The Security Guy and CIA Spy PodBroadcast

Welcome to the Security Guy and CIA Spy pod broadcast. I am Robert Siciliano, and this is—

this is Peter Wormka. I'm the CIA spy, if there's any confusion.

Yeah, he's definitely the CIA spy. Uh, good, uh, good day to you, Peter. It's, it's been a while. It's, it's been, uh, too long actually.

It's been a long time, but there's been a crazy— a lot of things happening.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of things happening in the world, a lot of things happening in your business and in my business. And, uh, the fall is definitely my busy season, and, and it seems like it's your busy season too.

Absolutely. I have a lot of things coming up.

So where have you been? What have you been doing? What kind of training have you been engaged in?

Oh, it's been a variety of things. I've been traveling, giving workshops at some major associations. I've gone down and spoken at security events, attended different security events. I spoke at OsmosisCon, which is the biggest conference dealing with OSINT. Uh, and that was held in, uh, that was held in Tampa recently. And I went, uh, I'm just trying to recall all the different places that I've gone to. I'm going to be traveling soon to Philadelphia to give a, a presentation for a government client. I'm also going to Saudi Arabia in 2 weeks. I'll be there. And I'm going to be going to Mexico City also to speak at a major, uh, FinCrime event. So yeah, a lot of things happening, a lot of international travel. It's good. Life is good. What about you, Robert?

Well, for the uninitiated, uh, what is OSINT?

Uh, it's basically— well, it's an abbreviation for open source intelligence, which really is all of the information that's available, uh, publicly. I mean, if you know where to look for it, you as a layperson can find this information by doing— just think about doing searches online, and that basically you're acquiring— even though it's called intelligence, it basically says information that you can collect openly online that's going to be useful for, for your purposes, whether it's an investigation, whether you're doing a, you know, a research, whatever. It's intelligence because you're using it for something that's going to be beneficial.

And so give me an example of what that might be. So say, for example, um, you are a, you know, 30-something, uh, looking for love, and, uh, you, uh, find somebody on Tinder that you have a connection with. You go on a date or two, and you want to do a little bit of a deeper dive into that person. Would you or they be able to find a little bit more information about them beyond, say, Facebook and LinkedIn?

It sort of depends, okay? It depends on how transparent that individual is, because maybe that person, you know, is even using a different name and they don't really have their true identity and put on, you know, on other social media or other hits on Google. But if they are authentic, you should be able to find other references to them by doing Google searches. And if they have like a LinkedIn account or Facebook account, search for their name and something else that they put on there that's significant, maybe the place where they work, the place where they live, where they've gone to the university, and there should be more hits on them just, you know, other than just those social media platforms. Because that's social media platforms, they can easily put up overnight and put whatever they want on there. And if all you find are those social media platforms, you should be concerned.

I mean, you should be concerned. Yeah, what I usually do is I search their email address, I search their phone number, I search their name, an abbreviation of their first name. And then wherever I find them online, I'll usually— like, if they have some type of a username for some type of an account, whether it's like a Twitter account or a Twitch account or whatever, like if it's a username different than their actual name or email address, I'll search that and I'll usually find them in other places as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cool. That's a good application for, for OSINT for the average person, right? Because people come across this all the time, individuals who they're approached by them, whether it's for love or money or whatever it is. But who are they, right? So this is a good, good tool for that.

Yeah, I've been busy. Um, I spoke to a bunch of real estate companies, real estate agents for continuing education, spoke to a large pharmaceutical company called AbbVie, also known as Abbott Laboratories, and spoke to a large company that provides services to credit unions called Alloy. Yeah, between speakers bureaus and organic search and references and referrals and Google Ads, it's been a busy, busy speaking season. And I'm actually getting in front of people, human beings, like one-to-one or one to 500 in the actual room, which I know you have too. And that's exhilarating. I just love that. And I open up for Q&A. And we've been doing a lot of hybrid events too. So I'll be in a room live, with a camera on me, uh, talking to people, uh, in the room and then people, you know, virtually all over the world. So that's been a lot of fun.

Yeah, these hybrid events are probably about 50/50 from what I've experienced. I'm experiencing a lot of those too, where, you know, 50% of them are in person and then the other 50% are joining online.

Yeah.

