In Episode 311 of Through a Therapist’s Eyes, we explore the powerful and often overlooked connection between mental health and fraud with guest Kyle King, Security Engineering Manager at Check Point Software. Kyle sheds light on how mental health challenges like anxiety, isolation, and fear can make individuals more susceptible to scams—and how fraudsters exploit these vulnerabilities with alarming precision. From romance scams to financial cons, we examine real-world cases, the emotional impact on victims, and the dual role professionals play in offering both technical and therapeutic support. Plus, Kyle shares cutting-edge fraud prevention tools, including behavioral biometrics and AI-driven solutions, and emphasizes the critical importance of education and awareness in staying protected.
Tune in to see Mental Health and Fraud Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- How can mental health challenges influence an individual’s vulnerability to fraud?
- What are the psychological impacts on victims of fraud?
- How can awareness and education help prevent fraud, especially among those facing mental health issues?
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-king-b8b7865
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
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Episode #311 Transcription
Oh, wow. Did you know that? You did know that? Of course he knows that. Fantastic. He’s always on this stuff. So we got the one that we’re gonna, we’re gonna invite who, what was his name? He goes by alien Monkey. Alien Monkey. Yes. Alien Monkey is a new YouTube subscriber. Welcome aboard. So please tell your friends, your job is to help us grow in that way so that people find us if you like what we do, if you like what we provide.
How many stars, John? Like I always got defer. I always get five stars. I always gotta defer to him. You have five stars. Takes it personally if you don’t.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes, that’s right. And we’re on many different platforms. Of course. Yeah. And just go ahead and give us a rating, the five stars and leave a comment.
We’re on Spotify on I’m sure we are. Are we on Apple
Chris Gazdik: Podcast? I
John-Nelson Pope: know we’re on
Chris Gazdik: Apple Podcast and we’re got pod kicker or something you talking about. I don’t even know what that is. Yeah, listen, contact it through therapist.com as way to email us get us interaction. And as always, John knows this is the human [00:03:00] experience, which we endeavor to do.
What?
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t know.
Chris Gazdik: I put Victoria on the spot too. She did the same thing.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Well,
Chris Gazdik: we endeavor to figure it out together. It’s our
John-Nelson Pope: human experience. But that’s, that’s the other thing. And we’re not d delivering
Chris Gazdik: therapy services of any therapy. I said it.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay.
Chris Gazdik: I said it. I said it. So, Kyle, welcome to through a therapist’s eyes.
Man. I appreciate you doing this. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. You know, I think you have a lot of things in your head of your that, about this topic that I’m, I’m really curious where we’re gonna go because Yeah, this is. This is something that you deal with every day as an IT specialist in, in this deal.
And I, I, I don’t know. I, I guess we’ll get into it, but I see it proliferating. Oh, it’s gonna get worse. I, I, and, and I was gonna say, stole my thunder and I think it’s just with all the disinformation and all the stuff that we’ve got that people do online, right. How worse can it get?
Kyle King: Right? He says, with a knowing lab, John, like a lot.
We’re [00:04:00] just, we’re, especially with the generative ai, it’s going to get much worse. I can see it, you know, that attackers are going to be using that generative ai. Feature.
Chris Gazdik: I literally had somebody, oh my gosh, just a little bit ago. Give me the notion. He is like, have you seen Trump dressed up as the pope?
You know, we do that. Did you see that? I have not seen
John-Nelson Pope: that, but yet, no. No. It’s, he, he, that’s a big thing. Made, made even Trump look good. Oh, he did. So, yeah,
Chris Gazdik: he looked great. He looked like he beat the pope. He was sitting up there with a big old Pope thing, MI guns, whatever. I’ll have to go find out. It’s, it’s hysterical.
And, and the reporters were asking him, ’cause you know, all the stuff they say that, you know, whether you’re for or against, it’s, it’s, it’s got some humor to it. Like Sure, absolutely. He’s like, I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t do this. I’m not arrogantly presenting myself as the pope, you know, come on, please.
You know, but they were bugging him about it. It was, it was interesting. So, Kyle man, Mr. Kyle King is a technology and cybersecurity expert for nearly 30 years of experience. We’re not gonna comment about age, John. No, we are not. Kyle and I are youngsters. Yes, you are [00:05:00] right Kyle. Yeah. I’ll, yeah, I’ll take that.
We’re gonna hang on with it. He has experienced across various industries. You are a native of Hickory, North Carolina. I am. All right. Born and raised in, in North Carolina and stuck around. Congratulations. I did, I did have not left. That’s rare. I know.
Kyle King: Little stint in Raleigh, but you know, I came back here close to home.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, you went all the way to Raleigh. I know, right? That’s the far away land for those around the world. That is actually in our state, only about three miles away. That is the
John-Nelson Pope: capital of
Chris Gazdik: North Carolina. That is the capital of North Carolina, north towards east. Fun, fun fact. The global leader he works for checkpoint software technologies.
The global leader in cybersecurity that invented the firewall in 1993 really invented the firewall. Impressed as an engineering manager, Kyle spins his workdays guiding cybersecurity engineers. Engineers a big term. That means he’s Big John. I don’t know. I’m just saying those engineers are amazing people.
They’re really brilliant. So if you’re managing them. Or did they manage you? Maybe a little Both? [00:06:00] Maybe a little both. Yeah. Well, we worked out, we play off. We figured it out together. We figure out together. Exactly. So they developed their careers advising companies of all sizes on how to best secure their digital assets as a testimony, as technical and interpersonal skills.
He was invited to join this elite team of cybersecurity evangelists for the office of the CTO. So yeah, you know, as long as that goes, man, what, what, what brought you to that work? What do you do? How do you work? You know, you know,
Kyle King: what is that whole world like? Oh my gosh. Well, for me it was wanting to know how that.
Digital world started working back in the nineties. Yeah. Like, all right, I’m gonna state my age. I mean, I’m old. And it’s just evolved into a passion. Once I started getting into, you know, the desktop support and then moving into, you know, different phases of that world that you can get into, one of my passions became cybersecurity.
And, you know, therefore I’ve, you know, landed at this job where I help people and help corporate corporations. Evolve their [00:07:00] cybersecurity presence, you know, and try to prevent the hackers from getting their data.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Kyle King: It’s, and I’ve been there for nine years, but, you know, I’ve, you know, that’s just been my life a lot.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s funny ’cause I, we’ll, we will get into it. There’s a little segment that I wanna get to later, but it pops in my head. I mean, I, I had a I have a buddy a life buddy, a shout out to Adrian. He, he did a show called Technology Anxiety. Mm-hmm. And, you know I’m sure I’m gonna repeat this later, but he, he makes the point that he, he identifies that there’s two problems he has to deal with.
Right. The technical problem that the person’s, you know, bringing to the table. Right. But he recognizes if he doesn’t deal with the first problem first, then he’s never really gonna make progress in resolving that situation in circumstance. Any idea, I’m curious how you’ll say, what is the other problem that he’s trying to work with?
Kyle King: Well, I’m just curious what is that other problem that you, that thinks the anxiety of the people? Oh, absolutely. I mean, absolutely. I mean, you’re
Chris Gazdik: facilitating people and I guess you’re, what is actually your position [00:08:00] with the people? Like how do you, do you work directly with the customer? Do you work directly with
Kyle King: I do, I do.
I interact directly with the customer. So what we do is we, we go in there and learn their challenges. What’s the problem that they’re trying to solve? And then we architect solutions for them. Now, that does create anxiety because they may or may not be. Understanding of our platform, which again, going from one platform to another, you know, we can create anxiety because, okay, how am I gonna do this?
I don’t have time to train. I got very limited resources. How am I gonna manage all this?
Chris Gazdik: Also, it involves a computer, right? Like it doesn’t work well sometimes. Yeah.
Kyle King: And, and it, it’s up to me is to, you know, kind of ease the pain and anxiety from them. It’s like, okay, well let me help you do this. Let’s educate you here.
Let’s, let’s bring that anxiety level down, because it is a big task. I mean, when you’re thinking about a individual or a group of individuals, you know, trying to protect the crown jewels of the [00:09:00] corporation that they’re working for. Oh yeah, this is
Chris Gazdik: valuable information
Kyle King: at Stakes. You think of a healthcare company or a financial company that, that somebody is responsible for protecting that data that.
