I Almost Bit...and Would've Been Bitten

My daughter has been asking for a puppy for over a year. A Chow puppy. I've had Chow Chows my entire life and our current Chow, Max, is a big 72lb cinnamon boy. He's also the medical alert dog for our daughter. Max, a rescue, is about 5 years old and we wanted to get a puppy so Max-Boy can help train the new fur-ball.

With the amount of travel I do, we've been pushing it off for a while but it came to a head this week since the kid is now on summer vacation and the pleas have been daily. Instead of 'Are we there yet, are we there yet,' it has been, 'When are we getting a puppy? When are we getting a puppy?!?'

So I looked. Specifically for a recently born cream female.

And wouldn't you have guessed, I found some! And even found one that would've been about an hour driving distance. So I emailed them. Within the hour we get an email back telling us that the puppy is available but the family is in Fargo, ND due to the mother recently passing away. They are selling the pups, which were their mom's, since they remind them of their mum and it hurts to see the pups. He also asks a bunch of questions like, How old? Married? Have kids? Location? Why this Breed, etc. It didn't occur to me that the text of the email was written like so many scam emails with poor punctuation, bad sentence structure and a few things that didn't add up. I was so excited to have quickly found, at a reasonable price, the puppy of my daughter's dreams.

Then we spoke and I started digging.

He had an accent like so many of those 'This is MS security and your Windows computer is doing bad things...let me connect.' But again, I didn't want to categorize this guy just by an accent if he was really legit. But I did warn him that my wife is a retired US Marshall and if this was a scam, she'd be on his tail. He didn't seem concerned and continued to push for the sale. I told him that we had family across the border in Minnesota and could they visit to see the pup. While hesitant, he said yes and provided an address. I looked up the address and it was an apartment building and according to one of the sites, no pets allowed. Hmmm.

He also had an odd name - one that I couldn't find in any search. Path. Path was his name.

While on the phone, I started to find a bunch of rip-off reports about a lady with the same phone number as Path. He said it was his wife but had no idea about the bad reviews. I also asked him about his 'home' number and wife's email being listed on a scammers website. I mean, you gotta really be doing something bad to actually make it on one of these lists. He never answered that question but did happily send pictures of the pup.

That's where he messed up.

We thought two of the pictures looked familiar and did an image search. Wouldn't ya know, those pictures were lifted off a UK pet site that listed a white, chow puppy back in 2012! And I found another picture he sent from a German site that sells dogs. Although the suspicions were there, that's when it really sunk in. I was about to be swindled. I searched for dog scams and that's where I found a bunch of scammed people talking about similar sob stories. My wife died, my kid died, my aunt died and we need to get rid of the dog due to memories. You'd think families would keep the pet as a sweet remembrance, not a painful reminder. We called the Fargo PD, gave them all the info and they seemed appreciative, even though the address was probably fake too.

We quickly brought that to a screeching halt and were glad we caught it in flight. I was tempted to ask him why the pictures he sent were on other sites but felt I needed to cut all communication. We went on to next listing...a real one with verifiable info and now have a chow puppy girl arriving in July. Her name is Coconut and that's her at the top.

Scams and scammers are all over the place and even seasoned folks can get caught up, especially when emotions and children are at play. Even so, I can tell you that doing a little rational research can save you from being a statistic.

And watch out for those summer scams.

ps

Related

• My Sensored Family
• Identity Theft Hits Close to Home
• When Personal Security is Compromised
• Privacy for a Price
• Lost in Translation...in Italy

Technorati Tags: scams,pets,people,summer,silva,security

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My Sensored Family

The Important Things

Lately I've been writing a bunch about the Internet of Things or IoT. You know, where everyday objects have software, chips, and sensors to capture data and report back. Household items like refrigerators, toilets and thermostats along with clothing, cars and soon, the entire home will be connected. Many of these devices provide actionable data - or just fun entertainment - so people can make decisions about whatever is being monitored. It can also help save lives.

Recently my daughter became a robot, at least according to her.

My daughter has a rare genetic disorder called HI/HA GDH - Hyperinsulinism/Hyperammonemia Syndrome in the Glutamate Dehydrogenase gene. Say that 3 times fast. Basically, she produces too much insulin (extreme hypoglycemic) and too much ammonia. She gets blood work done every couple months and recently we've had some concerning numbers on those reports. While we certainly check her blood multiple times a day, the doctor wanted to get a more precise reading over the course of a few days to determine a plan of action. Enter the sensor.

