Short Memories, Flat Roofs, and Christmas Scams
I remember the winter of 1980. Each time it snowed, we kids took advantage, building snow forts, snow caves, snowmen. It was magic . . . for about fifty minutes, at which point the melted slush would begin to soak through my canvas Keds and K-Mart blue jeans, freezing my toes. Even magic has a shelf life. Of course, if someone asks me to recall that winter, frozen toes and sopping jeans aren’t what come to mind. Kids tend to have short memories. They remember the joy of Christmas: the abundant snowfall, the hours of ensuing glee (usually minus the then-ensuing frostbite). Snow filtered through the lens of nostalgia becomes a magical white powder. But ask me to examine those memories further; ask me whether snow has a dark side. It does. Certainly, it’s capable of infiltrating shoes and freezing children’s toes. It’s also capable of collapsing roofs if you aren’t careful.
My best friend’s dad—Tabby, we called him—was careful. He spent hours that year shoveling snow off the flat roof of his house. (Why anyone builds flat-roof houses in cities north of the Sun Belt remains a mystery to me.) He had heard reports that other flat-roofers had been forced to shovel snow from their homes after their ceilings had collapsed beneath the weight. Tabby was determined to beat the odds—determined, but also lucky. Lucky to have heard those reports in advance. Lucky to recognize the dark side of snow. Not all had that luxury.
The same holds true now, in the digital age. Adults aren’t much better at recognizing dark sides than kids, and unlike the magic of snow, computers are something of a novelty. So, the dangers are, perhaps, lesser known. That doesn’t mean they aren’t real. In other contexts, we understand that trust is a privilege. We laugh to think back on the days when kids would hitchhike, buy cigarettes for their dads, bike alone after dark—the days when moms would leave their babies parked in buggies outside the grocery store. We joke offhand about people who neglect to lock their doors at night, who neglect to shovel their flat roofs. And it’s with a degree of hypocrisy that we do; too many people neglect to protect their digital assets the way they protect their physical ones.
The most effective computer security defense today is called “Zero Trust”. All that means is that access permissions must be proven before access is granted. Think of it like the front door to your house. You don’t want to come home tonight and find a stranger making a sandwich, right? So, you lock the door, right? If so, you’re practicing a version of Zero Trust.
What throws us about computers, I think, is the lack of a physical barrier. We see our front doors every day and understand that intruders can walk through them. Or, in the case of snow, we come across buildings with flat roofs and understand that snow can weigh them down. In both cases, the risk is omnipresent. We have visible reminders to prepare for the worst. But a computer’s connection to the internet is invisible, provided you don’t know where to find it. There are baddies in the world who do know. But you, hypothetical reader, do not, so you ignore the risk, or fail to notice it. And the baddies find your virtual door, and they walk right into your virtual kitchen and eat your virtual lunch. The only way you’ll know is if they tell you. Sometimes they leave a note. “I ate your lunch.” (Actually, they’ll tell you they encrypted all your files. They’ll give them back . . . for a small fee. Merry Christmas.)
And if ransomware isn’t enough to chill you to the bone, we have Christmastime scams. According to Google, there’s been a massive surge in scams this year via email. Three of the biggest types include celebrity scams, invoice scams, and extortion scams. It stands to reason, then, that the latter two would pack quite a punch during a season that emphasizes gift purchases and avoidance of naughtiness. Yesterday I received an email from a frantic client; his scammer claimed to have installed malware on his phone and recorded him doing things Santa wouldn’t condone. Not to fear; there’s no stocking coal at the end of this story. Just a lot of hot air.
In closing, your Cochise County Cyber Guys from CyberEye are here for you. Have a merry Christmas. (If only there was some snow to go with it. But then, we have a lot of flat-roof buildings around here. Perhaps an absence of snow is one security miracle we ought to be grateful for.)
The original article appeared in the Sierra Vista Herald and can be found here.
