A British military sniper turned cybersecurity expert said it was crucial people became their own “digital spy” to fight back against scammers.
Ben Owen said it was important not to be paranoid about digital footprints but you should be aware of what's on the web about you – including social media accounts – because “that's what a hacker would do” and they are good at joining the dots.
At the Gisec Global conference in Dubai on Tuesday, Mr Owen also said it was crucial not to forget that hacking was often a person-to-person practice and people needed to take a “tactical pause” before responding to suspicious messages.
“If you find … a MySpace account that you haven't used for 15 years, get rid of it,” Mr Owen told The National. “Deactivate it because hackers still want to get into that,” he said. “If you need it, lock it down. If you don't need it, get rid of it.”
Mr Owen is known for his role on the UK TV show Hunted, where citizen fugitives trying to evade their investigators and reach a safe extraction point. He served in the military during the 2003 Gulf War, before joining military intelligence
Since then he has become a renowned cybersecurity expert and cofounded The Osint Group, a company that provides training in that sphere.
“The elements of a hack have to have three key ingredients,” Mr Owen said. “Believability, leveraging emotion and the right time.”
Be social media savvy
He pointed to the surge in scammers who check photographs that holiday-makers post to social media who even hashtag the nightclubs. The scammers then try to locate parents back at home to target them, looking for money or something else.
“They send the WhatsApp [message] at 2am. They'll leverage emotion because mum's now scared and it's believable because her daughter is on holiday,” he said, stating about one in 10 will fall for such a ploy.
“And mums almost anticipate when the kid goes on holiday … something is going to happen. So, in the back of their minds, oh God, it's now happened.”
He said there was a lot of jargon surrounding the area but it is ultimately a person hacking a person and can be confronted.
“We don't want to live in fear and be paranoid for the rest of our lives because that's not healthy for anyone,” he said.
“But what we always recommend – just a simple thing – is just taking a tactical pause before you interact with anything digital.”
This could be a voice note from a daughter, an email from your husband who is on a business trip or a direct message from a fellow worker.
“Does this person normally ask it? Is this out of character? If there's a slight doubt in your gut, just validate – ring the person.”
“Don't be inherently paranoid. Take a tactical pause – assess it [and take a] deep breath.”
Mr Owen also outlined the huge digital footprint left by people every day, from using open Wi-Fi to leaving online restaurant reviews.
He explained how hackers can build a huge picture of likely victims within minutes from this data before even trying to scam them through what they perceive to be the line of least resistance.
And he cautioned that people could be leaving themselves exposed by leaving such online reviews.
“You have to be selfish sometimes to enhance your security. Is that going to benefit you? It's not. Therefore, I wouldn't do it.”
Evolving threats
It has been quite a journey for Mr Owen, from assessing threats on the battlefield to the online world. What about large-scale cyber attacks?
Blackouts affected the Iberian Peninsula last week. The cause is still under investigation but Mr Owen, speaking generally, said he expected cyberattacks on power grids and important infrastructure to take place more frequently in the future because of the financial impact on governments.
But a point he returns to repeatedly is that hacking is frequently person-to-person attacks rather than complex scenarios with employees targeted directly, because this is a vulnerable link in the armour.
“Energy companies … have a lot of assistance,” he said. “They can have the best tools and software and firewalls and filters.”
But he said there was a lack of awareness that hackers will try to contact employees to access their personal world, get their passwords and then enter the corporate system.
“That is the route in for hackers and that will continue to be the route. I don't think it's looked at enough.”
He gave the example of a UAE bank with more than 10,000 employees – many with online profiles – that could be targeted.
“You can guarantee 20 per cent of them would be hackable, easily hackable,” he said. “People always forget to talk about the people that work there because it's a grey area, and people don't want to address it. One of the main reasons for that, I think, as a business doesn't want to come across as oppressive.”
But he said it was important that companies made people aware by using personal examples and making it relatable to their families.
Gisec runs until Thursday and artificial intelligence was one of the dominant themes across the floors of the World Trade Centre.
Mr Owen said it was making hacking potentially more accessible in terms of coding. And it could be used to develop photos, aliases and make it easier to mimic someone. But humans still had a crucial role.
“It doesn't matter how good your AI is. You still need a human to scour over that data because one piece of AI software won't fit every single business.”
Continental champions
Best Asian Player: Massaki Todokoro (Japan)
Best European Player: Adam Wardzinski (Poland)
Best North & Central American Player: DJ Jackson (United States)
Best African Player: Walter Dos Santos (Angola)
Best Oceanian Player: Lee Ting (Australia)
Best South American Player: Gabriel De Sousa (Brazil)
Best Asian Federation: Saudi Jiu-Jitsu Federation
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Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
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Uefa Champions League semi-final, second leg result:
Ajax 2-3 Tottenham
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Final: June 1, Madrid
What is a calorie?