Uh, and it depends on how they moderate it. Sometimes you can get a lot of activity from those, uh, in, you know, uh, person— people that are attending online because you have a, you have a host, you know, who's bringing, you know, it's bringing to the, to the floor their questions. So it can be still a very good event being a hybrid.

Now when you are on the platform, right, because you are a speaker, right, when you're on the platform, um, do you, uh, allow or provide the opportunity for attendees to ask questions while you are presenting? So during your presentation, or do you wait like towards the end?

Usually I don't, because a lot of times if I allow them to ask a question, I already know that, you know, 5 minutes from now I'm going to be answering that question in my presentation. So I would prefer to leave it to the very end for them to ask questions. They can ask them, you know, in the chat box. They can, they can post those in advance. They'll have to wait to the end, but then the moderator is going to see those and said which ones are already been at, you know, answered, and which ones are still maybe valid questions, and it'll assist to make it very efficient in raising those questions with me.

Yeah, so I actually do, uh, allow for questions right from the very beginning, and you are correct that usually I'll be covering that topic, you know, 5-10 minutes later anyways. But I find that, uh, for me at least, if that question comes about, you know, I want, uh, that person to have the opportunity to ask it right there and then. I might say to them, I'm going to get to that in 5 minutes, and/or I might respond to it right away because I find that it facilitates engagement, especially if it's online. If it's online and somebody has a question and I answer it right away, I know they're going to pay that much more attention. That's true. And I kind of like to have that dialogue from the very beginning, even though I know I'm probably going to be covering that topic later. Because the more engagement I have, the more dialogue I have, the more interaction there is, the more involved they are. Um, generally I find the more successful the program is, uh, because, you know, people are in general selfish or self-interested creatures. We, we are by our nature. And the more you make it about them, the more engaged they are and the more, uh, they're going to enjoy you because you've made it about them.

Well, that's very— that's a very valid point, you know.

Yeah. So, all right, lots to talk about today. Uh, let's get right into it. Um, right here, Peter, we talked about this early. Here. So the Hastings Tribune, uh, in Ohio talks about mail thefts surge nationwide. Uh, a rash of local mail thefts coincides with the reported 17-fold nationwide increase in checks stolen from the U.S. Mail posted for sale online, as officials representing Postal Service Police say they are hamstrung in arresting perpetrators. Frank Albergo, national president of the Postal Police Officers Association said mail theft arrests dropped from more than 2,000 in 2019 to 1,200 in 2022 after a federal policy restricted their arrest powers in 2020. Well, uh, there you go. Uh, so, so stolen checks are being posted online. David Maimon, director of evidence-based cyber research group at Georgia State, uh, leads a team that tracks criminal behavior online. He said that starting in August 2021, they saw a big spike in checks being posted on the internet. So what they're doing is they're stealing checks. Uh, there has been a large increase in stolen checks being posted for sale on the dark web and on encrypted text apps. And since then, things have exploded even more dramatically. Instead of seeing an average of 114 checks a week They're seeing 2,000 checks a week across the country. He said in states like California, Florida, New York, and Texas, but now checks from people in Midwest are becoming common. He said organized crime groups are doing it at this point. They have been, uh, they, they have people who rob the mail carriers for their mailbox keys, people who are going to the mailbox and emptying the mailbox and taking them to a hideout, usually a cheap hotel room where criminals sort through the mail look for the checks and look for credit cards. And then once they find, they usually wash the checks. He said washing checks involves removing the payee information from the check and usually the amount it was written for. He said someone, sometimes the thief will cash the checks into drop accounts, and other times the checks will wind up for sale online.

It's very interesting because, I mean, it's, uh, robbing checks is nothing new. It's been— it was always on a smaller scale, and usually individuals would rob them and Maybe they, or they would have some other colleagues, family members that would be able to deposit them. And, uh, but now this is, this has been magnified, growing scale, the numbers where those individuals who are stealing them are very smart in the sense of, of, um, washing them. First of all, it's just like washing a $1 bill and then printing, you know, counterfeit $100 bills over that over that paper, which was a technique that was used, you know, years ago. And that's why our currency has been— security has been enhanced. So it's the same kind of technique that's being, being used. Um, I don't know what, what's the advice that for the actual individuals who could be victimized? I guess being on the lookout for a check, and then if that check doesn't arrive, reporting it as soon as possible, right?

