CraigPetersonTechTalk

Have You Checked If Your Email Is On The Dark Web? Let's Do It Now! Do you know how to find out if you have had your private information stolen? Well, you know, the odds are probably pretty bad, but where was it stolen? When? What has been stolen? How about your password and how safe is that password? We're going to show you real hard evidence, and what you can do to fix things! [Following is an automated transcript] [00:00:16] Knowing whether or not your data has been stolen and what's been stolen is very important. [00:00:24] And there is a service out there that you can go to. They don't charge you a thin dime, nothing, and you can right there find out which of your account has been compromised. And. Out on the dark web. Now the dark web is the place that the criminals go. That's where they exchange information they've stolen. [00:00:49] That's where they sell it. That's where you can buy a tool to do ransomware hacking all on your own. Far less than 50 bucks. In fact, ransomware as a service is available where they'll do absolutely everything except infect people. So you just go ahead and you sign up with them, you pay them a 20% or sometimes more commission. [00:01:12] You get somebody to download in fact to themselves with the ransomware and they do everything else. They take the phone call, they find out what it is. Company is doing and they set the ransom and they provide tech support for the person that got ransomed in order to buy Bitcoin or sometimes some of these other cryptocurrencies. [00:01:38] In fact, we've got another article in the newsletter this week about cryptocurrencies and how they may be falling through. Floor because of ransomware. We're going to talk about that a little later here, but here's the bottom line. You really want to know this. You want to know if the bad guys are trading your information on the dark web, you want to know what information they have, so you can keep an eye on. [00:02:11] Now you guys are the best and brightest, you know, you gotta be cautious or you wouldn't be listening today. And because, you know, you've been caught need to be cautious. You have been cautious, but the time you need to be the most cautious is right after one of the websites that you use, that hasn't been hacked because the fresher, the information, the more it's worth on the dark web, your identity can be bought on the dark web for. [00:02:38] Penny's depending on how much information is there. If a bad guy has your name, your email, the password you've used on a few different website, your home address, social security number, basically the whole shooting match. They can sell your personal information for as little as. $2 on the dark web. That is really bad. [00:03:02] That's sad. In fact, because it takes you a hundred or more hours. A few years ago, they were saying about 300 hours nowadays. It's less in order to get your identity kind of back in control. I suspect it probably is closer to 300, frankly, because you. To call anybody that pops up on your credit report. Oh, and of course you have to get your credit report. [00:03:29] You have to review them closely. You have to put a freeze on your. Got an email this week from a listener whose wife had her information stolen. He had lost a wallet some years ago and she found because of a letter that came saying, Hey, thanks for opening an account that someone had opened an account in her name. [00:03:51] Now the good news for her is that it had a zero balance. Caught it on time. And because it was a zero balance, it was easy for her to close the account and he's had some problems as well because of the lost wallet a few years back. So again, some basic tips don't carry things like your social security card in your wallet. [00:04:17] Now you got to carry your driver's license because if you're driving, the police wanted, okay. Nowadays there's in some ways less and less of a reason to have that, but our driver's license, as you might've noticed on the...

