Ep. 027: Avoid Falling Victim to Fraud (w/ Steve Wilson, The Digital Society Org)

March is 'Fraud Awareness Month' and this episode of Cyber Security Matters is about fraud prevention. Our guest today is Steve Wilson, Cybercrime, Digital Investigation and Technology Consultant at The Digital Society Org. Steve has a compassionate approach to preventing fraud. Rather than shaming victims, he gives some good lessons learned about how to avoid being taking in by sophisticated fraudsters. Steves career has gone from being in the military, to law enforcement with the police department, to banking, to working with accounting firms to contract work with BCIT. On top of doing fraud prevention and digital forensics, he is working on is PhD. in the United Kingdom. It seems he does everything except for golf. The three biggest fraud scams of 2019 were: Identity Theft, Ransomware and Phishing with fraud losses in the billions of dollars. Steve explains that technology has made it easier for fraudsters to perpetrate their scams agains unsuspecting victims, lowering the barrier for people to commit fraud. In romance scams, highly sophisticated social engineering often lasts months as fraudsters build a relationship, and millions of dollars have been lost in this way. People don't want to report this because they're embarrassed and there is absolutely no recourse because the fraudsters usually can't be traced. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Steve believes that it is helpful to report an incident to the authorities if you happen to fall victim to any kind of fraud. It can become a political issue and affect change on a political level as well as raise awareness to prevent other people from going through the same thing.