Stay on top of what is new and ahead of what is next on all things tech, digital literacy and sec...

In this episode of the Security Guy and the CIA Spy Show, host Robert Siciliano (the “Security Guy”) and retired CIA officer Peter Warmka discuss a wide range of security topics. They introduce themselves, explain their professional backgrounds, and stress the importance of situational awareness in both physical and digital realms. The conversation moves to recent high‑profile cyber incidents – the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, the JBS meat‑processing breach, and a Florida water‑treatment hack – illustrating how ransomware on critical infrastructure can cascade into widespread societal disruption. They advocate personal preparedness (food, water, fuel, generators) and business continuity planning. The hosts then examine a study showing that many senior cybersecurity leaders neglect basic hygiene (password reuse, lack of 2FA), and they explore how social‑media platforms, especially LinkedIn, are exploited through fake avatars for spear‑phishing. Peter describes the ease of building credible fake profiles and using them to harvest credentials, while Robert emphasizes that complacency and convenience drive poor security practices. Throughout, the tone remains conversational, instructional, and motivational, urging listeners to adopt proactive habits, use multi‑factor authentication, keep software updated, and maintain a preparedness mindset. The episode ends with brief plugs for Protect Now LLC and Warmka’s Counterintelligence Institute, and a reminder to “plan to succeed.”
Chapters
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. Welcome to the Security Guy and the CIA Spy Podcast. I am Robert Siciliano and this is Peter Warmka. And I am the Security Guy and he is the CIA Spy. I am in Boston, Massachusetts, and Peter, where are you?
I'm based in Orlando, Florida.
Yeah, so this is, uh, the skyline of Boston behind me. Peter, what are we looking at right now?
Well, we're looking at— it's close to downtown Orlando. It's called Lake Eola, and I have in the background the fountain, which is sort of, uh, a very, you know, notable, uh, symbol of Orlando.
Love it. So, um, my audience knows me as, you know, that security guy that many of, uh, them see on television. I do a lot of CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC. I mean, heck, I've been on The Howard Stern Show a couple of times. I do a lot of local and regional television as well, and I've been featured in, you know, thousands of different articles. When there's a data breach, if there's an active shooter situation, there's some type of an issue where they're looking for somebody who they're not quite sure who to call, they often call me because they know that I answer the phone. I speak to all things information security and personal security, both in the physical and virtual world. And I've been doing this ever since I really was a kid. You know, I started teaching self-defense to women as a kid, and that turned into a business as I grew older. I was a personal bodyguard, a barroom bouncer, and over the years, some— someone said to me, you know, you should be a professional speaker, which I didn't know what that was. And I joined the National Speakers Association at one point, and that, you know, really opened my eyes to how you can get on a platform and speak in front of hundreds of thousands of people at a time and educate them on, you know, what your expertise is. So I've been a professional speaker providing security awareness training for about 25 years now, and today, you know, I do it via Zoom and I do it in person. And I, I teach people how to avoid and remove themselves from dangerous situations both in the physical and virtual world. So Peter, uh, is a, uh, retired CIA spy. So Peter and I connected through our various channels when we— where we were both doing podcasts and, uh, interviews for publications that we both subscribe to. So Peter, you know, tell, uh, the audience more about what you do and how you do it and and how you got to the position you're in right now.
Of course, Robert, for myself, I had to maintain a very low profile for over 20-plus years working for the CIA. I spent most of that time overseas as an intelligence collector, trying to get information that was very closely held, difficult to obtain, but useful for policymakers back in Washington, D.C. So what I did really for a living was breach the security of my target organizations, utilizing insiders, reach the security, manipulate the insiders, get this information, and send it back to Langley. I became pretty good at it, but eventually I did retire, and I decided to come out of my closet of being a covert CIA officer, and I got authorization to come out and say who I actually did work for. And I decided because this We see so many problems with data breaches. I decided to utilize my background and my skill to help educate organizations. I know you work more with individuals. I focus more on organizations which are targeted by a variety of different threat actors, and I help them understand the threat, help them understand who is trying to target them, why are they being targeted, for what purpose, and the methodologies utilized by these threat actors in being able to penetrate an organization predominantly through human hacking attempts. So I've set up— I founded Counterintelligence Institute based in Orlando, but I do give a lot of presentations, both— well, over the last year, it's been mostly virtual, but a lot of presentations as well in person to try to educate large audiences as well as smaller, perhaps, companies on these threats. And I'm very happy to join you, Robert, in this kind of mutual mission that we have in creating that awareness for the general public.
