Then the loss of the money that you spend on the expertize to come in and fix out all those problems is another big cost. So you've got the direct cost through bank account stolen, the cost through loss of revenue because the website gets taken down and then the cost to fix the problem. So when you add those things together across businesses worldwide, it's quite easy to see where those figures come from.
So another reason for a big increase in cyber crime in the most recent years was COVID. And the reason for that, of course, is that more and more people were working from home, spending time on their own computers, and quite often he was home computers may not be as secure as a workspace computer. But the other big thing that happens with scammers, we're taking advantage of things like COVID tests.
They would send out an email on the subject. I would say COVID test results. And so the less discriminating people that aren't quite so Internet savvy, the anxiety that an email that could cause is quite worrying so they’re eager to see the test results. They click a link and suddenly there are some malicious websites downloading a virus or some other nasty piece of software.
And they didn't realize it. So the whole opportunity for scamming during covid, just took off through the roof. And this is happening worldwide, don't forget. The word COVID it already and still stay with people. So when they get an email, it's like an knee jerk reaction. They don't always relax and study the email, hover their mouse cursor over the link to see where it actually goes.
They just think, Oh my gosh, it's my test result. Click. I don't even think, you probably think. You know, I've not even had a test. And things like sales of face masks. Face masks, obviously we all need them during COVID. And if there's an email suggesting you could buy them very cheaply, I'm sure a lot of people said, oh, great, I can buy a thousand masks for a very small amount of money.
Click the link before they note some bogus website downloading virus, such as a keylogger or other nasty piece of software onto the computer. So let's kind of identify some of the different types of cyber crime. Now, some of these you may have heard of, but let's just quickly run through a few of them. And the first one I want to talk about, is phishing.
So phishing is kind of like a social engineering and it's leading on from what I was saying just now, people will get an email from an apparently legitimate company, maybe their bank. They click a link, they go to an apparently legitimate website because the website is made to look like the bank or whatever the organization is very authentic, very realistic.
Quite of you think you see, like spelling mistake and things like that. But because it looks like the real thing, people are clicking and when they're clicking the going places they shouldn't go. And then downloading devices and software, and this is called phishing. It’s a form of social engineering. It's like conning people to think that they deal with one party when in fact the emails are a bogus email saying it's a bogus website.
So that's what phishing essentially is. The next thing I want to talk about is ransomware. Now, this can take on a few different forms, but ransomware is where someone has inadvertently visited one of these dodgy bogus websites, downloads the software and the software has encrypted that entire disk and lock that person out so they don't have access to any of their files in the computer.
They will get some communication to say that if you pay a fee, we will unlock the computer. Now, this has been really serious because I've heard of organizations across the globe such as firefighting services, health providers that have been held to ransom. It is absolutely unscrupulous way and they've actually paid up the ransom because they're mission critical systems that they're running, coordinating the delivery of to particular patients to pick up people who have had bad injuries.
The guys that do these kind of attacks, they are mercenary, the unscrupulous. They have no conscious that probably psychotic. They're probably psychopaths because they don't care about people. They just want their money. This is what happens. So ransomware is where you get some software that's down to your computer. It locks out the hard disk through encryption. You need a long password to unlock it.
And until you pay up that money and it's usually quite Bitcoin, by the way, they won't give you the key to lock the computer. And who's to say that you do pay the money to go and lock it anyway? You just don't know. We really don't know. Now there's another form of cybercrime called sextortion, and generally it takes the form of someone who's hackers will send out an email.
An email will say something like, Dear Paul, dear David, dear friend, we have recorded your webcam footage of you visiting an adult entertainment site. And if you don't pay the money, we're going to publish that video all over social media. And by the way, this is a password that you've used. The user sees the email, they read the password.
And the thing that really shocks them is that as a password that they recognize and they know that somewhere in the website, somewhere where they've used that password. And when you see your own passwords in an email from a hacker, it's pretty compelling. It's crazy worrying. Fear is a very powerful emotion. Why these hackers would they will send out millions of these emails to people across the globe.
It's all a big bluff, but the adult entertainment industry is a big one. And there are millions of people around the world who do visit such websites and do have webcams on their computer. So when they receive an email and they reflect back on their own behavior, although the email is a bluff, they will realize what they've done.
They realize they've got a webcam and the fear is overwhelming. The thought of a video being posted on social media is frightening. This would send some people over the edge. So what do these people do? They pay up. They pay the ransom so that the video doesn't get posted on social media. The video doesn't exist anyway. It's just a big bluff, but it's pretty scary when it's a password that you recognize.
And so that individual who has maybe visited some adult entertainment sites, who has a webcam on their computer, these no, not necessarily to detect savvy, it’s a big headache. So that's called sextortion. So that's just a few examples of cybercrime. There are many, many, many more. Now, in the next video, I'm going to talk to you more about where those passwords came from that provided the compelling evidence to take action when those sextortion emails are delivered.
And I could tell you about some things you can do to prevent them happening in the first place. Now, to simply say about the safety of your computer and your P.C. and your passwords, the next time, I'm going to be talking a bit more about the WordPress website and some other tools that you can use to make your whole cyber existence much safer.
Thanks for your time everybody. It’s Paul Jordan and I look forward to seeing the next video. Thank you. Goodbye.here...
May 26
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