How to Protect Aging Parents from AI Scams

Transcript of Interview: “Protecting Aging Parents from AI Scams”

Mike Barnes: [00:00:00] I think a lot of us as adult children have this fear that something’s gonna happen to where we get a phone call from our aging parent and they say, yeah, something popped up on my computer screen and said, call a number to fix it. And I did that.

They had me touching the keys. I don’t know what I did. It happened with me and my dad. Scared me to death ’cause he almost lost everything.

Kim Barnes: And unfortunately, those kinds of scams and cyber scams are happening more and more. So today we’re bringing in Melissa Aog, a long time cybersecurity expert to talk about these dangers and the things that we can do to try to help protect our parents and frankly, ourselves as well, because they’re getting really savvy.

So thanks for being with us today.

Melissa Aarskaug: Happy to be here.

Kim Barnes: Let’s first start talking about just the terminology, because I think the word cybersecurity gets thrown around a lot, and so we wonder, is it cybersecurity that I need protection? Is that what I need, or is it protection from scams and kind of what’s the difference?

Melissa Aarskaug: Yes, absolutely. Great question. Cybersecurity is just a general. Broad term, talking about [00:01:00] protecting your computer, your phones, your accounts, your email, and your personal information from theft, hacking or misuse. And a scam is a type of danger that often people exploit, hackers exploit, like social engineering, tricking somebody into giving up their personal information.

Money or anything they need to gain access to whatever they’re trying to get access to.

Mike Barnes: Scams have been around forever. It’s not like this is something new because back in the old days, they’d just come to your front door and try to sell something that wasn’t really real. But now with ai, it’s so. Dangerous because of voices being involved and pictures being involved. It’s fun for us to play with ai, but it’s dangerous for our aging parents.

Melissa Aarskaug: Yeah, absolutely. And to your point, there could be anything like your Facebook account, setting up a fake profile or you know, fake websites, fake emails, offline phone calls, bogus letters. [00:02:00] It’s everything Now.

Kim Barnes: So where do we start with what the, what are the things that we need to be most worried about? I know that we’ve had, somebody in our community talking about that their parent thinks that they’re involved in a relationship with a country music singer, and they’re sending them money because they think that they are, it’s a romance scam.

using them to, trick them into thinking that they’re, in love with a country singer and who needs money.

Melissa Aarskaug: Absolutely. And older adults can be especially targeted because these AI power scams exploit trust and urgency, and so. Right now there’s four really most common AI powered scams right now. And so the first one is voice cloning. So scammers mimic their grandchildren’s voice and create an emotional urgency like, I’m in trouble, send me money now, help grandma.

And then the second one is deep fake, a deep fake video [00:03:00] scam. So having a picture of a child or a family member. AI can produce fake videos that appear incredibly real, making it look like a trusted family member is asking for urgent help. The third, the third, scam right now is AI phishing, AI enhanced phishing.

So those look like emails or texts that are very personalized and very professional, tricking people into clicking on the bad leak and sharing their private information and then. The fourth is fake websites in fake form. So those could be things like your hospital, your doctor office. So AI is helping create believable sites that capture login credentials.

Like they ask you to click here, you log in, you think it’s your doctor’s office, and it’s actually not. And [00:04:00] they’re gathering your information and asking you for money.

Kim Barnes: Yeah, and I think isn’t the scary part is that now they’re so hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. It used to be that when you got the, the, email from some, princess in another country saying, I need money, and there were typos and the email address was, bad English seven, eight7@aol.com or something.

crazy. You knew that, okay, that’s, not real. Now. They’re so convincing and able to make them so personal.

Melissa Aarskaug: And if you think about it, you know, if English isn’t your first. Language and you live in another country, all you have to do is tell your ChatGPT or whatever AI tool, please translate this into English. And the tool can instantly do it to where it sounds incredibly real. they can take, a snippet from, from Google or your name or something they know about you and say.

You know, target this person in, you know, whatever state they’re in, [00:05:00] and send them a message. And they, they don’t need much information to sound semicon convincing.

Mike Barnes: Yeah, so how can we help our aging parents not fall into becoming a victim?