I love it. So, you know, you mentioned breaching insiders, like that's so CIA spy, right? You mentioned Langley and everybody knows Langley, right? I mean, if you ever watched Homeland, Langley, right? I mean, Langley is, you know, it's Virginia, right?
Yes, it is. Yeah.
And, um, so I have a question. Like, as a CIA spy, um, did you ever carry a weapon?
Actually, I did for a period of time. I was— depending on what country where I was working, uh, whether or not there was more of a, let's say, a criminal threat perhaps than the fact of being targeted because someone would find out that I'm working in intelligence. It's more for, for dealing with criminal threats. And so there was one particular country where I first worked where I did carry a weapon, but I felt more— I don't want to sound arrogant, but I found myself more— I could defend myself and get myself out of situations more by using my wits than by trying to use a weapon.
Well, I see. I don't think that's bragging at all. I'm not sure if that's the word that you use, but I think that that's how it should be. I think that if you can— I mean, it's all about avoiding and removing yourself from a dangerous situation really, to begin with, you know. And yes, if you are backed into a corner and you have to rely on a weapon to get you out of that situation, of course. But fundamentally, from my teachings to both individuals and, you know, employees of corporations and such, is that your brain really is your best defense weapon. And if you have your wits about you, if you're paying attention to your surroundings, if you see risk coming your way, uh, and you can get yourself out of there first and foremost, that's obviously better than waiting for or getting into a situation where you're really backed into a corner and you actually have to pull out that weapon, which really introduces a whole new level of threat into that situation. And really, nobody wants to take a life, and, you know, nobody wants to shoot somebody, or at least you shouldn't want to shoot somebody. And so if you don't have to have that weapon or rely on that weapon, then, you know, don't, right? I mean, that's—
it's really— yeah, it's situational awareness, right? Understanding what you're meeting, what's in front of you, what's, what's in back of you, what's on all sides, and, and avoiding getting into that situation where you're going to have to take it to another level. It sort of parlays with— we talk about security awareness when it comes to data breaches. I mean, ideally you want to have that situational awareness, security awareness, where you don't get to the point that your security has been breached, because once it's breached The costs are phenomenal. It's much less expensive, uh, to actually be proactive when it comes to security than reactive.
Yeah, and that's where, you know, you and I have met a number of times where we recognize risk in such a way where, you know, we live our lives in a proactive fashion. Like, we're always— like, we are those people that they talk about where we have our head on a swivel, you know. We're always paying attention to our surroundings. And when people hear about that, when they when they, when they, when they, when they, when they think of that, they think, oh, you must be paranoid, right? Like, you must be afraid. Like, you, you must be looking over your shoulder because you think somebody's out to get you. And, and in my teachings, in my security awareness presentations, I explain to people, like, but I'm not paranoid, you know? Like, paranoia is, is, is mental illness. Like, paranoia is somebody who is diseased, you know, that they, they, they lack control over their thoughts and feelings. Like, that their, their mindset is such that they feel fear on a, on a relatively ongoing basis. And being proactive and being situationally aware and paying attention to your security and taking control of your feelings in that regard, right, is, is about consciously being aware at all times as a habit. Not because you're afraid, it's just something that you do, like riding a bike. Once you know how to do it, you develop that balance. You can get a bike anytime, just ride it. Like, you never forget how to ride a bike. Situational awareness is one of those things that once you learn how to do it, you could do it for the rest of your life, and you become so much more attuned to your surroundings that you see so much more good that life has to offer. And for your safety and security, you also see more of the bad. It's as simple as that.
I know my— in my training, I mean, I got a lot of training in situational awareness, and you're right, it's something that once it's Once it's ingrained in you, you're practicing it on a daily basis. But unfortunately, the greater public, very few people have that naturally. But it's something that I think all individuals should strive to try to gain this situational awareness and practice it. And it can really save you from devastation, whether it's financial devastation or, I mean, more seriously, save your life in many cases. So That's something that I truly believe in, as I know you do.
