Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney knows firsthand how conniving and convincing con artists can be when it comes to preying on seniors to scam them of cash.
During a panel discussion on cybersecurity hosted at the Village of Babylon Historical & Preservation Society Building, the Suffolk County DA shared a story of how his family fell prey to unscrupulous scammers.
It was the classic “grandchild in need” scam where a criminal mines as much information about a young person from publicly available sources like social media. They then contact an elderly relative, usually a grandparent, and pretend to be someone in law enforcement.
The grandparent is lied to, told their grandchild is in trouble or even behind bars, and that they must wire or send thousands of dollars in cash in order to free them.
Since the scammer has a lot of information about the grandchild like where they go to school and who their relatives are, trusting seniors believe the con artist and more often than not hand over a lot of money.
“My own father in law, they were using my daughter as a ‘hook,’ his granddaughter. They stole some money from him. He did it because he's a grandfather and he loves his granddaughter. He was out a couple thousand dollars. Every grandparent in the world would make that decision. That’s what they look to exploit,” said Tierney at the cybersecurity awareness event, hosted by Babylon Town Councilman Anthony Manetta.
Also joining the panel was Manetta, Congressman Andrew Garbarino, LISTnet President Paul Trapani, and Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity advisor Stan Lyzak.
At a personal level, panelists encouraged folks to pick difficult passwords, changing them often and most important: don’t use commonly used ones that could be easily hacked.
“Make sure your password is not ‘password,’” said Congressman Garbarino, who serves in the House as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection.
More often than not, hackers will engage in “phishing” scams where criminals send people texts or emails that appear to be legitimate from law enforcement or a bank, falsely claiming your account or password is at risk and needs to be changed.
Con artists will then send unsuspecting victims a link that looks like a real password recovery website, where you’ll be prompted to hand over sensitive password or banking information.
Once you do that, scammers will then plant viruses on your computer or steal your money.
“Be vigilant and on alert. There's no person or organization too big or too small who can be the victim of a cyber attack,” added Congressman Garbarino.
Speaking of big organizations, Suffolk County government was the victim of a vicious ransomware attack that started in 2021.
Hackers were able to infiltrate the computer systems of the Suffolk County Clerk’s Office. These high tech criminals spent many months downloading files and hijacking systems across Suffolk County government, eventually shutting it all down and demanding $2.5 million in ransom to restore the computer systems.
Suffolk County refused to pay. Tierney said the FBI is still working on the case and are pursuing multiple leads.
“There were problems with our IT systems in Suffolk County. It went unheeded. We have to learn from that,” added Tierney.
Unfortunately, other local governments and municipalities, school districts, hospitals, and businesses across the country often do pay criminals following ransomware attacks.
According to cybersecurity experts at Varonis, a cyber security company that helps entities secure and protect data, the average ransomware paid in 2023 topped $1.5 million. Overall, Congressman Garbarino stated the overall amount paid in ransom topped $2 billion.
“That’s just in the United States alone, with that money going to criminal enterprises and bad actors overseas,” added the 2nd District member of the House of Representatives.
As for protecting yourself, business, or government from cyber scammers, the Suffolk County District Attorney preached personal vigilance due to the fact that scam artists will never, ever stop trying to weasel their way into systems to gain your trust and steal cash.
“There are people who are constantly probing and trying to gain access to your systems. Be on the lookout. Upgrade your security and change your passwords. While we are here to protect you, this is a significant problem. Most of these perpetrators of crimes are from another country. Once they get your money, it’s extremely difficult to track it down,” concluded the Suffolk County D.A.