You need to create a secret password with your family

The scammers are out of control. Every year, scammers and cybercriminals earn billions tricking people into parting with their money. romantic fraud, business email compromiseinvestment scams, sextortion – the list of ways criminals take advantage of people is virtually endless and constantly changing.

Add to that phishing scams, where a criminal impersonates someone known to their target and siphons off money. There have been increasing calls for people, and particularly families, to create passphrases or passwords for each other. In early December, the FBI issued a recommendation that people create a “secret word or phrase with their family to verify their identity,” and British bank Starling has also published it guidelines on how to create safe phrases with other people.

It’s a simple, if not new, approach that can be potentially effective. For example, if you receive a message or call from your “son” or “daughter” urgently asking for money to get out of a tight spot, asking them to provide a previously agreed-upon passphrase can reveal whether it is really them. .

“Scammers will use manipulative tactics to put the victim in a vulnerable state where they act out of panic, urgency, or a strong desire,” says Erin Englund, director of threat analysis at fraud detection company BioCatch. “Having a passphrase or similar strategy ready allows victims to quickly validate the legitimacy of an unusual interaction and take control.”

Calls to create familiar passwords or passphrases are because scammers are increasingly embracing AI. Machine learning has allowed criminals to create fake videos impersonating people and clone voices with just a few seconds of audio. Scammers have used these voice clones to pretend The relatives have been kidnapped and demand payment of a ransom for their release.

“AI is creating a huge amount of risk for businesses and families,” says Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security. Tobac says companies he has worked with have been receiving AI-cloned voice calls, also using fake phone numbers, attempting to impersonate company executives.

“I also hear every day about some families who have been attacked by AI phone calls cloning the voice of a nephew, grandson or brother who is hysterical about having been kidnapped or involved in a car accident in which a pregnant woman was hit and they need money for a legal procedure. fees and bail,” says Tobac.

Create a good family password

As with your online passwords, there are dos and don’ts when it comes to creating a shared passphrase. For starters, you shouldn’t make a passphrase the same as any of your passwords, and it shouldn’t be things that a scammer can easily find, like street names, birthdays, pets, or other personal information that might be shared online.

“Consider anything you or your loved ones post online as data available to scammers,” Englund says. “Even if you keep all social networks private, your data is available to your connections and followers who can be hacked.”