Grab crimes happening in malls and affluent high-end stores across the country! #14

Welcome everybody to the Security Guy and the CIA Spy Show podcast, where we are keeping you on top of what is new and ahead of what is next at all times on all things security, tech, and digital literacy. Knowing that when good people like you want to make sure that their money, their family, and their business is safe and secure from attackers, hackers, and thieves, or you just want to make sure your tech is running smoothly— my name is Robert Siciliano, I am the Security Guy, and along with my co-host Peter Wormka, who is a real and retired United States CIA spy, we will give give you every single tool, tip, tactic, and skill that you need to fight the bad guy and keep your physical and digital life secure, worry less, and even make you happier. This podcast will help you breathe easier with less stress and a greater sense of well-being.

So let's get at it, and welcome to The Security Guy and CIA Spy. I am Robert Siciliano, and this is Peter Wormka.

How you doing, Peter?

Actually, I have to be optimistic. I mean, not too bad. Things are not easy, but we've gone through a blessed holiday season and we're still here charging into 2022, where we will see where it takes us.

Listen, we have no choice but to be optimistic. Look, we are security professionals, and security professionals are proactive. We look at the big picture. Our job is to reduce and minimize risk. And if we were, say, pessimistic in such a way where all we did was sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt, nobody would want to listen to us ever. So our job essentially is to be optimistic, to say that, listen, there are all these things that can go wrong, right? But if you do these basic things, you have nothing to worry about. So it's not a matter of worrying about these things, it's about doing something about it. So we have to be optimistic by nature, right?

Well, I agree with you 100%, and I think that our work is more important now than pre-COVID in the sense of we're dealing with a community out there, individuals and people, employees of organizations who are becoming more and more vulnerable because of what has been happening over the last you know, several months, several years actually, you know, as we're going 2 years of this. So people are— some people are, you know, pessimistic, some people are really down, some people are depressed, some people are not on, you know, their highest alert. So I think they are more vulnerable to things that can happen by individuals, uh, or groups that might want to target them.

Yeah. So, and we are here to keep them and you sharp. All right, so Let's discuss this. So this is interesting, right? Uh, this is from a Los Angeles, uh, magazine, right? It's that big old gun there. Uh, LA Arms Race of the Affluent. So in Beverly Hills— I'm gonna read a little bit to you, okay, Peter? In Beverly Hills, the purchase of a firearm comes with certain expectations. The city's only gun store, Beverly Hills Guns, is a concierge service, appointment only, for the largely affluent clientele and businesses booming. It goes on to say that since opening in July 2020, the store has seen upscale residents from Santa Monica to Hollywood Hills increasingly in a panic following several high-profile smash-and-grab and violent home invasion robberies. The apparent siege has brought in a daily stream of anxious business owners and prominent actors, real estate moguls, and film execs, says owner Russell Stewart. Most are arming themselves for the first time. He goes on to say that this morning I sold 6 shotguns in about an hour. So the reason why we're talking about this is because I think that 2021 was the second highest, large— highest year of gun sales ever. I think 2020 was the second highest, the first highest. Uh, that being said, lots and lots of people buying guns, and there's, there's a lot of fear out there, as this article states, And a lot of those smash-and-grab robberies that we've seen in retail environments— I think there was one that happened in Minneapolis, a bunch in LA and San Francisco— um, are really scary to me. You know, when you have, um, say, 20, 30 armed, generally men, some women, hooded, with hammers and guns and baseball bats and they're assaulting people and they're breaking glass and stealing jewelry and stealing clothing and stealing electronics, uh, that's a violent mob. And, um, you know, if you are in a retail environment, you know, and that comes to greet you, that's really scary. If they do it in your home, right, in the form of a home invasion, that often ends up, uh, deadly because it's usually a violent crime. And in this case Um, there have been some people killed in the Los Angeles area, which has many people who have never had a firearm in their life buying guns. Peter, what are your thoughts here?

