OSF - 2.10 - scams - pay attention!
Yes, I know. Some of you are getting bored with this, and thinking that this is awfully simplistic, and you don't need to be told these simple things about keeping yourself safe.
Yes, I know. This is more a reminder than presenting you with anything startling and you. Please, pay attention. Please, please, please.
When I first started giving these presentations, here in town, in fact, in the very first seminar that I presented on this topic, somebody showed up who I already knew. In fact, I had worked with and helped him out with one of his own projects. And, when I had finished the presentation, he was kind enough to give me some feedback on the presentation, and tell me that he wasn't impressed. He was an intelligent person, who had run his own business, and he did not need to be told that scammers use social engineering, and try to instill a sense of urgency in you, and that it was never a good idea to buy a bunch of gift cards, and read the numbers to somebody over the phone. He did admit that, possibly, there were others in the audience who were less intelligent than he was, and who didn't know these things, and so he did admit that I probably did have to speak to the lowest common denominator. But he wasn't impressed.
About five months later, I got a call from him. (In the middle of a family dinner, as it happened.) He, rather frantically, told me that someone had called up, and using various social engineering tricks, had instilled in him a sense of urgency, and had convinced him to go and buy a bunch of gift cards and read the numbers over the phone. He now wanted to know how to get his money back.
As I have previously pointed out, this is impossible.
More importantly, yes, security very often sounds simple. Security very often consists more of reminding people, than informing them of anything new and startling. Please be advised. Pay attention to this stuff, anyway. Your friends and neighbors are being scammed, hoodwinked, defrauded, and stolen from. And probably all of them thought that this stuff was boring and simple, too.
As I noted, you may think that social engineering is just a fancy way of saying "lying." In regard to scams, that is probably true. But social engineering is actually a complicated field, which has legitimate uses in all kinds of areas. I'm a teacher, and we use it in education. (I worked with another instructor who had a habit of cycling through a series of changes in tone of voice, tempo of presentation, and emotional presentation, that had nothing to do with the topics he was actually presenting. He just used it to keep students from falling asleep.) Social engineering is based on areas of psychology, and there is a legitimate billion dollar industry based on its use. It's called advertising. (No, I'm not going to argue with you if you want to say that advertising isn't a legitimate business. But it's not illegal.) Huge amounts of money go into studies of how to get people to react the way you want them to. Think of politicians you don't like. How do you think they get people to support them?
In the case of scammers on the phone, some of them are really good at it, and may be specialists. However, it is more likely that the person you are talking to on the phone has been given a script that has been prepared by a specialist in social engineering, and the script has been designed to get the majority of people to fall for it. Like I said, a bit later we are going to talk about the organizations behind these scams. They use social engineering to make money. They've made a lot of money because they are very good at it.
Be prepared.
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/02/online-scams-frauds-and-other-attacks.html
Next: TBA
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