Patrick Coughlin on Protecting Aging Parents From AI Scams

AI scammers can now clone a loved one’s voice, impersonate trusted organizations, and create messages that are almost impossible to identify as fake.

In this episode of From Guilt to Good, Jeanette Yates talks with cybersecurity expert Patrick Coughlin about the AI-powered scam economy targeting older adults, caregivers, and families.

Patrick shares how his mother was targeted by a fake kidnapping call using a cloned version of his sister’s voice. That experience led him to create Savi Security and a great free tool called Scamwise, which easily checks suspicious texts, emails, websites, and physical mail and lets you know the likelihood that it's a scam!

Jeanette and Patrick discuss why intelligent people still fall for scams, how shame keeps victims silent, why personal information does not prove a caller is legitimate, and how caregivers can protect aging parents without taking away their independence.

Patrick also explains second-channel verification, high-pressure “hot zone” moments, and why every family should create and practice using a code word.

Episode Summary

Patrick Coughlin spent more than 20 years protecting governments and corporations from cyber threats. Then his own mother received a fake kidnapping call featuring an AI-cloned version of her daughter’s voice.

In this conversation, Patrick explains how modern imposter scams manufacture trust by impersonating family members, banks, government agencies, pastors, schools, and other familiar people or organizations.

He also shares practical ways families can respond, including pausing during high-pressure moments, verifying requests through a second channel, creating a family code word, and using Scamwise to check suspicious communications.

This episode helps caregivers protect aging parents while preserving their dignity, confidence, and independence.

Guest Bio

Patrick Coughlin is a cybersecurity expert, co-founder and CEO of Savi Security, and author of Dark Side of the Boom.

After his mother was targeted by an AI-powered fake kidnapping call, Patrick turned his attention toward helping individuals and families protect themselves from modern digital scams.

CHAPTERS

00:00 — The AI Voice-Cloning Scam That Targeted Patrick’s Mother

01:27 — Why Patrick Started Protecting Families

02:58 — Why Smart Older Adults Still Get Scammed

04:20 — What Modern AI-Powered Scams Look Like

07:16 — Mass Scams vs. Targeted Imposter Scams

09:38 — Why Scammers Target Older Adults Living Alone

10:59 — How Shame Protects the Scammer

14:46 — Talking to Aging Parents Without Taking Away Independence

17:27 — How Scamwise Checks Suspicious Messages

22:49 — What Second-Channel Verification Means

25:55 — How Scammers Find and Use Personal Information

29:38 — Why Pausing Can Break a Scammer’s Spell

38:40 — The Vision Behind Savi Security

43:40 — The One Cybersecurity Habit Every Family Should Start

45:03 — Why AI Scams Are a Solvable Problem

LINKS & RESOURCES

Scamwise

Savi Security

Dark Side of the Boom

Patrick Coughlin LinkedIn

Jeanette’s Website

Feeling overwhelmed by caregiving? 

In From Guilt to Good Enough, Jeanette Yates offers a powerful guide for struggling caregivers. Having been a caregiver for her mother since childhood, Jeanette knows firsthand the emotional toll caregiving can take. In this memoir-turned-self-help guide, she shares her healing journey, setting boundaries, and reclaiming her life.

Grab your copy TODAY!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Imagine you get a call, you answer, you hear your child's voice screaming, crying, begging for help, and then a man comes on the line and says that he has your child. And if you don't give him money right now, something terrible is gonna happen. That is not a nightmare. That was a real phone call. It happened to my guest mother in 2023. She's sharp, she's connected, and she had two sons working in cybersecurity, and an almost working on her. Because the voice she heard was real. It was her daughter's voice cloned by AI. Today's gonna spent 20 years protecting governments and Fortune 500 companies from cyber threats. And then a phone call changed everything. He built something so that no other family has to go through in his death. My guest today is Patrick Coplin, cybersecurity expert, co-founder and CEO of Savage Security, and author of the new book, Dark Side of the Boom. Patrick spent more than 20 years protecting governments and corporations from digital threats. And then his own mother became a target. What he built after that call is something every caregiver needs to know about. Welcome to the From Guilty Good podcast. Hi, my name is Jeanette, founder of the Self Caregiver, and I cared for my own mother for several decades and now help caregivers set boundaries and use simple tools that make care and life easier so they can feel good, not guilty. My guest today is Patrick Coughlin, cybersecurity expert, co-founder and CEO of Savvy Security, and author of the new book, Dark Side of the Boom, a book about the AI-powered scam economy that is targeting our loved ones right now. Patrick, welcome to the From Guilt to Go podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Thank you, Jeanette. Very happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Okay, we always start off with the personal side of things here on the podcast. So I want to mention, you know, yes, we talked about in the intro, you spent a long time in like professional cybersecurity space. It sounds like a movie, protecting governments, working for big companies. What made you turn your attention to protecting families? We already know, but we want you to go a little bit deeper into that story.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah. So I, you know, if you if you look back at my career, the common thread has been I focused on how bad guys use technology to do harm. And as you said early on, I focused on from a government perspective, looking at different bad actors and how they were threatening national security. I then took those learnings and and brought it into enterprise security and protecting corporations. And then, you know, the real answer to that is when my mom, about two years ago, got hit with an AI-powered scam call, a fake kidnapping call. It caused me to sort of go down the rabbit hole and look at what is happening in the underlying scam economy that is making little old Beth Coughlin from Kansas a target. And it made me ask how many other people are being targeted? And what I found was a dramatic shift in the way that cybercrime is working, in the way that the economics of the crime is happening, that is bringing into focus for the bad actors a whole new set of targets. And those targets include senior citizens and caregivers, and it's a lot of what we're going to talk about today.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