You know, however many users that they support. Well, that’s, that can like, create a lot of anxiety and trust me, I used to work on that side of the, of the house where I was that person. So I would have direct reports and we would work as a team to protect that data. You know what’s funny, I’m gonna make, I’m gonna make you laugh.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. I, I, I am, as the founder of Metro Atlanta, I, you know, I have to make decisions and stuff, and I, dude, I, I, I want the hard drive. I want the data. I want the stuff right here, right where I can access is not linked to the internet and whatever. Doing all that stuff, man, it just, I just feel like it just is so much more secure.
’cause nobody can have access. Well, and that’s way I
Kyle King: wanna go. Where, where is it today? Everything’s in the cloud. No, not my stuff.
Chris Gazdik: That’s what I’m saying. Oh, I’m a little
Kyle King: like that. So, yeah. But there’s a lot of people that feel the same way. [00:10:00] And, you know, that’s where I try to break it down on layman’s terms is like, help them understand, you know, how can we, how can they help, how can they understand that deep dive technology in such a way that they can comprehend.
John, you think he knows anything about hipaa? Oh
Chris Gazdik: yes, I bet he does. Yeah, he does. Have you read the hipple all? Sadly enough. It’ll put you to sleep. You need to check the YouTube live and see his facial expression on that. Before I forget how do people find you? I wanna make sure that if they need help, if their company needs help, if they’re individual, small home space needs help, right?
Like, what can you serve? What do you do now they find you.
Kyle King: Right? So my company services a lot of corporations and organizations. They’ll be shy and I, you can find me on definitely on LinkedIn, and you can reach out to me. That’s probably one of the best ways and the easiest ways. And if you have a problem, I can direct you, especially even if you’re a con, you know, just an individual you want to, you know, take a look at what protections that we offer on that side.
I can, you know, guide you that to that as well.
Chris Gazdik: And you have a phone number, an address? Anything? That email. What, how do that, [00:11:00] everything’s
Kyle King: on LinkedIn to be honest. Oh, you’re a LinkedIn freak. I am. I am. So, yeah. So if they wanna reach out to me there, there’s, just find me by you know, Kyle, Kyle King.
Did you actually buy the premium version of LinkedIn? I.
Chris Gazdik: Do have that. Oh my gosh. That’s amazing. I do have that. Are you, you’re on LinkedIn? Yeah, but I don’t do the premium. I don’t like any social media stuff. It drives me nuts. Neil gets on my case all the time. I probably ought to do better. Come on LinkedIn, but
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t, I I like to see how many searches I’ve been in.
Are you, do you have the premium also? No. Okay. No, but I get, I get towed. How many? Oh yeah. Every day. They look you up? All the time. All the time. My dissertation is out there. Nice. And make sure that
Chris Gazdik: we have the links actually. Absolutely. I can send it to you. I’ll get that emails to make sure that we have it.
We’ll have it on show notes so you can find Kyle and he can help you out with big or small. Absolutely. How, how big, what’s the levels there? How do we, it doesn’t
Kyle King: really matter if it’s a company we can help big or small. If it’s an individual we have products that can help there as well. Can you help my ring camera work?
Well, I, that actually probably could do, [00:12:00] actually. I’ve got, I’ve got a couple of ’em, so I might be able to help. Quick, funny story.
Chris Gazdik: My kid was like being disobedient on the porch and he text me, he’s like, dad, dad, look at the camera. Look at the camera. Look at the camera. And I was like. Little, do you know? I haven’t looked at the camera in about three years.
I don’t think I have a feed. I think I still pay for it. I don’t know. Right, right. You know. Alright, let’s, let’s, let’s look at the intersection between what might feel like an odd intersection, but I don’t, I don’t think it’s disconnected at all. Mental health and fraud. How are those things? How, how do y’all, how do both of you, how do y’all think this is connected?
Kyle King: Oh, it’s very connected in my opinion. Yeah. Because I see it all the time. You think of the mental anguish of somebody being deceived and maybe losing money or losing their, you know, confidential information. To me that’s a very big impact on somebody’s, you know,
John-Nelson Pope: mental health. And I think there’s v vulnerable populations, and we’re talking about the elderly a lot of times.
Mm-hmm. [00:13:00] Oh, it makes me so mad. People that have serious mental illness, I’m thinking mm-hmm. In terms of people that might have be delusional and have, Right. Might be schizoaffective, which is on the schizophrenia spectrum. Right. And so, or they may be bipolar and they may be in a manic state and then they get tricked into something.
Right. So it’s, it’s horrible.
Kyle King: Well, lemme throw just a question out to you guys. FBI put this data out in 2024. The number, the amount of loss for those individuals. 60 plus. Oh, we’re going there already. Wow. How much do you think.
Chris Gazdik: I, I don’t even wanna venture a guess, John, because I, I think it just, I, I mean, I’m sure there’s millions at least, so multi, you know, seven digits is not enough.
Are we going to eight digits, Kyle? Yeah. You, you’re going, you’re going to nine digits. I mean,
Kyle King: it’s, it’s good. It’s up there. [00:14:00] I believe that the number is 4.8 billion something, $4.8 billion, something like that. In a year. A year. A year. And that’s, and that’s the reported, that’s not counting the ones that don’t report, right?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. That are embarrassed.
John-Nelson Pope: Correct.
Kyle King: That full ashamed.
Chris Gazdik: Ashamed. Correct. Right. It’s debilitating. It is. It
John-Nelson Pope: is. And we’re talking about life savings. Absolutely. Because they’re people that probably are on very very much fixed incomes. Absolutely. And may have. The only type of pension they may have is social security.
Yeah. So,
Chris Gazdik: you know what? Let’s blow a myth off. You know, that’s part of what we like to do on the show is blow up stereotypes and myths and disseminate information about mental health and substance abuse. And so I, I think there’s a very big myth out there. You know, you got that show, episode 38. Okay. So I’m gonna out myself, John, I’m not a stupid person.
Would you, would you say maybe not today. Not today, no, you’re not. Some days I, [00:15:00] I might have my, my moments. You’re very intelligent person. I’m, I’m fairly intelligent. Yeah. You mentioned earlier CEOs, you know, I mean, they’re, they’re fairly smart people, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, I think there’s a little bit of a myth that, that people.
Sort of make jokes about, have fun about, they talk about the stories or people that they knew. And it’s kinda like, it’s a little belittling the way that people talk about victims of fraud. It can’t happen to me because I’m not the victim type. Right, right, right. And I gotta tell you, episode 38, Neil, so he looked up the episode, that was way early on.
I actually had this deal where long story short. I, I got a, I mean, they caught me the right moment, I guess, right? Mm-hmm. And, and they’d spun the story as they had me on the phone that I had missed a, a, a federal jury case in Charlotte, right? And that no big deal. I mean, they played it up. Well, no big deal, no problem.
We just gotta fix this out. You know, there’s a, there’s a fine of like $430 that we need to, to [00:16:00] pay, and then we’ll reimburse you. You come down to the station, whatever, whatever, whatever. And he, and he played me along and I mean, I’m sitting there like, this is crap, but this isn’t crap. But if I’m going to the station, I’m gonna shake your hand and look at your, in the eyeball.
And he do had me running around. And like I said, long story short, I got to the point where I actually went to Walgreens. He got me to Walgreens and, and, and bought one of those. What is it that I know? We, we, his eyes are wide open, right? Like. The, the cards that you’re supposed to buy. Oh, yeah, the gift cards.
Yeah. And, and that’s a dead giveaway that, that’s going on. But I had never heard of that at that point yet. And so I had the card to put the money on it, and he’s like, all right, just read the numbers on the back of the card and make sure and confirm that the money’s there. And I said, no, sir, no, I’m not doing that Right.
Because my one thing, and I said in my head, if I’m gonna shake your hand and look at you in the eye and I’m in a PlayStation, I figured that this is legit. Right. Otherwise it ain’t legit. Boom, the line went dead. Of course. So they didn’t get anything from me. Yeah. But my point is, is how easy is it to get got
Kyle King: Kyle?
Absolutely. Very easy. Because what they did, [00:17:00] they gave you a sense of urgency, something that was missed, and you’re going to, you know, in incur financial debt or whatever the case may be because you missed that court date. Right. So that’s how they prey on people, right? They find that sense of urgency, or they find that thing that somebody’s been missing.
