A New Video from SCARS! A SCARS Insight Interview
The World Of Cybercriminals & Scams Is Not What Many Tell You About
It is a world of both professionals and services that allow almost anyone to become a cybercriminal with ease.
Hear about this world as SCARS’ Managing Director Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. talks with Brett Johnson former cybercriminals and now an Advisor to the FBI and SCARS.
This exclusive SCARS video is presented unedited, recorded on November 19, 2021.
To learn more about SCARS is www.AgainstScams.org
To learn more about Brett Johnson visit www.AnglerPhish.com
Video Transcript
Please Note: This transcript was generated by speech to text software and may contain errors. We apologize in advance for any errors.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Welcome everyone this is Doctor Tim McGuinness.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I’m the managing director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams, Scars, Scars is a crime, victims Assistance and Crime Prevention Organization based in Miami, FL.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Yeah, we are a former partner of the Department of Homeland Security.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We’re registered with the Department of Justice as a crime victims assistance provider.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We provide direct services and support for scam victims, victims of cyber crime and relationship scams worldwide.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
With our partners in over 60 countries worldwide and through our own direct support infrastructure, I want to thank everyone for joining us today on this conversation.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
With Brett Johnson, the original Internet godfather, and I’m going to let him tell a little bit of that story.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I know he’s probably sick.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
To death of telling that.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But I’m gonna let him introduce himself so Brett, tell me just briefly ’cause we want to get into a a solid conversation that I’ve heard you tell in pieces so many other places tell us a little bit about who you are, what your background is.
Brett Johnson
OK.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And before we begin, you’re a good guy.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And have seen the light and we’re so grateful and appreciative for you.
Brett Johnson
Tim, I appreciate that I’m not sure that I really appreciate you saying I’m a good guy.
Brett Johnson
I don’t really view myself as a good guy.
Brett Johnson
I view myself as a better guy than I used to be and and why.
Brett Johnson
Well the Secret Service called me the original Internet godfather and that’s a title.
Brett Johnson
Yeah, it’s a title and and you’re right, I’ve told that.
Brett Johnson
Story a lot of times.
Brett Johnson
The way I got the title was 39 felonies because 38 felonies wasn’t enough, so 39 felonies I was placed on the United States most wanted list. They sent me to prison. I escaped from prison.
Brett Johnson
All that and the big thing as if those things weren’t big enough.
Brett Johnson
The big thing is, is I built and ran the first organized cyber crime community.
Brett Johnson
It was called Shadowcrew as a precursor to today’s darknet and darknet markets, laid the foundation for the way modern cyber crime channels operate today, the 39 felonies? Well they had to do with refining modern.
Brett Johnson
Financial cyber crime.
Brett Johnson
So if you.
Brett Johnson
Look at the way cyber crime operates so that it’s it’s if you got ATO’s account takeovers, credit card theft, phishing scheme, stimulus fraud, synthetic fraud, you name the type of cyber crimes going on online that steals money.
Brett Johnson
I was the guy who helped develop.
Brett Johnson
A lot of it.
Brett Johnson
Of course I went to prison.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
You know, of course I did.
Brett Johnson
That that writing was on the wall since I was ten years old, but.
Brett Johnson
The interesting thing.
Brett Johnson
And it’s something that I’m still coming to terms with these days.
Brett Johnson
Is that usually that’s where the story ends.
Brett Johnson
Usually you serve your time, criminal gets out a lot of criminals.
Brett Johnson
They they want to do the right thing, but they go right back into crime again for various reasons.
Brett Johnson
I’m very fortunate.
Brett Johnson
I had my sister.
Brett Johnson
I had my wife Michelle and then finally the FBI kind of gave me the opportunity to turn my life around.
Brett Johnson
I was a lifetime brittle lifetime frame and.
Brett Johnson
I was given this opportunity and I chose to take that path and I lead a very blessed life.
Brett Johnson
These days I really don’t.
Brett Johnson
I don’t think I deserve the life that I have.
Brett Johnson
But I’m very grateful for it, so that’s why I’m able to talk to you today and and I really take it seriously about protecting people against the type of person that I used to be.
Brett Johnson
And that’s that’s what I do these days is that.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It’s ironic because about 20 years ago is when I started to get more serious.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Helping to educate victims about cyber crimes.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
While at the same time I had just completed a project to reinvent the way pharmaceutical clinical trials were conducted worldwide, and actually with a friend of mine.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Start a a business.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
To help and create reentry programs.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Or federal convicts?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
So have quite a bit of familiarity about what that process looks.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It’s difficult, it can be.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It’s extraordinarily difficult for individuals to go through the system and come out not only sane and and stable, but but prosperous and you’re to be absolutely commended for that.
Brett Johnson
I appreciate it before we really get into, you know the cyber crime.
Brett Johnson
Discussion just to just to say.
Brett Johnson
A word about that.
Brett Johnson
I served 7 1/2 years in prison and during that time in prison you know I went through several different prisons saw and was associated with thousands of different inmates on the compounds over.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Even escaped from 1.
Brett Johnson
There even escaped from one and what I saw was is we had this most society has this perception that felons or convicts are these.
Brett Johnson
Sociopaths that they don’t care?
Brett Johnson
That’s really not true. Most criminals are not sociopaths during all. My time in prison, 7 1/2 years, I met maybe two real true sociopaths.
Brett Johnson
Most guys that are in there, just they’ve made a bad bad life choices, usually a string of them, and they’re in prison.
Brett Johnson
They’re just wanting to do their time, get out and do the right thing so they really have hope.
Brett Johnson
When they’re released, they’re going to be able to live a legal life.
Brett Johnson
The problem is, and you know this with these reentry programs.
Brett Johnson
The problem is is you’re released from prison with the exact same tools with which you.
Brett Johnson
And unless you have help from someone, unless someone actually reaches out and and helps you if you have, you need that support group.
Brett Johnson
You need people giving that that helping hand which let’s be honest, you don’t owe a criminal anything, nothing and a criminal can never repay you.
Right?
Brett Johnson
The people who helped me.
Brett Johnson
There’s no way in us on this planet that I could ever repay what they did for me, but.
Brett Johnson
It’s it’s that it’s that idea of helping somebody.
Brett Johnson
It takes that to really turn your life around, and without that I’m I’m convinced that I would be back in prison right now convinced of it, indeed.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Indeed, and and I have no answers ultimately for for what needs to be done to improve the situation.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I do think that just on that topic for a moment, you think that society does need to understand.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The difference between violence and non violent crimes now on that topic in a sense I actually view cyber crimes as violence.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I don’t view them as victimless purely financial crimes.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
They are an act of violence and the reason that I say that is when we.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Care for victims which our organization does. We’ve had a little under 12,000 individuals go through our support group programs and we’ve supported over the last six years a little over 7,000,000 scam victims through our publications and educational materials and provided them with information.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
So that they can recover.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
From this process.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
What we find is that they are profoundly traumatized their child, their lives have changed forever.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Almost exactly the same as a victim of violence.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
So I I tend to view.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And this is no.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
This version on you, but I tend to view.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Crimes that have a significant and tangible impact.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
A traumatic impact on a victim as being crimes of violence.
Brett Johnson
I can understand that I can and and you you said no, not to not to direct it at me.