Yeah. So a couple things here. So number one, as you see, you know, the carriers themselves are being you know, robbed, right? Maybe held up at gunpoint. You know, they're— maybe the trucks are burglarized and so forth. So the actual big blue mailboxes are being burglarized, right? Because the check— the keys are being stolen. So the general advice is, you know, put whatever checks you have in the big blue mailbox. And I would say that in general, that's still a pretty safe bet. Otherwise, bring it right to the actual post office and put it inside the actual post office. Other than that, uh, what I would suggest everybody do— I was a spokesperson for the company Uni-ball, which makes pens, for a year or two. And I'm gonna try this right here. So that is— it's probably getting a little blurry. Can you see that here?

Yes.

All right, that is, I believe, the Uni-ball. I think it's a 207. Right, that's the Uni-ball 207. Yeah, I was right. So it's called the Signo Uni-ball 207. That's the pen that I've been using now for the past 20 years. Okay, that pen prevents check washing. So that particular pen bleeds into— the ink bleeds into the check in such a way that it cannot be washed. So if you sign your checks with that, if you write your checks out with that, in most cases you're going to be in pretty good shape.

But these are probably checks that people are receiving for, you know, um, I mean, a lot of people— I mean, I know there are some people that still send out a lot of checks out to— for purchases, but I think these probably— these checks that are being victimized are probably the ones that are being, being sent out by large organizations. Maybe for substantial amounts.

I don't know, they could be— it could be a little bit of both. It could be a printed check, you know, something that was generated by the computer. Um, either way, I would still use that 207. I would be on the lookout for whatever checks. Uh, if you are missing a check after, say, 5 to 7 days, you know, up to a week or more, I would definitely make a phone call. They can always put a, a stop payment on a check. Uh, so I would always check your accounts. So, you know, do all the basic due diligence of monitoring account activity ahead of time. All right.

Where do you find those blue boxes? Those blue boxes you don't find hardly anywhere anymore except right outside the post office.

They still do exist. Now, Peter, for the listening audiences, they may be hearing a beep, and that beep, I'm thinking, is not coming from my computer. It might be coming from your computer. If while we are going through this presentation, this PodBroad, if you see a pop-up or hear a beep coming from your end, see if you can turn it off. Peter has gone Mac with my suggestion and he's loving it. There are a few things you might want to just check on that. And, you know, so yeah, all right, so next in line, Peter, let's check out— one second here. Um, hold on, Peter. Everybody, okay, so Security Boulevard talks about MSPs, which are managed service providers, the new attack target. Scalable IT infrastructure enables MSPs to quickly deploy updates, patches, and security vulnerabilities. So MSPs are for all of you small, medium, large businesses where you have a managed service provider, basically a remote IT company that manages, you know, your IT software. Um, in May of 2022, cybersecurity and law enforcement agencies, uh, in the Five Eyes intelligence community announced an alarming global crime trend. The most sophisticated cybercrime groups are beginning to specifically target managed service providers in order to gain access to their clients and users. So when you think about it It's a smart business venture for the bad guys to target MSPs because an MSP could have, you know, 100 clients. So it's easier in some cases to go after one MSP who has 100 clients than to go after 100 small businesses. Uh, that way, you know, you leverage, uh, them. And so it goes on to say that according to the research report Uh, MSPs are under more pressure than ever before. Cyber criminals are paying close attention to these developments and are continuously looking for easier ways to monetize their activities. You know, again, it's a business decision for the bad guy. 9 out of 10 MSPs have suffered successful cyber attacks in the past 18 months. The same amount have seen the number of attempted attacks increase on a monthly basis. All right, so MSPs now prevent an average of 11 cyber attacks per month. So what they're saying is also automated backup adoption is increasing at a steady rate, which is a good thing, reaching 85% adoption at the time of the report. This, uh, offers a baseline protection against ransomware. So both the MSPs are backing up and the small, medium, and large businesses are backing up, which means that even if the MSP is hacked or the small business is hacked If you are doing an automated backup redundantly in multiple places, both virtually and locally, generally you should be in pretty good shape in regards to recovering your data should you have ransomware or they have ransomware. Further, multi-factor authentication is implemented by less than half of all MSPs, which I find troubling. Yes, this makes the majority of organizations vulnerable to compromised accounts and malicious insiders. And finally, 46% of MSPs suffer cyberattacks, end up losing business as a result. And, you know, maybe they should, especially if they're not using multifactor authentication. Peter?

