You need to create a secret password with your family

Scammers are out of control. Every year, scammers and cybercriminals Make billions By tricking people into giving up their money. Romance fraud, Business email settlement, Investment scams, Sexual blackmailThe list of ways criminals prey on people is almost endless and constantly changing.

Add to this impersonation scams, where the criminal pretends to be someone known to their target and extracts money. There have been increasing calls for people, especially families, to create passphrases or passwords with each other. In early December, the F.B.I Issued A recommendation that people create a “secret word or phrase with your family to verify their identity,” as published by British bank Starling Guidelines Create safe conversations with others.

It’s a simple, if not new, method that can be effective. For example, if you receive a message or call from your “son” or “daughter” and they are urgently asking for money to get out of a jam, asking them to provide a pre-agreed passphrase can reveal whether it is actually them or not.

“Scammers will use manipulative tactics to put the victim in a vulnerable state where they act out of panic, urgency, or strong desire,” says Erin Englund, director of threat analytics at fraud detection company BioCatch. “Having a similarly crafted passphrase or strategy enables victims to quickly verify the legitimacy of the unusual interaction and take control of it.”

The calls to create family passwords or passphrases have come as scammers increasingly rely on artificial intelligence. Machine learning has allowed criminals to get creative Deep fake videos people and reproduce voices with just a few seconds of audio. Scammers have used these audio transcriptions to He claims Members of their families have been kidnapped and are demanding a ransom be paid for their release.

“AI creates a significant amount of risk for businesses and families,” says Rachel Toback, CEO of SocialProof Security. Toback says companies she has worked with have been on the receiving end of AI-clone voice calls, which also use spoofed phone numbers, and which attempt to impersonate business people.

“I also hear about some families every day that receive AI phone call attacks, like a clone of the voice of a nephew or grandchild or a brother who is hysterical about being kidnapped or involved in a car accident where they hit a woman who is pregnant and needs money for legal aid,” Toback says. “Fees and Guarantee.”

Create a good family password

As with your online passwords, there are things you should and shouldn’t do when it comes to creating a common passphrase. For starters, you shouldn’t create a passphrase like any of your passwords, and they shouldn’t be things a scammer can easily find — like street names, birthdays, pets, or other personal information that can be shared online.

“Consider anything you or your loved ones post online as data available to scammers,” Englund says. “Even if you keep all your social media private, your data will be available to your connections and followers who could be hacked.”