Brett Johnson
But let’s be fair.
Brett Johnson
I did that stuff for years.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Yeah, right?
Brett Johnson
I hurt and harmed people and and the the damage that I did was more than just online.
Brett Johnson
Alright, it’s not just online.
Brett Johnson
You have to.
Brett Johnson
People tend to think.
Brett Johnson
When I was a criminal, I thought the same thing.
Brett Johnson
You know, I lived in the online world where I’m a really bad guy and in the quote unquote the real world.
Brett Johnson
I’m a good guy.
Brett Johnson
No, I was never a good guy and the damage that I did was never just.
Brett Johnson
Online you you do.
Brett Johnson
You know you help victims of romance.
Brett Johnson
There’s nothing worse than someone who is looking for companionship, friendship or romance.
Brett Johnson
That they think they have it.
Brett Johnson
They put their entire heart.
Brett Johnson
They’re being into it.
Brett Johnson
They’re they open up to this individual, only to find out at the end of the day that this individual was not only lying the entire time, but manipulating them into giving them their life savings, losing their house, losing every single thing they’ve got.
Brett Johnson
Yeah, that’s that’s traumatic.
Brett Johnson
And that’s more than.
Brett Johnson
Just an online crime.
Brett Johnson
I agree completely with you on that.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
You know, it’s interesting from a.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Societal point of view.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We have a similar parallel in.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Drunk driving and societal perception of drunk driving.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
So Theorganization Madhu we look up.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We look up too greatly, both as a model for the development of our own organization and the struggles that they went through over their 30 almost 30 year history.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Uh, as a parallel to our own in.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Still to this day.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
There is this tendency for people to look at con artists.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Likable sympathetic characters.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Just think of the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Steve Martin.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It’s a funny movie there, con men, and they’re taking people for their life savings, but it’s a funny movie, right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Not a funny circumstance and yet we treat it that way.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And quite honestly, you’re a very likable, personable person.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Which helps support you so you found a way of of of capitalizing for lack of a better term on your strengths and your assets in positive productive ways and and that is to be applauded.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But society as a whole needs to change its.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Perspective and view these crimes.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
For the violence that they are, because recently we saw an example where there was the first recorded murder by ransomware.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And cyber crimes will increasingly become profoundly dangerous.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The hack of the of the colonial pipeline could have had disastrous results as we saw not so many years ago in the Southeast, where there was a.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Well, it wasn’t.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It wasn’t a mechanical problem, it was a command and control problem that led to the explosion of a pipeline that devastated an entire suburban neighborhood where the entire neighborhood blew up.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
So playing with infrastructure.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
More serious directed cyber crimes and infrastructure can be catastrophic, and I understand.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
This current administration’s total and complete focus on infrastructure. Sadly, this administration gave up their focus on individual victims.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We had made great progress under the previous administration.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I had the pleasure of meeting with the President the previous.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
President, both prior to his election and after his election to explore these issues, and.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Laws or major executive orders significant focus by the Department of Homeland Security, all of which have essentially been either D accentuated defocused or just overturned and and pulled away.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But really what I wanted to get into was not politics.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
What I?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Wanted to give.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Was to really tap into because I sat in on a uh presentation, a webinar that you participated in recently with one of our partnersaboutfraud.com. The about fraud group and one of their other partners.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I think it was more of a commercial for the partner who offers services then really a deeper delving into the complexities of cyber crime as it actually functions and I really wanted to go into that deeply and unfortunately they weren’t doing Q&A’s to speak.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
About but
Brett Johnson
Right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
You know there there is this continuing perception, and partly this is based upon.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
This unique phenomenon that we find ourselves in and it exists in many other topical areas but uniquely in in cyber crimes, particularly scams.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
That victims have this tendency to believe that because they were a victim, they’re now an instant expert in cyber crime.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Victimology victimization and they have no clue right.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Our organization is very trauma informed.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Our team carries certifications and extensive training in understanding and the application.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Modern trauma in the support that we provide to victims. Additionally, I myself am a 30 year veteran in educating about cyber crimes since 1991. Back in the old AOL and CompuServe days.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
So there is this perception.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
These urban legends, these falsehoods, this misinformation, that continues to be spread.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
While I’m not necessarily faulting.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Individuals for wanting to participate the problem is victims are not experts in the crimes that they suffered from.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Cyber crime has grown incredibly complex over the last few years.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It’s not a bunch of ganian.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Citizens sitting around on a floor. 20 guys with bunk beds and some of the old photos that we saw from the early 2000s. These are very sophisticated cyber criminals that operate in corporate structures.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Uh, we know of groups around the world in in Kuala Lumpur in China and in Nigeria and elsewhere where they work in office buildings there.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Some of them are converted call centers, some of them are active call centers, where in the one hand they’re doing medical transcriptions, and in another part of the same floor.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
They’re doing romance and Macau and investment scams and the like.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Uhm myself and another one of our scars directors, Debbie Montgomery Johnson.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Who you know?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Uhm, we’re fortunate enough to assist the National Geographic, and they’re reporting on this topic a while back.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
In fact, that episode is supposed to air, I believe, within the next 30 days.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But one of the things that.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Very self evident is the sophistication of these criminals.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
They went for example, down to Jamaica to delve into the world of Lotto scams, only to find.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
A significant portion of the country is dedicated to scamming, it’s right.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
In fact.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It may be the second largest industry in Jamaica.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And that’s the real challenge for governments around the world is.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It’s a multi trillion dollar a year industry.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It brings in hard currencies to third world countries.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And it’s difficult to turn off that spigot.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I’m going to shut up at this point in time and I want to hear your view so.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
So maybe talk a little bit about the evolution of cyber crime in various forms and few victims really understand.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The the world of the more pure.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Financial sides of this from financial account takeovers to to the world of credit card fraud in other forms of financial fraud which do victimize individuals all the way up to in cyber crime as a as a.
Brett Johnson
Right so.
Brett Johnson
Let’s let’s go back to a moment where you were talking about how friendly and how personable I am.
Brett Johnson
I am alright what a lot of people don’t don’t know is that I am extremely introverted as well.
Brett Johnson
Alright, so I I I fight being introverted by being overly extroverted.
Brett Johnson
Now that’s important.
Brett Johnson
Because I’m not the only criminal that’s like that all right?
Brett Johnson
For crime to succeed, 3 things have to take place.
Brett Johnson
You have to gather the data, which means you’re stealing PII or buying stolen PII, bank account numbers, credit card numbers.
Brett Johnson
It’s also the tools that you’re using.
Brett Johnson
It’s those spooked phone calls, proxy addresses, anything else that you might need to go to.
Brett Johnson
The next step, which is committing the crime.
Brett Johnson
All right, so you get the data.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Can you pull your?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Mic a little closer to you.
Brett Johnson
Sure, let’s let me turn it up a little bit here.
Brett Johnson
Just a second.
Brett Johnson
Is that better?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Yeah, ’cause you fade out when you.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Lean back.
Brett Johnson
Yeah so.
Brett Johnson
You’ve gathered you gather data, the data that you’ve gathered, which is a crime.
Brett Johnson
You use that to commit whatever crime you actually want to commit, save from a criminal perspective.