Maybe it’s a, you mentioned romance earlier. Maybe it’s a romantic connection that they’ve missed. Or maybe it’s somebody looking to do an investment opportunity. You know, they look for those, you know, very subtle things and they prey upon it. And it’s very, well, let me ask you this. How many have we, how many text messages have you received about the EPAs toll?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You missed this. My wife asked
John-Nelson Pope: me about that the other day. Don’t,
Chris Gazdik: don’t do it. Right. Don’t, don’t do it exactly right. I had a friend, it was literally on her phone. She’s like, oh man, I gotta deal with this. And I’m like, no, no, no. Hold on. Don’t do that. Don’t, don’t click the button or your package is late.
And it’s funny because they don’t even have the the click, right? You have to reply [00:18:00] and then on the reply, it activates all of the clicks. And then you could do the click. Exactly. And then Exactly. Then once click you got, they got you. Right. It’s crazy.
Kyle King: Well, and then it gets even better from there. So now, you know, with the deepfake technology that’s out there.
They can use your voice. Mm-hmm. So they can just take a very few seconds of your voice and create a whole deep fake where now it’s an audio call, it’s a physical phone call to you that could be creating that sense of urgency.
John-Nelson Pope: I’ve heard that there for example, you might get this call from London, England, and United Kingdom, and they said, I, I’m stuck here and I I need help.
Right, right. And they, they want you to wire money to.
Kyle King: Absolutely.
John-Nelson Pope: Absolutely.
Chris Gazdik: So let’s break those down a little bit and look at individually a little bit. You know, first you’re talking about ba, you know, finding that urgency. My big take is that, you know. Fear-based feelings, right. Are right at the center of this.
So any level of insecurity, [00:19:00] any level of urgency is the word you’re using. Any level of fear. And I would throw in there clinically, you know, we see anxiety in all mm-hmm. Sorts that, you know, somebody has, you know, John, you said who, who’s more vulnerable and whatnot. There are specific vulnerabilities to which fear-based feelings is, is one of that, right?
Mm-hmm. I would agree
John-Nelson Pope: 100%. So in other words, they appealed to you because they know, obviously you’re an intelligent man and, and that sort of thing, but of course, you’re limbic system goes into overdrive and then you start to, to, to panic. Your mind panics and you don’t stop. And so you, you don’t stop your mind from thinking, I mean, you, you.
And that’s the problem. They get
Chris Gazdik: you going,
John-Nelson Pope: they get you going.
Chris Gazdik: I mean, you know, when that happened to me on episode 38, you’ll hear, I literally did the show, Kyle, like about an hour and a half after this ordeal was done. And I pulled a complete audible and I just told my cohost to Thomas. I said, Craig, you know what?
We’re just [00:20:00] gonna do this show on this and I’m just gonna relieve my story. And kind of, and I was, I was real, I was in it, it was raw. ’cause it literally had just happened. And it demonstrates how, again, I’m, I’m fairly intelligent. I’m, I’m fairly grounded and reasonable, but man,
John-Nelson Pope: yeah, well I was, I was. So I’ve taught it to universities and you think those people, they have PhDs and they’re all very sophisticated, right?
Nah, they’re just as gullible as as anybody else because Well, yeah,
Kyle King: absolutely. Yeah. And you know, not only that, some people just get curious. You know, I, I have a story where,
Chris Gazdik: I’m glad you said that because I think the gull ability factor needs to be reframed to to Right. What You’re right. It’s
Kyle King: very curious because some people just really get that curiosity factor.
Mm-hmm. And they’ll know all the telltale signs. Like they get an email from somebody that they don’t know, and it includes an attachment. They weren’t expecting IRS, and it has misspellings in the body of the language of the text. Mm-hmm. And, and even in, in the email, right. [00:21:00] Return. And then they’ll say, and then they’ll click on it, and you ask them, well, why did you do that?
I was curious to see what would happen. And of course, now their PC’s infected or they’ve been taking vulnerability or whatever. And
John-Nelson Pope: that’s what I was
Kyle King: trying to That’s true story, by
John-Nelson Pope: the way, by the way. Where I taught there was the, you we had training all the time because right at one place I was at, we got ransom.
Right. We got, because somebody let them in. Sure. And and so guess what? We were, they were always sending us, it was always sending us as they should. Yeah. Reminders and also trials. And tests. Right. So, and, it’s so you had to be very much on guard.
Chris Gazdik: And another component of this, this is gonna, literally, whenever I talk about this, I can feel the anger about this.
This next one, it’s already been mentioned, but I don’t know man. When I was like 10 years old, I was a young little tyke, probably single digits, actually, my little [00:22:00] old. Grandmama, she would walk miles to a department store and she walked home after her shift. And one particular day, some dude decided to like purse snatch her.
Mm-hmm. And I mean, it just, it did something in me. Right. Really did. And so part of what I’ve seen in our caseloads over the years, you know, is this romance fraud thing. Mm-hmm. And a lot of times it’s the, from Facebook, you know, dating sites and this type of thing, and it’s, it’s, it’s just terrible. It literally, I can feel it as I’m speaking.
Right. Like, it bothers me. Why do you prey on, you know, defenseless? Older people that are lonely and, and you know, how, how big of a deal is romance fraud?
Kyle King: Oh, absolutely. It’s one of the top five. Yeah. You know, according to the elderly, you know, attack vectors I guess I would call it, because that is that way that they build that connection, they [00:23:00] build the trust and it’s not something that’s a quick thing because it’s a very long, drawn out thing when it gets to, into the romance thing, typically.
And what they’re looking for is once they build that connection, I mean, it could be like an overseas connection or something of that nature where they’re saying, Hey, I want to come see you in person, but I don’t have the monetary funds. Can you send me, you know, help me. Out and can you send me some stuff?
Or, Hey, I got this here and there, investment opportunity and look, I just need a few more, few more bucks in order to get that investment and then we’re gonna be set and then we can go off to wherever. Right. You know, those are the kinds of things. So they prey on that
John-Nelson Pope: or they say they’re a celebrity or something like that Could be Right.
Absolutely.
Kyle King: It. Yeah. It’s, it’s amazing how that personal connection and that will just impact somebody’s life. Mm-hmm.
Chris Gazdik: Like. The impacts are so profound, right? On the mental health, the helplessness, the betrayal, the, the, the pit [00:24:00] that you go down on. You know, I hear everyone in with their jokes. I’m the punk, I am sitting here literally with egg on my face.
Like that episode 38 was kind of risky for me, right? I really like took a leap a little bit to share all of that. And I’ll tell you even more currently an example of, of the way that you feel, and this makes me super mad that John, I’m getting ticked off. You’re gonna have to deescalate me. Do you know, like we literally just had a check fraud that happened to my mom.
Oh, check fraud. Yeah, she’s in a facility, dementia and somebody, I’m not gonna just name the facility. They’re a great facility. Actually. Person was immediately fired. And I don’t mind going public with this because it was just wrong and it’s real fresh and real raw. Snatched out. Dig on checks, live checks.
Now I didn’t, they was live in the facility. They shouldn’t have been, but that’s a different story. Direct access to her bank account, bro. Right. You know, old school, by the way, the police are coming if they haven’t already. And it’s, it’s that fresh, it’s that raw. But what my point is [00:25:00] family. Mm-hmm. Friends, the individual.
My mom doesn’t know any better sadly. But, you know, the helplessness, the, the, the, the anger that you have, the, what are you supposed to do when you’re a victim of this kind of stuff?
Kyle King: Well, and you know, I’ve had friends reach out to me and says, Hey, I did something stupid. And where they’ve got a call or they clicked on something and they said, Hey, your PC’s infected, you need to call this number.
Well, they may have, and this person on the end of the phone says, I need this remote access. Mm. Oh, yes. So I’ve had the, I’ve had those calls, you know, from friends even. And you know, they’re shamed and it, it’s very shaming when that happens. Yeah. But it, it’s. You know, when you are a victim to that and you feel like you get, you fall prey to something that simple where Yeah, I was asked to call that number and I did, and somebody on the other end tricked me.
Yep. I mean, that, that creates a, a pit in your stomach and Well, [00:26:00] 50
John-Nelson Pope: years ago, I mean, it wouldn’t have happened 50 years ago, but let’s just say even 20 years ago, we weren’t that sophisticated at that level. And now it’s like they’ve got every trick in the book. Well, and it’s so, and, and I’d get so frustrated by the way, with all these, these two step off and.
