physically rotate another human being you know how to be offensive right if necessary every other decision in life from that point on becomes you know relatively simple you gain an amount of perspective by understanding what your personal power is and how to physically debilitating other it does definitely give you a head heads-up on everybody outs going forward sure and that level of confidence exudes and is picked up by other people in other areas of your life so it ends up actually improving your standing in your business among your peers and your friends because you're somebody that has the confidence that knows they can handle themselves if there's a problem and it's interesting because I mean that it happens to me sometimes where I'll walk in a room and people are like you look like you can handle yourself I'm like I do I don't even know what I'm doing but okay you know because it's a it's a it's an attitude but it also comes from the preparation right and and that only comes with practice and with learning things so good stuff I want to ask you a question what a few questions obviously but how did you personally get started in this industry in the personal safety and protection industry yeah so for me you know as a kid right you know I was at 12 years old right and my dad let my brother and I headed to downtown Boston to do some shopping right my brother was like six or seven at the time and we got in the Train like back then you know this is what 38 years ago whatever you could do stuff like that and you know he let us go on the train it to Boston we got off the train we're in Downtown Crossing and immediately five kids surrounded us and their five kids were older than us and bigger than us and they demanded that I give them my money I was not prepared for that at all so I refused right and you know normally I'd tell people just throw the money in one direction run screaming in the other but I refused and they proceeded to take my money from me and they did it by you know beating me down on the ground and going through my pockets and I made a mess of my literally and we ended up having I get back in the Train go home and I'm all beaten and bloody and bruised and my father sees me and you know he obviously had not prepared us for that at that point it's sad it's down and taught us about predators and their prey right he explained to us like touching the wild world of animals you see the the Lions and the plains of the Serengeti and they'd be stalking the antelope or the gazelles and my father would say that those lions are predators in the Gazelle natural prey and today you know those boys were the lions and you were the gazelle and so going forward you know you need to recognize that there's always gonna be predators stalking their prey and you need to know how to defend yourself and so I began to see the world very different from that point on you know being a victim of a multiple attack situation can certainly do that to you right sure but I didn't I didn't consider myself a victim I just you know started to understand predators and prey and within about a year or so after that I was in summer camp and I was you know 13 years old at the time and I met a girl she was 12 and in one day after camp you know we were kind of holding hands and she liked me I liked her and I didn't really know about sex or anything like that because this is you know what stalking 37 or so years ago and if I didn't meet she said I just think you should know that my mother's boyfriend raped me okay and I and I I didn't quite understand what that meant but I felt her pain based on the way she explained it to me or just basically what she was saying to me and you know I I just I went home after that and I said to my dad you know what is rape because I didn't even talking about I just knew it wasn't good based on how she explained what what she said and my dad began to explain the birds and the bees and forcible rape and the exact same conversation and then went back to the predators and their prey and the gazelles and the you know the Lions and that began to make sense to me and so I started to see the world very very different than kids my age and so from that point on I began to teach all those around me about you know bad guys and and sexual assault and what to do and how to protect yourself and what to be aware of and I used to buy pepper sprays and I used to give them away to all the girls that I would meet and say you need this stuff and here's why so that became a passion for me very early on and so from that point on I started to you know take martial arts and teach martial arts and eventually got into personal bodyguarding and things like Barham bouncing and by the age of 25 had written a book on the topic and I start to speak professionally on it in like 1995 or 1996 I started to take an American Express you know like merchant status forget my small business for all the various products we sold and I got hacked I got hacked in the mid-90s and that was a brand new thing for me like I didn't know you could steal like that you know I don't know if anybody did at that point and so teletoon to learn more about blackhat hacking in fraud and credit cards and scams and you as a result of again being a victim of a crime and buying you know 2001 I had written another book and talking about fraud and personal security as a relate to identity theft which was which was not on anybody's radar that you know at least not in the media or the general public and they have a couple of laws fashion we had the Identity Theft Resource Center and and San Diego talking about it the in a few others but it wasn't a huge huge thing at that point and here we are you know we're to 2020 I'm talking about this stuff now for 25 years and in personal security for me is violence and prevention both in the physical and virtual world and my focus from you know talking about you know women's self-defense and my own self-defense to my small business being hacked has just all evolved with you know the times and here we are today and you know back in the day it would make national news if 