CYBERSECURITYYou’d Never Fall for an Online Scam, Right?
Wrong, says cybersecurity expert. Con artists use time-tested tricks that can work on anyone regardless of age, IQ — what’s changed is scale.
Online scams are on the rise. Last year, American consumers lost $12.5 billion due to cybercrime, which represents a 22 percent increase over the previous year, according to a report by the FBI. Cybercriminals use psychological trickery to dupe victims into giving up their money, and their tactics are becoming more sophisticated. They post fake ads on social media platforms, send emails with phishing links or malware, and recently in the Boston area, solicit payments for unpaid tolls via text message.
The Gazette asked cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier, an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, what the government, tech companies, and consumers can do to prevent online scams. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Many people think only older adults can be conned. Is there anyone who is free from falling for a scam?
It’s not a function of intelligence, or education, whether you’ll fall for them. Scams affect people regardless of age, income levels, education, and IQ. In some ways, people who are smarter become victims precisely because they think it can’t happen to them. They say, “I’m too smart, I would never fall for that,” and they do because maybe it catches them on a bad day. Author and cyberspace activist Cory Doctorow wrote an essay about how he got scammed with a fake message from his bank the same day he was having a bank problem. Or remember the 2016 phishing email John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, clicked on, which led to the DNC email hacking leak? It can happen to anyone.
How has the scammers’ modus operandi changed with the rise of technology?
It’s not different from the way it used to work in the past, where a con artist would bump into you on the street and start talking with you. The difference is that online they can do it millions of times. The speed and the scale are what has changed, but if you read about the big scams of the 1920s, they were just as profitable.
According to the FBI, consumers lost $12.5 billion to cybercrime fraud last year.
It’s hard to know if the numbers are accurate. A lot of people don’t report because it’s embarrassing to be the victim of fraud. You feel terrible because you were tricked, you were fooled, and you’re out a lot of money. I have sympathy for scam victims.