Brett Johnson
That’s just the gathering the data aspect, right? You know, you’re stealing someone’s PII. That’s not a person, that’s just data. That’s the only thing that is then he’s that is correct.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
PII personally identifiable information.
Brett Johnson
Right, socials dates of birth.
Brett Johnson
Whatever fools profile efls.
Brett Johnson
So if I’m if I’m creating a fools or buying a fools so I can buy someone complete identity profile online ready made for me.
Brett Johnson
For anywhere from $30 to about $130, depending on the credit score of the victim, the gender, and the location of the victim.
Brett Johnson
OK, when I say of fools, what I mean is, for that $30 I get your name, your social, your date of birth, address, mother maiden drivers license number.
Brett Johnson
Date of birth credit report background.
Brett Johnson
Check any social media lookups that might be of interest.
Brett Johnson
I get all of that for anywhere from 30.
Brett Johnson
To 130.
Brett Johnson
Bucks right now.
Brett Johnson
That’s just the gathering the data aspect.
Brett Johnson
Then I commit the crime with that so he locks student loan fraud, new account fraud, credit card fraud, whatever.
Brett Johnson
I want to do.
Brett Johnson
With that, finally the 3rd and most important aspect is putting cash in pocket.
Brett Johnson
I need to be able to convert that crime to literal cash in pocket, so if you look at a business email compromise where I’m.
Brett Johnson
Basically defrauding a payroll system on on a corporation, getting them to send a payment instead of where they usually send it to make ends into a bank account that I control.
Brett Johnson
I can easily commit book business email compromise. I can easily do that. I can easily talk a company into CSMS 3 or $4 million into a bank account that I control.
Brett Johnson
Does that mean that I’ve profited through $4 million? No, it doesn’t. I have to be able to get that cash out of the account, get it into my pocket. That becomes extremely.
Brett Johnson
Difficult, a lot of the time that tends to be the funnel with a lot of these crimes is the laundering mechanism.
Brett Johnson
How do I convert that crime into cash now?
Brett Johnson
The reason I say that and if you remember I I was talking about being personable.
Brett Johnson
For me to defraud a.
Brett Johnson
Victim, that’s an individual or an organization for me to do that, I have to get that potential victim to trust me.
Brett Johnson
So how do I do that?
Brett Johnson
How do I get an individual to trust me?
Brett Johnson
How do I get a corporation to trust me?
Brett Johnson
Well, I would argue that it’s a combination of technology tools.
Brett Johnson
And social engineering.
Brett Johnson
So we inherently trust the technology which is given to us.
Brett Johnson
We trust our cell phones.
Brett Johnson
We trust our laptops.
Brett Johnson
We trust the websites we go to.
Brett Johnson
We trust Amazon to ship us those items.
Brett Johnson
We trust eBay not to send us.
Brett Johnson
Some sort of counterfeit good.
Brett Johnson
It’s interesting when you think about it, but we trust Amazon even though 80% of all the reviews on Amazon are fake, we still trust them. Now I know 80% of those reviews are fake. I still read the reviews.
Brett Johnson
In order to know which sellers to go to, so it’s weird that there’s this weird relationship where we trust the technology, even though even though a part of us realizes that you know there’s some stuff wrong with that.
Brett Johnson
That’s the problem with fake news.
Brett Johnson
We trust the news that comes across the line without ever really verifying it well, we don’t understand.
Brett Johnson
Is that criminals use a variety of tools to manipulate that technology.
Brett Johnson
They use a spoof phone number, so it’s very easy to instead of seeing the phone number that I’m calling from, I can make it look like your financial organization, the IRS, the SSA, some group like that.
Brett Johnson
I can use as a proxy address so that instead of it showing that.
Brett Johnson
My physical location is in Ghana, Nigeria, the UK, Florida.
Brett Johnson
I can make it look like I’m in New York, South America, wherever I want it to look like.
Brett Johnson
So I use technology.
Brett Johnson
Is there?
Brett Johnson
I use the tools to manipulate the technology that lays a base level of trust.
Brett Johnson
That’s the only thing it does.
Brett Johnson
You mentioned personable and friendly.
Brett Johnson
Here’s where this really kicks in.
Brett Johnson
At that point, once that base level is established, you see the phone number coming across of the Social Security Administration.
Brett Johnson
That’s a base level of trust.
Brett Johnson
If I were to call in, you pick up the phone.
Brett Johnson
You see that on the caller ID, that it’s the SSA and you immediately hear some guy on the other end.
Brett Johnson
Saying hey yes this is.
Speaker 3
A bladimir and I’m looking you have warrant for your arrest.
Speaker 3
On Social Security number I need you to go down and get $30,000 worth of gift cards.
Brett Johnson
Probably hopefully you don’t believe that why, even though the number says I’m calling from the Social Security Administration, why don’t you believe it?
Brett Johnson
Because I’ve not built enough trust with you yet, right?
Brett Johnson
So technology and tools lays a base level of trust and then social engineering kicks in.
Brett Johnson
We get to see how good the liar had a con man had good with.
Brett Johnson
Social engineer that criminal is in order to manipulate manipulate you into information, access data, or cash so that personable, friendly stuff that you talked about.
Brett Johnson
That’s that’s really important.
Brett Johnson
You know the media.
Brett Johnson
Portrays like you said, Steve Martin as this rotten dirty rotten scoundrel.
Brett Johnson
Real fun to watch.
Brett Johnson
I mean, it’s a it’s a great film.
Brett Johnson
It’s a great film and most of these con movies you’ve got the sting.
Brett Johnson
You’ve got all these other movies that are out there where we really like the bad guy and there’s a there’s an essence of truth there.
Brett Johnson
There’s this little nugget of truth.
Brett Johnson
That hey, we are personable.
Brett Johnson
We are extremely engaged and we are friendly but we use that.
Brett Johnson
We’re constantly manipulating constantly.
Brett Johnson
I am constantly reading the crowd all right I to this day I’m one of the best social engineers around.
Brett Johnson
And I am constantly reading people.
Brett Johnson
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
Brett Johnson
I know what these people are thinking and I know what it takes to manipulate these people everything else.
Brett Johnson
To this day I do that.
Brett Johnson
Back then, the difference is I use that to harm people, because if you can gauge what what really motivates an individual, you can talk that individual into doing whatever you want them to do, and that’s the way these scams.
Brett Johnson
Tend to operate, so yeah, we’re we’re extremely engaging.
Brett Johnson
We’re very friendly and everything else you.
Brett Johnson
The interesting thing that you mentioned to me.
Brett Johnson
Is the sophistication of the criminal.
Brett Johnson
I would take exception to that.
Brett Johnson
I would say they’re very good social engineers, but they’re not very sophisticated when it comes to computer crimes, but they don’t have to be all right.
Brett Johnson
So if you think if you think about it.
Brett Johnson
The statistic right now is that 90% of every single attack uses a known exploit. So zero day attacks really don’t matter.
Brett Johnson
What matters is that we’ve been told about doing this stuff for years, either as individuals or companies they’ve been preached at.
Brett Johnson
People have been.
Brett Johnson
Preached at for years you need to do this.
Brett Johnson
You need to do this.
Brett Johnson
You need to do this.