This is really scary because, as you know, Robert, I've spent a number of years overseas in some pretty dicey areas when it comes to, uh, organized criminal activity. I lived extensively and for extended period of time in Mexico City, which is a high crime rate. And then more recently I lived in São Paulo and visited Rio de Janeiro quite a few times too, and incredibly violent. And when I start seeing these things here, this is like, you know, it's like a baby being— I mean, I hope not, but a baby being born because a lot of these groups, these criminal groups have been evolving in these countries for a period of time and they are very organized. You know, it's not like, you know, we maybe got used to before, one individual or two people that might try to hold something up. No, we are talking about big gangs, organized gangs, 10, 15, 20, 25 people. They're very organized and they're not using crowbars and hammers. They're using assault rifles and they are, you know, when they attack, it's over. There's nothing you can do. Even the police can't do anything. And it gets more and more violent to the point of if you offer any resistance, you are dead. And what concerns me, we're not there, of course, here yet in the United States, but what we've seen here over the last few months, it, it really does concern me. Because until there's something that is going to act as a true deterrent to this type of activity, whether it has to be, you know, a lot of changes of laws— because, you know, in California there's been some changes in laws where it makes it very difficult to prosecute anybody for these things. And a lot of times the police, you know, are sort of limited in what they can do. And unless this changes, it can actually escalate as the economy— if the economy does go into a further recession, you're going to see more and more criminal activity.

It's just, you know, so there's no easy solution to this other than stepping up law enforcement, of course, investing in law enforcement, investing in police, investing in educating police on how to deal with this. Investing in retail environments and hardening those retail environments in such a way where, uh, it may affect their profit, but they, um, pass those expenses, those security expenses, on to the consumer. Which, you know, uh, if it saves lives, fine. Uh, if it means additional security guards, if it means additional, um, electronic measures to alert law enforcement, uh, if it means, um, say bulletproof glass in some situations. It might mean that the retail environment in high-end shops such as jewelry might be less consumer-friendly but more secure, maybe less profitable but more secure. So more security generally means more inconvenience, uh, more security is often less attractive, and more security, um, does also save lives, but it can also be more expensive too.

So one thing, one thing that was mentioned in this article, and I wanted to highlight, you know, civilians purchasing, you know, handguns or shotguns for— I got nothing against that— for self-defense, especially protecting your home. But I think we need to highlight here something that, that is just, just purchasing something and becoming a little bit familiar with it, it can also, can actually set you up for to be more dangerous situation than if you weren't to purchase a handgun. Because I think in this article I mentioned a lot of these affluent individuals, they're buying these things, but they're not necessarily even going and getting adequately trained on them. And they're investing in all this different security, and they're probably talking to all their friends, oh, look at this new bulletproof car I have, or look at this, I have this new, uh, what do they call these, um, places where you can put it safe, safe areas in your home. I mean, these affluent people put a lot of money Yeah, they can put a lot of money out there, but unless they really understand security and managing their profile, you know, how to really minimize your profile, they're not going to— they can put yourself into a more dangerous situation.

Agreed.