The doctor installed a Medtronic Sof-Sensor Glucose meter which measured her blood sugars every 5 minutes and stored it on a chip. They also have models which transmit the BSL to a base for instant readings. Out of the package, the device has a needle almost tented over the sensor. You put it in an apparatus which punches the needle and sensor into the skin. You remove the needle and the sensor stays. You then connect it to a clam shell looking thing which houses the microprocessor. Tape over it, go on with your daily routine and the sensor does the rest. While she had hers in for 3 days, there are some that can be inserted for longer term measurements. After our three days, we pulled it out and retuned it to the doctor. Pulling the tape off her skin hurt more than yanking the sensor out.

They connected the storage to a computer and retrieved the data. We could match the charted times and readings (along with a daily food diary) with the regular meter readings to get a great overall picture of what might be causing some of the recent abnormalities. From that, we got our medical marching orders and so far it seems like things are moving in the right direction. The parental worries have also dwindled now that we know what's going on. That anxiety is part of the challenge whether you're a global business or a parent...the data and context to make informed, knowledgeable decisions about a path forward. Sometimes sensors can provide that.

This Internet of Nouns trend is still in the early stages and many of our already connected gadgets do provide human benefits over the typical infotainment. While IoT is certainly interesting and the wave is building, I'm not particularly rushing to get everything or everyone connected like that...except for our micro chipped dog. But in this instance, installing a sensor in my daughter's side for a few days made all the difference in the world.

And gave us some uncensored peace of mind.

ps

Related

• Is IoT Hype For Real?
• Oh, Is That The Internet You're Wearing?
• Internet of Food
• I Think, Therefore I am Connected
• Play Ball!The Breach of Things
• The Icebox Cometh
• The Internet of Sports
• Welcome to the The Phygital World
• The DNS of Things

Technorati Tags: iot,things,sensors,medical,heath,silva,f5,family,big data

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My Ten Years at F5

So far...

I try not to brag that much (yea right) since a long time ago a good friend would always quip, 'Everyone loves a bragger!' Noting that boasters are usually more talk than anything and it is important to stay humble. Well, I'm humbled (and bragging) that I've reached an important milestone with F5. Ten years on the job. Yup, a decade with F5. Around 20% of my life has been with F5 and I still enjoy it all. Seriously.

I joined in 2004 - 'duh' if you can count years - as part of what was our original Security Business Unit. F5 had recently acquired uRoam in 2003, SSLVPN technology which eventually became our FirePass and Access Policy Manager solutions along with Magnifire WebSystems in 2004 which bore our TrafficShield and Application Security Manager web application firewalls. Our task, at the time, was to help our customers understand and deploy remote access systems and secure their applications. The early stages of F5 moving into the security market. Look at us now.

It was fun being one of the first three Security Systems Architects at F5. My good pals Ken Salchow (now running Certification) and Charlie Cano (Sr. BD Solution Architect) rounded out the 3 headed monster. We would visit with customers sharing insight on current security threats - which at the time were things like SQL injections, forceful browsing, parameter tampering and many of the same threats still dogging companies today. We spoke about the benefits of SSL VPN over IPSec. Remember those arguments? We also ran around the country installing F5 security controllers and troubleshooting them when things went astray. It was a busy but exciting time and I learned a bunch during those first couple years. But we grow.

That same 2004, F5 released BIG-IP v9 with TMOS, iRules, and a full proxy architecture. Terminate the network connection at the BIG-IP, decrypt/inspect/manipulate/secure/manage traffic and establish a new connection to the server. This gives organizations the ability to modify TCP traffic in either direction. A few years later, 2009, we released v10. By then however, I had moved on to Marketing.

In 2006, I jumped at an opportunity to join the fledgling Technical Marketing team, led by Ken Salchow. The same Ken as above. We were the technical writers, speakers and resources for the marketing organization. We did whitepapers, articles, blogging along with speaking at conferences and briefing analysts. We were unique, in that, instead of just focusing on F5 solutions, we were focused on a technology area. Virtualization, Security, Core, Service Provider, you get the idea. So we needed to understand the technologies and trends first to determine how our solutions solved or didn't solve certain industry challenges. Great team and enjoyable work. I've been fortunate.

