Tony Unkel: Hello everybody, thank you for joining us today for our webinar, Expert Scam Defense Training, How to Protect Your IRA Investments, hosted by the Entrust Group, with our guest, DataArt.
Tony Unkel: The next slide, please.
Tony Unkel: Brief disclaimer before we get started. The Entrust Group, Entrust does not provide investment advice or endorse any products. All information and materials are for educational purposes only. All parties are encouraged to consult with their attorneys, accountants, and financial advisors before entering into any type of investment.
Tony Unkel: Today's agenda, we will cover reviewing the problem.
Tony Unkel: We'll visualize some top scams, explain how to protect yourself.
Tony Unkel: test what we've learned, and at the end, we will have a Q&A session.
Tony Unkel: My name is Tony Uncle, I'm the Business Development Manager for the Northeast here at the Entrust Group, and I educate investors and professionals on tax-preferred retirement accounts and alternative investments.
Tony Unkel: turn it over to our guest, the team at DataArt. Take it over, guys.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Hello, everyone!
Elizaveta Chernysh: And thank you for joining to today's security webinar. Let me start from introducing myself. My name is Ilzeveda Chernizh.
Elizaveta Chernysh: I have been working in the information security area for more than 8 years already, and during that time, I have seen a lot of scams, schemes and techniques, and what I have seen has shaped my career goal to help people protect themselves from
Elizaveta Chernysh: Being scammed, and, stay safe online.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, in today's session, we will deep dive into the world of scam.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Explore methods cameras use to, trick people, and, we'll learn how to, step one step ahead, in this ongoing battle.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Before we continue, I'd like to ask you, have you ever faced any type of scam in your life?
Elizaveta Chernysh: Like, you know, these, emails with suspicious attachments, or those annoying phone calls from someone pretending to be from your bank account, or…
Elizaveta Chernysh: Tech support.
Slava Buga: Cool.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Oh, yeah, so from your answers, I see that,
Elizaveta Chernysh: A lot of you experienced this, but it was saying that it's not just us in this room, millions of people face these threats every day. Let me show you a couple of examples.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, in 2023, more than 100,000 Americans over 60 reported being scammed, and they're losing an average, 34,000 each. And in 2024, seniors lost a record almost 5 million to fraud.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So you might wonder how scammers succeed in it.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Imagine you got an email saying that you have to pay 6 sub-band for some anti-malware subscriptions, anti-malware solution, yeah, antivirus tool.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, you want to stay protected from viruses. So you pay, and in several days, you realize that, money didn't go to an antivirus company, it went straight to scammers.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So I feel very sad about it, and…
Elizaveta Chernysh: out of nowhere, you go get a call from someone pretending to be a federal agent, and they say that the city has been caught, and now they may help you to return all your money. For that, you just need to open your laptop and follow their instructions. So you do that.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And in a blink of an eye, you realize that $300,000 just disappeared from your investment account.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Or another case, you receive a text message on your phone saying that a suspicious,
Elizaveta Chernysh: some suspicious activity detected on your investment account, and, you need just, visit, a site and verify your account, otherwise something bad may happen. So you follow the link, enter your login data, and
Elizaveta Chernysh: Boom, in several minutes, all of your investments are gone from your account. Sounds scary, right?
Elizaveta Chernysh: FBI also warns, that there are a lot of scammers, schemes. For example, one of them
Elizaveta Chernysh: involve, impersonated tech support. So scammers calling people and saying that
Elizaveta Chernysh: you have some legal problem, or tax issues, or you have to do something with your investment account, otherwise your money will go. So, to protect your money, you have to send them to some trusted account.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, yeah, a lot of people lose money because of this.
Elizaveta Chernysh: It begs the question, how it's even possible? Yeah, why are those scammers working? So, the answer is simple, it's emotions. Emotions are the key. Scammers use our emotions, like fear or excitement, to force us
Elizaveta Chernysh: do some action without thinking. So they rely on that. And actually, it, like, never gets sold.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Emotions TechTech worked 10 years ago, and it's still working.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And I would like to show you a couple of real examples, and to dive, like, what kind of red flags,
Elizaveta Chernysh: You may see, especially in the males.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, let's take a look this one.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, what do we have here? We have here an email saying that, okay, immediate actions required, because unusual activity detected on your account.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, the area, blah blah blah, we're not just unusual activities in your retirement account.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And you should log in, probably to verify thumbs in, and failure to do so may result in temporary suspension in your account.
Elizaveta Chernysh: pretty scary email, but it looks like normal email, right? But something is weird here.