[As heard on WTAG, WHYN, WHJJ 2021-05-25 - Automated Transcript] Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] On with Mr. Polito this morning, and we gave a little bit of a eulogy to Microsoft internet Explorer. Finally, almost gone. And I don't know if it will ever be completely gone. So here we go with Mr. Polito, [00:00:17] Jim Polito: [00:00:17] Our good friend, Craig Peterson, nothing like a little rage against the machine. To introduce our tech talk guru, the master of all machines, right? [00:00:33] He is our tech talk guru here to talk about the death of Microsoft Explorer. What is that? Joining us now? Craig Peterson. Good morning, Craig. [00:00:48] Craig Peterson: [00:00:48] Hey, good morning. Microsoft Explorer of course had been used for years by Microsoft in order to let you go online. And it was the source of a major lawsuit against Microsoft. [00:01:02]Right now you're talking about what's happening with this whole apple lawsuit and what directions is going to go what's happening? Microsoft had this major problem years ago, and that is. It did not have anything to do with the internet at all. Microsoft was a very much a late comer to the internet and to all of the connectivity that comes from it. [00:01:26] And so what they did is they stole, borrowed some software from NCSA, this lab over in Europe. And use that as a basis to create a web browser. And since of course, Microsoft didn't really care so much about the internet as they never put much thought or work into it. However, Many of these kids that are doing programming thought internet Explorer is the way to go. [00:01:54] And the people who were running the businesses who had windows on their desks, they looked at it and said in genetics blowers, what we need to do. So a large percentage of businesses over 50% of businesses designed their website. To work with internet Explorer and never bothered checking any other web browsers out there to see if they were compatible. [00:02:19] Yeah. So Microsoft got even more and more into this and Microsoft added things to internet Explorer made it the most dangerous browser on the internet. It allows a website to take control of your computer. It allowed websites to download malicious software and start running with it. It might be Microsoft. [00:02:41] It just sometimes drives me crazy. [00:02:44] Jim Polito: [00:02:44] Let's roll it. You've just put a lot out there. So let's just go back and take a look at it. First of all, Dan and I were laughing earlier and you just said it. Oh, Microsoft didn't think this internet was going to be a big deal. Yeah. So bill gates is our real genius. [00:02:59]Something comes along like the internet. Eh, so Netscape was really the big browser in the beginning. Am I correct? [00:03:07] Craig Peterson: [00:03:07] It was one of the early Browns. Yeah, very popular one. The internet didn't really start really going anywhere until the browsers came out. NCSA mosaic was really the first one. [00:03:22] Wow. I used that one extensively way back when and yeah. Firefox has been around. Yeah, Microsoft. Yeah. As part of an incredible internal arrogance decided that it would wire internet Explorer into the operating system, for lack of a better term, you could argue that Microsoft has never had a true operating system until the latest ones, but it hardwired the men. [00:03:51] So now. You had places like Firefox Mozilla project and some of these other like Google, et cetera. Say, wait a minute wait. We have browsers. And there is no way to delete internet Exploder off of your computer. Oh, I forgot about [00:04:09] Jim Polito: [00:04:09] that. Nickname, internet Exploder. Greg you're, we're talking with our tech dog guru, Craig Peterson. [00:04:15] We're having a little bit of a way care. He's performing the eulogy for internet Explorer. So they get rid of it. Does that mean that Microsoft is out of the browsing business? [00:04:27] Craig Peterson: [00:04:27] Oh, I never very big way. See Microsoft decided...

[The following is an automated transcript.] Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] The lies and misinformation that are going on right now over in Israel, between Hamas and of course the Israeli government. This Tesla owner got bulled over sent to jail because he was driving the Tesla from a back seat. And a little bit more about the colonial pipeline with Mr. Matt Gagnon. We joined him of course, this morning. [00:00:27] Here we go. [00:00:28] Matt Gagnon: [00:00:28] Good to have you with us. 7:36 on a Wednesday means it's time to talk to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us at this time every single week. Craig, how are you this week? [00:00:38]Craig Peterson: [00:00:38] Hey, I am doing quite well. I had a couple of my hives swarm. It's just been such a great day; over winter and a great spring. [00:00:47] And so I was able to capture them. So I'm up two more hives. I cut two swarms. [00:00:53] Matt Gagnon: [00:00:53] So I'm what are you talking about? Are you a bee person? [00:00:56] Craig Peterson: [00:00:56] My honey bees. Yeah. You didn't know that? [00:00:58] Matt Gagnon: [00:00:58] Well, yeah. Okay. I sort of remember that a little bit, but you wouldn't mean you caught a swarm. I mean, they like you, you go out there with a net, I mean, yeah, [00:01:06] Craig Peterson: [00:01:06] Well,, the way it works is bees multiply by dividing. So if they're, if they're really, really healthy, they will go ahead and make some new Queens. And then when that queen emerges, the old queen will take about half of the workers and we'll go to try and find a new hive. So she'll go out and she'll just sit on a branch. [00:01:28] And of course, all of these other workers that had 10 to 15,000 bees will swarm right around her. So they'll all be resting on this poor branch, which is almost always just sagging. So if you can touch them. So what you do is if you can get that queen particularly, and get her into another little hive or a