Brett Johnson
But they’ve not, and so that 90% today, 90% of every single attack uses a known exploit. For example, I talk to people all the time when I give a presentation to consumers.
Brett Johnson
The first thing out of the gate freeze your credit, freeze the credit, it stops all new account fraud. Credit freezes have been free since 2018. Today the percent of the population.
Brett Johnson
Has a credit freeze in place 12%.
Brett Johnson
It’s been free for three years. Only 12% of the population. Now it stops all new account fraud, but we’ve still only got 12% of everybody on the in the United States that have a credit freeze in place. That’s a problem. Same thing with passwords, I know.
Brett Johnson
I know that 80% of every single person uses the same password and login across multiple websites. I know that.
Brett Johnson
So if I know this kind of stuff, does.
Brett Johnson
That mean I’m a.
Brett Johnson
Sophisticated criminal, no.
Brett Johnson
That just simply means you’re not doing what you need to do the platform, the plant, the cybercrime platform is where the sophistication is.
Brett Johnson
So if you look at unemployment fraud, there were 16 year olds on Telegram stealing $60,000 a week.
Brett Johnson
Committing unemployment
Brett Johnson
Fraud now that 16 year old is not a computer computer genius, he’s not.
Brett Johnson
He’s not.
Brett Johnson
That’s plug and play at that point.
Brett Johnson
Any 16 year old could have done that if they were willing to engage in that type of crime.
Brett Johnson
Alright, the sophistication comes in a couple of different points.
Brett Johnson
First of all, the states had no security in place whatsoever.
Brett Johnson
They actually.
Brett Johnson
The Carers Act had actually taken away the security that was in place so there was no security in place with the states.
Brett Johnson
With PPP fraud.
Brett Johnson
Anything else like that at the same time the data was readily available.
Brett Johnson
So you can go to Robo, check commits a criminal website, it lists of Social Security numbers and dates of birth of 170 million Americans pre pandemic.
Brett Johnson
Those things sold for $2.90 apiece because of the pandemic. Those things sell today for $6.70 apiece, so that that’s that’s the problem with this.
Brett Johnson
Thing is, is the platform?
Brett Johnson
Is there a criminal?
Brett Johnson
Doesn’t have to know how to do anything.
Brett Johnson
He can simply get it done for.
Brett Johnson
For example, there’s a site called. Second I solution if you’re needing a fake driver’s license. So today if you’re setting up a bank account if you’re taking over an account, if you’re trying to verify an account, oftentimes they’ll want you to send.
Brett Johnson
A scan of.
Brett Johnson
Your drivers license so this site does that for you. For $30, they’ll they’ll make a scan of your drivers license. I’ll put some other guys.
Brett Johnson
Picture on it for you if they want you to take a selfie with it. If you’re trying to verify through a bank and the bank wants a selfie with the ID for $50, that this guy will take the selfie ID with.
Brett Johnson
You know it goes a little bit further than that if you’re trying to bypass one specific type of system, what second Eyes solution does you go to a screen and it says.
Brett Johnson
What are you trying to verify?
Brett Johnson
You’re trying to verify Coinbase or PayPal, or what system are you trying to get past?
Brett Johnson
You click the box and they design the product.
Brett Johnson
To get past.
Brett Johnson
That system, so now you’ve got a criminal that.
Brett Johnson
Doesn’t have to know how to create a fake ID.
Brett Johnson
Doesn’t have to know any type of security that’s on the system or how to bypass the system.
Brett Johnson
It’s done for them all the time, so the the criminals themselves are not really sophisticated. You do have some of those attackers out there like that, but 99%.
Brett Johnson
Now they’re just really good social engineers.
Brett Johnson
That’s what they are.
Brett Johnson
That’s the sophistication is in the platform, not the individual.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And I.
Brett Johnson
So I don’t know if that answered the question but partly.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I would argue that maybe the percentage is even less because the reality is when we’re talking about.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The West Africans for example.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Their liars to be sure, but they’re not particularly good at it, but they depend upon a less informed, more vulnerable audience.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
You know, we we talked about or you talked about.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Stranger Trust it’s it’s a bona fide.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Bias cognitive bias that exists within all humans.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We evolved to trust our fellow tribal members and when we consider ourselves part of a tribe from an anthropological point of view, we automatically offer our trust unless we have visual.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Auditory other sense clues that indicate the danger is present, then we will withdraw it, but you can walk up to any person on.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The street and.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Seven out of 10 times you can ask them for the password and they.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Will tell you.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We’ve demonstrated so can you talk a little bit about the mechanics of the outsourcing side?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
In other words, cyber crime as a service and how that’s functioning today.
Brett Johnson
Sure, so again, let’s go back to those three necessities of cyber crime, gathering data, committing crime, cashing out now a single criminal cannot do all three things.
Brett Johnson
He can do one thing.
Brett Johnson
Sometimes he could do.
Brett Johnson
Two, all three not going to happen, simply not going to happen.
Brett Johnson
And there’s two reasons for that.
Brett Johnson
The first reason is a skill gap.
Brett Johnson
That specific criminal simply can’t do one of those legs.
Brett Johnson
One of those three things alright, so he can’t gather data.
Brett Johnson
Maybe he doesn’t know how to do a phishing scheme.
Brett Johnson
Maybe he can’t launch a man in the middle attack or whatever that is that’s gathering that.
Brett Johnson
Type of data or that’s building that specific tool.
Brett Johnson
He doesn’t know how to manually spoof phone numbers or how to take over a router and set up a proxy address so he has to rely on somebody else to do that.
Brett Johnson
That service that cyber crime service.
Brett Johnson
You just mention.
Brett Johnson
That’s that leg there, but it’s also in the Commission of the crimes.
Brett Johnson
So nowadays retailers and merchants.
Brett Johnson
Are being hit ad nauseam with this thing called refund fraud right?
Brett Johnson
And basically the way it works is you order a Mac Book Pro or a laptop or what have you and you get it in and a crime bin happens where you get to keep the Mac.
Brett Johnson
Book and you get your money back.
Brett Johnson
Well, if you don’t know how to do that specific crime, guess what?
Brett Johnson
You can pay some guy 7 to 15% of whatever the order total is to do it for you.
Brett Johnson
So that’s that other leg, that’s that platform that’s there.
Brett Johnson
That platform of crime facilitates all this.
Brett Johnson
Cashing out.
Speaker 3
Some big one.
Brett Johnson
A big one because you’ve got to be able to put cash in pocket at the end of the day.
Brett Johnson
If you’re not profiting from the crime, why commit it?
Brett Johnson
A lot of people simply don’t know how to set up bank accounts.
Brett Johnson
They don’t know how to cash out a prepaid card properly or where to get prepaid cards or how to do gift card fraud or anything else like.
Brett Johnson
Yeah, so the first aspect of that is that skill gap.
Brett Johnson
We see that there’s there’s a gap where someone can’t do something, so they have to rely on some somebody else to do that.
Brett Johnson
Some service to do that?
Brett Johnson
That’s this platform that we’re talking about.
Brett Johnson
When I started with Shadowcrew, that platform was not in existence.
Brett Johnson
We built.
Brett Johnson
That from the ground up and the way you build that it’s this thing called trust, right?
Brett Johnson
You know we azuis good guys.
