Scammers have gone from postal mail and faxes to email and phone calls where you never see the person, but now with AI, you can even have a live video call that seems completely real with deep fake technology. It’s no longer safe to just see a person, but there are other things you can do to know if you’re communicating with the individual they claim to be.

Today’s guest is Anna Rowe. Anna is the founder of Catch the Catfish and co-founder of LoveSaid. She is a Subject Matter Expert in Romance Fraud and Victim Support.

• [0:55] - Anna shares her background as a teacher and describes how she was catfished in 2015.

• [2:52] - How can you make genuine informed consent when someone is deceiving you at that level?

• [3:45] - A therapist’s suggestion of researching narcissists and psychopaths started her healing journey.

• [5:35] - Anna learned that this type of scam commonly comes from West Africa and the scammers are known as Yahoo Boys.

• [7:44] - Romance fraud can be in person, like with Anna’s experience. But there are romance scams that are online only.

• [9:32] - It is common for romance scammers to also be perpetrating other types of fraud at the same time.

• [11:44] - Pig butchering includes another problem, where scammers themselves are also trafficked.

• [13:59] - A lot of victims don’t realize they are interacting with a scammer for a long time because they aren’t asking for money.

• [17:51] - In years past, Photoshopping an image to appear realistic wasn’t as easy as it is now with AI.

• [19:26] - Blending a new face onto an existing photo can even be used in video.

• [21:15] - Voice cloning is also often used and apps to do this are free.

• [24:24] - Deep fake scammers use content on social media stories and live streams to record long pieces of video.

• [26:20] - This technology is improving quickly, but Anna shares some of the ways you can tell if something is a deep fake.

• [28:51] - There are simple things to check on profiles that you can notice as red flags before getting involved with someone.

• [33:01] - Scammers also really like using cryptocurrency because it is unregulated.

• [34:14] - Scammers build a reality typically by using the 5 C’s of reasons why their spouse is gone.

• [37:30] - There are different strategies to look for certain things as you “become your own detective” on various social media platforms.

• [40:57] - When scammers know that you are “onto them” they know what they can change.

• [43:36] - Every decision a scammer makes is premeditated.

• [46:50] - Scammers will keep you hooked and space away from them could get you in a space of trusting your gut.

• [53:32] - Reverse image searches are extremely helpful.

• [57:50] - Anna describes some of the ways she was able to determine what her scammer was doing.

• [61:10] - Anna was put into an open relationship without her consent.

• [63:05] - Future faking is common in narcissists and psychopaths.

• [64:26] - These scams are really damaging and it is important to not use victim shaming language when discussing it.

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

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Many years ago, people chose to stay with the same employer for decades. Today, employees are changing jobs more regularly. Each company needs to have processes in place allowing access to systems needed to do their jobs, but there’s also a risk of when they leave that they may still have access to certain programs.

Today’s guest is Craig Davies. Craig started in banking, holding many roles including CSO. As the CISO and the Executive Director of Gathid Ltd., he is passionate about helping organizations strengthen access management without completely overhauling their people, processes, physical infrastructure, and technology. Craig has spent more than 25 years in cybersecurity working with infrastructure operations, security architecture and software, web development and operations. He was the first CEO of Ost Cyber and at Atlassian he helped develop the security program for all aspects of their business, including security, cloud operations and protection.

• [1:32] - Craig shares his background and what his roles are at Gathid.
• [4:52] - When bringing on new employees, there are several front-end issues that a company and employee can face.
• [6:22] - It can be really frustrating for a new employee when there are so many different programs to learn and manage.
• [8:18] - We have to think about the employee’s journey.
• [10:59] - In many cases, new employees receive a ton of access without learning the process during onboarding.
• [11:49] - Offboarding can be a nightmare because we don’t always think about all the things that are connected.
• [15:26] - We need to protect the person who is leaving.
• [18:06] - One of the challenges is knowing who should be responsible.
• [19:12] - There needs to be a list of all the programs and systems that an employee may have access to.
• [21:17] - Offboarding is not typically a priority but not focusing on it can be a huge risk.
• [24:43] - Smart use of control is important especially in onboarding and offboarding.
• [27:26] - Working remotely makes systems and access even trickier.
• [29:39] - There is a reason the large companies have large systems.
• [31:50] - Every company has the same problems. The ones that have a process in place have likely experienced a crisis.
• [34:57] - What are the challenges to the new ways of working post-pandemic?
• [36:26] - You can’t get rid of risk, but you can manage it.
• [44:50] - These processes all start with a conversation.

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There are entire communities set up to fight fraud that use synthetic IDs as well as scammer gangs that are advancing their creative ways to use these documents. This is changing regularly as biometric authentication advances continue.

Today’s guest is Stuart Wells. Stuart is the CTO of Jumio and is responsible for all aspects of Jumio’s innovation, machine learning, and engineering. He is an industry veteran with more than 30 years of tech experience. He was previously the Chief Product and Technology Officer at FICO, and held executive positions at Avaya and Sun Microsystems.

• [1:18] - Stuart shares his background and what he does at Jumio as the Chief Technology Officer.
• [3:20] - The science behind document protection is literally decades old.
• [5:06] - Stuart describes the process of verifying a document at Jumio.
• [5:57] - What are the practical uses of synthetic IDs?
• [7:39] - There are large volumes of both fraudulent and honest individuals creating and using synthetic IDs.
• [9:25] - A lot of businesses are seeking verification from places like Jumio to protect themselves and their reputation.
• [11:49] - Biometrics as a tool to use against fraudsters has grown globally.
• [13:54] - Biometrics are very useful, but there are challenges.
• [15:31] - Stuart shares a recent story about a fake video interaction that cost the victim millions of dollars.
• [17:37] - At this point in the technology’s development, there are some signs of deep fakes that we can spot.
• [19:03] - How can this negatively impact an individual?
• [20:18] - Listen to your inner voice and check with another source before sending money.
• [22:52] - You don’t have to be a programmer to use these tools. The creators have made them easy to use and people are using them to do harm.
• [25:46] - The early versions of deep fake technology had a lot of easy-to-see abnormalities, but they are getting tougher to spot.
• [27:26] - Although these negative impacts are concerning, there is some excitement about the positive uses of these advances.
• [32:07] - What direction is verification headed when it comes to biometrics?
• [33:54] - Documents have anatomy and security measures in place.
• [36:43] - Most security systems are layered.
• [40:00] - This landscape is continuously changing.

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