Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Protect Your Small Business From Cybercrime with Kristin Judge Final

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How to Protect Your Small Business From Cybercrime with Kristin Judge Final · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:00
  3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff,
• 0:08
  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
• 0:17
  Bolinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:21
  you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
• 0:25
  Now here's the small Biz lady herself.
• 0:29
  Melinda Emerson.
• 0:31
  Hi, everybody.
• 0:31
  This is Melinda Emerson.
• 0:33
  This small Biz lady and you are listening to the small bitch pet podcast.
• 0:37
  I am so excited today to have my guests.
• 0:39
  Her name is Kristin Judd.
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  She's the founder of the nonprofit organization.
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  Cybercrime support network, which is a powerful voice for cybercrime victims.
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  She's been seen on c span and local news stations, and she's been highlighted in
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  technology publications, including SC Magazine And Government Technology, she shares best
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  practices for online safety.
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  She's a national speaker.
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  And she also has LinkedIn course, everybody.
• 1:04
  Cybersecurity for small and medium sized businesses, essential training.
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  Kristen, welcome to the Small Bridge Tap podcast.
• 1:12
  Thank you so much for having me, Melinda.
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  I'm thrilled to be here.
• 1:15
  Yeah.
• 1:16
  You know what?
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  I was so excited when your folks reached out to me because I keep hearing about cyber scams,
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  especially you know, COVID and everything going on.
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  And I have been talking to small business owners who had other people trying to collect
• 1:31
  their unemployment.
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  I mean, there's just so much stuff going on that I was like, wow.
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  This person is an expert in this.
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  Let's talk about it.
• 1:40
  So let's let's just talk about from your vantage point, what is the current state of
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  small business cybercrime?
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  It's a mess.
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  Unfortunately, small business owners are so focused on what they do best, which is running
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  their small business.
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  And now they have how to keep their small business alive because of COVID, many of them,
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  And, unfortunately, the bad guys always take advantage when there's stress happening.
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  Like, when there's a hurricane, they'll jump on to that.
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  When a star passes away, they'll jump on due scams on that.
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  Well, COVID has been a treasure trove for bad guys, and they know the small businesses are
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  hurting.
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  So they are coming in, like, tenfold.
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  Wow.
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  Wow.
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  And I I actually was mentioning to you before we got started.
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  My business actually was a victim of a COVID 19 scam.
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  I was scammed by some folks based in Sweden, but it actually turned out to be people who
• 2:31
  were in the US Sweden actually in Hong Kong were involved in this major scam that happened
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  in my business, and we ended up losing over a $100,000 as a result of a business scam that
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  came to us.
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  And so that's the other reason why I was really interested in talking to you because the way
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  the scam worked that the folks that came at me was they approached me like brands approached
• 2:57
  me to do business.
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  I mean, they they actually approach me about doing a video project for a brand and provoke,
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  you know, to to promote COVID 19 businesses, like, they wanted me to encourage businesses
• 3:10
  worldwide.
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  They also said that, you know, they wanted me to give tips and everything.
• 3:15
  And they also wanted me to encourage people to be generous during COVID 19.
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  So they actually agreed to pay me extra money and extra $100,000 that they wanted me to
• 3:27
  donate and then talk about in the video.
• 3:30
  So that's so And honestly, I didn't think a whole lot of it because it was a reputable
• 3:36
  organization.
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  They had a beautiful website.
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  And, you know, I have since realized a couple of key things that we missed, but for me, you
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  know, how their scam worked is they sent me a a 6 figure cashier's check that was fraudulent.
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  So I went to my business bank.
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  I deposited this account.
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  Because I've been in business for 20 years, my bank cleared that check overnight.
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  And then there and then there was the request that I send the money off to the charity
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  because I was recording my video, and they wanted me to show my paid invoice in the video.
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  And so I wired a $100,000 to a fraudulent charity in Hong Kong.
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  Completely and this happened early on in COVID, and I didn't even realize that it was
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  fraudulent, but the first initial contact was on email the way they contacted me.
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  They literally went through my website and, you know, how to contact me I followed up with
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  them, had numerous calls, numerous Zoom calls with these people.
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  So what no one tried to hide their identity, Right.
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  Right.
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  And lo and behold, they were actually fronting for a family charity in Sweden, the founders of
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  the H And M clothing department stores that they had taken logos and things, all of those
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  people's actual family foundation site, and created a whole another website under the name
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  of the foundation in Sweden.