Elizaveta Chernysh: First of all.
Elizaveta Chernysh: It's urgency, right? This, email said that you should do something immediately. And it's one of the most popular red flags that you may see in scam emails, especially. So.
Elizaveta Chernysh: When?
Elizaveta Chernysh: Someone tries to rush you, to force you to do something immediately, it is a big red flag.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Another one is typo in sender's email. This email looks like…
Elizaveta Chernysh: fine, right? But if you look closer, we may see, like, a small typo, just double S here, and such things really hard to spot, and of course, attackers, they know about it, and they use it. Sometimes, you may see that sender's email is quite
Elizaveta Chernysh: weird. It can be sometimes just combination of random letters, random symbols, but sometimes they're, like, scammers, they're really creative, and they…
Elizaveta Chernysh: Use, like, real…
Elizaveta Chernysh: Emails, yeah, but real domains, but they changed us one letter, and it's really hard to spot, but…
Elizaveta Chernysh: Yeah, we always should verify sender's email.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Also, we may see here a link, so if we hover the login,
Elizaveta Chernysh: button, yeah, we may see a URL where we will be forwarded if we click it. And what is weird here? That adds the Torian thumbsin, which click?
Elizaveta Chernysh: Doesn't relate to the subject of an email, yeah, and the topic, and the company names as they are pertaining to be from.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, it is another red flag that is really common, so…
Elizaveta Chernysh: in most of the cases and such scam emails, if you investigate the link where you will be forwarded, it will be really weird. Sometimes it's just something random, sometimes it may also contain misspelling, or some additional letters, and sometimes it's just a combination of random symbols.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Also, yeah, they're trying to attempt, as they're trying to raise a panic or sense of fear.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, last but not least, they use a well-known company logo to establish trust, and it's also quite popular, right? They impersonate a well-known company, so to establish trust.
Elizaveta Chernysh: What may help here? First of all, never click links in email. If you got an email saying that you should verify your account, log in somewhere, it's better to, like, open your browser and type the URL by yourself, or, like, domain name that you know.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And only their login. Or, if you use some services often, it's better to even save them in bookmarks, yeah, and that's how you may accept them, and you will be assured that it is the correct site.
Elizaveta Chernysh: But never looking through links in emails.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Yeah, and if you have any, like, doubts regarding emails, you can always verify, like, call in by official number, or contacting official support, right? If you
Elizaveta Chernysh: Got an email that something runs is your account, you can contact support of a company and verify that everything is fine.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Or another case, so this email said that, immediate tax payments required, otherwise really bad consequences may happen. And you have only 24 hours. And they also provided some
Elizaveta Chernysh: Some payment instruction, which is quite convenient, right?
Elizaveta Chernysh: And some phone number where you may call if you have questions.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Okay, what is weird here? So, you may guess, the first one is, urgency red flag, yeah, we may see here that, again, urgent, immediate.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Another one, again, is, email sender address. It has…
Elizaveta Chernysh: a typo, so yeah, it's a letter instead of I.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And if you…
Elizaveta Chernysh: open, like, official site, government's official site, and Czech, like, their emails, you will see that, it's totally different, right? The domain is different.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Also, yeah, there is an urgency in the body of the email. They say that immediate payment required again, and you have only, like, 24 hours to make your decision.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, there is a list of consequences, right, if you don't do that. So it's also the attempt to raise this sense of, you know, panic, to force you to act without thinking.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So here are some by mass method.
Elizaveta Chernysh: again, probably it will be, like, quite different from what you get used to, right? And such things always should be verified, so if some payment data changed, then you should, you know, make a regular payment on another account, yeah, it again should be verified.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, last but not least here is a phone number. So, what is interesting with phone numbers in such emails? If you look up for such numbers, probably you will see that other people already complain it for
Elizaveta Chernysh: For this number, yeah. Usually attackers, they just, send the same email to many people, and once it recognizes scam, someone may report it, so if you just Google the number, you probably will see some feedback that is connected to, scam schemes.
Elizaveta Chernysh: But not always, of course.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So in this case, you also may compare, like, this number to official number published on sites.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, how can we protect ourselves from such type of scam? First of all, you should stay calm. If you read some email and you feel very emotional, it is a big sign to keep calm and take your time.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Take a breath, you know, go walking, whatever, but do not…
Elizaveta Chernysh: Make any decision in… when you're… feels that emotional.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, yeah, if we need to pay something, or email says that you have some problems, always verify it through official means of communication.
