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Cybersecurity researcher Allison Nixon joins WIRED to answer the internet’s burning questions about online safety.
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00:00Just because someone's described as a script kitty doesn't mean they're not
00:03capable of doing a lot of damage. Hi, I'm Allison Nixon, Chief Research Officer at
00:08Unit 221B. We specialize in tracking cybercriminals. I'm here today to answer
00:12your questions from the internet. This is Cybersecurity Support.
00:20First up, this question is from Piro Pyro.
00:23The internet isn't just crowded with bots, it's being silently taken over by them.
00:27Think zombie apocalypse but digital. Hmm, this question is suspicious. I see an
00:35em dash and I see an emoji at the end of this message. I think this is a bot. So
00:41I'm gonna take this bots question at face value and I'm just gonna answer it. In
00:45comment sections all across the internet, there are a lot of bots that are posting
00:50nowadays. These bots may be tasked with advertising a product and spamming the
00:55comment section by saying, hey this product is so great, I use it all the
00:59time and you can buy it here. But there's also political bots as well and sometimes
01:04these are operated by nation-states who may be trying to manipulate the population
01:09in another country into voting a certain way or doing a certain thing. They may be
01:16trying to stoke conflicts and so as you're reading comments on the internet, keep in
01:22mind there may be larger geopolitical situations where they're treating you as
01:27a pawn. Nobody has the problem under control. It's a difficult issue to navigate.
01:31When you're reading the comments section, I would suggest that you find a
01:36different source of information to base your opinions on. Like court documents or
01:41reports that happen right after an incident happened rather than later on down the line.
01:47It's really better for you to learn the facts and then form your own opinions.
01:51This question comes from Slimboy Sam. Scammers are using my voice with AI. What do I do?
01:56So this question is describing a scam where an elder family member may receive a phone call,
02:03where your voice may be manipulated with AI and the scammer may be telling your grandparents
02:09or family member, hey I'm in a serious situation, I need money right now, I'm injured, I'm hurt.
02:15This is a big emergency. So this is a very difficult situation because oftentimes these
02:19scams will try to prevent the victim from contacting the family member to actually verify that this
02:25happened. And when you're in that situation it's very difficult to deal with. But one thing that you
02:30can do is before this scam hits you, you can talk about these scams with your family members. Say,
02:38hey there's a new scam going around, here's how it works, if you get this let me know. And this
02:43can be a
02:44good topic of conversation to bond with your family members over as well and also keep each other safe.
02:50So as you talk to your family members about the scam, one thing that they can do is try to
02:55verify that
02:56the person on the line is actually you. Ask a question that only you would know. So think very old
03:04past
03:05shared experience. What's your favorite food? What was the first dog's name? Another thing that your family
03:12member can do is just hang up the phone and call you back on your number. That may be very
03:18difficult
03:18to do in the moment, but if you can discuss what your protocol is going to be before this happens,
03:25then if this scam does hit your family member, they're going to be more prepared and they won't
03:30hand over the money. So this question is from the privacy subreddit. Can someone gain access to your
03:36phone activity without coming in contact with it? When someone gains access to your phone activity,
03:41most of the time it will not involve them coming into contact with your phone at all. Usually the way
03:46people steal your information is when your information is stored on someone else's machine.
03:53One place where your phone activity is stored is at your phone company. So when you make a phone call
03:58or you send or receive a text message, there's going to be a record and if your phone company gets
04:03hacked and
04:03those records get stolen, that's one way that bad actors can figure out what you're doing on your
04:07phone. Also, you may have personal data on cloud accounts and when you're using your phone, you're
04:14updating those cloud accounts with more information. So if those accounts get hacked, these actors can
04:19figure out what you're doing on your phone without ever touching your phone. One way to keep yourself safe
04:24is to be mindful about how you secure your accounts in the cloud. Make sure that you're not using the
04:30same
04:30password across different websites. Use a password manager. Hopefully store that password manager on
04:36a machine you own and not in the cloud. This is what we do. This is a question from IDK1997283.