Brett Johnson
We trust our technology.
Brett Johnson
We trust the websites we trust where we’re going.
Brett Johnson
That’s why we’re online.
Brett Johnson
If we didn’t have that trust, believe you me we would not be online.
Brett Johnson
We trust where we’re going.
Brett Johnson
Criminals are the exact same way criminals have to trust their criminal associates.
Brett Johnson
If I’m buying product or services from another group, I have to be able to trust that.
Brett Johnson
The product and service works that I’m not buying it from a law enforcement agent that everything is going to work OK so I have to be able to trust that shadowcrew the group that I started.
Brett Johnson
Solved them, they gave a trust mechanism for criminals to use.
Brett Johnson
You have now and it’s it wasn’t like it was rocket science back then.
Brett Johnson
What we did is we launched a forum all right.
Brett Johnson
So now you had a large communication channel where people from different time zones could reference conversations, days, weeks, months old.
Brett Johnson
They could learn from them, take part in it.
Brett Johnson
They can look at someone screen name.
Brett Johnson
Determine the skill level of that person just by looking at the screen name.
Brett Johnson
We knew we had vouching systems in place, and when you voucher someone, what that basically means is I accept responsibility for who I say is good here, and I said this.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Sort of a dark web version of social media.
Brett Johnson
That’s exactly what that is.
Brett Johnson
That’s exactly what that is, it’s it’s.
Brett Johnson
A take on.
Brett Johnson
The old mafia.
Brett Johnson
I vouch for this guy.
Brett Johnson
Well, when you vouch for somebody, if he rips somebody up, I’m not going to go to him.
Brett Johnson
I’m going to go to you because you said he was good.
Brett Johnson
You’re responsible for his.
Brett Johnson
Actions and you take that seriously.
Brett Johnson
In a criminal world.
Brett Johnson
So we had those vouching systems we had review systems in place to the degree that it became almost a real time data construct, so that if you were buying credit card information from one seller, the reviews were coming in.
Brett Johnson
Everyone knew how good that seller was at that specific time, if the seller.
Brett Johnson
Got a bad batch of credit cards in bad reviews almost instantaneously started popping up so everyone knew immediately.
Brett Johnson
Hey, that batch is bad.
Brett Johnson
Let’s go to this other seller right now.
Brett Johnson
That’s good all right.
Brett Johnson
So you have review systems you had escrow systems in place so that if the new seller comes up.
Brett Johnson
No one trusts that person yet.
Brett Johnson
Well, guess what you trust the website that you’re on.
Brett Johnson
This dark web marketplace.
Brett Johnson
We will hold your money for you until you get your product or service.
Brett Johnson
Make sure it works and then at that point that money is released to the criminal that sold it to you.
Brett Johnson
All that was put together so that criminals could trust each other alright.
Brett Johnson
So but again, it goes past that.
Brett Johnson
It’s this idea that a criminal has to establish trust with that potential victim.
Brett Johnson
So I’ve already talked about how it’s done with individuals.
Brett Johnson
How do you do that with an organization?
Brett Johnson
Well, you can do it with stolen crude.
Brett Johnson
You can do it with spoofed calls spoofed a browser fingerprints any number of things in order to gain entry into the system and get that system to trust you.
Brett Johnson
That’s it all.
Brett Johnson
Boils down to trust at the end.
Brett Johnson
At the end of the day, what you?
Brett Johnson
See more often than not.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
If I could interrupt you for a second, a good example of that is what happened this last week with the FBI.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Someone breached their email, servers, took control of their email servers, created new email accounts ad nauseam, then sold those email addresses on the dark web to other criminals who then exploited them.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
For malware, ransomware, phishing scams.
Brett Johnson
Right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Unfortunately, the FBI isn’t fully admitting how long this went on.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
There are some theories that it may actually have gone on for months.
Brett Johnson
And it may have, I mean I.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It happened only for one day.
Brett Johnson
Right and it no one knows the time yet. We’ve not. We’ve not gotten that full information yet. The the issue with that. If you have an fbi.gov address.
Brett Johnson
Yes, what can you do at that point?
Brett Johnson
Well, you can do whatever you want to do at that point.
Brett Johnson
You can get a company to give you whatever type of information that you’re looking for.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Right?
Brett Johnson
You can gain entry to a company website.
Brett Johnson
Anything else like that, but it’s extremely.
Brett Johnson
That’s that credential.
Brett Johnson
That’s that.
Brett Johnson
How much trust does that bring with it?
Brett Johnson
It brings a lot of trust with it.
Brett Johnson
A lot of trust.
Brett Johnson
So that’s that’s the issue that we’re facing these days, and that’s not if you look at Robin Hood.
Brett Johnson
If you look at the FBI stuff like that, probably those attacks used known exploits.
Brett Johnson
It was, it was somebody that it was wide open.
Brett Johnson
We just scanned the system, maybe in the open SMB.
Brett Johnson
Is there what have you?
Brett Johnson
And we gained entry like that?
Brett Johnson
If you look at ransomware you you mentioned ransomware earlier.
Brett Johnson
Pre pandemic ransomware deployment was usually some sort of social engineering technique.
Brett Johnson
You’d send out an email.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Right?
Brett Johnson
Hope someone clicks on the PDF.
Brett Johnson
Whatever you drop a thumb drive in a parking lot, which someone at that point would always pick it up and plug it in.
Brett Johnson
So some sort of social engineering technique.
Brett Johnson
Post pandemic, it changes now 51% of all ransomware deployments is through brute force in an open SMB, or it’s through pro SMB ports is what that is? Alright, that’s 51%. Why is that? Well, we’ve got all these people work in remote now.
Brett Johnson
That’s the issue and I know as a criminal that the statistic is 41% of every single router has the default password. Ah.
Brett Johnson
Ah, so if I know that, what’s the chances that I can brute force that password to an SMB port?
Brett Johnson
Probably pretty good, probably.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Not just business routers, but home routers as well.
Speaker 3
Probably could easily.
Brett Johnson
Home routers as well, and that’s just for routers.
Brett Johnson
That doesn’t even mention IoT devices.
Brett Johnson
How easy is it for me to get the default password?
Brett Johnson
It’s a Google search.
Brett Johnson
That’s all it is, so that’s that’s these issues.
Brett Johnson
I mean, we’re told to do these things.
Brett Johnson
We don’t do it because we don’t view it as serious enough, but we’ll we’ll do it later.
Right?
Brett Johnson
And that becomes the issue all of a sudden.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Well, you know it’s it’s, it’s I.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I equate it to automobiles in the early days of automobiles you had to be a very specialized individual to even contemplate owning car and you have to be mechanically inclined ’cause they broke down all the time.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But after the war.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Cars became easy, they became reliable and the result is that you now had to have driver’s licenses because.
Brett Johnson
Right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Unskilled individuals were killing people with rapid.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Frequency, but another phenomenon happened is we became a culture of overconfidence when it comes and you see this everyday with parents treatment of their children, they’re either completely freaked out, justifiably, or.
Brett Johnson
Oh yeah.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
They put an adolescent behind the most deadly weapon that the average person will own.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
With severe consequences, but just look at our attitude towards cars, the average person will exceed the recommended brake life by double.
