Abagnale, whose life inspired the movie “Catch Me If You Can,” worked several fraud scams in his youth and was eventually asked by the FBI to teach prevention and verification tactics to agents. He has done so for 46 years.
“My philosophy is: prevention, verification and education,” said Abagnale. “Education is a powerful tool to preventing crime.” He said the pandemic led to an increase in both identify theft losses and “romance” scams. “We saw record compromises or breaches in 2020,” Abagnale said. “Every breach occurs because someone did something they weren’t supposed to do, or they failed to do something they were supposed to do, creating an open door for a hacker.”
Abagnale cited a 2012 study of 40,000 children, which found that 10 percent of them had been victims of identity theft. Children have no credit so their identities can be stolen and used for years without anyone noticing, he noted. Public records can serve as valuable resources for identity thieves, along with social media. “Scammers can use social media to gain information to create more custom and sophisticated phishing scams,” he said. “Phishing emails are nothing more than social engineering.”
Abagnale advised participants to look for “soft spots” in their offices and even homes. “There are soft spots everywhere,” he said. “Criminals are not looking for challenges, but opportunities. They will find soft spots in your building or home. And now everything is…