Oh, I hate to factor authentication. Hate. Yeah. But you
Kyle King: really hit me later when I can give suggestions. Yeah, yeah. We’ll come to a segment where he tells us to do all the things that frustrate us, John. Right? Yeah. But yeah, but, but you’re absolutely right because those kinds of things did not exist back then.
Right. And now with ai, that’s only gonna get worse because it’s real easy for AI to create a site that looks like, mm-hmm. A PayPal site, right? Or a Netflix site or something of that nature. And now, instead of the Nigerian prints that has all these misspelled words, e in the email, now it’s perfectly, and they’re overly perfectly good language.
That may sound like somebody cleaned [00:27:00] it up because it’s cleaned up. But not only that, it could also include. You know, maybe it’s from a supposed friend of that person and that person. It sounds just like that email. The way that person, that’s crazy. That’s, that’s where we’re going with this. It is, it’s going to
John-Nelson Pope: get
Chris Gazdik: even
John-Nelson Pope: more convincing because of those technologies.
Well, thanks to ai we’re all gonna sound like, because we end up having everything corrected by ai. I’m just, that’s another we do. I mean, they, they, I, I’ve taken myself off of Grammarly because I, it made, it stole my voice, so I’m, you know, well think about QR
Kyle King: codes. Right. So do, do you know about the, the brushing scam that’s going around?
No. So brush, you know what brushing is? I do not. Okay. So brushing is a term that it’s, think of like Amazon or eBay. Mm-hmm. Or somewhere, some package that comes from them. Yeah. It’s where a vendor, like a real package, like a real package physical package gets dropped on your doorstep. Oh, wow. Oh yeah. You don’t, you didn’t order it.
It just gets dropped. [00:28:00] Okay. Okay. So no information about it, but somebody has created, typically they do this to boost ratings and reviews on in, in whatever they’re trying to sell. Yeah. So, however, it could be used maliciously, because what they’re doing is they’re creating some fake account. They got your address, they send you the package, you have no clue, but it comes with a gift receipt.
You know, just like Amazon would give you gift receipt. That gift receipt contains a QR code. Okay, you scan that QR code, now you’re being taken to a malicious site. Now you’re putting in your information. This, this has happened in my parents. It is
John-Nelson Pope: neighborhood, and I’m on I’m doing a watch. It’s down in Florida.
And this has happened to several site, to several people. Very people. Very favorite.
Chris Gazdik: My gosh. Should we just go around the room here and get personal examples of this stuff? Like, Neil, what do you got? Let’s get Neil and Mike. What happened to you? Man, it, it’s common. It’s the point there, right? Like it’s really common, right?
And the [00:29:00] impacts are pro found. Before you turn show on, like how profound can this get to? In my
Kyle King: line of business life or death to be honest. Life or death? Life or death. How so And so there, you know, there’s a story where a high level high level executive at a company because the company had been attacked and got impacted by ransomware, as you mentioned before they couldn’t handle the stress and they ended up doing something very bad to themselves.
Right?
John-Nelson Pope: There was a, a, a young boy going on with this too, that was on social media and I think he was on his computer or an iPad, but he was he sent a picture. It was inappropriate. ‘Cause he thought he was talking to a young lady, right? And and they sent it to and they tried to, and I guess basically.
Chris Gazdik: The underage, underage thing and stuff, sex charges and all
John-Nelson Pope: that. And tell his [00:30:00] parents and, and all of that. And he, before they even knew about it, he killed himself. Right. So, and listen, let’s think a psycho, when you say life, life and death, life, his life
Chris Gazdik: and death sometimes is aftermath or in the process.
Shame builds up. And if you touch on anything, yeah. This can, this can bes I mean, people jumped out buildings at the, you know Right. Stocking market drop, you know, this is, this is scary stuff.
Kyle King: It is, it is. And people don’t realize that. I mean, people, you know, when you think about cyber bullying we’ve heard that term plin and you know, now that social media’s exploded and things like that it’s easy for teens and stuff to, you know, follow prey to that.
But then when you get into. Our world where we’re starting to do business with electronically and everything’s on our phone or everything’s on our tablet, you know? Do we rarely sit in front of a PC anymore? No. Everything’s a mobile device these days. Now it becomes even more scary because you can download a simple app and that be a malicious app, and now they have ev [00:31:00] access to everything on your phone.
Are we talking about TikTok? I dunno. I don’t have TikTok. They’re gonna, they’re gonna cancel us. John, what happened
Chris Gazdik: here? You know, it’s interesting, Kyle, I, I, I had planned on asking you a question directly. It fits here. Now how often have you ever thought of yourself as a therapist brother?
Kyle King: Right? Not really, but you know, I have to talk people off, off of ledges, you know, so to speak.
Not generally. Not really. October 29th, I do have to talk 1929. Right. So I do, you know, have to kind of reassure them as like, okay. Alright. You’re, you’re good. Nothing on this PC or nothing on this device has impacted you know, we can you’re, you’re safe. So, yeah. You
Chris Gazdik: know, I, it really, I, I think I said it.
I don’t know if the YouTube thing was on or nomax we’re off, but, you know, my friend is a technology mm-hmm. Expert and, and he did an episode on our show. You know, it might be cool to check that one out too. Technology [00:32:00] anxiety because he is excellent at what he does, and I mean, he made that point. He’s gotta deal with the both problems we do.
If you’re, if you’re not dealing with the customer’s mental health, you’re, you’re just being incomplete because they, they won’t know what to do. Or you, you know, they won’t, they don’t know how to proceed. It’s just so debilitating. Yeah. Like, it puts you in a
Kyle King: place where you can’t even think straight. Yeah.
I’ve had friends call and says, I know better than to do this. But it happened. It
Chris Gazdik: happened. What do I do? Yeah.
Kyle King: And it, you know, that’s where I’m like, you know, you’re talking about therapy, I guess I put my therapist hat on. I say, okay, let’s just get some information first and let’s figure out what happened, what really happened, and then let’s go from there.
Yeah. And you know, that’s kind of, I guess, you know, some of the things I do when I get those phone calls, so they, they’re dealing with guilt and shame.
John-Nelson Pope: Absolutely. And
Kyle King: embarrassment. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. He was on early, it was episode nine. So we’re hitting these things early in our history of our show.
By the way, I’m gonna check that out. You have to go to the website. That was pre
John-Nelson Pope: covid. [00:33:00]
Chris Gazdik: That was, that was way pre covid. And you have to go to the website through therapist.com to get those early versions of the show. So we’re, we’re finally coming around actually 300 and what episode to, to technology stuff because we’ve touched on it, but not, evidently not enough.
Not enough because, you know, talking to Adrian about that, you know, and all that he sees and all that, he’s dealing with all, I mean, you’re just inundated with this, I’m sure, like on a high level also.
Kyle King: Yeah, I, I have people come up to me all the time and, you know, not just, you know, people around the community, but you know, you know, to your point customers and whatnot, they’ll reach out to me and they’ll ask questions and how can I prevent this?
How do I, you know, protect against this? And let’s face it, you’re talking about Covid, when Covid happened. For most corporations, everything became a snow day. Mm-hmm. For, for the entire globe. For a year. For right. So it was like, how do you deal with not having somebody physically in an office Oh, wow.
That you’re trying to protect. So we were very, I’ll be honest, we had a [00:34:00] very busy year because those are most of the questions that we had to field is like, okay, how do I have, how can I protect this user that’s sitting at their house that cannot come into the office now?
John-Nelson Pope: Now you do. Like for example, I guess there’s an institutional way that you have a way of, in a way, even though it’s a person’s personal computer, it’s the institution that might have there’s ways of authentication.
Absolutely. Yeah. And so it, and so you have to go through those steps and so that computer has to be checked out. Right. So it’s as a, a, protects the institution from or the business.
Kyle King: Absolutely. And it’s up to the business whether they want to supply the. The laptops or if they want to allow their own, I worked for a school, an institution.
An
John-Nelson Pope: institution. They didn’t do that, but they sure messed up my, my computers. ’cause I could, everything was kind of locked into ’em. They were tied into ’em. Right.
Chris Gazdik: But you know, you just mentioned something, Kyle, that [00:35:00] is another major mental health focus point here that I didn’t even think about that. That’s fascinating.
’cause what you just said is when Covid hit the, the whole marketplace shifted to, as you said, a snow day. But what my brain went to is wonderful way of talking about it. But what my brain went to is isolation.