Also in 2006, my daughter was born and 10 months later we were in the hospital for two weeks due to a rare genetic condition. She's doing OK today but back then, we had no idea what was happening or if she was going to even make it. I still remember getting a call from the EVP of my department telling me to take care of my family first and not to worry about work. Take whatever time you need. I was blown away. Granted, F5 was a much smaller company then and we all pretty much knew each other but I was so touched that the company cared more for my family's well being than me getting my work done. Now many F5ers are more than just F5 family, they are 'Ohana.

In 2009, I started to produce F5 videos - ALOHA! Initially, videos were not a huge part of how we told our story or shared insight but felt it would become an  important communication tool for business. I created the In 5 Minutes or Less series to show how easy it was to deploy certain functionality within a BIG-IP, especially the new v9 stuff. I also started to cover our trade shows, doing video interviews to showcase F5 technology, the integration with partners, and the important trends in the industry. This is what I love most.

You see, I studied theatre in college and dreamed of being an actor, director or producer. Something in the entertainment industry. My dad worked 30 years for IBM so I grew up with computers in the house. In every theatre I worked in, I also (in part) was the ad-hoc systems administrator. I remember playing with AppleTalk in the early 90's and admin'ing laptops with NT 3.51/4 around the same time. I was also fortunate to think back then that the internet just might become our entertainment medium of the future. I quit the theatre and started to work in technology. Fast forward to today and I feel extremely lucky to be able to combine what I know and what I love to create technology related videos. Here at F5.

And most recently, while still carrying the TMM banner, I'm part of the awesome Marketing Architectures Team at F5. We design and develop the Reference Architectures that organizations can deploy today to solve a bunch of industry challenges. Areas like security, mobility, availability, performance and access & identity all have specific reference architectures covering things like DDoS, DNS, Application Services and Cloud to name a few. Still thrilled.

Ten years is a long time at any company these days and I've been blessed this last decade being able to do my thing with such a great organization. Thanks to everyone who has helped along the way!

I am grateful.

ps

 

Technorati Tags: f5,decade,history,silva,irules,annaversary,milestone,grateful

 

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Identity Theft Hits Close to Home

While certainly not the likes of having SWAT show up at my house like Krebs or even Honan's fiasco, we've had some ID theft attempts occurring for the past few months...actually my wife has.

It all started innocently enough at a child's birthday party. 

We were invited to a now ex-friend's house for a kid's birthday party this past April.  We were told it would be a small gathering of a few close friends.  Usually, when we attend things like this, my wife will leave her purse covered, locked in the car.  In this instance, thinking it was a small group, she took her purse in.  To our surprise, this was not some small get-together, as we were told, but a big party with numerous parents, kids and jump bouncers in back.  Many people we had never met.  That's cool, meet some new families with kids around the same age.  Almost immediately, the 'host' told my wife that she would put her purse in the home office where it would be 'safe.'  At the time, we didn't think anything of it since we had been to this house numerous times and had trusted the family.

The following week, my wife mentioned that she couldn't find a couple credit cards but thought she had misplaced them.  'They gotta be around somewhere.'  You know the phrase.  After another week of not being able to locate them, she called the card companies and requested replacements.  At that point, nothing, as far we knew was amiss. 

A couple weeks later, we get a letter from the credit card company (the one we replaced) saying they were not able to change the mailing address of our cards since certain security verification was not provided.  This was for the old, just replaced card.  Clearly not knowing that we had already cancelled and replaced the card, the thief attempted to change the mailing address for our account.  What?!?  But couldn't provide a photo ID with the new address or the secret squirrel settings so it was denied.  Nice.  We asked the card company for details and they could only provide the basics: it happened, verification failed, it stopped.  But don't you have caller ID?...Can't you go back and look?....What question failed?  Nothing.  See, while potential fraud was potentially attempted, it never actually occurred since it was not successful...thus no investigation.  I can understand.

We locked and froze and alerted the credit community.

Another couple weeks go by and due to the alerting in place, my wife gets a call asking if she's currently attempting making a purchase of some high end sunglasses online.  She wasn't.  Add to that, whoever apparently entered the wrong billing address.  Denied.  This was a different credit card than the address change attempt.  We got the CC transaction ID and hoped, maybe, that the online vendor could correlate.  What address did they enter?...Can you get any meta information from the transaction logs?...Can I talk to your IT department?  As you probably know, CC transaction numbers do not always match the merchant's transaction ID and neither was able to correlate the other's.  They did their best providing what they could but nothing to connect the two incidents...even though we had our suspicions.

Change of address request could come from anywhere and purchasing online...well it is the world wide web.  There was no way to tentatively finger someone but we did file a police report. 

