Synthetic IDs can be used to open fake accounts, but without a person to file the fraud claim, how should companies deal with this type of deceit? There is no crime where someone doesn’t need to pay for the loss. Either way, the loss is passed on to the consumers in some way or another.

Today’s guest is Steve Lenderman. Steve is currently the Head of Fraud Solutions North America at Quantexa and has over 25 years of experience in financial crimes investigation. His previous roles include being the Senior Vice President of Fraud Prevention Investigations at Bank Mobile Technology, the Director of Strategic Fraud Prevention at ADP, and the Fraud Operations Lead for PayPal Business Loans. He is a certified fraud examiner and actively contributes to the anti-fraud community.

• [1:07] - Steve shares his background and what his current role is at Quantexa.
• [4:04] - For those who are interested in a career path in cybersecurity or fraud, Steve has some tips.
• [6:07] - What is synthetic identity? Steve describes what it is and why we should be concerned about them.
• [8:59] - Although still mostly built around financial data, synthetic IDs have also morphed into other nefarious uses.
• [10:56] - All fraud in general is underreported, but synthetic IDs are extremely underreported, so data is not accurate, although still very high.
• [12:37] - Synthetic IDs can be used to open a credit card and then after several purchases, fraudsters leave the card open and unpaid.
• [14:21] - Some think that synthetic IDs and fake accounts are victimless.
• [18:59] - To understand how fraud works, Steve had to create synthetic IDs.
• [22:15] - Over the years, it has gotten even easier to do, which is alarming.
• [25:13] - Credit repair using a CPN is illegal fraud using synthetic IDs.
• [26:40] - Synthetics are all built around data and the ease of collecting data in the last few years has increased the ease of creating them.
• [27:57] - Criminals have learned that they can use synthetic IDs in more ways and in more industries.
• [31:04] - Small businesses are particularly easy targets for synthetic ID use.
• [33:16] - It is possible for synthetic IDs to also be used to create a new business.
• [34:53] - Technology has also made it possible for a deep fake to be created to match a synthetic ID.
• [36:49] - A lot of synthetic IDs are created with unused credit.

Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.

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Criminals do their own recon to study how vendors craft their emails and how they can structure them to match. Scammers know employees are busy and that they want to act promptly on requests, but they also understand it takes time to verify the validity of the email. How do we train employees to know what is real and what isn’t?

Today’s guest is Josh Bartolomie. After joining Cofense in 2018 as the Director of Research and Development, Josh currently serves as the Vice President of Global Threat Services. He has over 25 years of IT and cybersecurity experience. He designed, built, and managed security operations centers, incident response teams, security architecture, and compliance for global organizations.

• [1:08] - Josh shares his background and what he does in his current role at Cofense.
• [4:06] - After all these years, email continues to be an easy way for scammers to target many people at one time and victimize a percentage of them.
• [5:52] - Wherever there are a lot of people, that is where attackers will go because that is a bigger pool of success for them.
• [7:08] - You used to be able to block emails with an unsubscribe button, but now we rely on those emails, too.
• [9:50] - The goal is not to stop them altogether, because at this point it isn’t possible. The goal is to dissuade people from clicking links and trusting emails.
• [11:47] - With AI and LM, crafting emails has never been easier for scammers.
• [13:48] - Organizations get hit in different ways, but HR generally gets targeted a lot.
• [16:54] - Intellectual property theft is also a part of email crafting.
• [20:14] - Chris shares the story of an unfortunate experience.
• [25:10] - Acknowledge that these things do happen and they can happen to you.
• [27:33] - Always call the vendor. It’s an extra layer and extra work, but never trust an email that says something has changed when it comes to finances.
• [28:54] - Organizations should have a strong reporting culture.
• [30:55] - Employees can report emails that seem suspicious. The majority of them are spam emails, rather than scams, but they should be reported.
• [34:02] - What constitutes a spam email? What is the difference?
• [36:13] - Organizations tend to cut IT and cybersecurity when there are budget cuts.
• [39:18] - This is changing every single day.
• [41:46] - Scammers collect data and create profiles. They are very sophisticated in their strategies to target organizations.

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Some scammers love the challenge of deceiving those they target while others are forced to scam. Those that thrive off of destroying others try to heighten your emotions very quickly. Both excited and angry responses can get you into making irrational decisions.

Today’s guest is Doug Shadel. Doug is a former fraud investigator and special assistant to the Attorney General at the Washington State Attorney General’s office. He served as state director for AARP Washington and Strategy Director for AARP’s national anti-fraud efforts. Doug has collaborated on numerous educational videos and academic studies and co-authored five books about fraud. He also co-authored the AARP Fraud Frontier 2021 Report. He is currently Managing Director of Fraud Prevention Strategies LLC, a Seattle-based consulting firm.

• [1:08] - Doug shares his background and career in fighting fraud.
• [2:43] - Robo-calls have been a long lasting problem that Doug has been working on with AARP and Nomorobo.
• [7:11] - Over the years, Doug has interviewed numerous scammers. They all say their primary goal is to get a victim in a heightened emotional state.
• [9:07] - Doug describes the research that shows when people are in a heightened emotional state, they are more likely to fall victim to a scam.
• [10:57] - Block the incoming robocalls to begin with to help avoid a scammer manipulating you into a heightened emotional state.
• [13:17] - It still is very dangerous to answer these phone calls because a lot of them are really persuasive and really good at what they do.
• [14:34] - There isn’t a specific demographic profile. Doug explains what people who fall victim to a scam have in common.
• [16:49] - The FCC has come down hard on robocallers, but this has just caused scammers to be more careful and even more skilled.
• [18:09] - Have you recently received calls asking for a donation? Doug describes how these work.
• [21:12] - The number one red flag of a robocall is the threat of loss.
• [25:22] - Caller ID is not reliable. It is very common and easy for scammers to spoof a call.
• [27:48] - There are some legitimate needs for people to be able to spoof a call.
• [29:42] - Assume it is a scam if you did not initiate the contact.
• [33:08] - By and large, scammers will not cause violence on a victim, even if they threaten them. They follow the path of least resistance.
• [36:02] - Doug describes some software he uses to edit videos that incorporates AI. These tools are great, but are also used by scammers.
• [39:26] - Grandparent scams are really common. Doug describes what people have said after falling victim.
• [40:40] - There is an illusion of invulnerability. If you are convinced that you are not vulnerable to something, you won’t do anything to prevent it.
• [43:04] - There’s a lot more money for scammers to make in scamming an employee of a large company than individuals.
• [46:10] - The pandemic also had a big impact on the scamming industry.
• [50:50] - The AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline is 1-877-908-3360.
• [53:00] - Always report a scam when you know of one. It helps more than you know.

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