Elizaveta Chernysh: This is another example that says that you can invest somewhere, yeah, and receive 20% of monthly returns, which is quite tempting, right?
Elizaveta Chernysh: And it's just simple, you should click, the link, yeah, and, reserve your spot.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So…
Elizaveta Chernysh: attackers not always use a sense of urgency or fear. Sometimes they rely on this, you know, excitement to read tempting things.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And if you say that there is no first, it sounds too good to be true.
Elizaveta Chernysh: In, like, 99% it is. So, if something sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. And it is a classic example of such a schema.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So we have, we see, here, right, really tempting offer that sounds, like, really unrealistic.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Also, they are trying to create this, feeling of missing out opportunities, right?
Elizaveta Chernysh: And their, like, highlights and spaces are filled really fast, so you should decide it right now, you don't have time to think about it.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, again, there is a link.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Probably, if you follow such a link in such emails, they may ask you to pay some deposit to reserve your spot, or, to log in somewhere, yeah, or give your credit card number.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Or it may lead that, you will need to download something, and this file will contain some viruses.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And this is how you may, infect your, laptop really easily.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, how can we protect from such scams, scams?
Elizaveta Chernysh: we should remember that if something thought's too good to be true, probably it is. And if you have doubts, yeah, maybe it is a real offer, better to take an advice from someone.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And last but not least, example that I would like to present today is a phone call. So, it…
Elizaveta Chernysh: Really important to, to know that cameras are very creative, and they use different means, to deliver their, scams and, try to trick people.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Not only emails, yeah, but they also may use phone calls. For example, here, someone calling and pretending to be from Entrust Support, yeah, says that they detected suspicious activity on your account, and you need to take immediate action to pretend your money.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So…
Elizaveta Chernysh: you see, right, the red flags are the same. It's urgency, it's, like, if you don't… don't do something, yeah, something bad may happen to your account, your money, yeah, this sense of, emergency and fear here.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, red flags the same, just the communication means the different. And, what can we do here is hang up, and, call company on their usual support number to verify if
Elizaveta Chernysh: Everything is alright with your account.
Elizaveta Chernysh: But do not trust, you know, this, unknown caller, saying you something, and do not follow their instructions.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Let's summarize what we have heard.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, most common red flags, yeah, that we have seen is spelling mistakes and strange wording.
Elizaveta Chernysh: unknown senders, or odd email addresses, as we saw, right? So it can be just small, typo, but sometimes it's just weirds.
Elizaveta Chernysh: combination of letters, and, the same things with, links in emails. It's urgent language, like, act now, immediate actions requires.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Unusual payment methods, requests for sensitive information. Sometimes, scammers, they are sending some emails, or…
Elizaveta Chernysh: calling you and ask some really, like, provide your passport data, or credit card data and other sensitive information. If you got such a request from, like, a known sender, it's… it's… it's a big red flag, so never share your personal information with,
Elizaveta Chernysh: contacts that you don't know. And if something is too good to be true, yeah, we should be very careful, because probably it is a scam.
Elizaveta Chernysh: But I would like to say that
Elizaveta Chernysh: like, trick you to click email, or click a suspicious link in email. Yeah, it's not the final goal of the attackers.
Elizaveta Chernysh: in most of the cases, what they're trying to do, like, what's their goal, yeah, by sending this kind of emails, is get access to your mail account. Your mail account is quite kind of treasure for hackers, because
Elizaveta Chernysh: Once they gain access to your mail account, they may get access to, gain access to other sensitive accounts, yeah, like bank accounts, or social media accounts, or invest… investment accounts.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, learn a lot of, sensitive and personal data.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And also, your email may be used for, to target other people. So, it is really, like.
Elizaveta Chernysh: popular thing when attackers firstly send phishing email, and that's how they are gaining access to, your mail account, and then they are,
Elizaveta Chernysh: hack your bank account, for example. So that's why we should go out of our way to protect our email account. So how can we do that?
Elizaveta Chernysh: First of all, we should come up with a really strong password.
Elizaveta Chernysh: what strong password means. So, it is a combination of, upper, lowercase letter, letters, special symbols, numbers, and it should be quite long, like, at least 12 syllables.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And I understand that it's quite hard to come up with such a password, and it's even more harder, it's even harder to remember such a password, right?
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, I have a, like, hint for you. You may use some passphrases.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Passphrases, it is a phrase, actually, but, good passphrase… Should have, like.
Elizaveta Chernysh: random combination of words that, do not make any sense. Like, dogs eat chocolate.