Brett Johnson
Right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
They won’t check their engines, their fluids, whatever.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It’s estimated that fully half of the vehicles on the road are technically unsafe.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But their owners operate in this delusional state.
Brett Johnson
Right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I don’t mean mental illness, but just a cognitive distortion confirmation bias.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
They believe what they want to believe that they’re safe and fine, and all of this.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Is great yet.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
45,000 people die a year because of automobile accidents.
Brett Johnson
And and you know.
Brett Johnson
We’re talking about what people should be doing right I I want to make sure that that the people who are listening out there know that the only person that’s responsible for crime is the criminal.
Brett Johnson
Yes, and and I I’m adamant about this.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
No, get the blaming here.
Brett Johnson
I I’m adamant about that.
Brett Johnson
I mean I don’t care if it’s online, I don’t care.
Brett Johnson
If it’s in the physical world.
Brett Johnson
If someone leaves their front door open wide open in the neighborhood and they go to the store for three or four hours and they come back and their house is burglarized, the only person responsible for that is the criminal.
Brett Johnson
It’s an active choice on a criminal part to victimize you.
Brett Johnson
Alright, so that being said.
Brett Johnson
Criminals tend to hit the lowest hanging fruit.
Brett Johnson
If you are that individual that has not done what you need to do.
Brett Johnson
You are one of those lowest pieces of lowest hanging fruit that’s out there, and it’s it’s not really complicated to protect yourself.
Brett Johnson
It’s really not if you think about the way a scam works.
Brett Johnson
Scams work because a criminal is trying to get you to think emotionally, to react emotionally to whatever is going on in that situation.
Brett Johnson
That’s one of these things with.
Brett Johnson
With why romance scams are so insidious and they truly are you mentioned that thing you mentioned it a minute ago?
Brett Johnson
Part of a tribe.
Brett Johnson
So a scammer starts on a romance site.
Brett Johnson
He’s got that potential victim over here.
Brett Johnson
He’s not part of that tribe at that point in time, but because they communicate for such a length of time.
Brett Johnson
It’s all about making sure that.
Brett Johnson
That victim is part of the tribe of the scammer, and when that happens, and when that when it finally comes to fruition and the victim realizes that they’ve been victimized.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Right?
Brett Johnson
At that point, that’s why it causes so much harm, because your part that that scammer is now part of your tribe, part of your family, you’ve shared every single thing with that person that’s ripping you off.
Brett Johnson
That really doesn’t care about you.
Brett Johnson
You think that that person has cared about you, for I don’t know.
Brett Johnson
Potentially years.
Brett Johnson
Sometimes I I talked to a guy.
Brett Johnson
His mom, Social Security.
Brett Johnson
That’s the only money she had coming in.
Brett Johnson
I did a podcast about it.
Brett Johnson
The only money she had coming in was her Social Security money.
Brett Johnson
She gives all her money to this scammer to this day she argues that he wasn’t a scammer.
Brett Johnson
She loses her house to this scammer.
Brett Johnson
Loses her house to this guy, the sun at one point takes over the the the the the money for the mom because she’s spending there sending every penny she’s got to this guy the house has before she loses the house, it has to have some repairs.
Brett Johnson
$30,000 worth of repairs. The poor son. He’s he’s foolish enough to give the money to the mom. He trusts that he trusts the mom enough.
Brett Johnson
Thinking that she’ll pay the contractors no, that 30 K went right over to the.
Brett Johnson
Scammer, it’s it’s this this this idea.
Brett Johnson
That you know.
Brett Johnson
We as human beings.
Brett Johnson
We want companionship.
Brett Johnson
We don’t want to die alone.
Brett Johnson
We want to make sure we’ve got friends we need that human interaction and when that’s taken advantage of man that causes some pain that causes a lot of trauma.
Brett Johnson
So I agree with you what you said at the beginning of our talk of, you know it’s a violent crime.
Brett Johnson
It is a violent crime.
Brett Johnson
Especially that especially that you’re putting everything you’ve got.
Brett Johnson
You’re trusting this person with with your life.
Brett Johnson
And they take advantage of that.
Brett Johnson
There’s nothing worse than that.
Brett Johnson
I mean there?
Brett Johnson
OK yeah, there’s a lot of things worse than that, but that’s that’s really up there as far as causing pain and trauma and everything else it truly is.
Brett Johnson
And and you know, I talk, yeah, you’ve talked.
Brett Johnson
To a lot.
Brett Johnson
Of a lot of victims I have to.
Brett Johnson
And one of the interesting things that I’ve that I talk about is is a lot of victims.
Brett Johnson
You know they.
Brett Johnson
They think while the scams going on, it could be a scam.
Brett Johnson
I’m sure the only thing this person is wanting his money.
Brett Johnson
And yet they.
Brett Johnson
Still send the money out.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Well, there there’s two things that are really interesting about that.
Brett Johnson
So why is that?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
One is after the scam is when victims always say yes.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I knew it was a scam, but I.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Did it anyway, except that’s not really true.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
There’s this bias called hindsight bias, which is a.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Which is very interesting.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The human mind tries to make order out of chaos.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We try to make sense of the world that we live in and after the fact.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
When something terrible happens to us, we come to the realization that we are vulnerable, that we are powerless and unfortunately, our own psychology.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Pulls away from that rather than embracing it, because if you’re powerless and vulnerable, the simple solution is you learn not to be.
Is that right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It actually isn’t complicated.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But what the mind does is This is why victims are such unreliable witnesses.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Is the mind fills in gaps, it invents memories.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It looks back at things that were red flags that you didn’t know at the time and it says I must have known that.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
How could I be that stupid right when in reality they didn’t at that time and this also creates?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
A really interesting logical conflict that is the basis of a lot of shame and guilt because consider this.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
If a victim truly didn’t know and they were vulnerable and powerless, there is no blame.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It wasn’t their fault, right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Made a mistake to talk to a stranger.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
That’s it.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Yet on the other hand, afterwards, that’s a very unacceptable proposition for someone psychologically, so the result is they believe I saw the red flags.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I just didn’t act on them now.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The problem then is if you were aware and didn’t act, you are in fact guilty.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Of not acting.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
This then happens inside the brain and it is a basis for a lot of shame, I knew, but I didn’t do anything about it.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Therefore I am guilty.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I let this happen.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
So on the one hand, it helps us maintain and build our self confidence after an extraordinary moment of powerlessness and vulnerability.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
On the other hand, long term, it creates a conflict in our mind.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
That we can’t reconcile.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
How could I allow this to happen?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
These are the exact words that victims say.
Brett Johnson
You know what’s you’re saying this and and I’m I’m realizing too, but it also when the victim blames themselves in that situation like that.
Brett Johnson
It also gives them control of that situation.
Brett Johnson
I’m at fault I allowed this to happen.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But it also prevents them.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
From forgiving themselves and moving forward into recovery because they carry that shame and guilt with them because they believe.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
In not, perhaps consciously but subconsciously, the subtext of their of their descriptions about themselves define themselves as being culpable, not just responsible but culpable, and part of our recovery process is helping victims.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The part of what you remember after the fact are invented memories.
