AS HEARD ON NH Today with Jack Heath WGIR-AM 610: The Technology and Spread of the Coronavirus, Business Email Compromise and More

Welcome,

Good Monday morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jack Heath this morning. We discussed the Coronavirus, Covid-19 and its spread and how Technology is helping and hurting. Here we go with Jack.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig
A scammer posed as her executive assistant and forwarded the bookkeeper for Corcoran an invoice earlier last week requesting payment of over $388,000 to a company over in Germany. As it turns out that the email was not from the executive assistant to the bookkeeper but a scammer. The bookkeeper, not carefully checking the email, went ahead and paid the invoice, and Barbara lost 400 grand that she says she'll never be able to get back.

Craig
Hey, good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson, here. I was on with Jack Heath all over New Hampshire, also parts of Maine and, of course, Vermont and Mass. It is a northeast-wide show, and we talked about the Coronavirus, some of my experience as an EMT with some advanced certifications back in the day. The things I think are going to happen this year, and how it will affect businesses and individuals between As the scammers are using it too.

Jack
Right now, Craig Peterson, our tech talk guy, joins us live now on the Autofair listener line. Good morning, Craig.

Craig
Good morning, jack.

Jack
Well, I have asked you before can technology will help us here a little bit. What's on your docket this morning?

Craig
Yeah, there's a couple of interesting technology things. You know, for about a decade, I was a volunteer in emergency medicine, and I had some advanced certifications, I remember some of these prior diseases pretty darn well. We were concerned about what we should do back then. It was about 15 years ago, we knew that we needed to take some extra precautions, and we did. We weren't running around with face masks during SARS and h1n1 because we understood back then what caused the transmission and what we needed to do. You're correct about washing your hands. There's warning that even if you are wearing a face mask, most of them are just dust rated. Dust rated face masks, after a few hours, will be full of moisture coming up from your lungs and can transmit through that face mask. If you keep it around longer, the viral strand can make you sick. So yeah, do be a little cautious. I think we're going to see a lot fewer just general cases of the flu this year too. As we're going to be a lot more conscious than we have been in years past about washing hands and not touching your face. And the reason you watch him every time you go to the bathroom isn't so much that necessarily you're handling anything dirty in the bathroom, but most people go to the toilet a few times a day. So it's a good time to wash your hands. It is a way to help you remember to do it. It's kind of like changing the batteries in your fire alarms when the clock changes, which of course, is coming up soon. Yeah, it's just a good little reminder to do it. Speaking of reminders, There's something that just happened. The Barbara Corcoran, you might know her she's one of the investors over on Shark Tank. Big, big time into real estate. It is a warning is for pretty much anybody with email, which is everybody. She lost nearly $400,000 here just a couple of weeks ago to one of these business email scams that the FBI has issued warnings against. This scammer posed as her executive assistant and forwarded the bookkeeper for Corcoran an invoice earlier last week requesting payment of over $388,000 to accompany over in Germany. As it turns out that the email was not from the executive assistant to the bookkeeper but a scammer. The bookkeeper, not carefully checking the email, went ahead and paid the invoice, and Barbara lost 400 grand that she says she'll never be able to get back. So be very careful. The FBI is warning about these BEC scams. They're up big time. Ransomware is back with a vengeance. Jack, a lot of it is coming in emails that looked like they are talking about the Coronavirus and giving you some advice, some tips on the spread and things. So be very, very careful. We're all interested in it, and we all want to know more. Well, many of the scammers understand that when we get a little emotional, we are more susceptible and vulnerable. It might look like something, unfortunately, when that happens. That's a good example. With this person on Shark Tank. It just gives the scumbags the scammers more motivation like Oh, we got almost $400,000. All they need is one or two victims to make this worth it, right. To make it work not just for them, but for the whole family, $400,000 in Eastern Europe will support an entire family for maybe even a decade, depending on where they live. So for them, it's a lot of money. It's well worth the effort. For us. I have seen businesses whose operating accounts have been emptied by these types of scams. So be careful. You've got this scam, and we got the other ones around the Covid-19 that are giving us ransomware. Now even backups aren't good enough for ransomware anymore because they're holding our data hostage. Saying we will release this data, your intellectual property, the personally identifiable information that you have, will release it to the world if you don't pay us. The scammers are taking advantage of this Coronavirus.

Jack
We are talking to Craig Peterson here. He is at Craig Peterson, dot com. Thank you, Craig. Of course, Justin, I still want to know who the folks are behind the one where that says you have, a distant, distant relative you didn't know you're related to in Africa who has passed away. You can get in on the $19 million inheritance if you help them, you know, be the executor of the estate and help them and explain that you'll get your fair share. People believe that. I don't

Justin
I don't need relatives in Nigeria to scam me. I got ones right here and a handful. Why is it always someone from Nigeria?

Craig
Nigerian prince, Jack. The Nigerian prince scams were coming from Nigeria Believe it or not, and you still see them every once in a while the Nigerians were the original online scammers with these email scams. I made a lot of money over the years, and I knew quite a bit about it because I got involved I designed a system to stop the Nigerian scam way back when, Yeah, that was me. Anyhow, we've got more coming up for you this coming week. We think it's going to be next week these new tutorials we're putting together. Once you're done, with locking-down any Windows or Mac computer yourself, you can lock down your small business network, and you can be able to stop worrying about being a victim of the bad guys. All of that is coming up in the next few weeks ahead. There's a lot to be able to do here. So anyhow, we're so excited about it. We want to help you out with this because I know as a business guy, how it almost destroyed my business getting hacked. And I've spent years trying to figure out what the right way to do this is so that you don't have to that's coming up probably next week, Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe, make sure you're on my email list. All right, everybody, take care. We will be chatting again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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