Yeah, I completely understand why the bad guys would be focusing on the MSPs. It makes perfect sense. It's a great way to penetrate a target that may be considered harder and have harder security measures and protocols. And if— I think last year, actually, over 52% of data breaches actually occurred through the vendor that the ultimate target, uh, was utilizing. So not only MSPs but also other types of vendors, maybe to even include CPA firms, law firms, etc. So they're looking— they look not only for the magnitude of the number of clients they have, but also sometimes the smaller as vendors, service providers are easier to penetrate and gain a great way to leverage to gain access to the larger target.

Yeah, you know, it's like 101 just to have two-factor authentication. So I'm sure there's a number of other ways that these organizations are being compromised, and that might be, you know, vulnerabilities in their hardware, vulnerabilities in their software, not updating their operating systems and so forth. Basic, basic stuff. I'm sure a lot of it is credential stuffing, known usernames and passcodes that are exposed on the web. And then from there, it's like, you know, phishing, phishing, phishing. You know, you get a spammy communication from whoever and you click on it and you end up going down some rabbit hole. So for you small businesses, make sure that you have what's called a, well, a CISO, which is a Chief Information Security Officer. That CISO could be on-site, or it could be a vCISO, a virtual Chief Information Security Officer. Essentially, that would be somebody that would be, um, uh, you know, a couple guys in a briefcase or a small firm that remotely manages your network, looks for those vulnerabilities, and actively works to patch those vulnerabilities. Having that in addition to a managed service provider, uh, would be a smart way of doing business. Okay, absolutely.

Yeah.

All right, so, uh, let's, uh, give me one second, everybody. Peter, uh, check out this. This is just beyond nuts. So we're gonna kind of detour a little bit. Dad shoots— dads shoot at each other in traffic, injure each other's daughters. Says the sheriff. This is Fox 13 in Tampa Bay. I believe, uh, one of these cats was from Florida and one was from Georgia. Uh, two men are facing attempted murder charges after an apparent road rage incident ended with a shootout. At one point, the vehicles were alongside each other. Uh, someone in the truck rolled down a window and began shouting at the car to pull over. A passenger in the car then flicked off the people in the truck, probably gave him the finger. Somebody gave me the finger the other day. Uh, that's, uh, then someone in the truck threw a plastic water bottle into an open window of the car. That's when, um, I, I believe the guy in his car grabbed his gun and fired one shot at the truck speeding off. Uh, and then Police said, uh, he fired his gun, uh, to get out of the whole situation. The bullet from the gun hit the 5-year-old girl in the leg, and then when the guy in the truck's daughter got shot, he began speeding, uh, to catch up with the car, uh, and then, uh, the car guy, the Nissan, pulled out a gun and fired several rounds in the direction of the, uh, car. Yeah, and then Lepper said, uh, 3 of the bullets hit the car, one hitting a 14-year-old in the back seat, hitting her in the back, causing a collapsed lung. Oh man. Uh, the incident came to an end when the 2 drivers came across a patrol car and pulled over. The men got out and started arguing with each other, and the deputy broke up the fight. The 2 girls were taken to the hospital, and both injuries were not life-threatening.

Wow, that's insane. I mean, this is totally out of control where people's emotions People are just so stressed out, and the fact of, uh, you know, having their gun with them and just without thinking, just reacting to their emotions to the point of— they're lucky that neither girl died. They really are lucky.

Peter, I said I was given the finger the other day. I was, I was driving with my daughter and, uh, we were in some bumping and bumping traffic. I was a little bit confused at one point as to where I was going, so I might not have been like 100% engaged in the direction I was going because I was like half paying attention to the road, half paying attention to GPS. So I'm sure I was not like 100% on my game, but I wasn't doing anything like aggressive or anything or doing anything to hurt anybody. And I certainly wasn't doing anything that required somebody giving me the finger, right?

Okay.