04:44Anybody getting this wrong number text scams? So the wrong number text scams is something that a lot of
04:49people have been getting lately. You receive a text from an unknown number and it may say,
04:54Hello, John. And your name is not John. After that first text, they'll say, Oh, wrong number. And then
05:00they'll try to initiate a conversation with you. These are part of organized crime operations that are
05:07operated out of other countries. And unfortunately, they have a history of even enslaving people to force
05:14them to work these scams. So when you receive a wrong number text scam, I recommend that you don't
05:20interact with it. Don't talk to the person. Don't give them any money. Also, don't insult them because
05:26you don't know who's on the other end. And you don't know what kind of grisly operation is behind
05:31that text that you got. This question is from Brickhouse. Is anonymous still around? LOL. Yes,
05:38anonymous is still around. The original people that made up anonymous, they are older, they have mortgages,
05:44they have kids. So you don't see them do the wild things that they used to do because they have
05:50lives
05:51that they need to live and they've moved on from those early days. So this question is from
05:56Ty Nsef. Does SMS messages report spam do anything? Question mark, question mark, question mark. There may
06:03be a button that looks like three dots or there might be some kind of further information button
06:09associated with that message. So click on that button and you may see an option that says report.
06:15When you report a message on SMS or any other platform, honestly, that goes to an entire ecosystem
06:23of cybersecurity employees that review that information and aggregate it and take notes and monitor for
06:30trends. This is one of the last jobs that's going to be automated because this job involves essentially
06:36human conflict played out on the internet. The scammers are continuously updating their scams to try to
06:43bypass the anti-fraud and reporting mechanisms. And the cybersecurity people are receiving these reports
06:49and continuously updating the anti-fraud mechanisms that the platforms have. So when you receive a
06:56fraudulent message, be sure to hit report on those scam messages. So this question is from the
07:02explain like I'm five subreddit. Is there any risk in snooping around the darknet? If you do choose to
07:08look around on the darknet, keep in mind that the biggest danger coming from the darknet is not
07:15necessarily coming from technical threats, but it's coming from human threats. I generally don't recommend
07:21that you interact with anybody. Keep in mind that the person on the other end is likely a criminal and
07:25these are not normal social interactions. These people will often try to manipulate you, trick you, scam you.
07:31There's a lot of cyber criminal forums, socializing places where criminals tend to hang out,
07:37talk about crime, share tips on how to do crime. There's also ransom websites where extortion groups
07:46will steal data from companies and threaten companies and then leak the company's private data.
07:51Sometimes people go on the darknet for work to track what criminals are doing, what they're announcing,
07:56what they're bragging about, and to keep an eye out for any mistakes they may have made in their
08:02communications. So the darknet is a place of social activity. It's definitely a dangerous forest. If you
08:10want to wander into it, keep your eyes open. Have someone watch your back. Obviously keep your software
08:15updated. Don't download or install weird things that you find on the darknet. You are literally interacting
08:20with criminals and mafias and hostile countries. So this question is from kjata30. Don't click the link.
08:28Okay, I clicked it. Now what? You may have just clicked on a weird suspicious link that you received over
08:35text message or email. Sometimes people do get weird messages with suspicious links and they may come from
08:41a legitimate sender that just may be a little bit weird looking. So double check the sender and if it's
08:49something that you still think is suspicious, definitely hit the report button on the message
08:53that you got. That way it can go into the system and cybersecurity people can aggregate that and look
08:59at that. On the device that you clicked on that suspicious link, ask yourself, when you visited that
09:04link, did you input any of your personal information? Did you download or install anything from that website?
09:10Think about what happened after clicking that link and then that can help you understand the next steps
09:16that you need to take. So if you put a password into that website, you need to change that password.
