Issue #18

Why You Can’t Trust Caller ID

Ahoy there, fellow Netizens!

This will be the last Safe Not Scammed newsletter for a while, as I’ll be going on hiatus over the summer (and potentially beyond) due to family obligations. Thank you so much for being a subscriber! I hope you’ve found the newsletters useful!

Now, let’s talk about why you should never trust Caller ID…

What happened to Mark Cuban?

Last weekend, Mark Cuban, the Shark Tank star and co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs, fell victim to a social engineering attack that stole his Google account.

The attack began with a phone call that looked like it was coming from a number associated with Google Assistant. When Cuban answered, a person calling himself “Noah” claimed an “intruder” was inside Cuban’s Google account.

Noah then walked Cuban through the "recovery" process, presumably tricking him into revealing his password and completing 2FA. Once Cuban did this, Noah was in control of his account.

Fortunately, Cuban had a contact at Google who rectified the situation, but if something like this happened to the rest of us, we would probably be out of luck.

How to avoid falling for these attacks

Part of the reason attacks like this are successful is because the calls seem to come from a legitimate number. But phone numbers can be easily faked or spoofed. This means you cannot trust Caller ID!

Scammers may try calling you with a number that looks like it belongs to your bank, Amazon, or even federal agencies like the FTC. So if your caller ID says a trusted company or organization is calling but when you pick up the person you speak to:

1) asks for personal information; or

2) tells you to follow their instructions to secure your accounts; or

3) instructs you to pay a fine; or

4) tells you to transfer your money for your own protection

Then hang up! You can call the company back or contact them using an alternative (but verified!) method and ask whether the call was legitimate.

Stay safe out there!