600,000 records was stolen out of the University of California today that doesn't even make news it's going to take billions and billions of records being stolen you know because of you know criminal hackers and you know that's my story and and today you know there's just no shortage of fraud or theft or violence just last night all of our front phones in my home all alerted us to an Amber Alert you know about 11-year old girl in Western Massachusetts being stolen off the street fortunately they found the guy but you know my daughters are all freaked out my wife is all freaked out that's the world we live in today it's a very scary world and even like you learned from a young age and all 12 years old I have a similar story actually it's pretty funny but you know learning about it from a young age it sort of hardened you to the world around you and your dad sounds like you really gave you a great education at a young age helping you understand that and knowing that look man it's not just all you know happy happy you know joy joy out there there are people that are bent on doing you harm there are people that are bent on stealing because they don't want to get a real job they're interested in doing the least amount of effort for the greatest amount of gain and they don't care how they're gonna do that whether it's financially or physically or sexually right they don't want to put any more time and then they need to to get what they want and and getting that awareness and that education component out to the masses is something that yeah I could see why you became so passionate about it because not one but two you know incidents at a young age really showed you that hey man there's some things out there that I need to be aware of and know about so that's and that's that you want this to some believable past and now you're changing a lot of lives because of the ability to educate and so the I'm gonna pull this up won't talk about it's people that are walked watching this YouTube when they do this will be able to to see it but the others that are listening won't be able to however I do just have your your website pulled up here and basically the smart safer and secure me protect you and your company engaging and interactive security awareness training and so you've got you know all these different things that you do from keynotes to corporate training and workshops and seminars and then there's this safe certification which I wanted to ask you about so what exactly is this safe certification certify your people and share in revenue sure so we've actually and I appreciate it up by the way we've actually rebranded the state certification safe is a secure agent for everyone so for real estate agents or secure attorney for everyone we've added that to the CSI certification which is cyber social identity and personal protection so the rebranding of that occurred about six or so months ago to place you know understood cyber social identity and personal protection more than just the safe search anyways what that is is we will go into basically any business any industry we work a lot in the real estate industry lot in the finance industry but you know as you know right now manufacturing and automotive and construction are really really high on hackers radar right now due to the fact that they all those industries why are a lot of money and so will do is it will present at one of the industry conferences at a company and we will certify those on the inside of the organization on cyber social and any in personal protection on essentially what it is that they need to make sure the data in which they are entrusted with whether it's theirs their families their clients information of course that we we educate them on the fundamentals a lot of the stuff that both you and I talked to you know knowing that you know it begins with you as an individual like if you don't have a credit freeze if you don't know what to look for in regards to a phishing email if you are not engaged in things like identity theft protection and or credit monitoring right if you if you're not paying for antivirus like if you have two free antivirus you don't have a full suite of protection you're just you know hoping that everything is going to be updated properly if you are not updating your operating system and all of your various software if you're not using a VPN when you're on free Wi-Fi all the basic stuff and of course that's cyber and in social is online reputation management right husted a huge I mean it's one thing to hope you are you know having ice cream with the family but it's another thing to say you're an uncle poco and you've got your toes dug in the sand and you're having a margarita and you're you know thousand you from your house and you're opening your home up to burglars and it's a whole nother thing when you are you know talking bad about the current administered romping f-bombs or saying bad things about you know your you know the the general public or wherever you're swearing that's reputation and that can damage you and your business and your family or if your kids are talking about stuff like that or they're posting that they're gonna you know drop a bomb at school and listen Ally there's all these things that people are just saying in online that are so inappropriate but are also putting their family their businesses at risk so cyber social identity and personal protection obviously you know violence and theft prevention both in the physical and virtual world so our certification usually it's about a five or six hour of full day courts where we certify everybody we give them everything that they need to know in the physical and virtual worlds to make sure that going forward they know you know how to protect themselves and how to protect the businesses in which you know whether they are the the CEO or a company officer frontline employee so it's essential today that people have this basic training that you and I provide and if they're not getting that if they're not getting just the basics they just keep in there they just cross their fingers and hope doesn't