Are Senior Citizens Becoming the Drug of Choice for Mexican Cartels?

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy Microsoft Image Creator

In the past few years, I've written a number of posts about scams used to dupe the public out of their hard-earned money.  Some of the cons were simplicity itself, while others were quite sophisticated. While some of these swindles had been perpetrated by individuals, others employed a tag team approach. However, when an organization with thousands of criminal members takes over vast call centers to bilk senior citizens out of hundreds of millions of dollars per year, this takes the con to a whole new level.  In order to level the playing field, I'm going to describe one of the world's most sophisticated con jobs ever perpetrated on the American public by a Mexican cartel more usually associated with the production and distribution of illicit drugs.  

Can Cyber Criminals Break the Bank?

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy Microsoft Image Creator

If you're a Rat Pack fan like I am, you'll never forget the 1960 caper flick Oceans 11, where Frank, Dean, Sammie, Peter & Joey take down five Las Vegas casinos on New Year's Eve.  While a work of fiction, it proved to be more a case of life imitating art when several hacking collectives pooled their resources to take down a pair of Vegas casinos last year.  While the hack didn't break the bank at either the MGM or Caesars, it did cost the two companies more than $100 million collectively.  What's worse is that even though the FBI knows the groups responsible for the ransomware attacks, the odds are low that the feds will be able to prosecute many of those involved, since the perpetrators are scattered around the globe.  The repercussions of this brazen cyberattack and the lackluster law enforcement response has not only gotten many corporate CEO's to start quaking in their boots, it's also caused the insurance industry to take a long hard look at whether if can cover the bets of businesses who are likely to be targeted by hacking collectives that can operate with impunity.