My daughter said to me, Daddy, that guy just gave you the finger. And I saw him give me the finger as I turned over And I'll admit that, like, I had, like, this rush of anger, you know. Uh, yeah, I had this rush of anger. It's like, why would you do that? Like, you don't know who I am, you know what I mean? Like, you, you just did something in front of my daughter that was offensive. Like, why would you do that? You know, what is the point of that? And, like, while I had this rush of anger, like, I didn't— did I want to ram him with my car? Yeah, did I? No. You know, like, you know, like, but like, it's like, why? Like, yes, everybody's jammed up, but why engage in such a rude, aggressive behavior on his part when you don't know who I am? Like, I didn't do anything to you. Like, you don't know my story. Like, why would you do that? You know, and, and that behavior is going to lead to situations like this. And if you have a gun on you, right, uh, in situations like this, you know, somebody throws a water bottle at you, uh, into your window, and you, you may feel justified to shoot back. And when you do that, like, you could very well kill somebody. And the— and both of these guys right now are being charged with attempted murder. This is going to cost them in excess of probably $75,000 or more. It's possible that they're both going to do jail time. In the end, it's guaranteed not to be worth it for either one of them.

And they didn't show a very good example to their, to their children, which, you know, it's important too, right?

That is 100%, right?

I know that's what you mean, Robert. That happens to me too. And, and you have that rush of anger and you, you want to, you know, you want to do something, but it's just so much better just ignore it, you know, ignore it.

And then like for me, that same day, probably 10 minutes later, uh, I was required to change lanes because the lane that I was in was ending. And the— and, and, and as I'm— as I put my blinker on, and as I'm beginning to change lanes ever so slightly, the guy that was about a car length behind me sped up to prevent me from changing lanes. And the guy had a dog on his lap, you know.

Like you, I guess, huh?

Yeah, the guy had like a look at it. It's friggin Boston, okay? I've driven all over the country. I've traveled, and probably at this point, all 50 states. Boston and LA have the meanest and most aggressive drivers in New York City of anywhere in the country. Boston has, I think, worse than New York and worse than LA. Boston drivers are nasty, nasty people, okay? What's that?

Go to Miami, my friend. You might find that it's also up, up there, very, very competitive with, uh, especially that this, like, not allowing you to get in and speeding up to block you from getting in.

Everybody jokes about the Dunkin' Donuts coffee and like everybody's on dunks, like they're real, like caffeine. It's like everybody's just all hyped up in traffic and it's just like, dude, just relax. Like I hate driving. I hate getting behind the wheel because people are just so awful.

We didn't have this problem during COVID Robert Siciliano. It was nice to drive.

That was the best and only good thing about COVID Yeah, yeah. All right, well, don't shoot each other, okay? Tourist kidnapped in Mexico had foot hacked with machete before being left for dead. Fox in Los Angeles. So this guy, just Dustin Jackson and his wife, were waiting for the flight home after the perfect vacation in Cancun. With hours to spare, Jackson hopped in a cab to head to the store to get chewing tobacco, but the nearby gas station didn't have any. That's when he said his taxi driver kidnapped him. I'll never forget that feeling, Jackson said. It was the scariest feeling in the entire world. Jackson said that the driver told him he knew a place where he could get— go to a grocery store. But that's when things got much worse. I get out and I'm like, okay. And then as I'm walking, it's boom, lights out. And the next thing I know, I'm waking up in a ditch. He said that he was attacked by a group of men armed with a machete. They used the machete to cut up his foot. They went for my Achilles tendon and then missed. Instead of hitting it, they hit the bottom of my foot, and then my foot just flapped around. They were trying to cut my tendons and leave me for dead.

Yeah, this is terrible, but I, I, I believe it. I mean, because I lived in Mexico for almost 4 years. I lived in São Paulo, Brazil also for about 4 years. I mean, I know in some of these cities that kind of danger— you just don't hail a random taxi to get from point A to point B because so many of these taxis— in the case of Mexico, I believe that almost 55-60% of the taxis are, they call, pirate, meaning they don't have a license as a taxi driver. They will buy a car, they will paint it to look like a taxi, they will paint a, and, you know, license numbers on there. They'll look to, to the, to the average person, they look to be normal taxis. The only people that can detect them right away are other taxi drivers that know, oh, that one's not real. And so some of them are just people just trying to make a living, you know, charging a normal fare. But there's other ones that will work with these criminal groups, and they're able to pick up these unsuspecting individuals, especially tourists who typically are going to have money on them, and then will take them to an ATM machine, a number of ATM machines, to drain out all their money. And I mean, sometimes they'll— if they're fortunate, they'll just abandon them side of the road. But in some of these other cases, they will— it will kill them, you know.