Melissa Aarskaug: Yeah, it’s, it’s important to have and be prepared. So step one, always, always verify identity. Don’t respond with urgency. So typically they’re very urgent, they’re very demanding. You know, you might say no, and then they get more demanding. So if somebody calls you with an urgent call, like your granddaughter or your son, hang up and call them right back on that number.

And so, and to verify that it’s actually them. You never wanna act immediately just because it sounds so, so convincing and they are so, so convincing. I work in an industry and regulated industries that have some of the smartest. Cybersecurity people in it, and even they get tricked occasionally. And [00:06:00] so don’t, you know, don’t feel fear, but know how to handle it.

So that’s really step one is the verify identity. Step two is, my family has a safe word. So it could be any word you pick, agree on a private word or a private code, and share only with your family and have them only share. You know, inside the family. So if a caller doesn’t know that private word, it’s probably a scam.

And if you think back to to bank banks, they ask you for your password or your private word or your pin or whatever that is. Banks have been using that for a while now. So establish one for your own house and make it something that only your family would know, and it’s not on social media. And then three is, what they call MFA, which is multifactor authentication.

And really what that means is it if you, it’s protecting your accounts for something more than just your password. So if, a hacker gets [00:07:00] password, make sure you have MFA set up and then. You would get a code, say to your, your cell phone so that you would get a text from your bank or your email account, to double verify your accounts are safe and secure

Kim Barnes: So I think a lot. Well, I was gonna say, I don’t wanna interrupt you, but I think a lot of people will say like, oh, that’s, so much trouble to have to get the text and blah, blah, blah. And especially with our aging parents where if it’s their account and we’re in a different city or we’re not sitting with them, what are some things that we can do?

Well, one, I think what I’m hearing you say is it’s worth the hassle to make sure that you have that multifactor authentication set up. And what are some things that we could do, especially with our aging parent, so that we can help them with that.

Melissa Aarskaug: Make sure. The other thing is make sure their passwords are not one, two, three, four, five, or they’re not their phone number or they’re not their address, or they’re not. Things like all of our information can be found online right now. You know, if you have, you have a. You know, a unique name [00:08:00] like John Smith.

Probably harder to find a, a specific John Smith, but if you have a unique name, it’s easier to find information about everyone now, you know, typing your name, what city you live in, you know what you look like, what they know about you. These tools can gather more information so. Making sure the password for your parents are a legit password that you know, and you have access to their accounts in case you need to help ’em reset it.

Like I’m, I’m my mother and father-in-law’s favorite IT department. I work all around the clock to resolve their problems. And so just making sure you have those informa, you have that information. And then beware of these unsolicited links in attachments. Even if the message looks official, if you weren’t expecting it, verify that it came from the organization.

So if you haven’t been to a hospital in five years and you get an email from that big hospital that’s located in the [00:09:00] city you live in, it’s probably a scam.

Kim Barnes: Well, I remember when, after my mom was hospitalized earlier this year, I kept getting a text from the ambulance service saying You, oh, you have this bill. You have this bill. And I thought. Why are they texting me a bill? I don’t, how do they even have my phone number? And so I went, I mean, it took extra time, but I went around, sort of around where I looked up the number, called them and said, is this legitimate?

And it turned out it actually was. They didn’t have my email address, which is why they texted me. And so I think it’s having to take those extra steps of, when I get, if UPS says that a package is being delivered. On a text, which I get all the time. Or, Amazon issues or whatever. I always go straight to the website to, not clicking on that link.

I will go to my computer and type in, fedex.com or whatever to be able to check it separately. So I think is, are those the kinds of things? And with that multifactor authentication, should I make, me [00:10:00] be the phone, the tech, the number they’re gonna text from my parents’ accounts if I need to be able to help them with it.

Melissa Aarskaug: I would say it depends on how available you are for your parents. So if you, your parents need to get on their. You know, their bank accounts and, and you’re traveling, for example, and they need to buy groceries. Just making sure you have or, or setting up separate emails, right? All, all our health related, accounts or doctor is gonna be at this Gmail account.