And for those of you who are new to this podcast, that's what we're trying to get across here. So as you, um, you know, download and listen to the episodes, you will eventually develop such a mindset that both Peter and I have. I mean, security guy and the CIA spy and all the training that I have been through and that Peter, you know, has provided, you know, and still provides and has been through You know, our goal is so that you can breathe that much easier, so that you don't have to worry about all the different things that go on in the world, but you should know how to deal with them should they happen. I mean, the likelihood of you ever becoming victim of a crime is really, really slim, but there's enough of a chance that if you don't know what your options are and something does happen, that you end up being victimized. Nobody wants to be a victim of anything, you know, but you stick around here, we will make sure that you have the tools that you need in your tool chest to make sure that, you know, if in fact you are chosen, that you know what to do and how to react and how to respond. So, uh, Peter, um, you know, we just, um, wanted to talk about a couple things today, uh, in regards to, um, the Colonial Pipeline attack. So I'm gonna do a, um, I'm gonna just show, um, uh, via a video here. The Colonial Pipeline, it's paid hackers nearly $5 million. Peter, you can see my screen, right? Colonial Pipeline hackers. OK, so this is via Yahoo Finance, and it went on to say that— and I am 53 now— so Colonial Pipeline paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers on Friday, contradicting reports earlier that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country's largest fuel pipeline. According to people familiar with it, the company paid a hefty ransom in difficult to trace cryptocurrency within hours of the attack. So Peter, there's a few things going on here, right? First and foremost, like $5 million went to criminals, you know, and what people need to understand here is that ransomware is a software program. It's a malicious software program. There's nothing good about it. It's a smart technology in how it works. Like it's a brilliant software that when installed on a user's computer or network, that software is designed to basically lock down access to the files or to the systems on that network so that only the bad guy who installed the software can gain that access. Or the user, the victim, would have to pay the ransom to get access to that information or that software in the future, right? Ransomware. Just like you hold somebody hostage, you hold the network hostage. And in this case, $5 million is a significant payday for the bad guy. It might be one of the, if not the largest ransomware scams ever.
Well, it is. It is large, but if we take a look at— I think it was the IBM put out a report earlier this year about the cost, the average cost of a data breach for an organization, and that includes ransomware attacks, is over $8 million average per organization that's reported, that's publicly reported. The cost of ransomware to the US economy, I know at least in 2019, was $17.9 billion. There's a lot more ransomware attacks that are taking place that are not publicly disclosed. Yeah. Right? And so the cost is really considerable. $5 million sounds like a lot, and it is, but it's not necessarily something that's not common. This is taking place on a very diverse level. Smaller companies might be hit with a couple of $100,000. But several million dollars is not by far unusual for large companies.
So I know a lot of people are looking at this particular hack and they're going, well, so, you know, this big corporation, they screwed up and somebody, you know, didn't do their job effectively within the company, and so they got hacked, and that's $5 million out of their pocket. It's not my problem. But here's the deal, right? That particular hack, bad guys went after what's considered a critical infrastructure. Energy. They went after gasoline. And if you were paying any attention when this particular hack occurred, there was over 1,000 gas stations that were affected from New York down the eastern seaboard over to Houston. That's a really big deal. 1,000 gas stations ran out of gas, right? That affects the everyday consumer. Now think about that. So if a hack like this can happen where one company gets compromised and it affects 1,000 gas stations on the entire East Coast down to the Gulf of Mexico, and they ran out of gas. What would happen if that same pipeline— that same hack occurred to a dozen pipelines across the country? It would shut down our economy potentially, because if trucks can't deliver gasoline, cars can't Pump the gas station, can't pump the gasoline, cars can't receive it, right? People can't go to work, food can't be delivered to grocery stores, right? That is a big deal. People should care about this. They should be alarmed about this, how it affects them as, as individuals, you know, because something like this, a hack like this, can affect the entire— our entire existence as we know it as a civilized society.
You're absolutely right, and it's not only, you know, think of it in terms of ransomware, that there's criminals that are doing this to, to extort, you know, payment of money. It can also— this is a perfect example of what can be done during even cyber warfare. If you have a nation-state, you know, whether it's Russia or any other nation-state that's really advanced in their cyber warfare techniques, and there's several, that they could— they're going to be targeting critical infrastructure in the company, whether it's oil pipelines, whether it's electrical power grids, other transportation hubs. I think the New York Metro was attacked several months ago. I mean, these are just a few of the many examples of how you can pretty much bring down, at least on a temporary basis, the logistics for movement in the country. It can pretty much paralyze us. It's huge. It's huge. And it's not just that someone make a mistake in one company, that company is going to pay. This impacts adversely all of us. It really does.
Just in the past couple of weeks, there has been a huge attack on a beef provider.
Yeah, JBS.
JBS, yeah. And that affected that company in the US all the way to Australia. Uh, there was a, um, a water treatment plant in Florida that was attacked over the winter.