Yeah, this is not—

this is not that rare, unfortunately.

Even legitimate taxis have bad guy taxi drivers in some case. But wherever you are, I always recommend going to the actual taxi stand where, you know, there's actual taxis, uh, and they're usually, you know, well-descript, right? Uh, they're always of a similar color, similar look, and so forth. Um, you can always get recommendations from hotels and resorts as to, you know, a taxi, or have them call a concierge, call a taxi for you. You know, I've been to Mexico at this point probably at least a dozen or more times, maybe 15 times-ish, and with young family. And, uh, you know, I've run into some things, you know, but generally we stick to the touristy areas. We stick to, uh, you know, populated areas. And, um, you know, every country has its issues. You know, we have our issues here in the U.S. Uh, you know, one thing's for sure, uh, just make— always try to do business with those that are catering to, um, Americans or Canadians. You know, if you— if, in fact, you're going to Mexico because they cater to mostly Americans and Canadians. And that way, like, they're literally speaking your language, English, and they understand what your fears and concerns are. And even a place like Cancún, which historically has not had the same problems as, say, you know, Mexico City and, and Jalisco and other parts of Juárez and so forth, um, you know, even Acapulco has had its issues, and now Cancún, uh, so you know, it's— you, you do need to be, you know, on high alert and not just trust, uh, when you're heading, uh, south of the border.

And Robert, there's another thing you could do. How about this tip? When you're, you're, uh, going to get into a taxi, before getting in, take— go, go from behind the taxi, take a picture of the taxi with the taxi's license plate number, and make sure the taxi driver sees you doing this. Uh, this way they're more than likely not going to take a chance on trying to take advantage of you. Whether it's, you know, this case it was very, very extreme, um, where he almost lost his life. But many times these taxi drivers are going to try to overcharge you or other things like that. But if you do that, they're going to be concerned that they can get reported. So it's just a tip that I learned from someone when I was traveling in Vietnam, actually. And I thought that was a pretty good technique that could be done in lots of parts of the world.

Yeah, agreed. Thank you, Peter. That was a good one, and you would know, you're a world traveler. All right, last but not least, an imposter. Gizmodo talks about an imposter claiming to be an astronaut wooed a Japanese woman into paying for a return ticket to Earth.

This can't be real, Peter.

It's real. All right, so the space romance unfolded through Instagram, but the victim, uh, soon grew suspicious of the astronaut's monetary demands. A 65-year-old woman in Japan paid the equivalent of $30,000 in a recent online scam that defied gravity. That's creative, pun intended. The con artist tricked the woman into believing that he was a Russian astronaut who just couldn't afford a ticket back to Earth, local media in Japan reported. The pair started corresponding through Instagram in June, and the scammer claimed he was a cosmonaut aboard the ISS. He blamed poor cell service aboard the orbiting space station for his lack of communication at times. Things between them quickly escalated when the fake astronaut professed his love to her, claiming that he would want to marry her once back to Earth. Except there was one problem: he simply could not get off the ISS unless he had enough money for a ride back to Earth.

It's not funny, Myspace.

It's not funny.

Well, no, I mean, yeah, it didn't happen to me, so it's— so I, I find it very humorous, but it is sad, you know. And I feel sorry for, uh, this lady who really got taken advantage of. Yeah, uh, at least, uh, it was reported and we can, you know, other people can learn about, about some of these things. Uh, what he took her for, $30,000, right? A minimum, $30,000.

Okay, yes. As soon as people see this, they go, how dumb could you be? How stupid is she?

Like, look, here's the deal, right?

She's a— I think she's a good person.

Oh yeah, no doubt.