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  You know?
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  So you don't really have a way to go check because unless you speak Swedish, like, you
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  know, but their website was completely in English, you know, and it was beautiful and
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  they had all these events.
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  I mean, they looked like they had been in running for quite a few years when in fact, it
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  was completely a scam.
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  So I say all that to say you have to if something sounds too good to be true, guys, It
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  is.
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  It is.
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  These people sent me a $65,000 fraudulent check that bounced within 4 days through my account,
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  but for 4 days, you know, things were running wild and it had no idea.
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  And so I say all that to say that you just have to be really careful but I'm sure I'm I'm not
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  the professional you are.
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  So I want I want you to talk about, you know, how can a small business be cyber resilient?
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  Like, how how how can we protect ourselves from these these, you know, soul to see thieves that
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  would come after our businesses.
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  For some of the most disgusting people in the world.
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  Hey.
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  Hell, I'll say that hundred times.
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  But, Melinda, that you're doing the exact thing that we need you to do.
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  Like, you're way more important in this conversation than I am because if we don't have
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  smart, intelligent business people like you come out and say, look.
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  This happened to me.
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  And then other people will say, oh, you know what?
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  It happened to me too.
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  And then we can have the real dialogue.
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  You know?
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  And I think back to domestic violence before we had the violence against women act, You know,
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  when I was younger, people were embarrassed to say it was happening.
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  And then we said, you know what, community?
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  It's okay.
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  You can come out because we're gonna help you.
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  And we this is not right.
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  And we called it out and the victims felt like they had come out.
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  I feel like cyber security victims, cyber crime victims are sort of on that same trajectory.
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  People are starting to say, you know what?
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  I'm not the only one this has happened to.
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  I can talk to someone else.
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  And we really wanna make sure that we're treating them as carefully as we do domestic
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  violence victims because This set only hurts you emotionally.
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  Sometimes physically, you can't, you know, pay for your electric bill or your food, but this
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  can devastate people's retirement their businesses.
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  So it's so important.
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  Number 1, that people talk about it.
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  So using your platform and talk about it is huge.
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  For the community.
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  So what I like to tell people is there's a couple simple things that you should always be
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  aware of.
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  And we created a website with Google recently called scamspoter.org for this exact reason.
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  K.
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  And I I get I use an analogy for people.
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  So if someone comes to your front door right now, remember how nobody comes to your front
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  door and just knocks.
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  We don't answer it.
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  Right?
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  Like, that's like the big joke is in 2020, if someone knocks on your door, you, like, run and
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  hide and hope they didn't see you.
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  Right?
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  And so you don't wanna answer the door if someone on your door and says, oh, can you give
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  me money?
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  Can you do something for me?
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  But if you knock on their door, let's say you have to do business with someone who's
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  legitimate, you knock on their door, then it's okay to exchange money because you started the
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  initiated the organize the relationship.
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  But if someone starts a relationship with you and then asks you to give them money, unless
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  it's something that you, like, you know, you had to buy it.
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  You're buying a new microphone.
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  You're buying a new, you know, whatever it made a car, and you initiated it with them.
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  Can't send money to strangers.
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  And it's that is one of the underlying things that happens every single time.
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  You're sending money to a stranger.
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  Who approached you first.
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  And that's called spearfishing in your case because you are the owner of the company.
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  They did their research, it sounds like.
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  They looked at your website.
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  They watched your podcast.
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  They knew everything about you.
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  They knew all kinds of things about me, and they knew how I did business with corporations.
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  So even the dollar figure that they offered me was not out of this world because that's the
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  kind of of fees that I'm paid to do some of the work that I do.
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  I mean, it was a little bit elevated because they were like, we're gonna give you this
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  extra, you know, $100,000 to give away too and You don't even have to give your own money.
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  We're gonna give it to you to give away.
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  And like I said, I never knew that cashier's checks weren't cash.
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  I didn't realize that they were checks, like any other kind of check, and that just because
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  somebody gives you a cashier's check, there are tons and tons of fraudulent cashier's checks
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  out here, which is something that I never knew ever in my whole life.
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  I had no idea.
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  I thought cashier's check meant cash.
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  It does not.
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  And so you have That's
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  how we grew up thinking that.