So, you know, your brain really is your best defense weapon, and putting systems in place to reduce risk is paramount. Just buying and having a gun does not make you safe. Like you said, it could put you more at risk. It does say that at the Beverly Hills Gun Shop, uh, Stuart instructs his clients on the law and encourages them to visit shooting ranges, um, so they better understand their weapons. Customers also ask for help in securing concealed carry permits from the county sheriff's department. And he goes on to say that the simplest security option for many will always be a $350 shotgun, as available, uh, to the average citizen as they are to the very rich. So What he's talking about actually is this. This is a, um, this right here is a 20-gauge, uh, pump shotgun. And this right here has a, um, a folding stock on it and a pistol grip. Now a firearm like that, you can be— can be had for $300 to $350, more or less, depending on the nature of the firearm. Mosberg and Remington both provide a relatively inexpensive pump shotgun that'll hold— it'll hold 5 rounds in the cylinder and 1 in the chamber, or 5 in the tube and 1 in the chamber. That's nice to have around in a safe. You use a shot, which is a 3-0 or a 4-0 shot, which basically has between, I think, and I could be wrong here, somewhere between 8 and 12 pellets, which are like small marbles, which has a spread of about 2 to 3 feet at about, um, uh, 25 feet to 10, 15 to 25 feet in the distance. That being said, that is an effective firearm that a 13-year-old girl, uh, who's, say, you know, 5 feet tall, 115 pounds, shouldn't have a very difficult time utilizing. Same thing with, you know, a small male, female, and so forth. But like I said, your brain really is your best defense weapon, and the more you train with a firearm using it under adrenal stress in the actual training, the better equipped you are. And make sure that that firearm is in a proper safe so it does not fall into the wrong hands should a child, uh, who's too young and, uh, you know, grabs that, um, and, uh, and/or, um, somebody, you know, under the influence of alcohol or, you know, uh, or, or in, in some type of duress that, um, they shouldn't have a firearm in their possession and/or it gets stolen, right? So it needs to be locked up. Yeah, okay. All right, so moving on. Um, Apple AirTags absolutely awful, say stalking victims. And this is via Security Boulevard. So we talked about the Apple AirTags not too long ago. They're small, um, round devices about the size of a half dollar, um, and they are equipped with, um, uh, Bluetooth connectivity. And, uh, they're designed to be crowdsourced devices that you, uh, put in the kid's backpack, you would put it on your dog's collar. Uh, it's designed like if you lose something like a set of keys, that, um, you can crowdsource or find that device via Bluetooth, right? And the information will show up on your phone, it shows up on the crowd's phone, it'll alert you and them to where that, uh, or item of that tag might be. And what they're saying now is that, um, research is showing that criminals are using these devices as well. Now, we've talked about this before, Peter, but I think it's worth bringing up again because these Apple AirTags are gaining steam, as they say. And this particular blogger on Security Boulevard went about and looked at a number of other articles by security professionals and sourced uh, the collective thoughts revolving around the privacy, security, and the vulnerabilities for these Apple AirTags. So he went on to say and found out, um, it's basically that, uh, it's a widespread problem. An Apple AirTag is a 1¼-inch disc with the location tracking capabilities that Apple started selling earlier this year as a way to keep track of your stuff. In recent months, people have posted on TikTok, Reddit, and Twitter —about finding AirTags on their cars and in their belongings. Okay, uh, there's a growing concern that the devices may be abetting a new form of stalking, which privacy groups predicted. All right, so, uh, one of the articles wanted to say that it's happening more frequently. A lot of times news stories about new crimes turn out to be fake, or the very least overblown, but it's starting to look like there is actually a real trend of people using Apple AirTags to track cars they plan to steal later. OK, well, if you're a car thief and there's tools out there, it makes a lot of sense. Now, but there's some counter thoughts revolving around this. So one person says, dumb criminals. At least the iPhones warn you, and they have an app for Android as well, if you're being tracked. And it is possible for the police to trace back to the owner as well. Now, uh, one person says, give a stalker a shot. You got to be an absolute criminal brick for brains to use an AirTag, the least discreet way to go about this. AirTags will literally scream out their position to unsuspecting people, both via phone connectivity as well as via sound, unlike the dozens of other brands which might actually give a stalker a shot at accomplishing their goal. So what they're saying is, is that with the Apple AirTags is that there's so much connectivity with so many people, so many devices, and they also make noise, that using an Apple AirTag for stalking purposes really could backfire on the criminal that uses it.

Yeah, I think it depends on time— timing. It Because, uh, my understanding is it will, after a period of either 2 or 3 days, if it's separated— if the Apple, um, if, if, if this is separated from the actual telephone, right, who have— of the owner of that device, right? Yeah. And it will begin to chirp if, if after a period of time, but it's not like for about 48 hours at least.

I mean, it's losing battery. Right.

So, I mean, so it would have to, uh, basically for someone to use it and get something out of it, and they would have to act upon it probably within a day, 2 days max. Otherwise, you're right, quickly.