Elizaveta Chernysh: I don't know, each autumn, and some numbers, for example. Yeah, it helps you to create quite strong passwords that will be really hard to guess or break.
Elizaveta Chernysh: But you will be able to remember it.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And it better, like, and I understand that even, like, passphrase, there is a risk that you may forget.
Elizaveta Chernysh: I understand it. So,
Elizaveta Chernysh: What should I do in such a case?
Elizaveta Chernysh: You should not write it down in any other notebook, yeah, somewhere, in, like, plain text, just it is, so you may leave some hints for yourself that only you will understand.
Elizaveta Chernysh: But the best way, to store passwords is use some special application that's called Password Managers, and you may find a lot of them in,
Elizaveta Chernysh: application stores, and also, like, many fonts, they already have built it, password manager, like keychain and the fonts, and so on.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, better to save them there, but if you don't use such applications, you may leave hints somewhere, but again, it shouldn't be just, you know.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Full password.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, unfortunately, password is just the first line of defense, and it's not enough in our, like, modern reality.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, it's better to have, like, second layer of protection, and it's called, like, second factoristication.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Probably you have seen it already, like, many times, when you log in somewhere, and then you're receiving a phone call, and you should confirm that you are logging in somewhere, or you see a pop-up window on your phone, and you should, like, click approve,
Elizaveta Chernysh: Or, you receive a pop-up on your phone with numbers, and you should enter these numbers.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And web page, yeah? It is a sec- second factor authentication.
Elizaveta Chernysh: But…
Elizaveta Chernysh: on our, like, in our mail accounts, usually it's not, like, turning on by default, so you should go to stating and turn it on. So that's why I'm highlighting that you should… you should do that, you should make sure that you have it configured.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Otherwise, there is a big risk that your account can be easily compromised.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, if you're not sure, just…
Elizaveta Chernysh: go to settings and verify it. If you don't know how to do that, there are a lot of videos on YouTube how to do that, or you may ask your friends or relatives to help you with that.
Elizaveta Chernysh: But please double-check that it is configured, enabled.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And last but not least here, that bearer do not use the same passwords, like, multiple accounts and services, especially if you're talking about sensitive ones, like bank accounts, investment accounts, mail accounts, yeah, better to come up with different passwords for…
Elizaveta Chernysh: For all of them.
Elizaveta Chernysh: What else you can do to protect yourself, is, protect your phone number, because attackers also,
Elizaveta Chernysh: There are a lot of popular schemes when they stole a phone number and use it again to get access to bank accounts or investment accounts.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Unfortunately, there are not a lot of tips how to protect the phone number.
Elizaveta Chernysh: But, what you can do, you may ask your carrier whether it's possible to configure additional PIN on your phone number. In this case, if you have it.
Elizaveta Chernysh: You can't, move it or do any operations without this pin.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And also, it's good practice to not share it, like, everywhere, in social media, comments, etc, so your phone number shouldn't be easily accessed.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, we have seen a lot of, Scam red flags, but, sometimes.
Elizaveta Chernysh: It still, like, may happen, yeah, that you will not not hit them, and you can be targeted by scammers, you can be scammed, but…
Elizaveta Chernysh: It's not… you shouldn't be embarrassed of it if something like this happened, because attackers right now, they are very creative, and they improve their skills every day, and modern technology allows them to do
Elizaveta Chernysh: really, like, sophisticated attacks. So, if you're… if you were scammed, you shouldn't be ashamed of it.
Elizaveta Chernysh: But you should act, immediately, right? What you can do, you can report the scam immediately if,
Elizaveta Chernysh: Any, like, your bank, investment custodian, or other financial institution involved.
Elizaveta Chernysh: report them immediately, so they will help you to save your money, your information, and will guide you what to do next. Also, you may notify the Internet Crime Compliance Center.
Elizaveta Chernysh: On their official site, and keep records of your loses and reports, because in some, in some cases, those evidence may, help to reduce some taxes. So, I provide a link here where, where you can read the, in the details about it.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, we have learned a lot of today, and I propose to, to play a little bit, and see what you have learned.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, right now you will see a pop-up on your screen, and choose the options that you think is correct.
Elizaveta Chernysh: True or false, scammers can impersonate your bank, government, or family.
Elizaveta Chernysh: What do you think?
Yevhen Severynovskyi: I think it's true, but I can't click…
Yevhen Severynovskyi: Doesn't take my selection, but I'm just gonna voice it.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Is it working?
Andrew Crawford: Yeah.