09:22If you put your credit card number into that website, you need to call your bank and get your credit
09:26card
09:26number changed over and talk to them. If you have downloaded or installed anything from that website,
09:31you need to run a virus scan and depending on the situation, it may be worth reinstalling your operating
09:38system. In the best case scenario where you may have clicked on that link and then closed out of
09:42it immediately, your risks are a whole lot less than if you had inputted any information or downloaded
09:48anything. This question is from Lemonsnicks. Does it really matter if I don't change my password
09:55regularly? For accounts that you log into all the time, a common practice is to change passwords
10:00approximately every three months. Now, this is a lot of work. It's inconvenient and nobody wants to do
10:07it. If you have to pick between changing your passwords regularly versus using a unique password
10:12on every website, I would say put your effort towards using a unique password on every website.
10:18Don't reuse any password across any website. And the reason for this is when bad actors steal people's
10:24passwords, they will try that same password for the victim's account on a different website. This is a common
10:30practice by attackers. When you are changing your passwords, you should focus on the most important
10:36accounts that you have. So your main personal email, your work accounts, your banking, and any
10:42accounts that you use for communication with your friends. Now, when you change those passwords,
10:47a good practice is to use something called a password manager, where you note down all of your
10:52accounts and all of your passwords. And then when you update your password, you also need to update
10:56your password manager. Typically, when you use a password manager, you're going to use one password
11:01to unlock everything else on your password manager. I prefer to use the ones where you're storing your
11:06passwords on your own machine and not in the cloud. A core user asks, are sextortion emails real?
11:12A lot of people will receive emails that say, oh, I've got your naked pictures. Give me money or else
11:20I'll send them to your family. These are sent to millions of people. They are counting on a small
11:25number of those millions of people to think that it might be a real claim because they might have a
11:30situation going on. And they are relying on those few people to pay them out. These kinds of scams are
11:37very damaging. Keep in mind that these claims are almost always a lie. Don't get emotionally wrapped
11:43up into this too much. And don't pay these people. There are also sextuation schemes where they may use
11:49AI to create naked pictures of you. If you are stuck in a situation like this, it's not going to
11:54ruin your
11:54life. Don't do anything drastic. Just slow down, calm down, make rational decisions. I understand that with
12:02social stigma, it may be difficult for people to report this information. If at all possible,
12:08please try to find someone that you trust that you can talk to privately about this matter.
12:12Okay, so this is coming from the Explain Like I'm 5 subreddit. How does a government block its
12:17country's internet access? When people are using the internet, there's only a handful of companies
12:23in every country that provide internet access. And the government simply tells those companies that
12:30you need to block these websites. For example, in Iran, where they're shutting down the entire internet,
12:35the government has essentially told the internet service providers in that country to shut down
12:40the entire internet. And under their laws, they have to comply. International law in cybercrime is very weak
12:47right now. It's very much where countries determine their own laws. And in situations like with Iran,
12:54when they shut down the entire internet, that's a less common scenario. Most of the time, countries
13:01are going to block specific websites. Sometimes this is because the website criticized the government.
13:06And in that country, it's illegal to criticize the government. Now, in Western countries, when they
13:12block websites, it's usually because the website may be associated with fraud or harming the public.
13:18So the intentions behind blocking websites may also be different.
13:22As a regular person, if you don't like your country blocking websites, you need to get involved
13:28politically if you want to keep the internet open and free and able to access.
13:33A Quora user asks, do cybercriminals dump their phones after committing crimes?
13:38Yes, they do. I have seen videos of cybercriminals smashing their phones, running over their phones,
13:44setting their phones on fire. It doesn't really help them. Oftentimes, information is stored in the cloud
13:50or on different devices. Or even if a phone is smashed, the data inside of it can still be retrieved.
13:57If the police really, really need to know something, there are forensics teams that can extract out the
14:03physical hardware, pull out the chips and the boards, and read data off of chips bit by bit.
14:10And it's very expensive, very slow. But if it's a really important case, the police will pull out all the
14:16stops,
14:16and they'll figure out what they need to figure out.
14:19So this question comes from ZeroStyle. Best security training for aging parents?