box to begin with, then now you've got a whole new hive. So that's how they have new colonies. That's how the honeybees is started expanding. And I, I often just let them go because it helps with the whole diversity thing and they become wild honey bees, which we need because this year, about half of all of the colonies in the U S died. So that's how it works. [00:02:14] There's a bigger than a football, but kind of shaped like it. And if you see one call a beekeeper in your area, so they can either go and grab them and help them make sure they're healthy because unfortunately our wild bees are dying at very high rates, but they can make sure they're healthy. They can capture them and they'll be happy. [00:02:34] And hopefully they won't end up in somebody's Eve's over there that they then have to try and get those beat colony out of. [00:02:43] Matt Gagnon: [00:02:43] Well, I learned something about bees today. Ladies and gentlemen, Craig Peterson joins us at this time. He also joins the program where we're joins the station, excuse me, on Saturdays at one o'clock where he hosts the show where he goes into many of these topics in more detail. [00:02:54] I don't know if you're going to hear about bees, but I guess you're probably going to hear about the colonial pipeline. I know that we talked a little bit about this last week, but Craig, they paid a $5 million ransom. And from what I understand, they basically, I mean, what they got back for a key, they didn't even really use any way. [00:03:09] And they ended up like using a, sort of a backup, uh, uh, of theirs to restore things. Anyway. I mean, first of all, tell me about what actually happened with that payment ransom. And second of all, what's the impact of this? I mean, does this not just incentivize more of this garbage happening? Yeah, [00:03:24] Craig Peterson: [00:03:24] it really does. [00:03:25] And that not only incentivizes it generally, but it incentivizes them to go after colonial dam, just like they've done with the city of Atlanta, where they paid...

[A quick, automated transcript of my conversation with Jim Polito on WTAG, WHYN, and WHJJ on 2021-05-18] Good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Mr. Polito this morning, and we went through the colonial pipeline and why you don't want to pay a ransom. And then I went into the things you can do for free. That'll give you 90%, maybe a little higher protection. So some websites to go to some things to do on a windows computer. So it went a little deeper, I think, than I usually. Go into, but I think a lot of great info. So here we go with Mr. Polito.  If I ever got hacked, ransomware, whatever there's one guy had called, not the Ghostbusters. I would call our tech talk guru and good friend, Craig Peterson, who joins us every week at this time. Good morning, sir.  Hey, good morning, Mr. Jim.  Craig, why don't you just say, I told you so because they, it looks like colonial paid the $5 million ransom, the stories I'm reading say that then the Russian hackers gave them the key to fix the encryption, and it didn't work. And then they eventually figured it out themselves. Am I correct? Yeah.  Yeah. That's pretty much what happened.  Brilliant guy because that's called colonial pipeline. So you said, and you have said many times before, the easiest way to get yourself in the crosshairs of a cyber hacker, ransomware criminal is to pay the ransom. Then you have painted a bullseye on your back. Why don't you tell us about that?  Yeah, we have a whole country thing. You might remember. There was an organization called the United States Navy. And the United States Marine Corps. And you remember, the Marine Corps Anthem, right?  Oh yeah. From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, the barber. Okay. And why did they form the Marine Corps? Why did the Navy come to be? It came to be in both cases to protect our merchants, our merchant leads; we were having some problems with some alumnus back 250 years ago. And we sent our Marines over. In fact, the whole thing about leather neck comes from that same period. So they wouldn't get their heads chopped off. I hate to talk about that, but we've been facing this—type of thing, extortion as a country forever. And now we've got president and Biden out there. Know  I'm trying to do a hairy imitation. There might've been the Russians, but it wasn't the Russians; it wasn't Putin. At this point, it seems very obvious that because of dark by the way, who shut themselves down over the weekend, along with two other major ransomware operations, it looks like they were at the very least under the protection of the Russian government. So they go out, and who do they want to target? It used to just go out there, spray and pray. See who you can find now it's, let's go after the people with the bigger pockets, as much as we can, at least these professional groups of which of course are present, colonial or act by. But these professional groups now go after people. Now, who are they going to go after? They want somebody with the big. Wallet, a big deep pocket. And they also want to have somebody that they know is going to pay. So let's take the city of Atlanta, for instance. This is a small city in the south, and Atlanta went ahead and got around somewhere and paid. And what happened again? A couple of weeks later, they got ransomware and paid. And then what happened about a month later, they got ransomware and they. Multiple times now compare that, for instance, with the metropolitan police department down in Washington, DC. Now in Washington, of course, again, a small town, and they have a metropolitan police department. And again, They didn't bother putting together the type of security they need. And we just did an audit in fact of a county who will go on named that their cybersecurity was almost completely non-existent, yet you talked to them, and they say it's absolutely there, but in Washington, DC, they got into the police department...