Kyle King: Oh,
Chris Gazdik: right, right. Is it true to say that isolation is a major factor in becoming a victim of fraud and getting indoctrinated into all this?
Kyle King: Oh, 100%. I mean, we still have, we, I still talk with folks today that never leave the house. They’re still in that mindset where they’re never gonna go back to the office whatsoever.
Chris Gazdik: Well, but what I mean is, is I, I know like in my own experience, you know, the big catch when they get you going, don’t hang up.
Right. Don’t ever hang up. You gotta stay on the line. Don’t wanna break the connection. You know, I’m talking to you, we’re gonna work this out. I’m gonna see you all the way through this. And they literally stayed on the phone for, and at one point I was messing with ’em. I was like, [00:36:00] let’s just see how long this guy’s gonna stay on the phone.
Oh, I have fun with them too. I think I did, I think I did progress notes and stuff. A couple, you know, just to see, you know, I was like, and they were gonna just stay with me the entire time. Reassuring me, Hey, we’re doing this with a few different people. You know, I’m, I’m, you’re, you’re only number five that I’m dealing with, so take your time.
Right. We’ll get, you know, ’cause they don’t want you to break that contact. Right. Why?
Kyle King: Because. It’s kinda like walking into onto a car dealership lot. If you leave chances of you buying a car, coming back and buying a car, well now the chances of you actually going through with whatever they’re trying to do is less.
So that’s kind of how you gotta think about it now. It’s almost like when we were back in the office and I kind of relate it like this when we were in the office and we had those water, cool conversations. Important, right? Very important. It’s that human interaction, and that’s what build those relationships, build that trust, and that’s what they’re trying to do.
When they have you on that phone, they’re trying [00:37:00] to build that relationship with you in a short amount of time to get you to do what they want, they want you to do so that they can gain access to whatever they’re looking for, right? Whether it’s personal data, whether it’s sensitive information, whatever.
And what, what? What is newer, I think
Chris Gazdik: in growing is the relationship building. Oh yes. Yeah. Right, right. Oh, wow. Look, again, it’s face on YouTube live. If you don’t see this on the audio version, because tell me about the relationship component.
Kyle King: Social engineering has is a primary way that attackers, you know, prey on people.
That’s, that’s primarily what they do. They will look into ways to get into a business, let’s say corporation. They’ll actually look at, for people that could be disgruntled, right? And they, when they will approach that disgruntled person and says, Hey, guess what? I know you’re not happy, but if you do this for me, you plant this little, you know, run this little program on your pc.
At work. Oh my gosh. I’ll give you a little bit of the [00:38:00] benefits and you can get back at ’em. Yeah. Those are the kinds of things that you gotta, are you saying they’re targeting
Chris Gazdik: Yes. People with information about their posts or, oh, absolutely. You know, things they’re saying on social media Absolutely. And maybe a disgruntled employee who just got a new job and they’re going back to the old comp.
Wow. Absolutely. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: it, it works on so many different levels though. I mean, that’s also, you can post stuff on your social media mm-hmm. And you’re disgruntled, and then your boss reads it. Right. You can get locked, you can get fired as well. Right. So, but you’re right about that. I, I, there’s a backdoor kind of entrance into this as well, and I think, I don’t know if you I think Kevin Mitnick does that, right?
Right. Yeah. He’s the reformed hacker that yeah, he is, does the, does the, the consulting. And so you ever hear him talk? He’s, he’s a great speaker by, yeah. So you, you. There’s so many stealthy ways to, to break in.
Chris Gazdik: That’s rough. Because what I was thinking when the relationship component that I’ve seen in my [00:39:00] caseload are people that get a relationship built mm-hmm.
With, let’s just say a random name. Rinky. Rinky is a guy across the pond and another country, and you talk with rinky, rinky texts. You, you develop a texting relationship. You and rinky are now friends. You’ve been doing this for six months, and rinky begins to understand that, oh, you’re a business owner.
Oh wow. What do you do for business? And you’re building a real, a full blown friendship you feel like you have online. And rinky
Kyle King: may or may not be a real person. It could also be a bot. A bot. Of course he is. Yeah. So, and, but that’s where the social engineering aspect comes in because the more you see, you know, more people post online social engineering and that you, that they have access to man, the more information, you know, for everybody at the.
Post, you know, Hey, I went to the bathroom this day or this hour, you know, that’s information that they’re going to use. You know, anything like that. If you are gonna post, you know, names of kids or dogs or whatever, know, they know your schedule
John-Nelson Pope: and they know it. So, so in other [00:40:00] words, let’s say that something’s done by a, a like there’s a guard at a door or something like that.
They can be let in because you, you might have this, this relationship and so they come in and they do espionage
Chris Gazdik: on you. So, alright, we’re, we’re, we’re terrifying people. We’re going to have a segment here in a little bit of what to do to prevent some of this. I’m sure that needs to be a part. I, I think that was one of the
John-Nelson Pope: criticisms.
We need to do more of that, you know, because
Chris Gazdik: this like, it’s, this is getting scary. It, it’s uncomfortable, it’s terrifying because you know, this next part of like, how much do people get, how much do they get paid? They would’ve got about four bills off of me if they would’ve been successful. But I’m willing to say that 400.
$35 for a fine, missing a jury thing is really pretty mild compared to what people get paid.
Kyle King: Oh, I’m, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s on average, of the stat, stat I gave earlier, roughly 83,000 was the average means that they, [00:41:00] $83,000,
Chris Gazdik: they are loss, stealing from people, loss that are in some ways un attainable.
Are we talking individuals? Yes. Are
Kyle King: we talking eight dividual, three K. And again, this is just focused on 60 plus. That’s not including the other age brackets at this point. Well, that’s why
John-Nelson Pope: my mom’s
Kyle King: never gone
John-Nelson Pope: on a computer.
Kyle King: That’s, that’s a good thing because they have a life savings and they’re taking it, right.
Taking it. What if you got a phone call from a relative and it sounds just like that person. Oh, aunt Mary. She’s a lovely lady. Right? What if you got a phone call that says, Hey, I was in an accident. I. They’re getting ready to take me to jail because I was texting. Right? Mm. What would you do unless you gimme
John-Nelson Pope: some money to this?
Kyle King: I gotta help.
John-Nelson Pope: And if it’s a nephew or something like that, and you know that nephew has a problem,
Chris Gazdik: right.
John-Nelson Pope: You know you’re going to do something.
Kyle King: Those are what? Those are what known as Ving scams. There’s a lot of ING scams. Phishing. Phishing. The phishing vishing with a [00:42:00] v. Vishing. Vish with a V. That is a new term.
Yeah. There’s all kinds of turns. So what are a few? Phishing, which we all know. P-H-T-H-P-H and vishing phishing with a V. That’s, that’s voice. Voice. I’m gonna be disappointed if you don’t say catfishing. Well, catfishing is a you different kind of thing, but there’s a smishing, which is texting.
Chris Gazdik: Alright, I’m losing my mind now. There’s the brushing, there’s the.
Kyle King: That that was from Get Smart, there’s squishing with which he squishing and that’s the QR code. You know, trickery.
Chris Gazdik: Unbelievable. There’s all kinds of things. I literally don’t even know these terms. So
John-Nelson Pope: there’s a sucker born every second, but we’re all suckers.
And that’s point John, like for real. We can’t beat ourselves up on this. No. If
Chris Gazdik: there’s one thing I really want to get out to people is how vulnerable we really are to all the different ploys and all the different dynamics that go into this, and as the technology gets better. Mm-hmm. And you really do have a bot with a sexy voice that’s gonna give you everything that you [00:43:00] ever imagine possible.
And it’s really good. Things never happen to you, but it’s happening today, Kyle, like, bam.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. Wild. Absolutely. It’s, it is kind of scary. So there’ll be a point where they pass the Turing test, which is where artificial intelligence actually is sentient that. It’s gonna be undetectable essentially.
Right now it’s almost undetectable.
Kyle King: It’s getting close and that, and that’s where you have to, I mean, in my line of business, I mean that’s where we have to have AI based tools to fight the I ai. Yeah, basically AI’s gonna fight ai, right? That’s what
Chris Gazdik: That’s what we’re getting to. Exactly.
Kyle King: Because I think I mentioned this to you before, there’s only so much that human brain can consume as far as information when they look at an email that comes across, right?
