The “other type of lockdown” that I’m referring to is a mentality because the cyber criminals are trying to get into the minds of gullible people who now need to lockdown their brains and steel themselves to resist them. Educate yourselves on modern criminality, please. And, yes, watch the catflap too.
Burgeoning cybercrime and cat flaps and dog doors
The coronavirus pandemic has speeded up the growth in cybercrime and crimes using technology such as artificial intelligence and robots. Based on personal experience, there is a vastly increased number of computer generated telephone calls from scammers whose objective is to elicit information from the homeowner in order to scam them out of money.
And I have always argued that the cat flap or dog door is a vulnerable point in a home. As of today it appears to be more vulnerable than ever because the newspapers are reporting criminals using robots which they place through cat flaps and which then roam around the home sending visual signals back to the operator and even fetching the keys to the home. And watch those keyless car keys! Put them in a security wallet to prevent them sending signals to the outside.
It need not necessarily be a cat flap or dog door. Perhaps a window left ajar with enough space to allow a small machine to be placed inside. “Robot burglars” as they are called pose a new threat to homeowners against a burgeoning industry in criminality in the UK and perhaps elsewhere.
Coronavirus fears make people more gullible
In the UK the police are asleep. And the coronavirus pandemic has opened the doors to new types of criminality based on fear and anxiety. The public are alone in defending themselves against criminality of this nature. Many people are anxious about contracting coronavirus which makes them more vulnerable to scammers. They become more gullible in their desire to protect themselves. And these criminals prey on the gullible.
Gullibility
The reason why Facebook and other big social media websites collect personal data is because they can use artificial intelligence and computer programs to weed out the gullible amongst the billions of contact details they collect. They then target adverts against those people because they are more likely to respond positively to the advert. This information can be acquired by criminals.
Lockdown your brains
That is why I have called this article “another type of lockdown is required”. People need to lockdown their brains by which I mean the need to shut out and block out the attempts by scammers to pick their brains. They need to steel themselves and become cynical. They need to distrust anybody who makes unsolicited phone calls. The default position is to presume that anybody calling who they don’t know is a scammer.
Prof Lewis
The possibility of artificial intelligence, robot burglars becoming more prevalent in the Western world comes from a study authored by researchers University College London and published in the journal Crime Science (at the time of dictating this, the document appears not to be on their website). The author of the report is Prof Lewis Griffin. Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly important in the Western world. It is needed to filter through billions of lines of data. It also allows criminals to exploit people.
Deluge of online criminality
The online security company, McAffee, said that there had been a deluge of malicious online criminal activity. And the National Cyber Security Service and the National Crime Agency have warned of a surge in cybercrime during the pandemic lockdown in the UK. I’m sure that this applies to other countries too.
P.S. Cybercrime is crime based on computers and networks. But it takes different forms and I would include computer-generated mass telephone calls to millions of people, for instance. It includes sending emails which try and scam people out of money. There are thousands of different forms of cybercrime. It is only limited by the imagination of the criminals and, believe me, they are imaginative.