As Heard On WGIR - 2021-05-17 Hi, everybody, Craig Peterson here. I'm not quite sure how to describe this interview, but you're going to find out something about me you may not have known and it's not a bad thing. It's just, I've never really disclosed it. Certainly not publicly. Anyhow. So we talked today about the colonial pipeline what's happening with these ransomware groups and there are a number of them and why. Why is it happening? And then also of course, over the weekend, there's a little bit of discussion with Marco Rubio and others on 60 minutes, I think it was about UFO's. So I guess there's a clue. So here we go with Mr. Chris, Ryan Stanford.  I am Chris Ryan joining us right now is Craig Peterson. He is the host of tech talk. On Saturdays and Sundays at 11:30 AM on news radio six, 10 and 96 seven Craig area.  Hey, good morning. That's a nice kickoff there with the stones.  Love to hear it. We really do. And there's nothing better. Little Keith Richards riff to get us into the mood here on this Monday morning cross the great state of New Hampshire. So Craig. It's amazing how our news cycle works. We have the colonial pipeline is one of the biggest and maybe most significant stories that we've had so far this year. And we talked about this actually, Liz Cheney as well. When she joined us on Friday to me, there has to be a priority. And a predominance of focus placed upon cyber warfare and germ warfare and electromagnetic warfare. We're hearing about, UFO's and that report from 60 minutes, which I think is really important as well. I It's clear now that there are. UFO's used to be. The question was, do they exist? The answer is, yeah, they do, because we have video evidence of them and people have seen him at firsthand accounts. So those are the two things we're going to get delve into today. And I want to start with your takeaways from the colonial pipeline circumstance.  I talked about it a lot on the radio show this last weekend. Cause it is a change. It really reflects a change in the way ransomware works too. And over the weekend we saw a big change yet. Again, ransomware used to be just, they got software on your machine. Usually through. Phishing, which is sending you an email, getting on something, and then they'd encrypt all of your files and say, pay up sucker, if you want access to your files again. And then it moved to the next stage, which was people didn't always pay off because they might have backups and say we can just restore from backups for Canada better. We're not paying you a dime. They decided maybe what we should do then is get a little more. Vance. And before we encrypt your files, we're going to steal all of your important data. And then we're going to hold that data hostage and threatened to release it just like they did with the metropolitan police department down in Washington, Jen DC. And yes, indeed. They did release home information about the police officers in the metropolitan police department right down there in Washington, DC, because they didn't pay this ransom. Now, what we have is something called dark side, which is a group that's been around for almost a year. And they sell services to other bad guys who want to rent some people. So dark side, we'll take a 25% cut all the way down to 10%. They have it on their website, depending on how much money you're able to get out of. People twenty-five percent cut on anything under about $5 million and they'll do tech support for you and everything else. So when you take over someone's computer and they are now trying to pay you buy Bitcoin, et cetera, in order to do that dark side, we'll do the tech support. It turns out the dark side was behind this hack of the colonial pipeline. And ArcSight is now a little bit nervous. They brought their website down. Of course it's on the dark web has two other major operations that are again, ransomware for hire. So we've seen three major groups. Chris go completely dark...