happen to them or the functioning in a state of denial and we open their eyes up to what's going on out there and we provide them perspective and say listen the chance of something bad happening to you is slim but there's a chance and here are all the different things but I do about it and we go in every year and we give them a quick online test to make sure you have been paying attention that they are alert they know what their options are and you know we make them part of our team so to speak right so that they can't confirm ation that people like you and I are communicating to others because you have these uh these elearning courses as well on the site here you have a cyber wellness and information security which is all about you know data theft prevention and some things that people don't even realize is you know they all talk about phishing attacks well what about the phone call that precedes that right where you get a phone call from somebody who's done their due diligence and they've looked at the company website and you've got your board of directors all listed on there and they call up the secretary and they say hey you know Joe from the board just asked me did you know we're working on this big project together and um he needs some information right away I'm gonna send you an email can you please you know provide what I'm gonna request as soon as possible right yeah how the person's thinking okay they're dropping names a person on the board they must know what they're talking about five minutes later they get an email from the the criminal that's asking for whatever could be company financials could be something right and the person thinks really nothing of it unless they've been trained they've taken a course or they've learned that hey there are more than one way that these criminals can get in there and they don't have to use strictly high-tech electronic means they can use that combination of you know a phone call with an email and some other methods in order to perpetrate you know crimes and so it's something that has to be understood and all I mean you know we can't think of everything because the criminals are always you know trying to outsmart the security people right and our job is to keep figuring out ways to protect others from whatever the latest you know threat is right fishing spear fishing it's like every time you turn around is a new term right it's but this is great because there's all these different classes and courses you know identity theft obviously is a huge one we were just talking about social media security and you know your online reputation management and then here we go right cyber scams how to protect yourself from your business because you know what what are the different things that you have to look for and of course I love it the physical self defense side of it so very good very comprehensive and a lot of a lot of good stuff here so you recommend so these are courses that kind of supplement your speaking so after somebody says you know hey what's the next step you can say well go you know have you people sign up for my courses right yeah so we we provide the online on beyond the on-site and online training so you know obviously today people consuming media in a number of different ways I always suggest that if I'm gonna if anyone's gonna engage in awesome fees you know all the stuff that you and I speak to that you want to have me live you know we need to flesh this thing out we need to squash all the various cultural myths that people have developed or you know I've consumed over the course of their lives and it's always good
to have an expert you know again people like you and I that understand how this stuff works in and out and you can end it and the audience can ask all the questions you know get it all off their chest so that they really understand what's going on and they get a real live in-person perspective and then they're I always think it's important that you continue your education like anything else you know you want to be good at something you want to you know stay invested in it and so I I'm really proud of my courses about eight to ten hours there that you could consume over the course of a year and each course is like one to two hours and then from there we also offer fishing simulation training so our organization will come in will grab will work with your IT people will get all the email addresses of all your employees and what we will fish them over the course of a year you know at once every month or two and then if in fact somebody clicks the link in the buddy the email we follow up that that that breached so to speak with education to make sure that they know what to do next and you know you know you know embarrass anybody you know you just let them know subtly okay yeah you know what you did here like just so you're aware next time a lot around instead of clicking the link pick up the phone and call somebody because like you said spearfishing they pick up the phone they send up an email most fraud today that is highly successful that that ends up in big dollars the bad guys are doing all kinds of reconnaissance they're gathering intelligence the Gonia Facebook page they're going to your LinkedIn page they're looking at your website they're finding out who's in accounting who is it who's a company officer who's in HR and they gather as much intelligence as they possibly can they'll even create a LinkedIn profile based on the company that you are actually an employee of and look connect with you find an accreta a LinkedIn or a Facebook group about that company and before you know it you know we you know that we do business with those who we know who we like and who we trust and so if somebody is just like you if they're come if they're a fellow well you may not necessarily know them you don't have any reason not to like them but you've got to trust them if they're a co-worker right and so bad guys know this and that's how they make big dollars and once you understand a human hacking and social engineering and how bad guys go about getting gathering and getting all this