If they see it from a person they trust, right? It looks great. They see, it contains verbiage that sounds just like that person, because maybe some scrape, like grabbed it from social, some [00:44:00] social media post. It sounds just like that person and Hey, I need you to click on this link. Or they click on this link, they put in the information.
Well, that’s all it took in the background. That’s where the AI tools come in.
Chris Gazdik: And, and keep in mind, I have some knowledge, I’m kind of geeky in science and you know, stuff. I just enjoy this. I mean, we, I just wanna point out to people who understand when we’re talking about this, we’re talking about this in a way where they get three seconds of your voice, but then from that three seconds they can have a whole conversation in that syntax and in that voice tone and in, I mean, you think you’re talking to your nephew on said, right, right.
Like, it’s not just like they’re repeating something Right. Actually able to extrapolate an entire conversation just from one little recording.
Kyle King: It’s un it’s unreal. So the more you post on social media of your voice and your face and that, the more opportunity there is for deep fakes and stuff like that.
John, what are we
Chris Gazdik: doing on an international podcast, brother? Well, this is, that’s not good.
John-Nelson Pope: They’re gonna get my [00:45:00] idiosyncrasies and my cadence to my voice. They’ll even drop in a song, in a song
Chris Gazdik: reference when they, when they do you. Oh, we do, we make jokes, but I, this is it. It it, I, you know, I’m, I’m just even experiencing this conversation.
I. We have gone like about 45 minutes already. So we’re Matrix right now, huh? We’re in the matrix. We could be. No, what what I’m making the point is like, this is such an interesting conversation. It grabs me in. I is fascinating. Yeah. And you know, I feel like we’ve been talking for five minutes, right?
Kyle King: Well, same here.
And I could go on and on about this because there’s so many examples, right? You know, where that I have, you know, just throughout my career of being involved with, and you know, one thing I do, I wanna make sure everybody comes away with, yes, technology can be scary, but there are ways that you can use it in a safe way.
And you know, also the ways to protect yourself. So it’s, it’s not, it’s not gloom and doom. It’s not forever gloom and doom. It feels gloomy, right? It feels doomy.
John-Nelson Pope: Ask you. So do you have like cloud software that [00:46:00] your company provides? That your industry provides? All right, lemme let set this up.
Chris Gazdik: John, we’re in the segment clearly.
Thank you for the transition, Kyle of.
John-Nelson Pope: How do we fight back, man? Right, right. Well this is what I’m, yeah. How do we fight back for real? Oh, help. Help us.
Kyle King: Right. So. You know, for the corporations and, and businesses that I deal with, I mean, we have, you know enterprise based products mm-hmm. You know, that we can do that with.
But, you know, that’s obviously not gonna fit the typical person. But we do have products that can actually help. Now there are simple things without any products that you could do, you know,
Chris Gazdik: which is, now when you say a product, what, what do you, what do you really mean by that? So, like, you guys have done that down to me.
Kyle King: Yeah. So for instance, one thing that you always put on your PC was antivirus, right? Mm-hmm. Something about McAfee or something. Yeah. Right. It could be McAfee, it could be other. Right? Yeah. What do you put on your MO mobile device?
Chris Gazdik: My credit card. My social security number. I mean my contact. I have a Samsung
John-Nelson Pope: that just knocks, but that’s you, my bank [00:47:00] account.
No, I don’t put any of that on my stuff. Be honest. Nothing. You have it on your No, dude,
Chris Gazdik: that Apple Wallet I refuse to ever use. It will never happen. You, they have, you have
Neil Robinson: it,
Kyle King: it’s on your phone, but that thing travels with you everywhere. Yeah. Should you not have some type, type of security on that device?
Chris Gazdik: I do not. And you know what, I’m gonna tell you something that, that I was talking to a we had, we did a show with what was he, he was a private investigator. Mm-hmm. Oh man. It’s been a while. Dude. I forget his name. Anyway, he made a statement that your social security number now almost doesn’t matter.
Your phone number is what matters. Mm-hmm.
Kyle King: There’s a lot of information, information you can get from there. Yeah. Yeah. Wild. I mean, you know, it used to be it’s, it, it can be done, but we used to talk to businesses about account takeovers that you know, now that all your email’s in the cloud and you give me your business card, chances are I could, you know, take over your account just off the business card.
Just off your business card.
Chris Gazdik: Oh
Kyle King: man, John, your beaming what?
Chris Gazdik: 8 6 7 5 3 0 [00:48:00] 9. I had to, you had to do it. He was bursting outta his chair. I thought. I thought we were gonna have some sort of brilliant moment from John Pope and we That’s cool. Love, love that. No,
John-Nelson Pope: it is your phone. Yeah, your phone number and that.
And maybe I have to change my phone number or something, but well, you know, anyway, some people will
Chris Gazdik: have two phones specifically so that they have their personal phone and everything and their professional phone. I have. That’s gonna be a thing. So, yeah. But then you don’t
Kyle King: wanna carry that. You, most people don’t wanna carry two phones.
Double fisting.
Chris Gazdik: We’re double
Kyle King: fist. I don’t want, that’s just with pure, so you know, it, you know, that’s the kind of things that people don’t think about is like those tablets, those mobile devices these days, they’re so crucial and have so much information on ’em. We don’t even think about it. You know, your banking app is probably on your phone.
I. Your credit card app is probably on your phone. Yeah. Yeah. So Facebook has, you know, all your contacts are on your phone and you can get your phone wiped.
John-Nelson Pope: You can wipe your phone, can’t you remotely?
Kyle King: You can, but there’s also ways to disable it before that happens. Mm-hmm. [00:49:00] So one of the things that you, thank you.
So you can take, we actually, I actually did this trick on my wife I was taking a training session one day and Does he mess with you? And I, I’m sitting, oh, you told me this story. I know where we’re going. I’m sitting in, I’m, I’m literally sitting in Dallas and she’s in Charlotte. And I, I text her and I said, Hey, click on this.
I need you to install this. We’re testing out a piece of software. Again, back to the social engineering, engineering aspect, right. I already have the relationship, so she trust me. Right. So she did. I turned on the microphone, I looked at her calendar, I looked at her contacts and Wow. And she, and you know, these are the kinds of things that, you know, hackers can do.
And you know, a lot of people don’t even think about something as simple as updating your device on a regular basis because it’s software, software always has vulnerabilities. Updating that device on a regular basis as well as the applications on that device are crucial. And, and, and it [00:50:00] used to be Apple was, was
John-Nelson Pope: solid, but it’s not anymore.
No, no, no. Right. But the solid
Chris Gazdik: meaning protected or protected and alled,
John-Nelson Pope: that’s long gone. So, but like on teams, for example, I can con if I’m, if I’m leading a, if I were leading a class, I could turn on people’s mics, turn ’em off, control the monitor and visit and all
Kyle King: that. There’s been stories where a executive has.
I had a bunch of money taken from, say, their 401k because their kid downloaded a malicious app outside of the app store. That might be more than $83,000
Chris Gazdik: more probably.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, oh. But what happened to this? The guy that was, he was. He was punked about being selected. What was his name? Sanders’s son. I don’t know.
Yeah. Oh, Deshaun. Oh, sander. Oh, on the draft? Yeah, on the draft draft.
Chris Gazdik: People told him. Was that true [00:51:00] by the way? Yeah, it was, it was true. That was true. Yeah. My son gave that to me. He’s like, look dead, look at it happened. I’m like,
Kyle King: is Atlanta Falcons of their coach’s son? Uhhuh? It was, that was an Atlanta Falcon Coach’s son got a lot of money.
Oh, that’s terrible. Oh, it’s terrible. It was terrible. Okay, so we’re on. What do we do to fight back? Yeah. So yeah, simple thing. Simple things. You know, one thing is it doesn’t cost anything. Update your devices regularly. Update the applications on the devices regularly. You’re gonna hate me for this, John.
I’m, I’m already
Chris Gazdik: we’re
Kyle King: two factor authentication. I can’t stress that enough. You gotta have that. Could I hate it? Is that really important? Here’s the, also the most simple thing that you can do. Don’t use the same password everywhere.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, Kyle, you’re killing me man.
Kyle King: Use a password manager. Mix those up a little bit.
Let generate,
John-Nelson Pope: but is there, is there a type that you could get that, I guess we’re not supposed to tell brands, but is there something that would be, like, something that would be good to
Kyle King: Yeah, there’s, there’s several [00:52:00] different ones out there. There’s actually one that comes installed on the Apple device.