Brett Johnson
Right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The traumatic memories of what really happened is actually suppressed.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
By the trauma that you experience as well, so the complexity of the psychology of a victim.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Is significantly more complicated.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Then most people will allow themselves to believe particularly.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
A full
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
3rd of victims cannot reconcile the fact that they were emotionally harmed by a second.
Right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But they’re profoundly angry.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
A typical response of fight response from trauma.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The psychological underpinnings from a victimology point of view.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Create a more complex situation than most people are aware of.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
This is why we characterize this as violence because it’s very similar to someone who has been physically assaulted.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Domestic abuse, sexual assault, etc.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The same kinds of trauma.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Evidence themselves in the same kind of responses.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And there are sadly, victims who have been.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Years since their scam ended.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But are still in a state of freeze in a state of collapse in effect.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Who cannot move forward?
Brett Johnson
Right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
This isn’t denial.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
This is simply a trauma response.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
One of the things I wanted to.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Ask you about is.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
There’s been a.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
A sea change in the world of relationship scams in the last year and a half because of the pandemic.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And it is with the.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The explosion.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Of what’s called big excuse me pig butchering scams a horrific description.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Of a fairly simple technique.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
One of the challenges of the traditional relationship scammer, or in fact most types of interactive fraud is the necessity to spin a story that necessitates some form of a money transaction.
Brett Johnson
Right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And when we’re talking about romance and regular relationship scams, it’s a complicated story.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
My dog ate my papers and I’m now arrested in the jail in Mozambique, right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
I’m an oil worker and I lost my papers so I can’t get off the rig.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Whatever nonsense story it.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Happens to be.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But that’s complicated, and it requires a more complex level of trust by the victim.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Now, this new Chinese model that is spreading the world over the pig, butcher or pig slaughter or whatever they want to call it.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Is you engage in a romance?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
There’s no subterfuge in the romance part of it.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Per Southeast, there’s no emergency story.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
There’s no necessity.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But then they introduce investment opportunity.
Brett Johnson
OK.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And then the scammer.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Presents the investment opportunity, usually in Bitcoin, or might be even a fake IPO and they have a fully realized fake website or fake app and it’s technologically well developed.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Person invest their money.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Many times they’re clever enough that they get the person to invest a small amount of money.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
But it shows in their account on the app or the website and then it shows.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Gains that they realized their money is doubled or tripled, or whatever.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And OK now is the time to come in hot and heavy and invest a big amount.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And of course, when they do that, the scammer fades away.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
The website goes down, the app stops working, they can’t communicate with anybody.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Uhm, in your involvement with the FBI and others.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
To what extent have have you been aware of this new transformation of China being an exporter of cyber crime?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
To the extent that it.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Is now today.
I mean.
Brett Johnson
China has been doing China has been doing cyber crime for for years.
Brett Johnson
You know that right.
Brett Johnson
It’s historically been IPS and little intellectual property that’s been stolen.
Brett Johnson
It’s not surprising that since you had China involved in online crime, it’s not surprising.
Brett Johnson
That as as.
Brett Johnson
It becomes more prolific.
Brett Johnson
People start to understand the way online environments operate that you would have.
Brett Johnson
These types of scams come to fruition, either that that investment scam if you think about it.
Brett Johnson
It it then goes back to trust again, so people are used to the romance scams where you introduce the idea.
Brett Johnson
Like you said, not being able to get off the oil rig or my son needs an operation or what they’re used to those stories we’re used to that.
Brett Johnson
The interesting thing these days is that, as you know, crypto currency is going through the roof stark stock markets going through the roof, so people have that idea of these gains.
Brett Johnson
Of these, these massive gains when you invest and I don’t say, invest.
Brett Johnson
I say when you play the lottery of cyber of cryptocurrency.
Brett Johnson
They have they have.
Brett Johnson
This thing where they understand that.
Brett Johnson
It’s not difficult to feed into that, you know you you you have that romance.
Brett Johnson
You don’t mention anything about a scam, nothing else you know and you show what you show the car that you’re driving or you know pictures of your house or whatever.
Brett Johnson
And this is where I live.
Brett Johnson
And why do you make your money?
Brett Johnson
Why do crypto?
Brett Johnson
You just leave it out there?
Brett Johnson
You know I do crypto and I’m why invest in a lot of stuff.
Brett Johnson
And a few months later you come up and say, well, you know, hey, you see the money I’m making.
Brett Johnson
If you’re wanting me to get into this, there’s a great opportunity coming up.
Brett Johnson
Don’t really care if you do it or not.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Difficult typical long con.
That’s right.
Brett Johnson
Long con, because the longer you go and it’s it’s what criminals understand these days, it’s it’s almost a a mass perception that’s hit.
Brett Johnson
It started to hit a little bit before the pandemic, but now it’s really taken.
Brett Johnson
Hold this idea of patience.
Brett Johnson
The longer you’re in a system, or the longer you’re talking to that potential victim, the more you establish trust.
Brett Johnson
All right, the more legitimate you appear until you get to the point where you offer this opportunity, you know I don’t really care if you take it or not.
Brett Johnson
I’m I’m going to get into it because I know what the gains are and you see how much money I’ve been making.
Brett Johnson
You know, if you want to just hey put a couple 100 bucks into it, see what it makes you so they send you the 200 the gains even if you have to pay that. The weird thing is, is.
Brett Johnson
$200 turns into $1000 OK if I need to. If you really want that $1000, well, I’m not running.
Brett Johnson
I’m not just scamming you, I’ve got a whole slew of people that I’m running this samkon on. So yeah, I’ll give you that $1000 ’cause I know I’m going to get that back because all of a sudden hey, you get your gains. I’ve got this opportunity.
Brett Johnson
You don’t wanna miss out on this.
Brett Johnson
How much money can you give us?
Brett Johnson
How much money can you put in our thousands?
Brett Johnson
All you’ve got that’s really all you’ve got.
Brett Johnson
We’re talking about you being able to retire.
Brett Johnson
On this one opportunity right here, you know that’s that old.
Brett Johnson
That’s that old boiler room stuff with the phone calls smile and I’ll spray and pray whatever you want to call it.
Brett Johnson
It’s just you’re you’re.
Brett Johnson
You’re putting those two aspects together you’re building trust with that romance victim through that long con your everything looks legitimate.
Brett Johnson
I love you, I love you I love you blah blah blah blah blah.
Brett Johnson
So you gain the trust and then you offer the opportunity.
Brett Johnson
Do people take it?
Brett Johnson
Surely take it.
Brett Johnson
Sure they do, but it’s still it.
Brett Johnson
It causes that same amount of harm that you thought.
Brett Johnson
I mean you you.
Brett Johnson
They were making all kinds of money.
Brett Johnson
You know it’s.
Brett Johnson
I read every day or see on the Internet every day about how much bitcoins increasing everything else and this new coin came out.
Brett Johnson
Yeah, and it’s not like I mean.
Brett Johnson
So if you’re talking about crypto, there’s a company today. There’s several companies that you can pay $200 and they will create a coin for you.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Right?
Brett Johnson
That’s the thing.
Brett Johnson
So you can offer you can say, hey, here, here’s your coin.
Brett Johnson
Doesn’t mean anything doesn’t mean anything at all.
Brett Johnson
Yeah, you’ve got the point that.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It’s like the stock market in the 1920s.