information and how we are making it so easy for them you begin to understand what to look every time the phone rings and every time an email comes in you don't become paranoid because you know that's unnecessary or you know unproductive but you become aware yeah you're aware yeah and so and I I'm at the point where every single time the phone rings and every single time an email comes in I'm skeptical but I have a keen eye for what's okay and what's not okay much quicker than the average public most of us you know they are basically sitting ducks and as PT Barnum once said that you know there's a sucker born every minute right I'm gonna take it a step further I think there's a sucker in every single one of us like I think everybody can writ including me right it just has to be the right thing right at the right time for you to go oh yes I get an or a phone call from somebody posing as my daughter like if I get an email that looks like it's coming from my daughter and let's just say my daughter's email gets hacked and it's coming from her email address daddy I'm in a situation trouble I need help like I'm automatically gonna believe that that's coming from my daughter because it's my daughter like as soon as my daughter says I am in trouble daddy I'm gonna get emotional I'm gonna react I'm gonna rush you know I'm gonna be in a like bit of a panic mode but the smart person instead of reacting in responding would pick up the phone and make a call you know to my daughter to my wife like to find out if in fact is my daughter in a situation or either email get hacked it's a matter of stepping it back and not immediately responding and reacting and becoming emotional bad guys know if they truth just a little bit they get you yeah that that emotional knee-jerk reaction is that what a lot of them depend on because they know that they once they involve you emotionally you stop thinking rationally right like your your example you know if you think there's a problem with your child or your daughter it's like oh my god what's going on and you immediately want to want to react and see and make sure everything's okay your your first reaction is not is it a scam no it's your kid asking for help right it's that emotional sort of plea and the same thing happens in business it happens all over the place and social media is huge and people put so much information out like you said it's easy for them to pick and choose different things out of your posts that they know are going to elicit that trigger that emotional trigger that might cause you to act in a way that you normally wouldn't right you know you know you and I like we work to get the word out there right we have to convince people that they need information and why because people don't want to believe something's Bad's gonna happen until something bad happens like you probably already know that most home security systems are installed after a house is broken into right right and because people react opposed to being proactive and it's all about being proactive you know and so we spent all of our energy and effort doing this and the bad guy do the exact same thing but they're doing it nefariously like they are spending the same energy and effort to look for their victims to convince them that to do to socially engineer them so so to con them con them write using gathered intelligence in order to to click that link to provide that sensitive information over the phone they'll walk up to your home and they'll they'll jiggle the doorknob to see if in fact your doors or there has a doorbell first they do all their intelligence you and I work you know professionally trying to prevent these things from happen and on the other end you know we're fighting evil the bad guys are trying to skirt all the different things that we talk about and unless consumers have some basic understanding of basic how this stuff works it's just a matter of time to become a victim so let's look at in terms of specifics so in terms of identity theft cuz that's a big one and I think it's probably one that in my opinion is probably one of them the most dangerous and also one of the most common threats that exist because people are looking for easy victims right I mean identity theft well online our lives are digital what are some of the best practices in your experience that you've come across that you recommend to people that they should do when securing their identity I know you have so you have a book here and I'm sure you know you've got some great stuff in there but pick your brain a little bit on that so as you know you know identity theft depending on what kind of identity talking about depending on who's you know discuss who's marketing whatever product identity theft can mean a lot of different things right fundamentally when I consider identity theft is what's called new account fraud a new account fraud is when bad guys open up new lines of credit under your name when they use your social security number as that marker as that that's that nine digit identifier to open up new lines of credit under your name and that's been around since the 30s but it's really primarily been abused since the late 80s right so with your social security number people can pose as you they open up credit cards get loans and so forth so the best thing to do now to protect your identity from new account fraud where you know banking social to fill an application for a loan for credit card from a mobile phone account online in person whatever is to get a credit freeze like a credit freeze has been around since May of 2008 it's been around for twelve years and I have had my credit frozen since February of 2008 and a credit freeze is free but it's been free since September of 2018 and you can freeze your credit right now at TransUnion Equifax and Experian and the fullest credit bureau is called in ovis and once your is frozen the bad guy cannot open up new lines of credit under your name your credit and like you have control now and when you want to get a line of credit when you want to apply for a loan you go online and temporarily unfreeze your credit