Frank Abagnale of ‘Catch Me if you Can’ fame speaks Saturday at the American Truck Dealers (ATD) Convention & Expo in New Orleans.Attendees at the 2017 American Truck Dealers (ATD) Convention & Expo learned cyber-security from one of the best on Saturday when Frank Abagnale, longtime FBI employee and focus of the 2002 movie ‘Catch Me if you Can,’ spoke at the convention’s Industry Luncheon in New Orleans.
Abagnale was one of the nation’s most prolific identify thieves and forgers during his youth before going to work for the FBI. Abagnale has now been with the organization for more than 40 years, and focuses on fraud protection and identity theft.
On Saturday at ATD, Abagnale spoke to dealers about the methods thieves use to steal personal information while also offering guidance on how to stay safe.
Abagnale says fraud accounted for $994 billion in lost revenue last year, nearly 7 percent of total revenue. He says most of this fraud is performed online by international hackers in Russia and Eastern Bloc nations, who sometimes use it to fund other, even more heinous crimes.
In today’s digital world, Abagnale says one of the most common hacking techniques are false emails and online advertisements. These ‘phishing’ messages are designed to look legitimate and are used to farm personal data from a clicking party.
Mobile apps can be equally dangerous, Abagnale says. He cites games and other entertainment apps as the programs most commonly linked to dangerous phishing malware.
Social media isn’t much safer. Abagnale says software programs exist that can match a photograph to a person’s social media account in 7.5 seconds. In cases where those social media accounts also include a date and location of birth, that’s “98 percent” of what identity thieves need to steal an identity, Abagnale says.
In spite of advanced protection efforts Abagnale says financial information isn’t much safer. He says debit cards are the “worst financial tool ever given to the American consumer,” and adds that handing a cashier a check is in reality handing a document with all of your personal finance information to a stranger and hoping in good faith that nothing bad happens.
Abagnale says nearly every nickel he spends goes on his credit cards. He says credit cards provide no direct link to a person’s bank account, and that a credit card owner assumes no liability to purchases illegally charged to their account at a certain expenditure limit.
Abagnale says he applied for credit cards for his three sons when they entered college and personally educated them on their value throughout their youth. He advises everyone to do the same.
“One of the best things you can do is teach kids to use credit and use it wisely,” he says.
Additionally, Abagnale says his other personal security secrets are using a ‘micro cut’ shredder—which cuts paper into rice-sized confetti pieces the FBI says are impossible to rebuild into pages—and to use credit monitoring services that allow users unlimited credit checks using all three national credit services.
Abagnale’s Saturday presentation also focused on child security and electronics disposal.
Abagnale says hackers prefer to steal identities of children because they have no credit and finance history, which allows the criminals to mold and develop a fake identity over time. He says the identity of a stolen 2 year old goes for “five times the amount of a 14 year old” on the black market.
Regarding electronics, he says the unknown biggest identity risk for most people are old copiers. He says nearly all home scanners and copiers feature hard drives, which can easily fall into the wrong hands if they are not removed by owners when sellers, donating the copier.