14:24Protecting against phishing, rogue links, other attacks.
14:26So this is a very important topic. When your aging parents are getting new phones or new devices,
14:33you can help them set up the devices to be more locked down and more secure.
14:37You can talk with them about how these devices can be used and make sure they know that they can
14:43call you
14:44anytime if they have a question or they see something weird.
14:47Also, another important thing is new scams that are going around.
14:52Oftentimes, these scams target elderly people. And if you learn about some new scam that's going around,
14:58bring that up as a topic of conversation with your parents. This will help them protect themselves.
15:03So it's important to keep them educated, and it's a great opportunity to talk to your parents.
15:10You should call your mother sometime.
15:12So this question is from VisionQuest9054. What types of cybercrime exist besides hacking?
15:19Hacking implies a technical kind of attack, but a lot of cybercrime that happens nowadays
15:24doesn't involve technical skills or writing code or deploying code in any way.
15:29Oftentimes, it involves just lying to people on the phone, social engineering them,
15:33tricking them into doing something that they wouldn't otherwise do.
15:37This is a question from PureBlank.
15:39Why should I care about my data getting stolen slash sold slash generally not being secure?
15:44A common attitude that people may have is they may not care about their data being stolen.
15:50They may think, I'm not important. I'm not special.
15:52The problem is, if you have an income, if you have a job, if you have anything worth stealing,
15:58you are interesting to somebody. You may not realize in the moment how that data may be used against you,
16:04but into the future, somebody might come up with a new idea for this data in some kind of scheme.
16:10When it's stolen, it's out there, and it's not going to go away.
16:16This question is from Kaylee Connors.
16:18Why are hospitals more vulnerable to cyber threats?
16:21So, hospitals are highly regulated.
16:24They are using machines that are very complex, used for medical procedures,
16:28providers, and as a result, you can't update the software very often.
16:33Because security patches are not being deployed as quickly as maybe your phone might receive them,
16:39hospitals oftentimes have cyber security threats that are unique to them.
16:44Unfortunately, in addition to hospitals being more vulnerable,
16:48the consequences are worse when the hospitals get hacked.
16:51There are people that have had their treatments delayed or may have died
16:55because they couldn't get treatment in a hospital because of a hack.
16:58The cyber security situation with hospitals, I feel, is getting worse over the years.
17:03Cyber criminal gangs have deliberately targeted them more than they used to.
17:07The police will often prioritize attacks against hospitals,
17:11and any cyber criminals that are engaged in that kind of activity
17:14often get arrested more quickly.
17:17This question is from Sakura Miku.
17:20Is it possible to hack someone through Wi-Fi?
17:22If this Wi-Fi is in your home and nobody else has access to your devices,
17:27you can be a lot more confident in it.
17:29If you're on a public Wi-Fi at a coffee shop and there's all kinds of unknown people
17:33also on the same Wi-Fi, there's a little bit more risk.
17:37Now, one thing to keep in mind is the situation is a lot better than it used to be.
17:42The typical machine that you're going to use will detect hampering and refuse to even operate.
17:48Now, that said, there's a lot of innovative, advanced attacks out there.
17:53I can't guarantee that you're going to be totally safe on public Wi-Fi.
17:57But nowadays, when cyber criminals are attacking victims,
18:01they're using some kind of scheme where they can affect thousands of victims,
18:04and that just doesn't involve public Wi-Fi.
18:07So a Quora user asks,
18:09Could cyber terrorists be as dangerous as the gun-wielding terrorists,
18:12or are they just a bunch of geeks?
18:14So the answer is, why not both?
18:16One thing to keep in mind about the Internet,
18:18people are conditioned to not take it seriously.
18:21But the problem is that the Internet allows you to connect globally with anybody.
18:27So a bad actor can connect with millions of people.
18:31If they did that with malicious intent,
18:33that could cause harm against millions of people across the world.
18:37And there are gangs operating nowadays that are using the Internet to commit violence,
18:42and to mass recruit people into committing violence.