I’m gonna have all my doctor emails, all my pharmacy emails at this Gmail account. I’m ha gonna have all my, you know, garbage. Emails for places I shop at my coupons. I gather it at, you know, maybe a Yahoo email account and, and separate them and then make sure the ones that are really most important, like your bank accounts, your doctors, they have a very long password.

They, you know, we used to say to have a 12 character long [00:11:00] password. And, and make that password, not something like, you know, password 1 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, but to make it something that is relative to you, that’s easy for you to remember and, and change them, every now and again and, and make sure that you share them with your family members.

Kim Barnes: And what about using the same password for different accounts?

Melissa Aarskaug: Yeah, I used to say to change them, but now we all have 50 different companies or more that we interact with in a month or two month period. It gets difficult, remembering 50 different passwords. So I’m. Keen now on making it really, really long, really, really strong. And using words like, you know, that aren’t really wor words, that people wouldn’t recognize and maybe spelling the words wrong.

So if you wanna use your, your name, maybe take out a letter and put a number.

Kim Barnes: [00:12:00] Okay. So just that makes sense. Using Using different combinations if you will. I mean, I use a, password pro protector serv, the, one password. So the password protect and, So that I ha, I don’t know what the passwords are for most of the stuff ’cause they’re so complicated, but I have to use my.

My app to log in. But that can be, kind of complicated to use.

Mike Barnes: I think for me, the, easiest thing to, to think about is think about how your parents treated you when you were a kid about, don’t cross the street, don’t drive at night, don’t do this, don’t do that. Just because they were worried about your safety.

And that’s the way I kind of treat my dad. Not in a mean way, but I tell ’em, dad, if you ever get any email with a link. Please don’t click it. Or

Kim Barnes: an attachment.

Mike Barnes: Or an attachment, please don’t click it. And the one time he did, he, he got in trouble. But because of that, when I do send him stuff, ’cause I’ll send him stuff that podcast that I’m on or something like that, I’ll send him a link.

I’ll say, this is your son okay. To click this so that, he, understands that, but, keeping it simple like that so that, they’re are, they’re safer, but they understand [00:13:00] the safety that’s involved I think is, makes it easier.

Kim Barnes: And, what should we do if we think we, they’ve been hacked? I mean, when that happened with your dad, you had him unplug the computer.

Was that, what’s, the best thing to do if you think you’ve been hacked

Melissa Aarskaug: And it depends, it depends on the situation. So there was, a, a lady recently who owned a business and she had, the hacker had gotten some information about her and they were trying to get into her bank account. And so, in, in this case, they called and kept calling and they, she actually, they were convincing enough that she, she had MFA set up.

and she actually gave the hackers the MFA codes. and so they took a $5,000 chunk of money and then an $8,000 chunk of money and then a 10,000. So they scaled up the money and she thought it was really bizarre. and so [00:14:00] she had drove into the Chase Bank. And said to the Chase Bank, Hey, I, I wanna just check on these, these, charges and why these charges are happening and the teller.

said, we have no idea. We, we never sent you any anything and, and, Oh. in an email from us, but we did send you an MFA code that you requested. ’cause she did request it. In this case, she was not reimbursed from the bank because she told the hacker. The potential person that was social engineering, her, her code that came from Chase Bank.

So Chase did not reimburse her for those funds, and the lady, lost tens of thousands of dollars of her own money and her own business. the other thing I say, Kim is make sure when you are using your bank accounts, you’re using them on [00:15:00] credit card versus using all your debit cards because it takes a lot longer with the banks to be reimbursed.

Cash out of a checking or savings versus a credit card company shutting down that credit card. They can do it instantly. When you pick up the phone and you call them and you tell them, Hey, I clicked on a link. I think my account might be compromised. They will shut that account down. Right away.

Melissa Aarskaug: And they will block any of those transactions that happen if they pull the cash outta your bank account.

The cash is gone until, unless. And so sometimes you have to get local authorities involved. my parents were also part of a scam. Where, they were going to buy another home. They had no mortgage. They had no car payment. They, the, the hacker had taken out a Discover card against them. They had taken out a personal loan against them.