Mm-hmm. Automatically. But there’s several third party mm-hmm. That you can subscribe to or some of ’em offer free tiers that you can also do as well. But use it. Password manager, here’s,
Chris Gazdik: here’s what I wonder about that. So, so, so far you’ve mentioned some things. Mm-hmm. I’ve heard that. Yes. We make jokes, John and I get annoyed at having to update computers and change passwords.
Right. And two factor authentication drives us nuts. But I, I, I’m asking a question ’cause I don’t really know the answer to this, but I suspect that, I know that the answer to the fact of. Those are simple things. Sure. How effective are they? Really, really effective.
Kyle King: Really? They’re high level effective, aren’t they?
Because, go ahead. It’s always about you. What you know, what you have, you know? So for instance, like if you know somebody’s password, okay, that’s, that’s through the first door. But if they have two factor authentication on, well now you’ll get a notification on your phone. [00:53:00] If you’re using on some type of authenticator app or something like that, you’ll get a notification that says, Hey.
I need you to approve this. Mm-hmm. And so they’re not getting through the second door if they can’t get through the front. If, if they get past the first door. Right. So it is effective, does it
Chris Gazdik: almost essentially cease activity? Like it stops the fraudster in his tracks? Oh yeah. Is that a fair state? Yeah.
I mean, they, they
Kyle King: can’t access it without that, that verification. It has to have
Chris Gazdik: both things. And what are the chances those, you’re gonna have both things?
Kyle King: Well. Very slim, I’ll be honest, very slim. Because that, that authenticator is, that information right there is on your device or even something, just your email, that’s something you have need or
John-Nelson Pope: you get, you get something sent to your, to your text messaging, right?
From, from let’s say USAA and or Suncoast schools or LA Cap or these are my, my thing and I have like six. And then Suncoast School asked me to remember seven. Now I’ve gotten up to six. And at my age I’m doing [00:54:00] fairly well to be able to remember that. Right. But I can’t, I have a hard time hitting seven, so, but that’s, that seems to, you have to go through a lot to Yeah.
To be able to get into your account.
Chris Gazdik: But yeah, see, I’m thinking like in order to cross over. And get my bank account or my money or my function. If I simply have a two factor authentication process, they would have to abduct me physically. Mm-hmm. Have my phone plus my email, send it, get that code themselves.
Right. Have me disabled in the room in order to actually be able to effectively get to my account. Now I’m drawing that out to say like this, is that effective, isn’t
Kyle King: it? It
Chris Gazdik: is. It is. It,
Kyle King: it very is because that’s something you have on you, you know that that device that you’re, you’re sending it to, whether it, you know, SMS or authenticator app application is actually better.
So I would highly encourage that versus I get confused by those things though. But that, you know, I would suggest that so,
John-Nelson Pope: so. [00:55:00] So institute, I mean like banks mm-hmm. They do the authentic Absolutely. App and all, all that. Yeah. They require
Chris Gazdik: everyone to
John-Nelson Pope: engage that way. Yeah. Well, and then you have, for your own personal, you have your fingerprint, you have your which is and then you have facial recognition, right?
And so that helps, but you get, you get people that get rocked behind you or something like that, and you’re like in a, in a a. A coffee shop. Mm-hmm. And it’s public wifi. Mm-hmm. And people can, they can count your taps on your, your laptop, can’t they? Or, oh, it can
Kyle King: be even more scarier than that. If if you really want me to, to tell you about that.
There, there’s devices out there that you can mi mimic their wifi, and that person will actually, you know, whoever’s in that coffee shop, join their wifi if it
John-Nelson Pope: tap to your to your video camera surveillance and then see what you, what you’re type typing in, can’t they?
Kyle King: Well, they could, if you had something.
You have to get them access. Right. If you had something. I mean, it would take a little bit. It just depends on the type of, [00:56:00] I mean, if they want it bad enough.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so, so let’s, so let’s move this back just a little bit to effective things. Make that you can do Yeah. To protect yourself. We’re in this and you’re making
John-Nelson Pope: us feel more secure by saying how almost impossible it is.
Right. And
Chris Gazdik: that’s kind of why I was doing that. But, but, but let’s think about some, some things just in your own personal day-to-day life. Yeah. Okay, well think that, let’s think of the emotional pieces. Don’t be alone. Ask a friend, have conversations about this. Check this stuff out. Be prepared. Rehearse.
What are some emotional things that we can do? Is what I’m curious.
John-Nelson Pope: So in other words, have practice mindfulness,
Chris Gazdik: right? Mm-hmm. Go further with that.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And by that I mean, in other words, as you stall you stop, you put a halt or a stop sign in your, in your mind when you if you, instead of just doing something mindlessly, you say, okay, I don’t recognize this from somebody.
It looks like it’s something coming [00:57:00] from somebody that’s harmless and it can, even malicious stuff can come through something that has been scanned. And, and it might just be cutting edge and have a virus and install it in it. So you have to say, I don’t. Click on this. Right? So Kyle, there’s, there’s technical
Chris Gazdik: things that we can do, but I’m asking you about the emotional things, if you may, if that makes sense.
Right.
Kyle King: He, he’s absolutely not wrong. Yeah. And that’s one of the things is just be, you know, being aware, have situational awareness you know, for whatever’s, whatever you’re looking at, you know, so if you’re reading an email, for instance, and it seems like it has some type of urgency around for it, it’s like, okay, well, am I expecting that?
Did I really go to that place? If I get my Netflix, if I’m getting a notification that says my Netflix subscription is going, you know, and payment has been declined. Well, do you really have a Netflix app, you know, subscription? If, if you don’t, then that’s [00:58:00] probably malicious. Don’t worry, don’t worry about it.
Right. Yeah. It’s just being aware. Right, right. Because I know a lot of people, you’re, they’re quick to see Ty, the statistic is, and this is gonna scare you within 83 seconds of someone getting an email. They will have to click on that link and put in, you know, confidential or sensitive information into whatever, three seconds, minute and half.
That’s as long as it takes. Yes.
John-Nelson Pope: Less than a minute and a half.
Chris Gazdik: Just ask somebody about the email. Yeah. Yeah. So to your point, just slow down, slow down, slow down, stay calm, and be, you know, mindful in the fear that you have. Just like
Kyle King: that, just like the EZPass, you know, SMS, you know, you know, text that we’ve been getting, you know, for like the last month, you know.
I don’t, wait a minute. I did go on a toll road, but what I know, I can go to the Epass site and I can put in my information on a, on a validated site. Oh, you’re talking about the tolls actually.
Chris Gazdik: And, okay. And then I can
Kyle King: actually see if I have any [00:59:00] tolls on there versus clicking on the link or whatever was sent to you.
You know, those are the kinds of things
John-Nelson Pope: I, I think it might also take some time for us to get used to that, because remember when emails first came out? Well, I’m that old. I remember that. Is that you’d get something and something nasty from somebody, and then immediately you just won’t go in there.
Well, yeah,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. You do that. Yeah, exactly.
John-Nelson Pope: Manage the anger. Yeah, manage the anger. Right. And so you have to learn how to manage the emotion to that, so that puts the responsibility on the person. You know that it’s receiving it.
Chris Gazdik: And John, you and I know on a day to day or on a functional level, like how often or how much do people manage their emotion in a given moment?
Mm-hmm.
Kyle King: Mm-hmm. What if somebody had just had an, a struggle happen before and now they get this other email? Mm-hmm. Oh wow. Now you’re reoffended.
Chris Gazdik: Oh my gosh. Go with that. What does that mean?
Kyle King: I mean, so if, if a situ, if maybe they got into a situation with their boss or a friend or whatever and it was very heated or something, now [01:00:00] their anger or very emotional and they get this other email, they didn’t pay attention to it, and they just go ahead and click on it. And they didn’t care because they were not thinking they were Well,
Chris Gazdik: what’s funny, you’re right. You know, when that happened to me, like I said, I don’t really remember what my mental state was, to be honest with you. But you’re, you’re actually bringing it back.
’cause I think I was stressed that day. Mm-hmm. I mean, I had kind of a lot going on, right. I had a lot on my desk, and then I got this random call and I’m like, oh no, wait, you got my interest. But, you know, it’s like, it’s almost like a subconscious hypnosis impulsive thing. Like, boom, now you got my attention.
