Watch This If You Are Scared of Online Attacks...
00:00:00.000 | I don't want to get people too scared, though, right, I, you know, you could listen to this
00:00:08.680 | and say, Oh, my gosh, my kids are going to get abducted, people are going to find me,
00:00:12.040 | they're going to see everything in my house. What message do you have to people that are
00:00:15.280 | maybe will help them get out of that feeling of leaving this thinking, everything's coming
00:00:19.640 | to an end, I should turn off all my technology and never leave the home?
00:00:23.360 | Well, interestingly enough, I've had someone say, Well, thank you, Adam, now that I've
00:00:27.160 | listened to you, you speak, I'm going home, I'm going to disconnect everything, I'm going
00:00:32.600 | to burn off my fingerprints, and I'm going to hide under my mattress. I said, But you
00:00:36.960 | can't do that. I mean, unless you're living under a bottle cap at the bottom of Loon Lake,
00:00:42.280 | and you're completely off the grid, which nobody is, you're out there. So the question
00:00:47.720 | is just be alert, know what the threats are, know what the red flags are. And and then
00:00:57.920 | practice, for example, the three M's do everything you can to minimize your risk of exposure.
00:01:04.800 | Like for example, when you get a new Internet of Things device, which most things are these
00:01:10.640 | days, change the password. Most of them come with manufactured default passwords, and probably
00:01:20.840 | 98% of those passwords are for sale on the dark web. So change the password to something
00:01:27.800 | long and strong. Just read the manual will tell you how to do it. Just like when you
00:01:32.960 | you know, get your router in, make sure that the password is what you want it to be not
00:01:37.920 | what someone else wants it to be. And make it as complex as possible, or use a password
00:01:44.320 | manager to help you with the whole thing. It's really all about two things that people
00:01:51.320 | have to understand. Number one, we all have day jobs. We work, we raise families, we're
00:01:58.400 | involved in educational activities, philanthropic activities, we own companies, we're busy.
00:02:05.840 | That keeps us excited, interested, but also diverted. And to a hacker who's not diverted,
00:02:14.760 | we are their day job. This is what they do. And you know, some countries they come in
00:02:20.720 | at eight, they have their lunch break, they go home at 430 or five o'clock in the afternoon.
00:02:26.920 | And it's a job and they're working for the government. That's how they raise money. That's
00:02:31.000 | how they conduct espionage. Others work around the clock and do what they do, but it is their
00:02:36.460 | day job. And the second thing to understand is, when you look in the mirror, you see you
00:02:43.160 | and you go, why would anyone in the world want to steal my identity? Why would anyone
00:02:48.080 | care? And the answer is simple. You see you, but when they see you, a hacker, a scammer,
00:02:56.200 | an identity thief, they see Jay-Z, Beyonce, Adam Levine. They see somebody who's got something
00:03:03.160 | they want that can enrich their lives. Or, and this is not to offend anyone, it's not
00:03:11.160 | you thereafter, but it's your spouse, your child, your parent, an organization that you're
00:03:18.400 | involved with, a company that you work for, and you are simply the conduit to get them
00:03:24.160 | to whoever or wherever they want to get to.
00:03:27.680 | So this is why it's extremely important that you really focus on cyber hygiene, just like
00:03:34.080 | you go to doctors, you go to dentists, you do things that you do to stay healthy. You
00:03:39.360 | have to maintain a healthy cyber environment because you're protecting yourself, your family,
00:03:47.240 | possibly your company, your coworkers, and millions of innocent consumers that may be
00:03:51.960 | doing business with your company.
00:03:55.500 | There was a concept that was raised a couple of years ago by the CEO of Microsoft, and
00:03:59.960 | I think he was dead right, it's called shared responsibility. It's that we know that business
00:04:04.960 | hasn't done enough, we know that government hasn't done enough, and we know consumers
00:04:08.540 | haven't done enough to protect each and every one of us from the ravages of cyber issues
00:04:15.040 | or identity theft or ransomware. And each of us has a role to play. And with consumers,
00:04:23.080 | we didn't ask for it, we're not trained for it, and it's certainly not something we want,
00:04:29.460 | but it's a reality of where we are, what we do, who we are, and the world we live in.
00:04:35.800 | And therefore, you know, it's incumbent upon each and every one of us to do our part because
00:04:41.040 | we could be protecting a whole lot more people than just ourselves by doing the right thing
00:04:47.620 | when it comes to cyber security. But it's not something that you need to be terrified
00:04:53.240 | of because it's reality, you're not going to escape it. So as a result, it's a question
00:04:58.720 | of just like they say with COVID, we got to live with it. So when it comes to cyber security,
00:05:03.800 | we have to live with it. It is not an individual sport, it is a group sport, it's team. And
00:05:10.800 | in addition to which, you can't take a victory lap for cyber security because you could be
00:05:15.280 | completely secure at nine o'clock in the morning, and suddenly exposed at 901 because somebody
00:05:22.560 | clicked the wrong link, opened the wrong attachment, gave the wrong information to somebody. So
00:05:27.940 | if we kind of stick together, work with each other, collaborate, communicate, cooperate,
00:05:33.640 | we're going to be better off for it. And I think there's a much more collegial attitude
00:05:38.040 | now that it comes to cyber security than ever before.
00:05:41.480 | And like you said earlier, with all the information out there, it's only a matter of time before
00:05:47.040 | someone decides to pick you as a target.
00:05:50.080 | That's right. You win the lottery, the one you didn't even enter.
00:05:53.760 | But I'd say if you can make yourself a harder target by doing a lot of the stuff we talked
00:05:58.760 | about today, then you just move yourself further and further down that list where someone says,
00:06:03.320 | "Ah, this person's information isn't very easy to find online. Let's just skip to the
00:06:06.920 | next person where their address takes me a second to find."
00:06:10.080 | It's like the whole issue, if you're a burglar, do you break into the house where there's
00:06:14.160 | no dog or one where there is a dog where you might not be sure that you're going to come
00:06:19.560 | out with both legs? So it's important to do that. And a very important rule of thumb,
00:06:27.480 | anytime that anybody contacts you about anything and asks you to authenticate yourself for
00:06:36.000 | any reason, however plausible or logical it is, hang up.
00:06:42.680 | It's one thing if you contact them and they're an organization trying to do the right thing
00:06:48.840 | and they're asking you to authenticate yourself, but if they contact you, no good.