Andrew Crawford: It should be showing the results, can you see?
Elizaveta Chernysh: I don't get?
Andrew Crawford: No.
Andrew Crawford: Right now, I'm sharing that 43 out of 43 said it's true.
Andrew Crawford: I'll stop sharing.
Andrew Crawford: So, everyone got that right, that it was true. I'll launch question 2. Sorry for that, let me know if you can see this one.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So I see the question, a phone call claiming your own taxes, and must pay now as usual.
Elizaveta Chernysh: It is real or a scam?
Elizaveta Chernysh: Andrew, do you see results?
Andrew Crawford: Gonna end it, and sharing results. Can you see?
Elizaveta Chernysh: No, I don't, but I know, maybe.
Andrew Crawford: So I can at least verbalize it, I don't know why they're not showing. 49 out of 52 said it's a scam.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Yeah, that's true, it is.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So again, yeah, it's an urgent call, say that you do something immediately with money, yeah, it's usually a scam.
Andrew Crawford: Launching question 3.
Elizaveta Chernysh: So, which phrase is often used in scam emails?
Elizaveta Chernysh: Act now to avoid losing access to your account, subscribe to your monthly newsletter, or thank you for being our valid client.
Andrew Crawford: I'll let this go another 10 seconds and let you know.
Andrew Crawford: Great, everyone got it right with number A, act now to avoid losing access to your account.
Andrew Crawford: Launching question number 4.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Strange mail addresses, like bank123login.com, are usually legitimate or suspicious.
Andrew Crawford: Very quickly, everyone got that right, and said it was, be suspicious.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And it's typical suspicious emails.
Andrew Crawford: Launching the final question.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Through or false, cameras always rush you, so you make mistakes.
Andrew Crawford: Great.
Andrew Crawford: Everyone got that right as well, and said that it was true.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Yeah, yeah, it is. Acting without thinking it was a wanting.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Thank you, Andrew.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Yeah, I would like to finalize my speech today.
Elizaveta Chernysh: my conclusion that scammers are very creative, persistent, and they're always looking for new opportunities to trick people. But by knowing their red flags, protecting your email, and taking a moment to pause before reacting, you can stay one step ahead.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Thank you for your time, and I give a word to… To my colleagues, Tony?
Tony Unkel: Thank you very much, very informative. So, let's wrap it up.
Tony Unkel: Go on to the next slide, please.
Tony Unkel: What's next? Send… we will send you a replay and additional resources. Our follow-up email will include video replays, slides, and additional education for you.
Tony Unkel: And please don't forget to register for November's webinar, From the Ground Up, Mobile Home Park Investing with Your IRA.
Tony Unkel: If you need any more information on self-directed IRAs, please be sure to visit our Learning Center, and please don't forget to follow us on social media for updates.
Tony Unkel: We will provide our contact information, should you have any questions.
Tony Unkel: And we will leave this up, and we can hop into our Q&A session.
Elizaveta Chernysh: Yeah, we'll be glad to answer all of your questions, if you have any.
Tony Unkel: Sure. Are banks typically liable for fraud committed against their customers, such as wire fraud, direct pay transfers?
Elizaveta Chernysh: Sergeant, could you please repeat again?
Tony Unkel: Are banks liable for fraud committed against their customers, such as wire fraud or direct pay transfers?
Elizaveta Chernysh: Yeah, and most of the, like, banks, usually they have really good, like, protection,
Elizaveta Chernysh: Yeah, really good protections, and they know about, like, many of these type of scams, but…
Elizaveta Chernysh: unfortunately, it's hard to protect customers from, like, all of the types of threats, and as I mentioned, attackers are improving their skills, and modern technology, especially right now with AI, all of this, yet they're helping them to trick people.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And, yeah, in, like, more advanced scam schemes, it's possible to gain access to bank account and bypass all of the technical mechanism, unfortunately. So, we still should be aware, yeah, about possible
Elizaveta Chernysh: Scam schemes and, be careful.
Tony Unkel: Thank you very much. And we don't have any, any more questions, so we can leave it open for another couple of seconds. If somebody does have a question, feel free to type it in. If not, our contact information is on the screen. If you think of anything post-webinar, feel free to reach out to us, and we'll happily address your questions.
Elizaveta Chernysh: And thank you very much, everyone, to joining us today. I hope this webinar was useful for you, and yeah, if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer. And have a great rest of the day.
Tony Unkel: Okay, we'll wrap it from there. Thank you very much, everybody. Enjoy the rest of your day. Take care now.