That's right. So I want to just reiterate something that I think sometimes we have a myth, we have an idea about. But as mentioned, your mom was not this teetering old lady that didn't know, you know, what was going on in the world. She's sharp, she's connected, you and your brother were both working in tech, and this still almost worked. What does this really tell you about the risk here? Is it it's broader than we think?

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah, absolutely. And the, you know, there's a trope out there that senior citizens and older Americans are victims of scams because, you know, maybe they've lost a step, maybe they're not quite as tech savvy, they're more susceptible to these types of attacks. The reality is we know that's not true. The scammers target senior citizens and older Americans and people in stressful situations because that's where the money is. Uh seniors hold over 50% of the wealth in this country. And so it's not a surprise that they are disproportionately targeted by the scammers. And I think part of what we do at Savvy Security, part of what we focus on is how do we broaden the tent for cybersecurity so that it doesn't just have people that that unfortunately do often kind of look like me. And how do we bring others into it because those are the ones who need it the most?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Right. So, you know, this is a point that I really want to hammer in here. And so we're gonna we're gonna break this apart even more. I want every caregiver listening to understand what we're actually dealing with right now, not just the occasional badly written email or, you know, there's that trope about, you know, oh, the email from the Nigerian Prince. It's not just that. What does this modern AI-powered scam actually look like compared to some of those things that, you know, worked in some cases, but not very often. Now things are different. Tell me more about what the new 2026 AI-powered scam looks like.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Well, it's interesting because some things are the same and some things are very different. You know, I think what is the same from that sort of Nigerian Prince email scam that we saw 20, 25 years ago is the scam that is working today is what we call an imposter scam. And if you look at the underlying data around what is driving the, you know, over a hundred dollars in losses to digital fraud on an annual basis, it's being driven largely by growth and imposter scams. And that what is an imposter scam? An imposter scam is somebody who pretends to be somebody that they're not, typically impersonating a brand or a person or an institution or an organization that you trust, and then trying to get you to then do things against your interest using that sort of hijacked brand as their cover. So what does that look like? Yes, it can look like a Nigerian prince, but today what it increasingly looks like is scammers and fraudsters using AI tools to impersonate your bank, your the a government institution, uh, your local pastor, an educator at a school, a loved one, right? Scammers are looking for where are the shreds of trust that exist in your network, in your ecosystem. And they're trying to pick off ways to hijack that trust and use it for their interest to get you to do things against your interest.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

I love how you made that simple because there are a lot of different tools that these scams use, the voice cloning, deep fake video. But in your to your point, they're also just texting you or sending an email. And you actually mentioned two things that I have seen this week. I get a text on a regular basis about some fine I need to pay that I do not need to pay. It's not a thing. So, and I know that's fake now, and we'll talk a little bit more about why here in a minute. But another thing I was looking through a program of somewhere I was at, and it was like scam alert, you know, pastor so-and-so does not is not reaching out for any help with any money, like ignore those emails. And so this is something that is actually happening now. That's another thing I want to make sure they understand. This is all stuff that's currently happening now, not like something we need to think about in the future. This is something we need to be alert about right now.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

You got it. And it's coming from all these different channels as well. And and sure, so we we like to think about two different types of scams that happen. There's to kind of break it down simply, there's kind of the spray and prey scams, where you know, a scam organization will load up a fake text message and they'll send it to tens or hundreds of thousands of people and hope that just some of them click on it. Those are happening in greater numbers and they're successful, and we have to be on the lookout for them. I think what the book goes into, and one of the things that we've been really focused on is the targeted scams and like what happened to my mom and how easy it is now to understand who you are, who your next of kin is, where you live, where you shop, uh, where you go to church, what community events you participate in. And then again, to use AI to impersonate people from those brands. And whether that's using a cloned voice, or simply just writing in the way that that brand would write, or creating fake websites that look exactly like that brand, or customer service emails, or whatever it may be, spinning up that content, even you know, five, six, seven years ago was expensive. And it took time, it took energy, and it often was prone to errors, whether those were grammar errors or the logo looked weird or something was off, and and the human eye could spot it if you were looking for it. Well, now we live in a world where it's it's almost impossible to distinguish between AI generated content and real content. In fact, there was a study just last year that put in the room, you know, AI PhDs, and they they showed them pictures that were deep fakes and then real pictures. And these are these are people who who you know eat, sleep, and breathe AI all day, understand the technology, and they were able to identify real versus fake barely better than a coin flip. So, so we cannot be expected to just sort of eyeball these things. The senses that we relied on for you know hundreds of thousands of years, where seeing was believing or hearing was verification are no longer relevant. And so we need we need new tools, we need new education in order to step to this new threat.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Uh you mentioned that older adults are targeted, you know, partially because so much of, you know, they're like you said, they're 50% of the wealth. But is it's not just about money, is it what else is going on here with with our seniors?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yeah, I mean, if you think so, so scams and scam organizations operate like a business. And like any business, you want to understand who your best customers are. And scammers think the same way, they have their own idea of what their ideal target would look like. You want somebody who has some savings. But then there's some other variables. Like often it's valuable if that person lives alone because they don't just there's just less of an opportunity for somebody to say, Hey, hang on, what are you doing? Who are you talking to? Or for them to turn and get a quick second opinion. You look for people who may be under financial stress or who have higher stakes and Medicare customers, for example. When you send a message that says your benefits are about to expire to somebody on Medicare, that's a terrifying moment, right? And you and scammers can use that fear, can use the high stakes, can use the urgency in ways to manipulate those targets. So they have customers just like any business has customers, and they think about what's the ideal customer for the ideal scam that they're trying to run.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