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  Like, that was like official kind of thing, but now people are just you know, making fiber that
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  runs all the time.
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  Exactly.
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  Yeah.
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  And but this is this is why we started our nonprofit.
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  We realized that there are small business owners like you and consumers who are being
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  impacted by cybercrime, but they don't know where to go when it happens.
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  Who do you call?
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  What's the first place you go to?
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  If you call 911, if you've been a victim of a romance scam or a business scam, they're gonna
• 9:39
  say, I don't know how to help you.
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  So we're helping 911 by having our resources available to them.
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  So, you know, we need to make sure that people know there's one place to go to start.
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  If you go to fraud support dot org and you tell them what type of victimization you've been
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  impacted by, it'll tell you who to report to, who to call, what the next steps are, and then
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  how to recover.
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  And it's really important if people lose a high dollar figure, sometimes 65,000 could be enough
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  $100,000.
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  Your local FBI office, they wanna know that.
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  And they may be able to pull the money back if they can get a call from you soon enough.
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  So we have to just make it so easy for people to find the right person to talk to the first
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  time And so we're building a national program in partnership with the Department of Homeland
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  Security.
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  They funded us to build a national network so we can have one number everybody in the country
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  to call and get to the help they need.
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  They do that in Israel, Australia, Canada, and the UK.
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  We're a little bit behind our partners.
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  Big surprise that we're a little bit behind in the US these days with anything.
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  So so this is really important.
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  So you said fraud support dot org And the other website you put was scamspotter.org as well.
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  Is that
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  And the difference is, yes, scam spotters.
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  If you wanna if you think I might be getting scammed, let me do a little checklist here.
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  How do I know if this is real or not?
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  And we talk about COVID scams on there, romance scams, and then good news and bad news scams.
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  Yours was a good news scam.
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  We wanna help people.
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  We're gonna get to charity.
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  This is great.
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  You want a lottery.
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  Whatever it may be.
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  And then we give people 3 golden rules to make sure that they are not a victim.
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  So the first is to it's if it's got an urgency to it, it's probably a scam.
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  The second is stop and check it out.
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  Like, you you did your homework.
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  You looked at their website, though.
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  You did all those kinds of things.
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  But could you then have thought, did they approach you versus you approach them?
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  But, again, you get people that approach you with with business information all the time.
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  This is how good the bad guys are getting.
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  You know?
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  So and then the third thing is never send gift cards.
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  And I think what we need to add in there too, that's what I'm gonna after talking to you, is
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  never accept money if you're supposed to then turn it around and give it to someone else.
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  That's what we really have to focus on.
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  Don't accept money for someone, and then give it to someone else.
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  You're basically laundering money for them?
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  Basically, that's exactly what what it is.
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  So I think it's really important what you just said because I I, you know, mean, it's almost
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  like, don't send money to strangers.
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  Boom.
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  Like, like, that's actually Don't
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  take candy from strangers.
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  Like, our mom taught us when we were little.
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  Right?
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  Don't get in the car with strangers.
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  Don't don't send money to strangers.
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  Never send gift cards.
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  If it sound if the email sounds urgent.
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  Like, remember back when there was all these scams, like, oh, your mother's been kidnapped
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  over here or, you know, lost all her credit cards and please send money to help her get
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  home.
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  It'll happen.
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  It still happened.
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  That's still out there.
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  That scam is still out there?
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  Well, let me tell you what people do.
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  They follow the obituaries, and I didn't I didn't ever experience it until just recently
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  when a dear family member passed away.
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  Like, week after the obituary was live, This person got a call and said, this is your
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  grandson.
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  And here's my name.
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  It was the right name, and I'm in the state where someone had just passed away because it
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  was all Neovitch hit all these names and everything.
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  You look up someone's phone number.
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  They've been married 61 years.
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  Of course, they're worried about their grandson.
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  And then they say, oh, I'm in a car accident.
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  I'm not on my phone, but I need you to wire me money right away.
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  Well, of course, what does a grandma do if you're spread something hurt?
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  Right?
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  Right.
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  Fortunately, this person knew me and and friend of theirs had told them it had happened to them
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  already.
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  And she thought of her friend that said, you know what?
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  I'm gonna call my grandson and see if he's actually home or not.
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  And she she hung up on that guy, called them some names, and then called her grandson and
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  realized he wasn't there, but they followed the obituaries.
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  So this is this is how awful these people are.