They go—
if they're going after the fuel supply, they're going after the water supply, they're going after the food supply, that is all scary stuff. But the good news is, for you and I, the consumers in general, there's stuff that we can do, you know, stuff that we should do. Like, you should have a backup for your food, for your gasoline, for your water. Like, you don't necessarily have to be a prepper in the extreme sense of the word, but you do need to prep in the common sense sense of the word. And I do that, and, and I think that everybody should do that. Like, I have probably 60 or 80 gallons of water going at any given time, you know. I I certainly have a lot of frozen food, but I also have a lot of dried and canned food too. I always have at least, you know, 20 to 40 gallons of gas kicking around. I have at least, you know, 4 to 6 can— 20-pound cans of propane kicking around. I have a propane and gasoline dual fuel fired generator that would power up probably about a third of my house if necessary. And so if the grid goes down, right, the food supply is lacking for any period of time, there's no water to be distributed, I've got that covered for at least a couple weeks to potentially a couple months should that be necessary. How about you, Peter? Did you do anything like that at all?
Well, I do somewhat, and I think you're making a really good example, a parlay of what businesses need to do as far as having a business continuity plan when they're hit with a crisis like this, when they're hit with ransomware or some other type of attack, they need to have something in place because they can't afford to be just shut down for, you know, an extended period of time. Just like us as individuals, we, you know, we can be faced with those type of problems as well, and we, we can't just, you know, be living day by day or procuring whatever we need to do day by day, but to have things that are actually, uh, I would say stockpiled in massive quantities, but But I mean, here in Florida, like you can appreciate, we live with on an annual basis in the summertime the prospect of hurricanes. And so we have more of this mindset when it comes to storing some of the basic necessities because you don't know. I mean, hurricanes, usually they give you a couple days to prepare, but when all of a sudden there's something coming, everybody's going out at the same time. And good luck in trying to, to be able to find something if you wait until that last minute. So It comes down to really being prudent and, and being prepared for such, such events well in advance.
When the pandemic hit, I had plenty of toilet paper. I had—
that's why I couldn't get any.
You had it. I mean, I already had it, you know. I, I probably had maybe, I don't know, 100, 120 rolls kicking around because I had— because you go to Costco and you get the, the large packages. I think that, I don't know, there might be like 50, 60 rolls. I had 3 packages of those kicking around, you know. I always have stuff like that, like because, you know, and I have girls, and not to be, you know, crass or anything, but I had like probably 6 or 8 boxes of tampons kicking around. Like, those are things that you should have if you're in that— if you, you know, if that's your— you should just have stuff like that and plenty of food. All right, so I wanted to move on to something else, and then we'll finish up here. But those of you, again, who are new to the podcast, like, this is the stuff we're going to keep, you know, keep reminding you of so that you make sure that you are one of those people that Look, I've been saying my entire life, if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. And I'm not having that. Peter's not having that. Like, we're not going to allow that. Like, you need to, like, recognize risk in such a way where you don't worry about these things, but you do something about it. And then you pass that level of intelligence or information on to others. And, you know, we become that much more safe and secure as individuals, as families, as companies. And as a nation. So Peter, I wanted— I saw something very recently that bugged the heck out of me. Um, it's a, it's a story that, um, uh, based on a study that I am unfortunately completely unsurprised about. All right, so I showed this to you earlier, Peter. Cybersecurity leaders lacking basic cybersecurity hygiene. Okay, so, you know, we talk about all these various data breaches, we talk about the Colonial Pipeline, and I am certainly not pointing any specific fingers, but there have been so many data breaches that have occurred in the past 10, 15 years that you can effectively point fingers at the people who ultimately were responsible for preventing it in the first place. And often I find that it's the people at the top that are, that are not effectively doing their jobs. Now, all that being said, you as a, say, a consumer or a homeowner, an individual, as a mom, as a pop, even as an employee of a company, if you're a CEO or company officer, Pay attention to this because we cannot blame others. We need to take responsibility for ourselves. And when you see this, like cybersecurity leaders lacking basic cybersecurity hygiene, you yourself need to be congruent in that regard as a consumer, as a security mom, as a security dad, and so forth, making sure that you in fact, uh, have basic cybersecurity hygiene as an example. So Constella Intelligence company released the results of a survey that unlocks the behaviors and tendencies that characterizes how vigilant organizations' leaders are and aren't when it comes to reducing cyber vulnerability, allowing the industry to better understand how social media is leveraged as an attack vector, which Peter talks about a lot, and how leaders are responding to this challenge, says HelpNet Security. So it goes on to say that the, uh, Findings from the survey, which polled over 100 global cybersecurity leaders— so these are global leaders, uh, senior level to C-suite across major industries including financial services, technology, healthcare, retail, telecommunications— revealed that 57% have suffered an account takeover attack, which— that's significant, right? So they were victims of an account takeover in some fashion, which means their existing bank account or credit card account or, uh, maybe even tax-related identity theft was taken over in their personal lives, most frequently through email. Through email, right? We know email is a vulnerability, followed by LinkedIn and Facebook. So bad guys attack them via email, they get access to their LinkedIn profile, access to their Facebook profile. Like, that shouldn't happen. If you are a leader in security, you should have basic things like not using the same password twice, using two-factor authentication, knowing what a scam looks like, and so forth. 24% of the respondents have used the same password for both work and personal use. That is crazy to me. So one out of four of these security professionals is using the same passcode for their Facebook page as they are to access their corporate network. Peter, like, what, what do you think is going on here? Like, why do you think that this is happening?