which is easy enough to do give a dashboard you know you have an account at the four credit bureaus you log in you log out you have control over when it's frozen and when it's thawed temporarily a credit freeze will protect you from new account fraud and then there's a count takeover and it can take over a credit freeze won't protect you from so I can't take over might be like your bank account or your existing credit cards you have to monitor your credit cards you have to monitor the transactions on your credit card statements either every month you pay close attention to each charge or the best way is by using push alerts or push notifications so every single time you have a charge in your card or your bank account right you get a text message or an email so every single time my wife and I we share all of our courage every single time she swipes the card I get a text message which I love yes she can buy whatever she wants you know but like if I see a charge for you know 199 dollars of Sally Beauty right I'd send him my wife a text and say hey was that you she's like yes it's me leave me alone I'm busy I know it's her which I'm fine with I just want to know was her and we got a couple of notifications of a month and a half ago that were there were two charges at Whole Foods now I still a small charge is the only like seventeen and eighteen dollars but it was at seven o'clock in the morning and she was already in the car with the kids on the way to school and I said I called her and said listen are you at home food she's like no I'm like did you buy anything online and hold for just like no I go long ago I send her home food she's like two months ago I'm like really so I called American Express and told them and they were like well this is fraud so the charges off of our card now I think I'm pretty positive that if I did not get those push notifications and see those charges at you know seven o'clock in the morning they I don't know if I would have refuted those charges you know I don't even know if I would have asked my wife about it because we go to Whole Foods but the fact that was at 7 a.m. was odd to me so spokes notifications are great that's another way to protect yourself from identity theft account takeover and of course as you know you're gonna have a different password for all of your accounts you can't have the same password twice you know password reuse so bad these days because we the worse it's probably the worst thing people do it's difficult to me and people are so lazy in less than 10% of the general population actually has what's called the password manager so I'm sure you have a password manager right well do you have a password manager I have used them I typically keep all my passwords in a database on my computer and we need to go to somewhere I don't save any passwords online like in any website says do you want to save your password I never do I got two eyes into my contact management program I pull up the vendor I copy my face my password out of it or I retype it in and I get in that way because I won't leave any of that stuff you know saved it's too easy if somebody would hack into I just start going places and logging in right changing addresses changing accounts buying stuff whatever in a cryptid excel file like you have or a password manager and I know a lot of people are concerned about password man security of them and what if the power manage because it gets hacked I'm not so worried about that because you know password manager companies or security companies you know they have military-grade bank level security the likelihood of a password manager getting hacked where the data is in plaintext and so forth is unlikely you know the low-hanging fruit really is you know people using the same password across multiple accounts and with billions and billions of Records being stolen like at this point we're like around 30 billion records stolen in the past ten years like in the past five years like 20-plus billion records stolen and that means your names often email addresses and their associated passwords are in the criminals like the bad guys have your user names and they have your passwords all they've got to do is grab the data that's been stolen is to log in to your accounts and if you're using the same password across multiple accounts they just use those credentials at the top you know 500 critical websites using a process called credential stuffing and credential stuffing is when they use automated software to log into all those critical accounts known information usernames and passwords that are out there you know stolen it Ystad online so protecting yourself from new account fraud identity theft protection credit freezes account takeover monitoring your statements getting push notifications and changing up your past and of course basic data security you know antivirus and misfiring into fishing a firewall updating a software and so forth those are the fundamentals not engaging at all and all of those things put you at a higher risk you are the low-hanging fruit yeah don't make yourself an easy target or an easy victim you know they change the passwords I mean I did I argue with clients cuz I have a lot of clients that they don't want to have long complicated passwords and I said look the the secret is not necessarily that it's really complicated the secret is you got to make it long once you get a beyond 10 or 12 characters it doesn't have to be as complicated it can be easy to remember because most of the companies that are out there trying to hack accounts if they know the password is greater than 8 or 10 characters long they're not even gonna waste of time trying to crack it because the software would take too long it's not viable from them from a time and a return standpoint so I tell people make them like at least 12 characters and long pick a phrase right it doesn't have to be let you know F dollar sign % p 0 you know you have to do go crazy with it but you can make a phrase you know like you know if you if you like the beach you could make your password some variation of I love the beach right