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  And then if if someone's just lost their loved one, they'll go friend them on Facebook.
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  And then they'll try and say, Oh, I love you.
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  You know, I just lost my wife.
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  You just lost your husband.
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  I'm Catholic too.
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  I also love dogs, and we both have 2 daughters.
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  Look at that.
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  I'm in love with you, but I live in Brazil.
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  I need to have an operation before I can come marry you, and people lose 1,000,000 and
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  1,000,000
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  of operation.
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  Wow.
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  So romance scams are big too.
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  It's number 1 right now.
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  Really?
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  Number 1.
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  Yeah.
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  It is it's because people are lonely.
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  Too, you know, and you've got small business owners who are also maybe single and sitting at
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  home, and they can't go to work.
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  And so they're trying to find people online to make relationship with, but a lot of those
• 14:17
  profiles are fake people.
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  They're bad guys trying to convince you.
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  They love you, and then they ask for money.
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  Again, never send money to a stranger.
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  Don't get in the car with strangers.
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  Don't get in the car with strangers.
• 14:28
  Alright.
• 14:28
  So let's talk about the one other kind of cyber attack that we suffer maybe about a year ago.
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  We didn't really suffer it because we realized it was stupid when it was sent.
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  We were sent a ransomware demand, and the person actually had my login to my computer.
• 14:44
  Like, the person really scared me because I thought it was like, woah.
• 14:48
  They they said, If you don't send us and it was, like, some random amount of money.
• 14:52
  It was, like, $473.63 to this Bitcoin account I'm gonna take all the data off of your
• 15:00
  computer, you know, and this is your login.
• 15:03
  So you think we're not serious, you know, And and and so are those attacks still very common?
• 15:08
  They ran somewhere?
• 15:09
  Yeah.
• 15:09
  For the small business, the business email compromise, which is similar to what happened
• 15:14
  to you, the laundering of money, and then they're ransomware.
• 15:16
  And let me tell you, they all start with a phishing email.
• 15:20
  Every one of them starts with a phishing email.
• 15:21
  So people will send you an email and they'll want you to click on something.
• 15:25
  They'll want you to believe something.
• 15:27
  But let me tell you the reason those folks had your login because as you had been fished
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  earlier, and they probably put something called a key logger on your computer.
• 15:36
  And then they watched every key stroke you did, and they learned your login.
• 15:40
  So then they sent that back to you.
• 15:42
  They had been on your computer probably for a couple months, and this is the part that people
• 15:45
  don't understand watching what you click on in an email, what you what you hover over, you
• 15:51
  know, what you download from an email, you have to be careful because fishing is the number one
• 15:56
  way people are getting to I'd say 90%.
• 15:58
  It's probably higher.
• 15:59
  I mean, the the experts say 90% of all these attacks happen because of a phishing email.
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  I think right now it's even higher.
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  Because why should they come up with some crazy code to break into your system?
• 16:10
  They just send you an email about something that you would probably wanna hear about
• 16:13
  because they did their research on you They they looked at your Instagram page.
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  They know the names of your family.
• 16:19
  They know you like dogs.
• 16:20
  They know where you go to yoga.
• 16:22
  I mean, people put so much online.
• 16:24
  Right.
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  I could
• 16:25
  spend 10 minutes, and then I could send anybody I want a phishing email and get them to click
• 16:28
  on something because I can find out a lot about you.
• 16:31
  Wow.
• 16:32
  Wow.
• 16:32
  This is like I'm it's like the scared straight program here talking to you.
• 16:36
  So so is there insurance you can get to protect your business from cybercrime?
• 16:42
  Yes.
• 16:42
  And cyber cyber security or cyber incident insurance for businesses has become very
• 16:49
  popular over the past.
• 16:50
  I'd say maybe 10 10 years, but it just started becoming legit, I would say, in the past 2
• 16:57
  years.
• 16:57
  There's a lot of scammers out there.
• 16:59
  Yes.
• 16:59
  You need to try
• 17:00
  to Wait.
• 17:01
  The scammers are scamming even with the insurance.
• 17:04
  Is that what you're telling me?
• 17:05
  There's some slick sales people out there that are saying, oh, you need this policy.
• 17:09
  And then if you don't read all the fine print, you don't get very much out of it.
• 17:12
  So, yes, there are people trying to take advantage of everyone thinks I need cyber
• 17:16
  insurance now.
