You should create a secret password with your family

Scammers are out of control. Fraudsters and cybercriminals every year they make billions by tricking people into parting with their money. A romantic scam, compromise with business email, investment fraud, sexual extortion— the list of ways criminals attack people is practically endless and constantly changing.

Add to that impersonation scams, where a criminal pretends to be known to their target and makes off with money. There are increasing calls for people and especially families to create passwords or passcodes with each other. In early December, the FBI issued recommends that people create “a secret word or phrase with your family to confirm their identity”, and UK bank Starling also published guidelines on creating safe phrases with others.

It’s a simple, if not novel, approach—one that could potentially be effective. For example, if you get a message or call from your “son” or “daughter” and they urgently want money to get out of a traffic jam, asking them to provide a pre-agreed password can reveal if it’s really them.

“Fraudsters will use manipulation tactics to put the victim in a vulnerable state where they act out of panic, urgency, or strong desire,” says Erin Englund, director of threat analytics at fraud detection firm BioCatch. “Having a password or similar prepared strategy allows victims to quickly confirm the legitimacy of an unusual interaction and take control.”

Calls to create family passwords or passcodes come as fraudsters increasingly embrace AI. Machine learning has allowed criminals to create deepfake videos impersonating others people and clone voices with just a few seconds of audio. Fraudsters have used these voice clones to i’m pretending family members have been kidnapped and are demanding a ransom for their release.

“AI poses a major risk to businesses and families,” said Rachel Toback, CEO of SocialProof Security. Toback says companies she’s worked with have received AI-cloned calls that also use fake phone numbers trying to impersonate business executives.

“I also hear of several families every day who have been attacked by AI phone calls, cloning the voice of a nephew, grandson or sibling in hysterics, being kidnapped or involved in a car accident where they hit a pregnant woman and need money for legal fees and bail,” Toback says.

Create a good family password

As with your online passwords, there are dos and don’ts when it comes to creating a shared password. For starters, you shouldn’t make a password the same as any of your passwords, and they shouldn’t be things that a scammer can easily find—like street names, birthdays, pets, or other personal information that could to be shared online.

“Consider anything you or your loved ones post online as data available to scammers,” says Englund. “Even if you keep all social media private, your data is available to your connections and followers, who can be hacked.”