Yeah. So, you know, to kind of boil this down a little bit, uh, I think that the, uh, reception that the Apple AirTag is getting and the information in regards to it's being used by stalkers and so forth While that is likely true, and probably is, or is true, I don't think it's the best course of action if you're going to be a stalker. Now, I'm not going to go into how's a great way to be a stalker, but really there are a zillion other devices out there that you could buy off of Amazon, uh, or you could buy off of eBay, really, that are short money, cheap, cheap money. I'm talking $10, $15 that you buy and throw a SIM card in it and it connects to your mobile phone, and it's actual real GPS opposed to Bluetooth tracking, right? And, and it, um, can, can be highly anonymous, uh, very difficult to track back who the owner is. And no one is going to pick that device up on their phone except for the person who actually installed it. So there are many more, much more covert ways to track an individual than an Apple AirTag. I think because Apple is basically the biggest whale in the ocean, that, uh, they're just a target for this type of negative publicity. And even if it's happened once to somebody, um, it's gonna— I think it's gonna get overblown just because it's an Apple product.

I agree with you 100%. I would not be concerned of, uh, that this is a big threat, uh, from stalkers. And regarding the theft of vehicles, if you know, a lot of these criminal groups are pretty well tied in to access information, and if they see a vehicle, they don't want to— they don't want to go for that vehicle right away. They want to know where that vehicle is being stored. They can easily, easily be able to run the plates of that vehicle and find out who the owner of the vehicle is and the address of the owner. So it's, I mean, this whole thing about using this Apple device to help find where the vehicle is so that they can steal it, I think also is overblown.

Overblown. Okay. All right, good. All right, so Secure Blog, blog.security.net talks about how do I know if a website is safe to use my credit card? So we get, I get asked questions all the time about credit card fraud. I'm sure that whenever you meet somebody, you tell them what you do for a living, I'm sure at some level this— they, they bring up credit card fraud, you know, that they've been a victim of identity theft as well. And, and people always equate identity theft to credit card fraud, which I always tell them, like, your credit card got compromised, you're not really a victim of identity theft, you're a victim of credit card fraud. You know, credit card fraud I've always thought of as not that big of a deal, that it's just a matter of paying attention to your statements and refuting unauthorized charges, right? Exactly, that's—

you're exactly right. You might want to— you might want to also have alerts, notifications set up on your account so that if the card is being used, you get an email or a text message.

Well, you're, you're one step ahead of me, which is exactly right. So that's perfectly fine, which is what you should do. Uh, I have push notifications, or, or, or they call them push notifications and alerts. And you go to your credit card company's website, you sign up for them. If you can't find it, call them on the number on the back of the card and they'll direct you online where to go. And I get alerts for charges above and below $1, card present, which means you swipe the card, card not present, which means you use it over the phone or over the web, international charges. So every single charge that goes through my card, I am made aware of that via text message and/or email address in real time. As the charge occurs. I don't even really check my statements that much anymore because I get all the charges in real time. I see them as they're happening. So at the end of the month, I've already seen every single charge because I've been inundated all month long with all this information that comes to me as the charge occurs. And I look at every charge as they occur.

My question, Robert, does that also apply to, you know, sometimes you can set up these accounts like, uh, let's say for example your cable, right, or your recurring charges to your account for, for services, you get alerts for those too?

For electronic fund transfers, yeah. So if you have, um, charges set up for your bank or credit card company to alert you with each and every charge as they occur, then yes, you will, you will see that, um, as the charge goes through the credit card company server, as it's being processed, it's being batched, you should be made aware of that. I know I am, you know. So that's just a matter of going into your various settings for your various accounts and setting all that up. Notifications and alerts. All right, now this article, um, which is interesting, and I thought I'd bring it up because it's a little techie and it might be over the heads of many of, uh, our audience, but that's fine. I mean, some of you will perfectly understand this. What I wanted to put in perspective was a couple things. So e-commerce websites can be boiled down into two main categories. Ecommerce websites managed by dedicated companies and independent websites managed by the site administrators themselves. So the former category includes larger, well-known platforms like Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, eBay, you know, even Best Buy for that matter. Big, big companies, right? The latter includes any and all websites where the store has set up their own ecommerce website usually on shared or VPS hosting. And many of you may not know what that is. It's the latter category of independent websites where we see the overwhelming majority of credit card theft occurring. So for example, like a small mom-and-pop website where they have their own shopping cart that's not like a Shopify shopping cart, right? It's a third party, like a plugin, let's say. They're more at risk than, say, plugging your credit card into or storing your credit card at Amazon. All right, and so this website goes on and shows all various tools that you could use to check a particular website for script code that might be installed or injected into that website that might make it more or less vulnerable, or the lack of security that a website might have. And this article explains all the different tools that you might have access to that would give you that type of, uh, you know, ground-level information. All that being said, I'm not going to do any of that. I'm not going to do that type of a deep dive, uh, on a particular website and their, um, security. What I am going to do is I am going to, um, make sure that I do some research on the mom-and-pop website ahead of time so that if there is any, um, negative feedback about that particular website I've seen it in other, uh, platforms, websites that have expressed that the— like the Better Business Bureau says don't do business with them, they're rated C- or D+ because they have had a lot of complaints. So Peter, what are your thoughts on this?