• 17:17
  So guess what you should do?
• 17:18
  Go to your reputable insurance provider already.
• 17:20
  You probably have a small business insurance provider.
• 17:23
  That's what we did.
• 17:24
  We went to them and said, can we add a rider to our current policy that protects us from cyber
• 17:29
  incidents?
• 17:30
  But then you've gotta read it.
• 17:31
  Many of them will give you money for a PR firm to help with reputation management after you've
• 17:36
  been scammed, or they'll give you the money for postage and stamps so that you can send
• 17:41
  everybody a letter if they were part of the breach that was, you know, impacted by your
• 17:46
  company.
• 17:46
  So you gotta be really looking at what does it cover?
• 17:49
  What does that supposed $1,000,000 umbrella, it doesn't just cover you getting cash back.
• 17:54
  It may cover a lawyer or a PR person, but there may not be any cash attached to it.
• 18:00
  And if you lost cash, you wanna get your insurance to pay you back the cash.
• 18:04
  Sure.
• 18:04
  So check out who you're working with.
• 18:06
  Read the fine print have someone in your life as a lawyer read the contract and and don't
• 18:12
  sign anything and and just it it shouldn't be that expensive for small businesses.
• 18:16
  So is there any firms you can recommend?
• 18:18
  Cause I actually called my insurance company after my business was hit, and they informed me
• 18:24
  that did not have cyber insurance, and they didn't offer me a rider.
• 18:28
  So there are there companies that you know that actually do have a really good cyber policies.
• 18:35
  Start with the big names.
• 18:37
  So I would Google probably top 5 small business insurance companies cyber insurance companies,
• 18:44
  and you'll see some of the big names.
• 18:46
  You know, don't go with a a small company you've never heard of before.
• 18:50
  Go with some of the top 5.
• 18:51
  They will have something and then compare shop, you know, find out what they're willing to give
• 18:55
  you for the amount of the cost.
• 18:57
  Alright.
• 18:57
  Good stuff.
• 18:58
  So What other, you know, if someone is hit by a cyber crime like my business was, what is the
• 19:05
  first thing they to do.
• 19:06
  I mean, I was advised by someone to call the f my accountant actually told me to call the FBI,
• 19:12
  and I did follow a report And then later, I ended up having to talk to the fraud
• 19:16
  investigation unit actually at my bank, you know, but they they have tried to get my money
• 19:23
  back, but we haven't been successful, but they they did try.
• 19:26
  They did make a request to the bank where it was sent.
• 19:30
  So they have to know that there's fraud, the Bank of China in Hong Kong.
• 19:33
  They they have to know that that something's going on, but they did make a request formally
• 19:37
  to get my money back.
• 19:38
  But It has not showed up as of late.
• 19:41
  So
• 19:41
  No.
• 19:42
  So for businesses, with things like business email, compromise, and ransomware, and
• 19:47
  something similar to what happened to you.
• 19:49
  If they've lost a considerable amount of money, you wanna call your local FBI field office
• 19:54
  right away.
• 19:55
  So you can't call them for $5000.
• 19:58
  Unfortunately, you know, we don't have enough cyber investigators in our government as it is
• 20:03
  at the federal state or local level.
• 20:05
  That's something we're working on.
• 20:07
  But if you've lost a significant amount of money, I would say 50,000 or above, 100,000 or
• 20:12
  above in the bigger cities.
• 20:13
  Number 1, call your local field office for the FBI.
• 20:16
  They want to help.
• 20:17
  If they have the ability to, they they will do everything they can to try to get your money if
• 20:21
  it's quickly enough.
• 20:23
  So the second thing is you always need to call your bank right away and and secure whatever
• 20:27
  accounts you have depending on what people might have access to.
• 20:31
  And then go to fraud support and go step by step.
• 20:34
  What we'll do is if you go to fraud support, you've been a business email compromise victim.
• 20:38
  That's where They set you a phishing email.
• 20:42
  They logged into your computer as you, and this happens a lot in real estate.
• 20:46
  So for example, they'll say Hi.
• 20:48
  This is Alinda, your real estate agent.
• 20:50
  I know we're closing on Friday, but I need you to wire the money to a new account.
• 20:54
  I've changed accounts, and this is where you need to wire the 140 dollar deposit on your
• 20:59
  house.