And then last week, my wife gets a call from our local pharmacy informing her that the doctor had denied her cough medicine refill and that she needed to make an appointment with the doctor if she needed the medicine.  The only problem was that she hadn't requested a refill.  This was for some codeine laced cough syrup that was scripted over a year ago.  The caller had her name, doctor and birthday...plus knew exactly what medication to request and which store to request it from.  Big mistake.  The geographic region of the perpetrator just shrunk from world wide to our area.  There was/is only one person who would have all that info - the host of the birthday party.  It was her doctor (recommended to my wife) and she went with my wife when the cough medicine was prescribed.  I told the pharmacy to just fill something with grape juice and hold whoever tries to pick it up.  Yeah, ahh, they don't do that.  I guess a sting operation is outside the realms of a pharmacy but sounded good to me.  Now we've added an 'attempted' medical ID theft with a controlled substance sidebar.  Another police report filed.

While we do not have a video of the individual attempting the crimes, all indications point to one person.  Some of you might know that my wife is a retired Federal Investigator.  She spent some time hunting fugitives as a US Marshall and protected past #2s while in the Secret Service.  So she went down every other possible investigative path. The only one who had access to her purse, who also likes to purchase expensive sunglasses and would know specifically my wife's birthday, our pharmacy, and that particular medication along with who prescribed it?  It finally sunk in.

According to ITAC, more than 1.5 million consumers were victims of familiar fraud, which is fraud when victims know the fraudster.  Back in 2006, the FTC Identity Theft report noted that 2% of thieves were co-workers of the victim, 6% were relatives or family members and 8% were friends, neighbors or in-home employees.  For medical ID theft, Ponemon's 2013 Survey on Medical Identity Theft said a family member took the personal identification or medical credentials without consent 28% of the time.  Unfortunately, many of these crimes go unreported due to the perpetrators being friends and family.

Identity theft is on the rise and if I remember correctly, medical ID theft is the fastest growing segment.  I'm certainly not suggesting to keep your personal secrets locked from your trusted, long time best friend or a family member.  But for us, this experience will make us think twice about divulging certain information to fly by friends.

ps

• Reporter’s Identity Stolen
• The World Has No Room For Cowards
• Largely a family affair, medical identity theft on the rise
• I challenged hackers to investigate me and what they found out is chilling
• Identity Fraud by Friends or Family
• Identity Thief Is Often Found in Family Photo
• ITRC Fact Sheet 115 - When You Personally Know the Identity Thief
• Who Commits Identity Theft?
• Your Identity Thief Could Be Your Sibling or Child
• Parental Identity Theft Statistics

Technorati Tags: identity theft,medical,privacy,security,friends,family,credit card,silva

 

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Kids and their Dot Coms

My daughter likes to glue pictures in a composition notebook – Disney Princesses, giraffes, fairies, Barbie scenes, herself and many other things a kindergartener gravitates towards.  Usually she asks for certain characters or a particular animal and I go find and print.  This weekend, however, as she was asking for some Barbie pictures and a basketball player, she specifically said, ‘you need to go to barbie.com and basketballplayer.com to get the pictures.’  Oh really?   She’s known about ‘dot com’ for a while, especially buyslushymagic.com but this was one of the first times she’s requested, rather instructed me to visit specific sites for her crafts.  She is good at a keyboard and knows how to search for youtube videos, which is becoming the norm for 5 year olds. 

I totally understand that each generation, due to whatever technological advancements, grow up in different era's with different ways of doing things and many conversations start with, ‘When I was growing up…’ or ‘When I was a kid…’   We didn’t have TV; we only had black & white TV; we had to get up to change the channel on our TV; we didn’t have cable TV; we had square TVs; we didn’t have HDTV; our TV wasn’t hooked up to the internet; we didn’t have streaming movies to the TV and soon it’ll be, ‘we didn’t have TVs that watched us when I was a kid.’  It’s fun to live during a time of so much technology innovation and growth and to work for a company, F5, that is an integral part of how it all works. 

And as is usually the case when I’m contemplating some nostalgia related topic, I came across this infographic:

Isn’t it fun to look back and remember what we were doing last century?

ps

Technorati Tags: Pete Silva, F5, security, history, nostalgia, 1980, education, technology

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When Personal Security is Compromised

My Greatest Fears Realized

I debated about writing and/or blogging about this for a few days since it is very personal and didn’t want a pity-party coming my way.  But covering security, often from the human behavior standpoint, is what I do and what better way to share a security incident than when it happens directly to you.  Plus, being able to simply get it out is cathartic to some extent.  So here goes.