Well, I agree with you that, uh, we, we, we— you can go into this sort of deep dive, but it's not really worth the the time, and going back to some of your earlier comments, really the important thing is to be proactive in the sense of setting up these alerts so that if there's a charge being made to your account, you're immediately notified, and you should know whether or not that's a legitimate charge or not. I know in my household, another advantage that could be used, I know how much my wife or my children who might be using the credit card, are also spending. And, you know, I have a better idea of what is being spent. You know, so many times when we do have these things charged to our credit card, we, we don't realize what we're even spending money on. And there are these different apps that are out there, at least one of them, that sort of like goes through your, your charges and will highlight things that are sort of on annual auto renew and bring those to your attention so you can determine whether or not you even want to retain that. Sometimes, uh, you know, you know, ignorance of what's being charged. They say ignorance is bliss, but if we're not aware of what we're automatically paying, we can continue for many months or years and be spending money on things that we're not getting any benefit for. So I think the notifications are very, very important. As you mentioned, also reviewing your statements, because there are— you know, we're not going to— we're not going to be out of pocket for fraudulent charges if we can identify those. Agree. Those to the credit card companies.

It is absolutely important to stay on top of all of your financial activity. And more than anything, if it's not for reasons of security, it's financial response, fiscal responsibility, you know. So I think, I think we did a good job today, Peter, of being optimistic regarding all these various security issues that we talked about. We have to Yeah, we definitely, we definitely, we definitely have to. So Peter, what you have going on? What do you have to promote?

Well, actually I got a few good calls today of some activities that are gonna be going forward so that, including not just virtual because we've been doing virtual all last year and yeah, it's good and you have to do it, but for professional speakers like yourself and me, And after a while, this virtual, virtual without seeing individuals on the other end, it's kind of hard. You don't get the feedback. We like that energy from the audience. You got some live gigs coming up. Yeah, so I got some live gigs. I'll be heading out to Las Vegas and then after that, Washington, DC. So I'm really looking forward to that. One of the— want to promote people visit my website, counterintelligence- incigio.com, where you can get more information about the book Confessions of a CIA Spy: The Art of Human Hacking. There's also an online course that has been there for a little while, but I really want to promote more because it goes into great detail about a lot of the things that I talk about. It's, it's maybe a 3.5-hour on-demand, you know, self-paced course with a certificate attached to it, and also a lot of other services that we offer to to, uh, corporations. So please, please, I encourage you to visit my site.

About you, Robert, uh, you can see us, uh, as usual at protectnowllc.com. Our e-learning, our 6-hour e-learning for the CSI protection, Cyber Social Identity and Personal Protection certification designation, is now fully live. We launched it, uh, right around Christmas time. Really excited about that. Uh, we're rolling that out to many, uh, larger corporations as a licensing deal., for individual employees to get certified, for accountants, attorneys, real estate professionals, and all those that are essentially handling sensitive and personal information. So that being said, Peter, you got the last word.

Well, Robert, once again, it's a pleasure. Uh, this is our first podcast into the new year. May 2022 be a lot better year than than some of us might be concerned about because I think it's gonna be a difficult year to get started in, but I think once we get rolling, I think we'll do very, very well. And the important thing is stay safe out there and care about other individuals, look out for other people because sometimes we don't have that patience anymore than we used to have. We sort of lost our ability to communicate, but really, really make that effort. Yeah, be nice to people.

Yeah, be nice. Thank you, Peter. I'll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.