without making it I love the beach you make it yeah you know beach I love and then maybe a year and you put a couple of characters in between the words right so you can do things like that that make your passwords really long you know 15 characters long they're not gonna get cracked it would take too long by the time that software gets out to about eight or nine or ten characters like man it's still go and forget it and it's gonna go to to the next one yeah I'm gonna take it up a level I don't even know what my passwords are like I don't know my passwords my password manager knows my passwords and my passwords are created by my password manager which are often uppercase lowercase numbers and characters and they usually anywhere from you know 12 to 18 characters and the password manager automatically plugs them in so I don't know my mother's phone number I don't know my dad's phone number like my dad's will fall my dad's phone number is dad you know hey Dad I said my mother's phone number is mom like I don't need to remember phone numbers anymore I don't need to remember passwords anymore so between you know the mobile phone and the contact manager and the password manager remembering my passwords you don't need to remember that stuff anymore and uppercase lowercase numbers characters phrases you know with uppercase or lowercase that's all great but with the right tool like you have you know copying and pasting you don't need to know this stuff any longer and people understand that that they don't have to even be burden
d by creating a password I think the easier you make security for people that the more apt they are to adopt it candolyn yeah and so you know again password manager copying and pasting with secure passwords like that really you have to make things as easy as possible for the consumer or they just gonna run the opposite direction people have given up on passwords that I have an access to a tool that will tell me how many people are using one two three four five six as a password there's like 25 million people out there using one two three four five six as a password it's just ridiculous limitless yeah that's scary and you know and that's where the hackers and the bad guys they salivate they go let me I'm gonna get into X number of accounts today you know and then they can parse through them and figure out which ones are worth going in and stealing the you know they have the decent bank account balances right exactly you know it's a you're right though the simpler we make the technology behind safety and security the more prone people are gonna be to use it and the better secured they're going to be I uh I was at the the ISC west and ISC East's security conferences this year ICS was just in November in New York and I see West who is last April in in Vegas and I'll tell you the changes and the advances in the safety and security industry with regard to technology are mind-blowing because so much stuff is becoming integrated all of these systems now are talking together and that's one of the big goals of the industry is how do we work together how do we make things simple how do we secure it but how do we make it so that people don't have to have like you know eight different dashboards you know one for their access control and one for their video and one for this and what you know and they have all of these different systems when they become integrated now you've got one main sort of interface that you can use to manage that stuff and so it goes from the individual keeping things as simple as possible so that they're going to use the appropriate level of security you know for their situation all the way up to the biggest corporation and how they can secure themselves utilizing the technology that's available and doing it in a way also that they don't have to spend hours and hours and hours learning how something works or worse yet figuring out multiple systems and now you're bouncing from one to another to another what are you gonna do you're gonna get lazy you're not gonna do your due diligence right utilize the technology the way it's designed you're gonna find shortcuts because it's going to be cumbersome and and so it starts to fall apart so I think what you say Robert about the simplicity of it is really that really is key and keeping it simple so that it gets used and people are already kept secure yes sir fatigue is a real thing it's a real problem and you know for security managers and employees alike and so if you teach people make them aware of security on the fundamental levels and you don't instill any fare and provide them with you know security appreciation training the way they begin to appreciate the value in which security provides in both the personal and professional lives you make them much more you know understand in you know where they will engage more comfortably and not be in fear of it or paranoid which is useless right and and as we discussed it's you're not paranoid when you're prepared you're your exact opposite you are confident you are informed you are aware and you don't you don't fear things because you know you've taken the appropriate measures you know those measures are in place you know they're set up correctly they're configured correctly you understand them and you use them and that's the that's the name of the game because we have to do everything that we can to outsmart the bad guys and to make their job hard don't make their job easy for him like a one two three four five six password right you've got to make it so that you've got to really I think approach it as if your life depends on it because in many cases it does right it may not mean necessarily that you're gonna die but if your identity is stolen somebody is gonna screw up your life probably for the foreseeable future maybe not forever but for a heck of a long time because if you've talked to people that have had their identity stolen and I'm sure you have as I bye it's a nightmare they work at it for years trying to get things resolved and sometimes things are never resolved it's it's very very disheartening and and sad to see that