Why do you think this is happening? Is that security is, is not convenient. All right, people want to go always with convenience. Uh, I think that's one of the biggest things. And the second is, I mean, that's kind of complacency, right? The other one is, well, it will never happen to me. It happens to the other guy, I read about it in the press, but it will never happened to me.
The—
it's interesting, this article focuses more on the, you know, people in the leadership, and that is a big problem. The leadership needs to, to set the tone, because many times if they don't practice what they preach, individuals say, well, what— why should I even worry about this if even the, you know, the top executives in the firm seem to totally disregard the, you know, security guidelines or, you know, recommendations? Because somehow they think that they're, uh, you know, immune. They're immune from an attack. But, and based on my experience, if I want to target somebody, all things considered, I would definitely want to target somebody at the upper echelons of a company because they're going to have more access to the information that I want. They're going to have more access to the, you know, upper levels of administrative controls on the IT network, uh, than someone on the lower levels. The lower levels might be easier to get to, but if I can get to somebody at the higher levels of an organization, they are the ones. Because not only what's on the IT network, let's say, that a lot of people are going to have access to, a lot of the senior leaders are— in addition to that, they're going to be privy to more confidential correspondence and information that's going to be found on their laptops. And they're using these same laptops and other media devices to also log into their IT network. So if I can target a senior executive for a company and get into their personal laptop, uh, exploiting the information that's there, and also being able to gain access to their IT networks for the company, I mean, it's a huge, huge win for me. And the whole idea of social media, social media vulnerabilities, I could really get into a lot of detail about that, but let me make a comment since it's it's made in this article, most people, including security experts, do not realize that social media platforms are more powerful. It's a more powerful channel vector for targeting individuals, uh, through spear phishing attempts than a regular email. It's much more powerful because if I go into social media I can target you. I can look and I can figure you out based on your social media presence. What, you know, what are your, your aspirations in life? What are the things that you like or dislike? What are your motivations? What are your vulnerabilities? A lot of things. Then I can create an avatar, okay? Whether it's on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. I do— I use a lot of work on LinkedIn because a lot of professionals use LinkedIn, and so it's easy, so easy to create an avatar. It can be done in a matter of an hour, a couple hours, and build up connections where you have 500 connections. If someone receives an invite with somebody that has 500 connections, you automatically think, whoa, this is an important person, it's credible. But it is so easy to obtain 500 connections on an avatar that you've built. Within a couple of weeks you can get that. And most people, even if they say, well, I don't accept invitations from people I don't know, I prove them wrong. I, I think I mentioned to you, Robert, sometimes I give presentations. In advance of those presentations, I find out who's going to be there, and I obtain their LinkedIn information. I use an avatar. I send out an invite for connection. A lot of them connect with this avatar. Then we begin to exchange some messages. Everything's, you know, really friendly messages, a professional level. Then I will send them, uh, I will send them a— think about these messages. The messaging mechanisms on social media can, just like an email, can carry a link to be clicked on. They can carry an attachment to be opened. It can carry that malware. All right, so it's no different than email in the sense of the malicious, uh, damage that it can do, the malicious code that can be malware that can be uploaded once that link is is clicked on or the attachment is open. But individuals will tend to trust more that message that's coming from someone they think they know. They see the picture, they see the profile, they think they know this person after they've exchanged a few messages, but they don't because it's a fake profile. There's 750 mil— 740 million profiles on LinkedIn. And I'll give you a very conservative estimate of 4% that are fake. 4% fake, it's almost 30 million. That's after LinkedIn goes through considerable effort in bringing down fake profiles. I mean, every year they bring down 25, 30, 35 million profiles, but there's various levels of sophistication. There's the professional hackers set up these profiles, they get them past the, the algorithms that LinkedIn puts in place, and they are extremely effective. So during the, during the presentations, all of a sudden, the picture of the avatar, you know, I said, pops up. And I said, apparently, many of you people know who this, you know, know this person. Interesting. And then their jaw drops. These individuals that say they don't connect with people that they don't know, sure they do. And it's so easy to get to them. And it's so easy. It's extremely easy using social media. It's more vulnerable, presents more vulnerabilities than, than anyone can imagine. And let me just close with, it's funny that even senior security executives fall prey to this. You're not just talking about people that, that really don't have a good idea, you know, or security hygiene, maybe at the lower levels. I'm talking about directors of security that fall for this.