Now you employ the things that we were just talking about and, you know, it’s, it’s just easy to get going. You
Kyle King: took my mind off what I was mm-hmm. Actually thinking about.
Chris Gazdik: Right, right. You just, it’s a, it’s a psychology thing. You just get switched right in the moment and you don’t even know it. Sure. It’s wild.
Gosh, I don’t know. John, where do we go? We, we need to add, I feel like we need to talk for another hour, bro. I dunno what, there’s so much to [01:01:00] this. There really is. Yeah. Yeah. What, what were you saying, John?
John-Nelson Pope: No, no. I think maybe an a program in the future would be,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, we might need a so refresher. We seriously might need a follow up because I mean, there’s, there’s so many elements to this and Chris,
John-Nelson Pope: we’re li we’re living in such an, we are.
The technology is just running so far ahead of us, and we’re still on the African Savannah and we’re, we’re running as fast as we can and we’re, we’re, we’re prey. We’re not used to being prey animals and Right. And we’re used to, to being the hunters. But there are people that out there like that are, that see us as prey and,
Chris Gazdik: well, you know, I, I very much have begun to think about, you know, I’ve talked about on the show many times, you know, the, the social media reality is brand new to the human race.
Like, I don’t think humans understand how to use it. It’s happened so [01:02:00] fast that technological improvements mm-hmm. Are like immediate. And we’re, I honestly, I have a lot of hope. All right. We, we may go a little bit longer than normal today, just minutes, but. I have a lot of hope in Gen Z to be honest with you.
And I’m curious if you, you, you probably may not be able to speak to this ’cause I’m sure all of your customers and stuff are, are older and owned companies and stuff, and Gen Zs are still pretty young. But I am finding that they’re kind of like turning it off. Like kids put their phones away because they wanna go play their video game and use other technology platforms and whatnot, but they, they’re getting outta social media and stuff.
Like my son graduates high school and he doesn’t care about his Snapchat streaks anymore. He doesn’t, and he gets his news from Instagram and stuff. Right. But I, I guess I’m wondering out loud, like, are we catching up to understanding these things because it’s happened so fast to us, like your entire career, right?
Your novel. Meaning it’s, this is, humans have never dealt with this before. Right,
Kyle King: right, right. And but [01:03:00] that’s a good question. You know, I have, I do know of some cases where people these young folks are putting their phones down and trying to do other things. Isn’t that awesome? Right. I love it. Right.
Because when I grew up, my dad told me, go outside. Go outside and play, come home in the dark, right? Mm-hmm. Now, you know, most kids don’t do that, especially during, you know, I remember my daughter going through when school, when Covid, she stayed in the house. Gosh, she stayed on that device, right? Yeah. It was horrible.
And you know, these are the kinds of things that. I wanted to break the habit of now it’s a little bit different with her. She did not own it as much. Don’t, don’t get me wrong. She’s on still on it, but not as much.
John-Nelson Pope: I, yeah, I have a millennial daughter that is, she’s on Facebook all the time. Right.
And she gets all her values from Facebook, right? As a
Chris Gazdik: matter of fact, I almost feel like it’s worth for the millennials because they, you know, particularly if you’re an older millennial, you didn’t have that as a child. And it was like new when it was cool, right? And it’s extended into adulthood now.
It’s not new for the kiddos and they graduate and they get into [01:04:00] adulthood and they’re kinda like, all right, that was a kid’s crap. I don’t wanna do kid crap no more. Mm-hmm. Right. I mean, that, is that starting? What do you see? I’m
Kyle King: starting to see some of that. Yeah. But I still see, you know, quite a few that, you know, just Fair enough I take to that.
Right. I’m gonna hang on to my hope a little bit. Yeah. I’m gonna hopeful, I’m gonna hopeful We’re with you,
Chris Gazdik: John. You have thoughts? We’ll get to the shrink wrap up.
John-Nelson Pope: No, no. I’m, I’m I, you, it, it just, I think we probably boldly need to go where no one’s gone before. Just like they said, the five year mission for this, for the enterprise and Star Trek.
We have to, we, we have to be cutting edge and we have to be able to, to maybe. Be alert as to where technology is taking us. Because if we’re not doing this as therapists and in business or as parents or as teachers or as leaders, we, we are going to lose a generation. They may, they may get lost. And so [01:05:00] it’s incumbent for us to be able to, to, to keep up with it and to perhaps even anticipate where some of the pitfalls are.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Neil, did you, did you hear that? Were you tuned in? Because I think that’s, I think that’s John’s shrink wrap up. I. That that was, that was well said. I, I, I’ve probably giving you the win, but that was, that was really well said. So, so Kyle, we, we have started a tradition on a show that we invite you to, to be a part of.
The the show ends, we do a shrink wrap up. So we all take a turn to kind of say, you know, what are the closing thoughts? What do we really want people to, to, to get with this? And, and and then Neil gets to decide who, who wins the proverbial championship of the week to see who did the best job.
And I’ll, I’ll go ahead first, give you a second to think on what your wrap up would be, because my thing is, you know, this really is for all of us. This is, this is not something that is your knucklehead neighbor or your disabled bodied person or just the old folk. This is, this is really all of us and, and it, and it dramatically impacts the way that we feel and the way that [01:06:00] we operate.
Whether you’re anxious about being a victim or you’re in shame and guilt about be having become, or any of that, the, the simple things that we can do to protect ourselves are important and, and we’re learning. So we’re learning and doing this together, and I want people to be hopeful about what they can do for themselves.
That’s, that’s my wrap up. Yeah. What,
Kyle King: what, what you got. I would just tell everybody, you’re not alone in this. It may feel like it, you may, but if you get into a situation where it seems uncomfortable, where you may not be fam in familiar territory, just pause. Call somebody, call that family member that you got that phone, you know, phone call from that may be in dire straits, that’s claiming to be in dire straits.
But reach out to somebody, talk to them, talk to, talk with it through them. And what I would also say is just use that millennial age and use that Gen Zs to help you secure some of that technology that you’re messing around [01:07:00] with because it’s very important. I love that. How to do it
Chris Gazdik: grandmama, right?
Grandpop’s talk to the grandchildren. Right, right. And get in there. They’re gonna know how to, they’re
Kyle King: gonna know how to help protect
Chris Gazdik: yourself a little bit. So use deal with
Kyle King: the shame so that you can
Chris Gazdik: allow yourself Yeah. To, to do that. Neil, I I feel like we’re getting better at this Shrink wrap up brother.
I, I, I don’t think I wanna be him from week to week. What, what you got, what you hearing
Neil Robinson: It is getting, it is getting harder. You gotta start bringing on these experts that, that know their topic and know their source so well. Wow. This is tough.
Chris Gazdik: Gotta do it.
Neil Robinson: Do I? Do I have to do it? I can. I can’t use the cop out last week of like, oh, you all were great.
I have to pick one. This. We were, we were all great last
John-Nelson Pope: week.
Neil Robinson: I think Chris, I, I liked yours this week. Oh my gosh. I actually really did. I like, I like that, that piece of it. So, yeah. But I think every point was valid, but Christopher stood out this week.
Chris Gazdik: I’m actually kinda shocked. I really thought, thought you had it, John.
I had, I thought you had it, man. It’s not a
John-Nelson Pope: competition.
Chris Gazdik: Nah, it’s it is a fun [01:08:00] competition and Yeah, exactly. Neil’s like, yes, it’s, yeah. I’m gonna start bribing him. No, Kyle, I really appreciate you stopping out, man. Thank you for helping and helping us with such a big topic. I, I hope that we didn’t short angles of this thing because it is important thing and yeah, we, we might wanna grab you back if you’re That’s fine.
If you’re willing. Absolutely. We, we gotta get your wife to come on next time though. She, she’s gonna give us an angle that I think is amazing. She’s hanging out with us today, so really I appreciate you. Yeah, thank you. Stopping out. How do people find you again? What do you want people to know? Yeah, I
Kyle King: will, I will give you the information so you can post it on the show notes, LinkedIn.
So I’ll get you LinkedIn. You can find my email address and I think I have my phone number listed out there, so if you so choose. But yeah, you know, that’s the big best way to find me.
Chris Gazdik: Kyle King sows hope in all of us as far as technology fraud. Wonderful. And fraud goes, you can remember. There you go.Yes, indeed. Listen, take care. We will see you next week. Stay well. All right. We’ll see you then. God [01:09:00] bless.