Cybersecurity expert explains scam that targets personal calendars

FORT MYERS, Fla. —

With new technology, artificial intelligence, encryptors and voice manipulations, the typical scams that used to go around are even trickier to spot.

"They're horrible, and if you're smart, you will never push any blue button that comes in on your email or your iPhone or your Android. Don't do it. It's a horrible thing that they're doing that to people," said Karen Taylor of Fort Myers when asked about her experiences seeing scammers online.

Todd Osborne of Babcock Ranch agrees.

"You start filling out the information that they're wanting, and then as soon as you get your Social Security number, you kind of know you get that uneasy feeling, and you just stop," Osborne said.

One scam involves hacking your Google calendar, messing up practically your entire phone or business appointments, iPads and computer. What seems like a simple calendar invite could be way more of a mess.

Gulf Coast News Anchor Elyse Chengery sat down with a cybe security expert to answer your concerns.

Christian Wartchow has been a cybersecurity expert for more than 30 years.

"Once you do that, you could have some real problems in your computer and in a business environment. You could hurt your entire business network environment," Wartchow said.

Wartchow was asked to find out what you can do, how you can try to prevent and stay ahead of these ongoing cyber scams.

"A lot of people aren't aware of this being a problem. So it's awareness by users, young and old. We see this frequently, and I get at least one a week one of these calendar invitations and they're spam, and what they have in them is people recognize them as a legitimate thing, which they are not. They have embedded in them, they have malicious links and bad documents. And there's always a temptation to click on those as well as to accept that calendar invite," Wartchow said. "If it's not somebody that you know, if it's not somebody that you deal with on a regular basis, if it's Norton Antivirus or Malwarebytes or Amazon that sends you a note, and I see these two or three times a week, you know, we just charged your card for an update, that's all fake."

Wartchow said to just delete it and move on, and always double-check settings in case your computer or phone had a recent update.

Plus, only allow invitations from known sources or addresses, and if you accidently clicked on it, you may have to call a security expert to help, especially if you are locked out of your calendar or phone. If this happens at your workplace, get with your IT department.

"These scammers target us here in this area, so unless you're aware and on guard, it's easy to get scammed," Wartchow said.

In the last six to nine months, cybersecurity teams have been seeing even more advances in manipulations to either get your money or fool you into whatever scam they are trying to sell.

"Because of the use of VPNs it's often not easy to tell exactly where they're coming from. We can tell oftentimes from their accent where they're from," Wartchow said. "Sometimes it's the Middle East, sometimes it's India, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, China, you know? But, now with the advent of AI and voice inflection, manipulation with AI, sometimes it's hard, you know, from a vocal standpoint to tell."

If the requests are urgent — or threatening — or making unrealistic promises — take a breath before you start to panic.

Wartchow talked about a recent scam he was familiar with after someone called him to help.

"The one that we've seen that was, I think, most tragic was where a woman was called in was told, 'Listen, this is, I think, they represented themselves as the sheriff's department or private investigators, and they said we need to protect your money by turning it into cryptocurrency.' They told her they will meet you at your bank, withdraw $10,000 and then proceed to protect you with the cryptocurrency. Well, she did that, and she lost that money."

John Stenstad in Fort Myers reacted to hearing about scams and how he's seen them himself.

"Terrible. I wish they'd have more vigilance on it and jail sentences for those people. The scammers, because, you know, the crimes they perpetrate on the internet are as bad as physical crimes like assault or battery. They should really go after them. I'd like to see that," Stenstad said.

"I don't trust anyone, and I don't care if it's from my doctor, they don't do stuff like that, you know, like banks, they don't. You cannot take the chance," Karen Taylor said.

Warthchow's best advice is stay vigilant and question everything before you open or click that link.

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