You Need to Create a Secret Password With Your Family

Scammers are out of control. At the start of December, the FBI issued a recommendation that people create a “secret word or phrase with your family to verify their identity,” and British bank Starling has also published guidelines on creating safe phrases with others. “Having a passphrase or similarly prepared strategy enables victims to quickly validate legitimacy of an unusual interaction and take control.” The calls to create family passwords or passphrases have come because scammers are increasingly adopting AI. “I also hear about a few families every day who have received AI phone-call attacks voice-cloning a nephew, grandchild, or sibling in hysterics about being kidnapped or being involved in a car accident where they hit someone pregnant and need money for legal fees and bail,” Tobac says. “Consider anything that you or your loved ones post online as data available to scammers,” Englund says.