Sloane Risk Group

What would your first reaction be if you heard that your child was in trouble?

Scammers prey on our emotions, they make us rush into action without thinking, leveraging a sense of urgency or making us panic and do something without thinking it through.

We have heard several reports of worried parents falling victim to the latest scam, a text message purportedly from their child stating that they have damaged their phone and asking them to quickly save a new number. This is then followed by an urgent request for money. Parents have transferred up to £1,500 not realising that it is not their child texting them.

How can this be avoided?

Firstly, by understanding the social engineering methodology used by scammers. This typically consists of making you panic, worry and rush.

This can apply to the purchase of items, requests to transfer pension funds and those stating you have won something. Stop and think if you are being pushed into something, are you being asked to provide personal information, click links, or provide money or bank details? Can you confirm the identity of the person contacting you?

Secondly, have a plan. Speak to your family and children and have a password that you would put in a text, email or phone call if you were ever asking for something unusual, and even consider one to use if you were in trouble or under duress.

Avoiding Communication Problems and Hacking

Another good idea is to have a backup method of communication. For instance, if you use WhatsApp as a messaging app and it becomes unworkable, make sure your family and friends have an alternative option such as Signal.

Many scams involve the insertion of malware through phishing links sent via email or SMS. The majority of people put anti-virus software on their computers, forgetting that their phones also contain a wealth of personal information and are just as likely to be targeted. To keep phones secure use trusted anti-virus software, and a VPN, install regular updates and remove apps that are no longer required.

Sloane Risk Group
[email protected]
020 3633 0672
www.sloaneriskgroup.com

This is a great example of why you should set your phone not to display notifications when locked.

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Part 3 of The Case Study Series - Insider Threat and Undercover Operations

The Client Consultation

Our client was the CEO of a software development firm, he suspected a case of insider threat and asked for our assistance. Our initial consultation established that a competitor had released information which our client had strong grounds to believe had been stolen from his company. We recommended a multi-stage operation, aiming to detect the insider, ascertain why and how they were implicated, present evidence of our findings and prevent further theft of intellectual property.

The Deployment

We positioned an undercover operator within the company to slowly establish who had a motivation or could be coerced into providing the information. Common reasons for someone becoming a threat to an organisation include disenchantment, an offer from another company, financial difficulty or even blackmail.

After investigating employee working patterns, establishing who was planning to leave the organisation, and who’s attitude or demeanour had changed over the previous months, one employee stood out. There had been times when he had remained at work unusually late, had been noted as asking questions about projects he was not part of and he had become moody, disassociated himself from other employees.

After several weeks, our undercover operator discovered that he was in the process of a divorce and was a frequent gambler, indicating that he could potentially have financial difficulty and therefore a motive to sell information.

Once we had enough evidence for reasonable suspicion, we mounted an operation of false information dissemination. We then monitored his activity and were able to establish that he was accessing documents relating to our campaign. Our monitoring then detected that he had printed the documents, and we had enough evidence to set up a surveillance operation against him.

Surveillance

One afternoon he left work and instead of his normal routine of travelling home via underground, he walked for several minutes before hailing a taxi and travelling some distance to a bar. He was acting suspiciously, frequently turning around to look behind him, and making random stops which we surmised was a crude attempt at anti-surveillance. We followed him and sent two surveillance operators inside. They were able to gain a table close by and watched as he met an unknown female and handed her an A4 sized envelope. She then passed him something under the table which our camera footage later showed to be a smaller envelope.

The female left shortly afterwards. She was followed to an address and was later identified as associated with our client’s competitor. Our evidence was compiled accordingly and presented to our client.

Further Information

To learn more about our investigation, surveillance, counter surveillance, physical pe*******on testing and security awareness services, contact us:
Sloane Risk Group Ltd
E- [email protected]
P- 0203 897 22 7
W- www.sloaneriskgroup.com
A- 71-75 Shelton St, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