• 21:00
  Then you wire it, you get to the closing on Friday, and they say, I never got your money.
• 21:03
  But that person was coming from Joni's email box because they had taken over her account
• 21:08
  similar to how they had taken over your account.
• 21:10
  Wow.
• 21:11
  That's called business email compromise.
• 21:13
  They'll tell, like, your HR person to send all of the taxes to a certain place, or they'll get
• 21:18
  in your accounts receivable or accounts payable department and say, I need you to wire this
• 21:23
  money right away, or we're gonna lose this piece of property.
• 21:26
  And so it almost always starts from a phishing email.
• 21:30
  But if that happened to you, you can go into frog support dot org, and it'll tell you what
• 21:35
  are the first steps you should do, and then where should you report this And then what are
• 21:39
  some steps you can take to recover from the damage?
• 21:41
  And then the most important thing I think is to improve your security after you've been a
• 21:46
  victim because then you're paying a little bit more attention to it.
• 21:50
  It's hard to get people who have not been through this experience to do things like add 2
• 21:55
  factor authentication to their email account.
• 21:57
  And and some simple things change their privacy settings on their their Facebook account and
• 22:02
  those kind of things.
• 22:03
  So but once someone's been evicted, they're more apt to actually want to do something.
• 22:07
  And so we have also on our website ways that you can reinforce your security and come out of
• 22:12
  it even better than you did before.
• 22:14
  Okay.
• 22:15
  That's good stuff.
• 22:15
  So sounds like you guys are on it.
• 22:18
  So your website is the 1 fraud support dotorg.
• 22:21
  Is that
• 22:21
  Absolutely.
• 22:22
  Yep.
• 22:22
  That's that's where you can triage yourself and figure out what in the world am I gonna do?
• 22:26
  Start there.
• 22:27
  And then if you live in certain communities across the country, we have 5 or 6 States now.
• 22:31
  Where you can also call 211 and get help from a a a call specialist to help guide you where you
• 22:37
  need to go, but that's only available.
• 22:39
  If pops up on your screen, you'll see that if you go to fraud support.
• 22:42
  It's only in some areas.
• 22:44
  Okay.
• 22:44
  Alright.
• 22:44
  Well, good stuff.
• 22:45
  So if someone wants to report this.
• 22:50
  They need to start with the FBI if it's over a certain amount.
• 22:54
  If it's under 5 if it's, like, $50,011,000, they just gotta lump it.
• 22:59
  I mean, what do they do?
• 23:00
  Well, they come to our website and they will not report to the local field office but they
• 23:05
  will fill out the IC 3 form that goes to the FBI.
• 23:08
  And what the FBI can do then, if someone lost 5000, I'll bet you 6 other people at the same
• 23:14
  time, lost 5 to the same bad guy.
• 23:16
  Like you said, they only ask for a little bit of money at a time, a lot of times, and but
• 23:19
  they'll take it from a hundred people.
• 23:21
  And then the FBI can put those cases together and look for patterns.
• 23:24
  And that's how they go after these big, you know, the, like, mafia style, you know, chains
• 23:30
  of of folks.
• 23:31
  Well, I I tell you, it it was it's it's a very humbling thing to be, you know, a really
• 23:37
  intelligent person and have something like this happen to you.
• 23:40
  But I will say that the the local FBI field office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is
• 23:45
  where I live, they were very nice to me.
• 23:47
  And one of the things that they said was, listen, it is extremely easy to get caught up
• 23:53
  in one of these scams.
• 23:54
  You really shouldn't feel like, you know, like you're somebody that's gullible or whatever.
• 24:02
  These people came at you how you did business.
• 24:04
  They studied you.
• 24:05
  They knew things about you, and they also knew how giving your heart was because they asked
• 24:10
  you to give away a $100,000.
• 24:12
  And so That's right.
• 24:13
  They were pulling out your heartstrings during COVID, who doesn't wanna help people during
• 24:17
  COVID?
• 24:17
  This is the thing.
• 24:18
  COVID scams have gone up tenfold right now.
• 24:21
  The FBI Internet crime complaint center was getting about a 1000 reports a day.
• 24:25
  They're getting 4000 reports a day right now.
• 24:27
  I mean, it is just crazy what these bad guys are taking advantage of.
• 24:31
  So, yeah, anybody wants to get to charities.
• 24:33
  They're putting up fake charity sites.