And I think, too, there's this what we're going to get into next. This is very close to my audience. And then I know people who have gone through similar things that your mother did, and they and this was also a big, big deal. But a lot of people listening to the show are carrying a lot of guilt, but you talk about shame, and the book talks about shame as being one of the ways that these scammers are getting away with it because it keeps victims silent and it keeps families from really understanding what's happening. As caregivers, many of us are already navigating so much of this. How does the shame around the scams make it so much worse?

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah. So there's a couple angles here. I mean, the first and most obvious one is when somebody is a victim of a scam, they rarely report the scam. In fact, one out of every 15 victims actually reports the scam. And a lot of that is tied up in the shame that they feel for being a victim. And what we need to do as a culture and a society is sort of dispel that shame. This is a crime. You're the victim of a crime. There's criminals behind the crime who are the ones to blame, not the victims. If you think about like if you've ever been unfortunately the victim of like a burglary or a residential robbery, you know, what happens is your neighbors come over and they say, Oh my God, how did I'm so sorry that happened. Uh, what a disaster. How can we help? If you're the victim of a scam, too often the response is, Oh, how'd you fall for that thing? How could you be so dumb? And what that shows, I think today, in this age, when the reality is that the scammers are incredibly good at their jobs, they have a suite of tools that that we as society are only beginning to reckon with, right? Is that the the person who says, Oh, how could you fall for that, doesn't understand how good these folks have gotten at their jobs. And we need empathy and we need to dispel shame because one, that helps people report and talk about what happened. And that helps us as a society get our arms around the actual real scale of the problem. I mean, officially reported scam statistics from last year were about 20 billion in losses, but the estimates from government regulators themselves put those numbers closer to 200 billion in terms of what was actually lost. And so when you have such a big gap between what's reported and what actually happened, the result is you don't invest in the solutions effectively. You don't have enough law enforcement to protect against this, you don't have enough regulation and policies around it because you don't understand the true scale of the problem. And so step one in in solutions here is dispelling this concept of shame around the victims. The only other thing I would say there, just real quickly, is you know, I think the work that you do here is so important because there is so much shame. And scammers love shame. It's the scammers' secret weapon because what it does is it forces us to sort of isolate and withdraw and not talk to others in general. And they love to play on that. We all think, especially in a caregiving role, you think, oh my God, there's a little more I could be doing. I feel guilty about not making that call or following up, or I should have gone over, or I could have called the doctor, whatever it is. And so scammers love that because it it there's an insecurity there. And so when they say, Oh, you forgot to pay this bill and it's a fake bill, your first thought is, damn it, I gotta be more on top of it. Instead of, wait a minute, is this real? Or if you get an alert that says, Oh, you know, um, this license is about to expire, or oh, you're you there's fraud in your bank account, you think, man, I know I should have updated my password. It's that's the first thought, and they love that because all of a sudden you're putting the blame on yourself instead of questioning them.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Another thing that happens with this dynamic when we're because you know, we're talking about, you know, in honesty, it's not just our our older loved ones, it's us too, right? But we are talking about like how to protect our parents, right? But another element that is part of this guilt and shame is we're already trying to navigate like how to set boundaries with our parents, how to talk to them about what they can and can't do. You know, there's the whole conversation about when to take the keys and all that kind of stuff. But then there's these conversations we need to be having too. And how do we talk to our parents about this without it feeling like we're just trying to take something else away from them, whether it's like their favorite, their social, you know, their Facebook group. My mom was all about some words with friends, if I had ever, you know, that kind of thing. So we want to let them have that independence and their dignity as long as possible. But so how do we have this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Yeah, and I I think it it has to come from a place of, you know, we're all targets, we're all susceptible to this. You're not, you know, my mom is not more susceptible to this than me. She's just actually a better customer for the scammers right now for the reasons we just talked about. And so helping them understand that this isn't about a deficiency necessarily that they have, but it's about a requirement that they have to level up their education, a healthy amount of skepticism as they move through the world is beneficial because they are more of a target. And look, we think a lot about how do we build products for seniors that don't take away that agency, but actually put them in the driver's seat in terms of their own digital security. I like to think when, you know, when I turned 16 in Kansas City and got my driver's license, I also got a triple A card. You know, my parents were like, here's the triple A card. Now you can go and drive the streets and the highway. And it gave everybody a little bit of peace of mind. I didn't look at that as taking away my agency. I look at that as a ticket to go out into the world. And so I think when we talk about education, when we talk about tools for security, this isn't about taking something away. This is about arming the people who are the targets with the right tools that they need to go out and live a really healthy digital life because there's so many great things that technology can bring us in the form of connection, in the form of entertainment, especially to seniors. But we have to go with the triple A card. We have to go with a level of protection that gives us the autonomy and the independence and the agency to engage with confidence.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Okay. So this gets to my favorite part. I'm so excited about this. We're going to be talking, we're going to go get into the practical part of this because I know that that's what caregivers are really wanting. They're like, okay, what can we do about it? What can we do about it? You built what I think is my new favorite tool called ScamWise. Tell us about what it does and why you made it free with no account required, and then I'll tell you why it's my favorite.