And you don't have to be a director of security to be targeted in that regard. You could be a real estate agent, you know, who is handling a closing for a million-dollar property. And as a real estate agent, you know, you're putting it out there all the time, and somebody wants to connect with you on LinkedIn or Facebook for that matter, and they want you to, you know, click a link to learn more about, you know, a product or a service that they can help you out with as a real estate agent to help you sell more, or to build your business or to manage your social media profile, whatever the case might be. Simply clicking that link because you, uh, want to build your business and you want— and this vendor says that they can promise to make you more money, uh, you might just click that link. And when you do so, if your browser's outdated, if your operating system's outdated, depending on the nature of that link and the malicious code behind it, uh, the idea behind it would ultimately be to inject a code, a virus, onto your real estate laptop, right, that takes it over, allows the bad guy backdoor access to your machine. And then from there, once the bad guy's on your computer, they can read your email. And if they can read your email, then they see that there's a closing coming up in a couple of weeks, and the bad guy poses as you, emails your client with wiring instructions to wire the money to the bank account that the bad guy takes care of, although the bad— the money goes to the bad guy. So yeah, like, and you don't have to be a top security expert to be a target of these things. You could be a real estate agent, you could be a teacher, you know, you could be a soccer mom. Uh, and if you're a soccer mom who has, you know, six figures in the bank because, you know, you and your family have saved up all these years Uh, your bank account gets compromised, the money gets wired out, transferred out. The bank may or may not refund you that money if they determine that it's your computer that wasn't properly updated, that it's your computer that was responsible for making those transactions, because your computer has an IP address, and it was the IP address of your computer where all those transactions were made from. If your computer is compromised because you click the link in the body of that email or on social media, you're the one that's going to end up eating that $100 grand, and the bad guy's going to live on an island in Fiji, you know. So this stuff can get crazy, but you do have options. We do have ways we can lock down and protect ourselves. Two-factor authentication, update your antivirus. And that's what this podcast is all about, to make sure that you guys understand what that— those risks are are and what your response should be. And we're going to provide you with all kinds of examples throughout these podcasts, which is probably going to be about once every couple of weeks. We're going to try to keep them under 45 minutes each time. You can listen to, you know, the whole thing all in one shot, or, you know, put it, put it down and pick it up and whatever you want to do. But we are here for you. We're going to make sure that our contact information will be in the show notes, both for me and Peter. My company, the company I work with, is Protect Now LLC. And we provide all kinds of products and services revolving around security awareness training and information security products and services, phishing simulation training, everything and anything that an individual or an organization might need to make sure that they are properly protected. Like, our, our thing is don't worry about this stuff, but do something about it. Peter, quick plug for yourself.
Yes, Counterintelligence Institute is the organization, uh, that I founded, and I just want to put a quick plug-in for my book. I guess you can't see that really well. Uh, Confessions of a CIA Spy: The Art of Real Deal.
Buy that book, it's excellent. Awesome, Peter.
We get into a lot more detail about the things that we talk about here.
Love it.
Hey, uh, thank you guys for sticking around. You're awesome. Uh, to all family, friends, fans, uh, be safe out there.
Be careful. Pay attention.
Be alert. If you fail to If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That's not what we're about. We're going to make sure that you are properly protected, proactive, you do the right thing. Uh, thank you so much, Peter. You guys have a safe day out there. Be careful out there.
Thank you. Likewise. Take care. Until next time.
More from Robert

America's #1 Top Cyber Security Speaker Architect of The Strategic Human Firewall™

Robert Siciliano Cyber Security Speaker, Cybersecurity Awareness & Security Appreciation expert.

Nancy Guthrie Deleted doesn’t mean destroyed- FBI recovers 'inaccessible' surveillance video servers