She's a good person. I think she's a nice person. And I think that, like, when you see these stories, when anybody sees these stories, the first thing you need to say is, that is unfortunate, that poor woman. She must be a really good person. And you learn from these situations because ultimately she has a kind and good heart, right? She wanted to help somebody. And what did she— what did she ultimately want to accomplish through this situation, right? She just wanted love. She just wanted to be loved, you know. And she's just lonely. And when you are lonely we make bad decisions. Loneliness trumps common sense all day long, right? And most of us looking at this scenario, even if we are lonely, would not fall for that type of a ruse. Most of us, but not all of us. And this may not be the only person who's ever fallen for this ruse. I will bet a million dollars that, that there have been hundreds of people that have fallen for this particular ruse. And the reason why I say that is because this can— if, if, if this one woman has fallen for it, then I guarantee you, then the scammers are using that exact same ruse on thousands of people. And there is a percentage of those thousands of people who are falling for it, because if it works on one person, it's going to work on two people. People.

Yeah, you're probably right. So the same person could be doing the same, trying this technique out with, uh, with 10, 15, 20 people at the same time, right? Just behind a computer all day long.

All day, all day. And they're gonna try and try and try and try and try. And, you know, I mean, it's exciting to be connected with an astronaut. It's exciting. It's an astronaut. Wow, like, that's amazing. Like, you're really, really up in space. Wow, like, I feel so privileged that I can communicate with you and that I can help you. And if that person up in space is providing all kinds of like examples of what it means to be in space, like photographs of them floating around and pictures of them on the ISS and pictures of them like floating out in space and all these different, you know, um, uh, convincing, uh, things that would essentially, you know, uh, get that person to believe them, then, you know, that ruse is, is viable.

Makes you wonder whether or not she told some— she probably told some family member or a friend about this, you would think. Uh, and that, you know, did that person try to, you know, just roll their eyes, or did they try to, try to convince them that this could be a rouse?

Or that's probably what it was. Ultimately, they probably, you know, had to brag about it. And, and, or that, that $30,000 evaporated and they never heard from the bad guy again. And, uh, they probably were looking for help. Okay, so for all those in your life that you love, uh, that, or you're responsible for in some way, you know, people that might be lonely, this is just one of many romance scams to be aware of. So Peter, uh, where are you gonna be, uh, next?

Next, I am traveling up next week. I'll be up in the Philadelphia area. Then, as I mentioned, I'm going to be traveling to the Middle East for about a week, and later on I'll be traveling to Mexico. And, uh, then I've got, you know, the end of the year, some family time. So I'm looking forward to catching up on a lot of things.

Have you, uh, received your, um, your booster shots?

Uh, yet my wife is reminding me that we better do that very, very soon. I'm About you?

I got my two COVIDs, you know, back when you got your two COVIDs, and then I got a booster back in December of '21, and I got a booster yesterday.

Good. No, we should recommend everybody consider that. It's very important.

I got a boost yesterday along with the flu shot, and here I am presenting in front of thousands of people, and I feel fine.

That's great.

Yeah, and I would suggest you do the same thing, especially before you start traveling, Peter, because everybody that I know that has gotten sick recently. Um, some of them have had their booster, and, uh, they're saying what's— and some of them have been sick a few times, and what they're saying is, is that this particular strain is not as severe, but it's lasting longer. So they're dealing with the effects of it for, you know, as much as 2 weeks.

Yeah.

Okay. Uh, yeah. And so check out, uh, at Counterintelligence institute.com for Peter and check out his books, Confession of a Spy: The Art of Human Hacking. And you can see me these days at protectnowllc.com. And what I would also encourage you to do is to head to our About Us and scroll down to the bottom and see all of our testimonials from our Google Business Page. There's a scrolling bar down there. You can see how fantastic and wonderful I am, or at least what people say about me and my presentations. And feel free to leave a testimonial on Google, as long as it's a nice one. Don't spam me and be nasty. I'd appreciate that. If you have something—

give Robert the virtual finger either.

Yeah, I mean, come on now, just be nice to everybody. Peter, last words.

Yeah, be nice to everybody and get to know other people, because, uh, people won't be as easily scammed by others if you get to know what's going on in their life. And, and, you know, we communicate with each other and share, you know, we can give good advice.

All right, everybody, nice to see you. Peter, stay safe out there, everyone.

Thank you too.

Take care.