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah, okay, great. Well, so, you know, when the situation happened with my mom, as you mentioned, I turned to my brother, who's got more experience in building consumer products. He's worked at places like Apple and Spotify and built products that have been used by millions of people. I'm more of sort of like a behind-the-scenes cybersecurity guy. And so we kind of put our heads together. We built a great team at Savvy Security. And one of the things that we just saw in the market was there wasn't a quick way to get a second opinion. Imagine if you live alone, or frankly, if you're just busy and there's not always an opportunity to turn to somebody and say, hey, does this thing look real to you? Or there wasn't an obvious place to go. And so the first product we built is Scamwise. It's available at Scamwise.com. You can submit anything to it. You can take a screenshot of a text message, you can forward an email to submit at scamwise.com. You can take a picture of physical mail of one of those bills that you get that you don't know, is this thing real or not? And it will give you back in an instant a verdict on the suspiciousness of it. And it will give you some next steps as well. It will tell you how it got to that verdict, and it will tell you what it thinks you could do to really verify the communication explicitly. And so it's honestly, we built it. I mean, we worked very hard at it for months and we put it out, and the uptake around it has been amazing. You know, we're now seeing, you know, thousands of messages a day come through it where people are asking, is this thing real? And, you know, my my favorite part about it is, you know, we've received a lot of feedback around how people said this helped me, this stopped me from engaging or following up or answering that text message or clicking on that thing in the email. But also sometimes we hear things like, you know, hey, I got a refund check in the mail. I didn't think it was real, so I put it into ScamWise. And then ScamWise said, actually, this might be legitimate. Do this to find out. And then they find out it is real and they got the refund check. So so it can work, it can work both ways to really help you navigate this new world that we live in.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Well, I love it. You've just you've talked about several of the use cases that I've used it for. Once you told me about ScamWise, I have it pinned on my phone. So I can just open up my browser on my phone. And at least once or twice a week, I am taking a picture of a piece of mail, screenshotting a text, you know, putting in something that I got from an email to scam wise. So I tell people, like instead of Googling it, you know, like people are like, I'm gonna Google it. I think I'm gonna scam wise it should be like a mantra that we start. So also tell me why Google doesn't work for that.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Yeah, no, I think it's a really good, it's a really good question. And, you know, I'll say this you're already halfway winning the battle. If what crosses your mind is like, hang on, I need to like poke around on this thing. Uh so I'd say you've halfway won the battle and almost, you know, you can go to a lot of places from there. But the fact that you're you're sort of breaking the scammer spell by sort of taking a step back and having a healthy amount of skepticism is really the most important thing. What we wanted to do was scam-wise, and what we saw, you know, available by going to other places, whether that was Google or Reddit or putting it into one of these other AI tools and chatbots that are out there, is that those tools aren't purpose-built for detecting scams. And so their accuracy was not where we wanted it to be and where we expected it to be. Because you're playing in a really precious moment here, and accuracy is the most important thing. So having a purpose-built tool is sort of thing one that runs on a purpose-built detection engine. I'd say thing two is while you can find answers, often it's harder to say, like, okay, well, well, how did we get to that answer? Or some people won't understand. Hold on, you said this is a scam. Why do you think it's a scam? And so, uh, you know, in our research, we heard that a lot. And so we built out like we looked that phone number up. We saw that the email was actually not associated with that brand. The IRS notes that they actually don't send meth text messages like this to you. So, so we go out and do sort of the gumshoe work and then bring that information back to you in a really clear way so that you can see it. And then the last thing is, you know, it's it's a templated verdict. You you've seen it before. You know, we provide Next steps where we say, well, Wells Fargo doesn't normally send a text like that to their customers. And that doesn't look like a number that belongs to Wells Fargo. Why don't you turn your card around from Wells Fargo and call that that number back? So then we give sort of specific steps about what to do if there's any question about the legitimacy of the message. And we found, and what we've heard from ScamWise users is, you know, being purpose-built for scams, but then also just presenting the information straightly, cleanly, clearly about what the verdict is, how we got there, and what the person should do next is really the power of ScamWise. And so you can you can get to all this information yourself in other ways, but there's no faster way and there's no more accurate way than ScamWise right now to do it.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Uh you mentioned something and talking about how ScamWise works and how why it's better than other than some of these other tools. And it's something that you mentioned in your book as well, the second channel checks. So let's break that down a little bit more. Explain, you've already described it, I think, when you were talking about flip the card around and call the number, but that is a second channel check. Or how explain to me what that means in plain terms and give us an example.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, I mean, one of the implications of what these AI tools today are exceptionally good at. And if if you've played with them or your listeners have played with them, you may know these chatbots or whatever it is, they are exceptional at speaking the language of humans. You know, they talk like us, they can sound like us, they can look like us, they can behave like us. That's what they're trained to do, and they're getting better and better at that every single day. The challenge with that is it really plays at the core of what identity and human identity is today. And it's harder for us to know are we talking to a human or to a chatbot, or are we talking to a human who's using a chatbot, or what who are we talking to? And so second channel verifications is an exercise, it's a ritual, it's a behavior that I think we as a society need to do more of, which is when somebody calls you and it looks like it's coming from your friend, your daughter, your brother, your mother, whoever it may be, and something doesn't feel right. We like to call it like a hot zone moment where like they're asking for money or they're asking for a credential, or it's your bank and saying there's fraud, or it's the IRS saying you're behind on your taxes and you got to pay it before noon today. These are sort of like these hot zone moments where your blood pressure spikes, there's an implication about urgency and fear or love or greed, or there's a new investment and you got to get in now. It's a hot zone moment. So, what we try to say is in those moments, while everything about your being maybe saying, follow the instructions, do what's needed, we have to build some muscle memory around verification. And a great way to start to do that is just by thinking about how can I verify this? What's another channel? How do I get out of this channel and go through another channel to verify what exactly is happening? And so, like we said, calling the number on the back of the card, you know, like there's other like very analog solutions to this as a family, having a family code word or safe word, right? So that and practice using it. Practice, you know, practice hanging up on your brother or your sister because you're not sure it's them and tell them you're gonna call them back. And and then how do we as a society sort of celebrate those moments where you know we actually are verifying each other and not because we're scared, not because, you know, the end is near, but because we are being educated and empowered to move through this digital world in a way that that gives us autonomy and independence.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