None of the information was sent to their re their [00:16:00] primary resident. And when they try to actually get a home loan, they couldn’t.

they had to clear up, I think it was 50 something thousand dollars. and they had zero idea about it. And so they were pulling money out of their account for a year.

these, these teams of people work together. These, groups work together. They collaborate. They, you know, they know what to do. Oftentimes, they stay, stay in the same neighborhoods. So they, they open mailboxes. They, you know, if you’re in a mailbox in a, a neighborhood that doesn’t have a key to your mailbox, I would make sure that you know your mailbox, you’re not getting sent, information that has your social, your credit card numbers, your addresses.

’cause all they need is your address, your zip code, a little bit of information, and they can get a lot further with you.

Kim Barnes: Right. It’s like you don’t wanna be overly paranoid, but it’s like you’ve gotta be really [00:17:00] mindful and really, I mean, defensive distrusting. and how are, how do they get your voice? What do, are there things we need to do to be able to protect that? They can’t hopefully get our voice.

Melissa Aarskaug: Yes, absolutely. And I think it just depends on what we’re sharing, right? So it depends on everybody. you know, I know a lot of my family members are on Facebook to share things, to talk about things. and so if you’re, you’re sending these video chats on your account or you’re recording videos on your phone of yourself and somebody gets access to your Apple account, they can pull down these videos of your grandson and you might be videoing your grandson at a soccer game or you know, his graduation or.

Or however you’re using your video on your phone, whether it’s an Android or an Apple, they can, if they get into those accounts and they capture those videos, they can take the video, pop it into a, you know, a chat GPT or a [00:18:00] Gemini, and recreate a whole new video.

Kim Barnes: what about our voice? Even I realize on my voicemail I leave, I have a message on my voicemail is that, should I be worried about that?

Melissa Aarskaug: yeah, I think that as well, you have an apple, you have an Apple phone or an Android, depending on how your voicemails are stored. If they’re stored, in your Apple account and somebody gets access to your Apple account or Android, or you send, like I send video, Text messages occasionally to people instead of, typing.

I now talk into my, phone and it makes it easier. But if they get access to your phone or they get, they get your phone, they possess your phone and they can get in, then they can, they can have access to it.

Kim Barnes: I guess, what about if they just even call me, because I’m not gonna answer if it says suspected spam or tele, telemarketer. And so they’re gonna get my voicemail. There’s just so many ways they’re gonna hear my voicemail.

Melissa Aarskaug: Yeah, somebody can call you. They can get your phone number and [00:19:00] they can just talk to you randomly. And it only takes a couple of sentences to get your voice and get your tone, and they could just get your number online. There’s, there’s apps out there, you know, even though I’m unsubscribed from, you know, getting any.

Rogue phone calls. I still, people get my phone number all the time. I have no idea. and they just have to get me on the phone and, Hey Melissa, do you have a couple minutes? It’s Johnny from dah, dah dah. I know you came by here, have you? How’s your day going? Oh, it’s going great. You know, just that, that short interaction, they only need you to talk a couple of sentences or a sentence and they have what they need to build, their, a new video.

Kim Barnes: Wow. It’s really scary.

Mike Barnes: So many things to worry about. We just have to be diligent about it, especially with our aging parents. Melissa, thank you so much for all these tips. It’s helped so, so much.

Melissa Aarskaug: You are very welcome. Thank you so much for inviting me to speak with your listeners today. I hope it helps.[00:20:00]

Mike Barnes: Thank you. I, think what, we’re learning here to me is that you just have to be defensive. I’m comparing it to defensive driving, which right. Seems kind of funny when you’re in that class, but it’s still the same thing. You just have to be careful about your passwords, about your voice, about your face, especially with our aging parents

Kim Barnes: and super skeptical, I mean, just about everything.

Pretty much. So that, are you, is this really the bank? Is this really? FedEx is this really, and not trusting it and finding, finding that information from other, ways.

Mike Barnes: Right. Better safe than, sorry. Hey, if you have any other topics you’d like us to discuss, please let us know.

Parenting aging parents

*This transcript is auto-generated. Please excuse any typos or mistakes.