happen to someone yeah so if anybody is you know all those that um you know listening watching that if you don't have a minimum a credit freeze right within 72 hours of consuming this show then you're just a functioning in a state of denial you just don't think it can happen to me like that is it is not okay to be lazy in this regard identity theft today is inevitable and I saw a statistic very recently talk info second Forrester had interviewed you know several hundred companies and 63% of IT managers believed that within the next year that their businesses were going to be hacked right and I thought about that and how scary that was and what I didn't like about it is that you know 63% were already accepting the fact that they were gonna be victims of some type of a hack and if you sat back in 63 out of a hundred people say well I think that my home was being broken into in the next year I'd be out of my mind like I would like I would do anything and everything I could to make sure that that didn't but to me if 63 people out of 100 thought that my identities gonna be stolen the next year I would be doing something about it you know the fact that many people have just resigned to be victimized is just crazy to me but you know because of security fatigue and because you know there's so much fraud out there people have just thrown their hands up in the air and given up and that is not okay our critical infrastructures depend upon consumers in small businesses in corporations and governments doing their part look if the grid goes down for a week right we will not know what to do as a culture as a society if there's no food if there's no official gas if there's a little if there's a little no electricity that means there's no gas if there's no gas there's no water if there's no no electricity there's no food so you know we have to engage we have to know our options we have to be informed not being so is is not taking responsibility for your place in our culture or in our society no absolutely and it's we live in a very fragile society because of our dependence on technology and if that technology ceases to function in the way it was designed for any extended period of time there is going to be a major major problem anywhere that occurs and if it happens in this country as we all know I mean you and I both know many other people do the infrastructure that runs basically this country in terms of the electrical grid of which you know all of our financial transactions everything break your money like you're in your house in a box it's in a numbers in a bank account online and when you're doing all these and zeros its ones and zeros and when these transactions all take place online they have to do so with electricity if electricity prevents you now because it's not working you can't go to an ATM and withdraw cash you can't pump alike you pick can't pump gas out of the ground you can't do all the things that you're that you're used to doing it falls apart and so a on a smaller level that individual and we kind of started with this we've kind of come full circle is the individual responsibility of each person to do as much as they can to protect not only themselves but the people around them the companies they work for the other people that they interact with and even the institution's they interact with you know whether it's a financial institution or investing or utilities or what-have-you it's our responsibility to make sure that we are doing as much as humanly possible to secure ourselves our systems our computers our identities our physical being from any sort of threat and to do that we make the whole more secure yes and that is really what I think a lot of people have to understand that don't think what about what is is my little you know attempts doing to secure things well your attempt and my attempt the mayor attempt and everybody's attempt all elevates everyone's level of security and safety yeah you're either part of the problem or part of the solution it's one of the other right exactly so I yeah we cranked through that our day Robert I appreciate coming on the if people are interested in learning more about you our listeners can go to your your website I mentioned earlier safer dot me safr dot me you've got information on you know different education and services and information about you and where you've been in the media including here and you can learn about you you're also social media right Facebook and Twitter they can search for your name yeah I just Google am all over the place Robert Siciliano I own the first there's only like five or six of us and I own the first page of search and pretty much the first second a couple pages of search and I do a lot of news media TV maybe 10 12 14 times a year at this point and I'm talking to journalists at least you know once or twice a week and so you know Google me you'll find me feel free to touch base any time I'm here to help I've had serve that's awesome you have any last thoughts for our audience before you go yeah you know the this is great I love what you're doing here you know the more people consume this type of information the more aware they become you know being proactive like either fail to plan a plan to fail right or you you you you either you know fail to plan or you plan to pay alright so at this point you're gonna pay if you don't plan and that means paying with your time and your money and even with your with your life if you are not putting systems in place yeah so you have to prepare before you have a need for that as I said before you know the time to prepare is before the need arises it has to be in every aspect of your life and where you are both in the digital world and the physical world educate yourself look up Robert see what he can do for you as an individual and for your business and we really appreciate you coming on today so uh thanks again and until next day everybody we'll we'll see you soon listening for other episodes you can always visit safety talk podcast calm or look us up on YouTube all of our links are on our website until next time stay safe you