I want to talk about something before we move on a little bit more into the book. And it's something that I think a lot about in terms of technology that's being used with caregivers and with aging, the aging population. And it is uh around this idea of data privacy. Now, in some circles, people are like, it's already all out there. What difference does it make? And then other people are more concerned. I want to get your professional cybersecurity take on this, how all of this is working. You know, these we've got public records that are out there floating in the clouds. How is information being collected and used? Are there legal ways that it's being done that we're just not aware of? And then what is happening on the kind of scammier side? Just give us a, you know, I hate to, you could probably teach a whole college course on this, I but I think this is important.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

No, it's it's a super important topic. And I I will give you my perspective on it, which is hopefully not too depressing, but there's so much data out there on all of us. And by out there, what do we mean by out there? Data brokers online can buy data and sell data. There are, you know, websites and subscriptions that you've signed up for and I've signed up for in our lives where we didn't read the terms closely and where our emails could be sold or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

That's one of the biggest things that I think is important for us to know is a lot of the data that's out there is stuff that we inadvertently have given permission to be sold.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

So there's there's sort of that basket of data, then there's other baskets of data, which is maybe you signed up for a product or a tool or whatever it was, and they had no intention of ever selling your data, but then that site or that tool got hacked and the data got taken, and now that's available on some dark web and being sold. That happens. And basically, now today, we live in a world where the data is out there and it's a question of motivation, right? If I wanted to find information, Jeanette, about you, or if somebody wanted to find it about me, my next akin, my social security number, my address, uh, where I bank, they can find it. It's findable. Uh, it's a question of how hard it is to find it. And so, what I like to tell people is you know, practice good hygiene, be thoughtful about how to control where your data goes. Think about where you're putting your data, be cautious, have healthy skepticism, but also be realistic that your data is out there. And so, and part of that is because I think it helps breed a little bit of healthy skepticism. So when somebody calls and says, Oh, yeah, is this is this Beth Coughlin or Patrick or Jeanette, uh, you know, who lives at you know, this address and with this social security number, you we've been trained and conditioned to say, oh my God, that these people must be legitimate. They know about me, they know where I bank, they knew what the last four of my social. And the answer to that is no. That doesn't establish any legitimacy today. And so practice good hygiene, be aware of where your data goes, but be a realistic that it's findable. And the more personalized and targeted these scams become, and the cheaper it is for the bad guys to execute a personalized attack, the more that data will be used against us to try to manipulate us to make us think that we are in a position where we should trust the person on the other side. And the answer to that is we can't. We have to go through second channel verifications. We have to use tools, or we have to just step out for a second, think about it rationally, turn to a loved one if they're nearby and say, I just got this. Does this sound right? And nine times out of 10, that just sort of helps break the spell of the scammer.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