18:45And this is something that governments are taking very seriously,
18:47and I think the general public should also take seriously.
18:51So this question is from ZeroEdge.io.
18:54Friend asks, What do hackers actually do?
18:58Me says, 70% Googling, 20% reading documentation, 10% looking cool in terminal.
19:05When I'm answering this question of what do hackers actually do,
19:08I'm trying to describe the non-criminal version of hackers.
19:11The term hacker is a bit confusing and controversial.
19:15People use the same term to mean two very different things.
19:19On one hand, hacker can be used to describe a cyber criminal,
19:23where they are abusing computers in order to abuse people.
19:27Another way that people use the term hacking is to describe a non-criminal person just exploring
19:34what their computer is capable of doing.
19:37Figuring out neat technical tricks that nobody else knows.
19:40So a common way that people may engage in hacking that is fun and non-criminal
19:46is when kids are cheating at video games.
19:48And I don't mean downloading cheats that someone else wrote.
19:52I mean manipulating the memory in your computer,
19:56maybe changing the files on your own computer, just exploring for yourself.
20:00This is the kind of exploration that children commonly engage in,
20:03that could be considered hacking.
20:05But if there's no victim, it may be a safe activity to engage in.
20:10Now, if you're a kid watching this, double check with an adult.
20:14Don't just run off and do something crazy and say that I told you to do it.
20:17A question by Swing's Subliminals.
20:20The line between ScriptKitty and hacker, question mark, question mark, question mark.
20:24ScriptKitty is basically an insult.
20:26It's used to describe people that don't understand the systems that they're exploiting.
20:30They don't know how to read or understand code.
20:32But they will download exploits from the internet and try to hack just by pressing a button.
20:37Just because someone's described as a ScriptKitty,
20:39doesn't mean they're not capable of doing a lot of damage.
20:42The term hacker is a little bit controversial.
20:45It's used by people to describe cybercriminals that hack illegally into computers.
20:51It's also used to describe people that work in the cybersecurity industry,
20:54who do not break the law but figure out innovative, clever ways to use computers
20:59that wasn't anticipated and use those skills to make the world more secure.
21:05This question is from Zanzer Fine Suits.
21:07How do companies know that hackers stole data?
21:10And the person says, it's not like the data disappears like if someone steals your car.
21:14They just copy it.
21:15How does any company know what data was actually stolen, if any?
21:18So there's a lot of different ways that companies know about this.
21:21Oftentimes, with the extortion groups that are operating right now,
21:25they will just tell the company that they stole the data.
21:28That will also come inside of a ransom note where they are threatening the company
21:33and demanding money.
21:34Oftentimes, with these extortion groups,
21:37they actually do delete the company's copy of the data as well.
21:41When they're operating these schemes,
21:43they've realized that they can make more money by destroying the company on the way out.
21:48This question is from IntelligentWay1288.
21:52At what point is hacking considered illegal?
21:54So there is a law called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
21:59It was passed in the 1980s.
22:01It defines what is illegal computer hacking versus not.
22:06And when police are trying to determine if a certain behavior is illegal or not,
22:12usually the metric they go by is whether or not the behavior is destroying someone else's property,
22:19stealing someone else's money, causing harm to a person.
22:22If you want to experiment with computers and do weird things that may break a computer,
22:28do it to your own computer.
22:29Just in general, don't be a bad person on the internet.
22:32And that significantly reduces your risk.
22:35This question comes from 747-269-737-616E.
22:40What's happening when two countries launch cyber attacks on one another?
22:45So launching a cyber attack is not quite the same as launching a missile.
22:50It very much depends on the situation.
22:53One thing that we've seen in recent conflicts
22:56is cyber attacks that may be done in conjunction with a physical attack.
23:00So it may enhance a physical attack.
23:03So for example, traffic cameras in a city may be hacked.
23:07And the hackers working for the nation state may be monitoring the cameras
23:11to see what kind of activity is happening on the street.
23:13That knowledge may be used to inform missile strikes or an invasion of people.