• 24:35
  So just do your homework and just take your time, you know, really investigate stuff, but
• 24:40
  don't answer the door if someone knocks on it first.
• 24:44
  Well, you know, the other thing someone else suggested to me, and I wanna give this resource
• 24:48
  to you, is someone said whenever someone comes at you, in an email and claims they've been in
• 24:54
  in their organization.
• 24:55
  It's been around 5, 10 years.
• 24:58
  Go to the way back machine dot com.
• 25:00
  And put that URL in and see if that website actually existed 5 years ago or 10 years ago,
• 25:08
  like they claim.
• 25:10
  So that's another thing you can do to double check internet crime or or someone saying, oh,
• 25:15
  we're with this charity that's been in business for 10 years.
• 25:19
  Go check it out, way back machine.com is an archive 501c3 site that allows you to basically
• 25:26
  they've been tracking 20 years worth of data on the internet.
• 25:30
  So that's another way.
• 25:31
  I love that.
• 25:32
  I learn from people all the time, and we are gonna put that on their website.
• 25:35
  That is awesome.
• 25:36
  Thank you.
• 25:37
  Someone told me the way back machine dot com really was something that could be helpful.
• 25:40
  And and of course, now that people start pointing out things to me, I see all kinds of
• 25:45
  things that are, like, scams.
• 25:48
  You know what I mean?
• 25:49
  So I'm, like, I'm like, it's like, now I'm looking at stuff and looking at everything and
• 25:53
  you know, checking the URLs and and and and an email.
• 25:57
  If someone sends you an email, look at the email address that it was sent from.
• 26:02
  You know, hover over it.
• 26:03
  Hover over it with your mouth so you can see what's actually behind it.
• 26:07
  Sometimes there's just one letter misspelled.
• 26:09
  And then if there's a link in something that says, oh, now click here to go there.
• 26:14
  Never click here to go there.
• 26:15
  Like, just h e r e.
• 26:16
  Cover over it and see where actually sending you.
• 26:19
  It's like dot Russia or whatever.
• 26:21
  It's not not the real deal.
• 26:23
  Yeah.
• 26:23
  I mean, it's interesting because I was actually talking to the fraud department at my bank last
• 26:29
  week.
• 26:29
  And they were telling me that now the big scams are the the cares act scams and that their all
• 26:35
  of their resources are being put to people fraudulently trying to get PPP money and EIDL
• 26:41
  money and all this kind of stuff.
• 26:42
  And that that's where I heard that accounting firms are getting money, getting contracts to
• 26:47
  do audits because there's so much fraud they were saying that the government's already lost
• 26:51
  $76,000,000 in county.
• 26:54
  So it's
• 26:55
  Dana Michigan had to stop giving out unemployment because they didn't know who if it
• 26:59
  was a real person or not.
• 27:00
  Well, I think some of that's going on in the state of Pennsylvania too, because I know there
• 27:04
  are quite a few folks that have not yet received unemployment.
• 27:07
  And I think it's because they were slowing it down because of all the fraud, which is a shame
• 27:12
  because then there's people out here who really needed who have not gotten dime.
• 27:15
  And this step is really, really, really scary.
• 27:17
  But listen, Kristen, I am so appreciative that you came on the small biz chat podcast.
• 27:22
  We are trying to help people.
• 27:23
  You know, the mission of small business chat is to end small business failure, and that's what
• 27:28
  we're about today.
• 27:28
  So, Christian Judd, thank you so much.
• 27:30
  You're from the cybercrime support network, and you guys website is once again.
• 27:35
  Fraudsupport.org.
• 27:37
  Fraudsupport.org.
• 27:38
  Alright.
• 27:38
  So if anybody, you got a friend or yourself, if you've been a victim of a scam online, please
• 27:45
  or, you know, a phone scam, anything like that, please go and check out her website and her
• 27:49
  resources.
• 27:50
  She is doing god's work out here.
• 27:52
  And I'm very appreciative, Kristen, of your time to come on the small biz chat podcast.
• 27:57
  I will leave you all with this.
• 27:58
  You never lose in business.
• 28:00
  Either you win or you learn.
• 28:02
  And let's face it.
• 28:03
  Some lessons just get to be more expensive than others.
• 28:06
  I am Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady, and we will see you next time.
• 28:11
  Thank you for listening to the Small Biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 28:16
  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
• 28:22
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.