It's interesting that you that you say that because I have a lot of conversations with caregivers about burnout and stress and frustration. And one of the things that all the professionals say, and then of course I found I have found in my own personal journey, it doesn't happen when we suddenly have all the time we need and we can do all the exercise and all the, you know, get all the sleep. It's when we can take a moment to then take a deep breath, think about A versus B, you know, make a decision. And so it's interesting that in this case as well, it's a matter of that stop, put that extra space, whether it's texting a relative or opening up, scanwising it, you know, that just taking that beat is something that we are not conditioned to do, especially in this society where it's maximized, optimized. And then, of course, if you think something terrible is going to happen if you hang up on this person.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

And it's is it and it's not true. And those are stories that that we tell ourselves a lot because of what we've been conditioned. But it's also, you know, it's one of the reasons we created scam wise was how do we give caregivers a break? You know, and like before scam wise, my answer to my mom after she got scammed was anytime that you ever see anything that's not that's funky, send it to me. You know, what we found is yes, scam-wise can be great for me. It can be great for me if my mom does send me something, but it's also designed in a way that I can give it to my mom and say, try this thing. You know, let me show you how to use this, let me show you how to bookmark it and use it. And we've designed it in a way. I mean, you know, it sounds trivial, but you think about like when you're designing for seniors and including them in the demographic that you seek to serve, you do make font sizes a little bigger, you do write a little bit, you know, more cleanly and succinctly, you know. And so we've designed the product in a way that hopefully it can take a little bit of load off the back of the caregiver in these scenarios. And the twofer here is it can actually give some agency to the one under care to let them go and submit it. And I'll tell you, there are a few things like more independence giving and agency giving than like, aha, this was a scam. I didn't give me this time, you know, like is a great feeling. And so give it to them.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Yeah, it's like a superhero or you know, yeah, Jessica. Like a pet guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Well, I love it. I found it very easy to use. I'm going to dinner with some family members tonight, and I'm gonna share it with them and make them put it all, I'll put it on their phones because I think it's so helpful. And I know my personally, if my husband would probably thank you personally for creating Scam Wise because he was my go-to. Like, is this real? And he'd be like, Jeanette, they didn't even spell it right.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Yeah, but you know, like that's part of the mission of the broader company of savvy security and why we named it that is because you know, in this day and age, we can all be savvier and we can make it easier to be savvier and to feel sophisticated and confident. And that's our mission at savvy security. I think ScamWise is a good example of that, it's our first product. And the last thing I'll say on it is it's free. And to your point about data privacy, we don't ask you for an email or anything on Scamwise, and so and purposely, like you can send something into that, and that way you don't have to be concerned for a second about what we're gonna do with that data, even though, of course, we're cybersecurity people, we would protect it. Part of what we were trying to do is put something out there that is free and that people can feel like they don't have to be skeptical of the tool that they're using and they don't have to be worried about it.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

And it really just brings down the barrier of trying something and getting that second channel verification, especially since the one thing people do grasp onto, if they are grasping onto any kind of skepticism, is like, oh, if it's free, then I'm the product. And so what's next?

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Yeah, 100%. What's next? We put it out on scamwise.com. It's separate. We're not demanding anything from you, we're not threatening to charge you if you submit something again. This was an effort for us to really put a product out there that helps to establish trust, I think, in the community, but also provides hopefully a valuable service that folks continue to see value in.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Yeah, it's honestly my favorite thing. All right, now let's get into it, the book. And I remember when I first saw the cover of the book, I was like, this is the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life. But you do have a lot of good advice in there. And you know, you do have to have that, you know, as someone who's put a book out in the world too, like you do have to have the cover that like gets people's attention. So it does that. But it's called the Dark Side of the Boom. And you make the case in the book that this all that we've been talking about, this cybersecurity threats, these scams, it's not just a tech problem, it's a whole cultural problem. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Yeah, I so you know, when you look at how scammers operate, you know, as an end user, often what you just see is sort of the message that hits your phone or your social media account or your phone ringing or whatever, the physical mail that shows up, the package that looks weird. Behind that, there's a whole ecosystem of technology players and organizations that in some way trafficked that content to you and had a responsibility in delivering it. And so, you know, we talk about a scam call, for example, that that hits your cell phone may have originated in a country very, very far away, hopped through, you know, multiple other telecommunications companies in different countries before it actually ends up on your phone and they've spoofed a number. And so, you know, we have to recognize that there isn't just one choke point here, I think is the is the point. Uh, there isn't just one quick fix. I mean, our mission at Savvy is to build technology to better protect families because we think there's a big gap, but there's so many parts of the ecosystem, whether that's social media companies, whether that's the builders of the AI tools themselves, whether that's telecommunication companies and the carriers that we use, whether it's delivery and postal services that deliver the packages in the mail that are complicit in sort of the trafficking of this content. So it's it's a huge, massive problem that requires complex solutions. It requires changes in how we think and behave. So that's kind of an educational challenge. And a lot of you know what we're talking about here on the podcast today helps with that. We need more responsibility from these tech players and from companies that sort of are complicit in the trafficking of the content. We need new technology and new innovation that steps to the new innovation that the bad guys are using. And we need, you know, dare I say the R-word, but more government regulation and smarter policies that that sort of modernize how we think about this crime, because it is a crime. And right now it is the fastest growing crime in the country. So, how do we have better laws, policies, and regulations to help protect the hard-earned savings of Americans that are losing more money than they ever have to these crimes?