23:19This is often how we see cyber attacks play out in real-world conflicts.
23:24This is from the privacy subreddit.
23:26Why do police and governments have so much trouble getting into iPhones?
23:30They have a lot of trouble getting into iPhones because iPhones were designed
23:34to make it very difficult to get into.
23:36It's as simple as that.
23:37Different products available to the consumer have different design features,
23:41different selling points.
23:43And the people that want to buy an iPhone
23:46often want to have a phone that's more locked down and more secure.
23:50The people that want to buy other competitor phones like Android,
23:53they may be more interested in the freedom to do what they want on their phone.
23:58Now, there's trade-offs with that.
24:00If you want to do creative unusual things with your phone,
24:03that opens up functionality that could also be used by governments and police to
24:09break into your phone and pull out your encrypted data.
24:12Do you want to have a more secure lockdown machine that you can't do a lot with?
24:16Or do you want to have a machine you can do a lot with,
24:18but there are security risks associated with those abilities?
24:22It's up to you.
24:23So this question comes from badkarma18.
24:26People who work in cybersecurity or are hackers themselves,
24:29how do data breaches happen?
24:31Most of the time, it's because some criminal actor figured out an exploit
24:35that the company didn't fix yet,
24:37or perhaps tricked an employee into providing a credential or stealing a credential from an employee
24:44and then abusing the employee's access to steal data.
24:47The answer to this question changes a lot over time.
24:50There is a constant discovery of new mechanisms to steal data,
24:53and companies are constantly fixing all of these exploits.
24:57So this question is from HR 9383.
25:01How does law enforcement track down cybercriminals
25:03who use public Wi-Fi and VPNs to commit illegal activities?
25:07So nowadays when it comes to catching cybercriminals,
25:10VPNs, public Wi-Fi, it's not actually a barrier to catching them.
25:15Catching them involves waiting for them to make a mistake.
25:18Cybercriminals love to brag. They love to show off.
25:21There's a lot of footprints they leave behind
25:22that may not necessarily be contained within their encrypted devices.
25:28And oftentimes when cybercriminals get caught,
25:30it's because of something that has nothing to do with encryption or data protection.
25:34Every case is unique when it comes to catching cybercriminals,
25:38and it's often a battle of wits.
25:40It's quite interesting work, honestly.
25:43So this question is from Dumb Girl Brooke.
25:46So how do VPNs work?
25:48It's like using a proxy.
25:49So say you have a message that you want to send to a website,
25:53but you don't want to be the one actually sending it.
25:55You may pass that message to someone else's machine, say operated by a VPN company.
26:01And then that machine will pass that message to the website.
26:04So a VPN is a way to hide your IP address online.
26:08And the way that it accomplishes that is that you're using someone else's IP address instead.
26:13Now there's a lot of advertisements that are going to tell you this is how you get more secure.
26:18But unfortunately, VPNs also increase risk as well.
26:21When you're sending all of your traffic through someone else's machine,
26:25so that you can use their IP address instead of yours,
26:28that other person's machine may be looking at your traffic.
26:32They may be hacked.
26:33They may have other issues.
26:34So as you're making your cybersecurity choices,
26:38you need to weigh all these different risks against each other.
26:41So this question is from Malware Beasts.
26:44Did shutting down cybercrime forums like raid forums and breach forums reduce crime or just scatter it?
26:50So the answer to that is both.
26:52Cybercrime is something that's not going to be solved, just like regular crime in society.
26:56But it can be reduced.
26:59And the actual strategy of fighting cybercrime is one where you need to both suppress it,
27:06arrest bad actors, shut down infrastructure where bad actors are congregating.
27:11And scattering them is a positive step forward.
27:15Reducing cybercrime is also a positive step forward.
27:18And all of these different tactics are part of a larger strategy of fighting cybercrime.
27:23That's all for today.
27:24Hope you learned something.
27:25Stay safe out there.
27:27And thanks for watching Cybersecurity Support.
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