Brett Johnson
That’s it, that’s it.
Brett Johnson
And I think we’re going to see a big crash.
Brett Johnson
I mean, we have two people can’t continue to make those kinds of gains without a crash coming, you know, and we see you, especially in the crypto world, right?
Brett Johnson
Now you see.
Brett Johnson
Scam upon scam upon scam because it’s not regulated or anything else.
Brett Johnson
Anyone can create a coin, they can.
Brett Johnson
Hype it up big enough and then get enough investors and then do what’s called a rug pool.
Brett Johnson
They just pull all the liquidity out and it’s done at that point and that’s what a lot of these scams consist of is exactly that.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Right before we before we end the call and I don’t want to, you know, I I would love to continue talking to you for for hours, but I don’t want to abuse the opportunity that we have today and and want to try and hold it to.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
An hour, sure.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
You know one of the things that we saw during the pandemic was an explosion of scams and cyber crime across the board.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Some estimates.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Cyber security industry estimates are that there were thirty million scam victims in the United States in 2020 alone, up 2000% from the previous year.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We understand the dynamics of that.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
What do you hear from your connections in industry and the world of law enforcement etc.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
On what the?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Real magnitudes of money.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Being generated by cyber crime art today. McAfee said couple of years back that we could expect to see $6 trillion generated by cyber crime by the end of 2021. But that was said in 2018.
Brett Johnson
Right so.
Brett Johnson
Think about it like this, alright?
Brett Johnson
The pandemic hits the government, basically gives away money.
Brett Johnson
There was no security in place, so you really had that.
Brett Johnson
That influx to give you an idea how these numbers grow when when the feds shut down shadowcrew, we ended with four thousand members.
Brett Johnson
Fast forward to 2017 Alfa base. Shut down by law enforcement 240,000 members.
Brett Johnson
Fast forward two more years to 2019. Black markets shut down 1.15 million members. That’s pre pandemic.
Brett Johnson
The pandemic hits and you had 16 year olds stealing $60,000 a week and they were not unique in that you had states.
Brett Johnson
Arizona Arizona admits to $4 billion the numbers more like $30 billion. That was lost to unemployment fraud. California one state, California.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
For one thing.
Brett Johnson
Admits to $21 billion. They admit to that the numbers much higher, probably four times that amount. So you had these numbers being stolen by people who.
Brett Johnson
They didn’t have to know how to commit a crime. They could buy a tutorial for $10 that walked them through the questions and what they needed to do to get that money. So did those numbers increase or decrease? Oh, they exploded. They exploded. Not only did they explode.
Brett Johnson
But they told those new fraudsters and the old fraudsters hey.
Brett Johnson
There’s a lot of profit to be made a lot.
Brett Johnson
Yeah, they may shut down the stimulus, but guess what?
Brett Johnson
We need to start looking at these areas.
Brett Johnson
What we’ve not looked at before?
Brett Johnson
Where can we profit?
Brett Johnson
That’s so that’s why you’ve got ransomware attacks on Colonial pipeline.
Brett Johnson
That’s why you’ve got the casea the supply chain attacks that are happening.
Brett Johnson
Everything else the verticals that were never really hit before.
Brett Johnson
Criminals are looking at that, and they’re profiting by it.
Brett Johnson
The biggest lie in the world is that crime doesn’t pay.
Brett Johnson
Yes, it pays.
Brett Johnson
If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have all these criminals out there, so it’s it’s important to protect yourself from that and to realize that, hey.
Brett Johnson
Yeah, I I like I like being online too.
Brett Johnson
I like going out to the store and everything else, but there are predators in our lives and we have to be vigilant.
Brett Johnson
We have to be conscious.
Brett Johnson
We have to have that situational awareness both online and in the real world.
Brett Johnson
If we don’t, we’re going to be victimized.
Brett Johnson
So it’s just important to realize that.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
How do we get government to make the necessary changes?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Or is it even possible at?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
This point in time.
Brett Johnson
It’s not going to happen.
Brett Johnson
It’s not going to.
Brett Johnson
Happen, we’ve got so.
Brett Johnson
Name me a president who has assigned proper attribution to the crimes we’ve got?
Brett Johnson
We’ve got an administration right now that the guys Intel communities have said, hey, Russia sanctions these attacks.
Brett Johnson
And what’s been the?
Brett Johnson
Response, I don’t believe that.
Brett Johnson
I don’t believe that at.
Brett Johnson
All if you can’t even do that, how are you going to come in and have proper regulation?
Brett Johnson
You’re not, you’re not.
Brett Johnson
And then we’re in a society and Lord knows, I love capitalism.
Brett Johnson
I do.
Brett Johnson
I love it but.
Brett Johnson
But if you have security that’s based on profit, that becomes a problem all of a sudden.
Brett Johnson
You have to have regulation and then you add in an administration that says hey.
Brett Johnson
Not going to get it from us, that’s an issue.
Brett Johnson
That’s a huge issue because at the end of the day it’s it’s like Clintons, it’s like Hillary Clinton book.
Brett Johnson
It takes a village.
Brett Johnson
It does.
Brett Johnson
We have to look after each other.
Brett Johnson
Verticals have to look after each other.
Brett Johnson
The siloed approach to secure.
Brett Johnson
30 doesn’t work anymore. We have to look after each other. We have these romance victims or these telephone scam victims that they walk into Sephora and they buy $30,000 worth of gift cards.
Brett Johnson
There’s a whole lot wrong with that.
Brett Johnson
Yes, certainly the victims shouldn’t have walked in there about 30 K in gift cards, but the cashier that sold those.
Brett Johnson
Gift cards.
Brett Johnson
They really didn’t think anything was wrong seriously, so we have to start looking after each other.
Brett Johnson
That’s what it’s going to take.
Brett Johnson
I mean criminals collaborate all the time until we start collaborating and doing the same.
Brett Johnson
We’re always going to be behind that curve, so that’s what it’s going to take.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Thank you.
Brett Johnson
Yes Sir, thank you.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We’ve arrived at at the end of our allotted time, and I’m so incredibly appreciative for you.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Taking the time to talk to me today and having this conversation with us.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
It’s been.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Eye opening as always and and again thank you so much for for being my guest.
Brett Johnson
No, I I love it Tim.
Brett Johnson
I love you guys.
Brett Johnson
You keep up the great work you all are doing.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
We appreciate that so this has been a presentation of the Society of citizens against relationship scams. This video is copyright 2021 stars. To learn more about our organization, visit www.againstscams.org.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
To learn more about cyber crimes scams, particularly relationship and romance scams, visit www.romancescamsnowcom. Remember to report scams. Visitanyscam.com the FBI’s IC three website, ic3.gov.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
And also the FTC’s website whichisreportfraud.gov.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Those are the essential reporting tools in every report matters, even if they don’t contact you after you’ve made your report, that information accumulates and empowers the government to perform investigations than to make arrests.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Again, thank you to my guest
Brett Johnson
, advisor to the FBI and the corporate America.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
A great job that you do in an outstanding public speaker and thank you so much for being with me today.
Brett Johnson
Thank you Tim.
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
All right?
Tim McGuinness Ph.D.
Thank you again
Brett Johnson
Alright, that was good.
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