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Right. And that's that is a distinction, I think, that, you know, regardless how you feel about regulation, right? It's like, but we can all agree that crimes are bad and we should do something to to work to limit the effectiveness of these scams. They are, and I think too, it's interesting that you and I love how you keep referencing it as a crime, because yes, it is, but we don't we don't think of it like that. We don't think of it that way. Like we just think like, oh, they got one, like really pulled one over on us. And or like, you know, if it's a small, like annoying thing, or if it's more serious, it's like, oh, you know, I'm a complete idiot. This is somehow, you know. But to really hone in on, no, this is you are a victim of a crime. This is a crime, I think that takes some of the shame off of us, right? Like it just, it's this is not you're a dum-dum. This is a crime that happened to you. And I think that we can, if we're treating it and looking at it as a crime, then that allows us to maybe have more guardrails in however forms. And like in the meantime, this is one of the things, the things that I teach in in my classes with caregivers too, is like, but we also we can't necessarily wait for all of that, right? So that's why we have to create our own guardrails, which is what we've been talking about today. We have to do the second check, we have to take a minute, we have to use good digital hygiene. Maybe we go back and you know, start reading privacy policies. I tell people that all the time. I'm like, I know you're gonna hate it. You're gonna hate it that I say this, but it's true. But I think that is, I love that reframe of it. And it's kind of boggles my mind that we don't think of it more of a crime. But I want to, you've mentioned it a few times. We've talked, we've kind of woven it into the conversation, but you've got ScamWise. That's the free tool. Anybody can go to scamwise.com and start screenshotting all those things, guys. I'm telling you, it's so easy. But in addition to that, you're also building savvy security. And I want to give you the opportunity to talk about how savvy security goes beyond ScamWise. And, you know, you don't have to spill all your secrets to us right now. But what's the vision and how is it going to help us protect our families?

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, and if I if I sort of tie it in with the book, the you know, the book, the basic thesis of the book is you don't have to we don't have to agree on whether AI will someday destroy us or save us or just disappoint us, to agree, as you said, that there's a problem happening right now. And that problem is bad guys using AI to commit crimes, using digital pipes that are robbing Americans of money that is creating all kinds of challenges in our society around trust and connection and entertainment and communication. So that's the problem. We should rally around that problem. I think one slice of the solution to that problem is how do we build better technology to protect families? There used to be a time when companies like McAfee or Norton, like you may we may remember these names, like these were incredible icons of the internet. These were like huge companies that were so important. And they're around and they they are today, but I don't think we've kept pace for innovating for families in the same way that we've innovated for enterprises or government agencies. You know, the innovation that's trickling down, so to speak, to the families to help protect them is nowhere near where it needs to be, considering how the threat is now moving towards individuals and families. And so Savvy is all about how do we bring a level of sophistication and innovation and access to cybersecurity to families that have been unfortunately kind of left behind as the threat has moved. And so, you know, ultimately what what we're building scam wise, free product always will be free, private, that's out there. But scamwise requires you to take an action. You have to submit something, you have to forward something, you have to put take a screenshot. You know, where we'll go with savvy is how do we provide more sort of automated defenses for you? How do we, for example, filter text messages for you out that are scams? How do we not let you go to that website that is not real? Um, how do we give you more controls and more visibility to build better protections and frankly keep a lot of this noise off your plate because you got enough noise already coming at you? And that's the interesting side of Savvy too, because often the flip side of security, so stopping the bad, is how do I elevate the good? How do I how do I know what I should focus on? How do I put on the fast track, something that actually is important to me? How do I block the scammy call that says it's coming from my doctor, but actually answer the call that is coming from my doctor that I do want? And so those are the hard problems that that that we're engaged with at SABI. We've got a phenomenal team, a lot of great builders and tech folks, but also, you know, compassionate people who come from a caring world. And how do we build those tools in a way that they're accessible to families, they're affordable for families, but bring, you know, a level of sophistication and cybersecurity that used to be off limits for them.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Right. And I think that's gonna be, like you mentioned, more and more needed. I, you know, sometimes it's like if the world doesn't know they need it, you know, then like you're you might be creating a product and you're like, but people need this, they just don't know. But I think we're be all becoming more and more aware of these little scams, even if we know they're scams. Like I get the text message at least once a week about a toll that I didn't pay. But and so I know to ignore it, but it's still, like you said, noise. And it comes across my brain waves. And I have to, it's one more thing I have to think about. And so a way that to just get all of that out of our face, because we are constantly bombarded with information, good, bad, ugly, all of those things. I think that's gonna be so, so helpful. And I mean, sign me up. I'm ready.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Yeah, I mean, it if if you think about like in, you know, I I don't mean to mention McAfee and Norton in any sort of like negative terms, but and they built fantastic solutions. And like if you think about what they built in the past, you know, like being able to monitor a credit score, you know, still really important. Do that, freeze your credit 100%. But that doesn't, that's way downstream of the problem that we're seeing today, which is scammer, fraudster, cyber criminal gets to you on your phone, convinces you to go and wire the money, or take out the cash and buy gold bars and hand it to a stranger outside your door, right? And so, like your credit score isn't going to be relevant to that action. And so, how do we sort of flow the innovation to the places where the attackers are uh having, unfortunately, the most success?