A food calorie, or kilocalorie, is a measure of nutritional energy generated from what is consumed.
One calorie, is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1°C.
A kilocalorie represents a 1,000 true calories of energy.
Energy density figures are often quoted as calories per serving, with one gram of fat in food containing nine calories, and a gram of protein or carbohydrate providing about four.
Alcohol contains about seven calories a gram.
The bio:
Favourite holiday destination: I really enjoyed Sri Lanka and Vietnam but my dream destination is the Maldives.
Favourite food: My mum’s Chinese cooking.
Favourite film: Robocop, followed by The Terminator.
Hobbies: Off-roading, scuba diving, playing squash and going to the gym.
Rocketman
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Starring: Taron Egerton, Richard Madden, Jamie Bell
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
PSG's line up
GK: Alphonse Areola (youth academy)
Defence - RB: Dani Alves (free transfer); CB: Marquinhos (€31.4 million); CB: Thiago Silva (€42m); LB: Layvin Kurzawa (€23m)
Midfield - Angel di Maria (€47m); Adrien Rabiot (youth academy); Marco Verratti (€12m)
Forwards - Neymar (€222m); Edinson Cavani (€63m); Kylian Mbappe (initial: loan; to buy: €180m)
Total cost: €440.4m (€620.4m if Mbappe makes permanent move)
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2016 - Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2015 - Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2014 - Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2013 - Nico Rosberg (Mercedes-GP)
2012 - Mark Webber (Red Bull Racing)
2011 - Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
2010 - Mark Webber (Red Bull Racing)
2009 - Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2008 - Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
2007 - Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari)
New UK refugee system
- A new “core protection” for refugees moving from permanent to a more basic, temporary protection
- Shortened leave to remain - refugees will receive 30 months instead of five years
- A longer path to settlement with no indefinite settled status until a refugee has spent 20 years in Britain
- To encourage refugees to integrate the government will encourage them to out of the core protection route wherever possible.
- Under core protection there will be no automatic right to family reunion
- Refugees will have a reduced right to public funds
JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH
Directed by: Shaka King
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons
Four stars
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The Equaliser 2
Director Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Denzel Washington, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Ashton Sanders
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Starring: Hani Razmzi, Maya Nasir and Hassan Hosny
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
PREMIER LEAGUE FIXTURES
All times UAE ( 4 GMT)
Saturday
West Ham United v Tottenham Hotspur (3.30pm)
Burnley v Huddersfield Town (7pm)
Everton v Bournemouth (7pm)
Manchester City v Crystal Palace (7pm)
Southampton v Manchester United (7pm)
Stoke City v Chelsea (7pm)
Swansea City v Watford (7pm)
Leicester City v Liverpool (8.30pm)
Sunday
Brighton and Hove Albion v Newcastle United (7pm)
Monday
Arsenal v West Bromwich Albion (11pm)
Our Time Has Come
Alyssa Ayres, Oxford University Press
Jawan
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The Buckingham Murders
Starring: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ash Tandon, Prabhleen Sandhu
Director: Hansal Mehta
Rating: 4 / 5
THE DETAILS
Director: Milan Jhaveri
Producer: Emmay Entertainment and T-Series
Cast: John Abraham, Manoj Bajpayee
Rating: 2/5
Company profile
Name: Oulo.com
Founder: Kamal Nazha
Based: Dubai
Founded: 2020
Number of employees: 5
Sector: Technology
Funding: $450,000
'Worse than a prison sentence'
Marie Byrne, a counsellor who volunteers at the UAE government's mental health crisis helpline, said the ordeal the crew had been through would take time to overcome.
“It was worse than a prison sentence, where at least someone can deal with a set amount of time incarcerated," she said.
“They were living in perpetual mystery as to how their futures would pan out, and what that would be.
“Because of coronavirus, the world is very different now to the one they left, that will also have an impact.
“It will not fully register until they are on dry land. Some have not seen their young children grow up while others will have to rebuild relationships.
“It will be a challenge mentally, and to find other work to support their families as they have been out of circulation for so long. Hopefully they will get the care they need when they get home.”
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THE SPECS
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: seven-speed dual clutch
Power: 710bhp
Torque: 770Nm
Speed: 0-100km/h 2.9 seconds
Top Speed: 340km/h
Price: Dh1,000,885
On sale: now
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Name: Peter Dicce
Title: Assistant dean of students and director of athletics
Favourite sport: soccer
Favourite team: Bayern Munich
Favourite player: Franz Beckenbauer
Favourite activity in Abu Dhabi: scuba diving in the Northern Emirates
Uefa Nations League: How it Works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
War
Director: Siddharth Anand
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff, Ashutosh Rana, Vaani Kapoor
Rating: Two out of five stars
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 240hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 390Nm at 3,000rpm
Transmission: eight-speed auto
Price: from Dh122,745
On sale: now
