In Depth: Scams and hacks

LOS ANGELES - Segment one — Hal is joined by FBI Supervisory Special Agent Bernard Riedel to talk about the prevalence of cybercrime and who might be under threat.

Riedel says that ransomware attacks on small and medium-sized businesses have put some out of business. 

He says criminals can make incursions into a business’s systems by one careless click by an employee, and warns that employees need to check and double check where potentially phishing emails come from.

Segment two — Hal speaks to Nick Biasini, Head of Outreach for Cisco Talos Intelligence Group.   Biasini warns about a specific threat that Cisco Talos is working on, which involves the children’s video game Roblox. 

He gives us tips on how to protect children from the danger of losing actual cash in the form of "Robux" to scammers.

He also talks about how the holidays are such a busy time for scammers and how to guard against being tricked.

Segment three — Hal talks with Better Business Bureau Los Angeles President Steve McFarland. McFarland tells us about some "real world" scams that are hitting people’s pocketbooks these days.  

One of the scams involves putting fake parking tickets on people’s cars with a QR code for payment. He gives suggestions on how to check to make sure a ticket is real and warns of the increasing danger of the use of QR codes in other scams.