SPEAKER_00 45:33

All right. So you have mentioned, we've talked about habit ritual a couple of different times. You've even mentioned the hygiene or good actionable item. So I want you to just get specific with us right now. If we could start one new habit or one new ritual today as caregivers for aging parents, what would you want us to do?

SPEAKER_01 45:52

So I would say a great place to start is to create a a family code word. I think it's it is the lowest lift, sit down, have a conversation about what's our family code word and then practice using it. And what that does is it just sort of gently one, it's a it's a communal thing we can do together, but it gets us talking about why, why do we need to do this, and talking with each other about it and kind of makes it a safe space and brings to the forefront, I think, in a very sort of low lift, low risk way, a conversation about how the threat has evolved. And from there, of course, you know, try tools like ScamWise, practice second channel verifications and celebrate them when you do. And in if like I said before, you know, if my mom hangs up on me because she wants to call me back and make sure that it's me, you know, I should celebrate that. It may be hard to do in the moment, but that's the kind of behavior I think that we need to move towards.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Yeah, exactly. I agree. Um, my kids will probably be like, yes, I can hang up on mom now. Um, all right. So, like I mentioned, the name of the book, scary cover, but very meaningful insights inside the book, Dark Side of the Boom. After spending two years, is it about two years writing about yeah, after spending all this time, what makes you hopeful? Are you hopeful?

SPEAKER_01 47:20

I am. And look, as scary as that cover is, you know, it's uh I'm giving him a hard time. There was a lot of debate. There was a lot of debate about the cover. I'll leave it at that. But you know, the book is actually, I like to think of the book as helpful. I mean, yes, we do bring you in to look over the shoulder of these scams as they're happening. And part of I think what that does is it it helps you realize how sophisticated these things are. And it makes it really hard to tell the next victim, man, how could you fall for that? Um, because you can see what actually is happening across these different types of imposter scams that are unfolding right now. And then we we sort of pull back the veil on the groups that are behind them, the role the ecosystem plays in facilitating it. But then at the end, we talk about what you can do. And, you know, this is not an unsolvable problem. You know, I if you think about those Nigerian prints email scams from the late 90s, right? And the grammar errors and everything. Well, we actually didn't stop those because of the grammar errors. We stopped those because it became a meme in society. You know, we talked about them on late-night television shows. Uh, they were the punchline of jokes, and everybody kind of knew what to expect from the scammer. And so I think what we need to do is build some muscle memory here in talking about this because now with AI, it's not the Nigerian prints email scam that runs for five years. It's changing so quickly and evolving. And so we can do this. This is not an unsolvable problem. We can create new rituals, we can create some new behaviors, we can bring some new technology and invest into new technology that steps up to the threat. We can create smarter policies. I know it's impossible to think, but we can actually hold our elected officials to account and ask them to work on these problems that are affecting people in a real way. And I think at the end of the day, we will preserve the brightest promise of AI, right? The brightest promise of technology to be uh an enabler and to bring us autonomy and agency and connection and communication in ways that we didn't imagine. But we won't get there if we don't do some hard work in managing the downsides or the dark sides today. And so that's that's what the book is about.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Well, and to your point, it's a lot less scary, even when there is there are scary things going on in the world, when we realize that we can do something about it, that this is not beyond our control, that helps it be less scary, which is what I really like. And so thank you for the that insight, all of your words of wisdom. This has been a wonderful conversation. Patrick, where can listeners find you? The book, scam wise, all the things.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

Yeah, so scamwise, scamwise.com, very easy, check it out. Savvy security is at savvy security.com. I think if you know, if any of your listeners are on Instagram or TikTok, you can find interesting scam news there under Scamwise or Savvy Security. Uh the book's available at at darksideofheboom.com and will be available where anywhere where books are sold. So, so check it out. And that's me.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

Yeah, that's awesome. I will put all the links as well in the description of the podcast so you guys can find it there as well. Patrick, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for spending two years in the dark so that we could see what's coming. Y'all, I know that was a lot today. I know that some of you are thinking about your parent right now, about a call they got or a text that they may have gotten or something that felt off, and maybe they didn't tell you about it. Go ahead and talk to them gently without making them feel foolish. This is very important. And also send them to Scanwise. Tell them to Scanwise it. Uh, it's free. There's no account required. Just help them find it on their phone, save it there. It's just a place to check before they click. And if this conversation gave you something you needed today, please share it with a caregiver in your life. And if you haven't already, subscribe to this channel, to this podcast, so you never miss an episode. You can find more resources in the show notes, in the description, and at jeanette.com. And until next time, feel good, not guilty.