I attended the London IPExpo on Oct 19-20 at Earl's Court Two.  IPExpo is one of the largest IT infrastructure shows in Europe with many focus areas: Cloud, Storage, Security, Network, Virtualization and so forth - pretty much anything that touches IT.  I was invited by the F5 EMEA team to present at a number of speaking sessions F5 offered during the conference.  I also brought my family along since we hadn’t been to London in about 5 years and we really like the city. 

A couple weeks ago while I was at work at our EMEA headquarters there was an attempted abduction/kidnapping of my 5 year old daughter at one of the underground stations in London. My wife and daughter were on their way shopping when a man grabbed her.  He started with a little lure and when they got closer, he grabbed her arm and tried to yank her away from my wife.  Luckily my wife was able to keep hold of her and said to another woman, ‘Did you see what that guy just did to my daughter?’  She responded with, ‘yes and it looks like he’s doing it to another little girl!’  At that point, my wife asked for assistance from the Underground personnel.  The BTP (British Transportation Police) arrived and took him into custody while taking my wife and daughter to the station for statements.  My daughter asked if she could tell the officer about what happened and she told the PC, ‘that man grabbed my arm.’  That was pretty much all they needed, especially after viewing the CCTV footage and they didn't want to pressure a grueling interview of a child. 

I was finishing lunch with an F5 colleague when I got the call – ‘we are at the police station and you need to come now.’  At first I wasn’t sure if she was joking since she’s used that ‘I’m at the cop-shop’ routine before and I said, ‘What?!?, are you kidding?’  She then briefly told me about the incident, that he was in custody and at that point, it was no joke and my personal security had been threatened.  My co-worker immediately said, ‘I’ll take you wherever you need to go.’  This is one of the things that I love about my working family at F5, personal family is always first.  That was when the flood of emotions overcame me and the gravity of the situation hit.  As an aside, I don’t worry about my family going anywhere since my wife is a former Federal Law Enforcement Agent and certainly knows how to handle such situations.

I often look at human behavior and the ‘feeling of security’ or ‘peace of mind’ when discussing the topic.  I think that many of the fears about say, cloud security or any other topic that seems to take a few years to fully catch-on, has to do with the fact that we humans simply have a hard time with change.  Add loss of control to the picture makes it even more daunting.  Friends will say, ‘Let it go, it’s out of your control,’ and while you may understand, it doesn’t always make you feel any better.  That day, I did not have a feeling of security, peace of mind or any control over the situation.  I knew they were safe but I did not feel safe.  The mind kept telling the belly ‘it’s OK.’ but the gut wasn’t listening.  The stress increases, it’s harder to think, you’re sweating and it’s uncomfortable. 

Finally arriving at the station, the Sergeant tells me everyone is fine, the guy is arrested and we’ll let your family know you are here.  Some anxiety is finally released and soon, we get to hug.  More stress leaves the body and thinking becomes more focused but still has plenty of questions.  The BTP was great and gave us a ride in the blue and white back to our hotel. We were told on the way back that he is well known within the police department and a repeat offender.  Not sure if that was good or bad news.

The following day, the BTP called and said that the guy is being charged with assault (of a minor).  The CCTV caught everything.  Now, I’m not a big fan of the increased surveillance everywhere but in this situation it helped tremendously.  The next day it was determined that he needed a psychiatric evaluation and spent the next week in the mental facility.  My wife was also asked to appear for his trial, which was scheduled for the following week.  Wow, right quick as they fast tracked his trial.

My wife was at the Magistrates' Court most of the day.  After a week in the mental hospital, one doc called him crazy and another said he was fit.  That obviously determines which institution will be his new home. The judge had already watched the CCTV, received testimony from the responding officers, including the one who testified on my daughter's behalf and my wife's testimony only lasted about 10-15 minutes.  The Magistrate just wanted to hear if her story matched what was on the video and other witness statements. His lawyer tried to make it seem like he was just being 'friendly.'  She was let go after her testimony for the final determination.

Later that evening we got a call and was told he had been found Guilty of assaulting a minor.  We dropped a huge sigh of relief and the flow of comfort came back again.  I was starting to feel secure again, I started to feel somewhat in control again and I could think clearly once more.  I believe we all go through stages when trying to make a security decision or faced with a security situation.  It’s called Risk Analysis, Risk Management and Emergency Preparedness.  This was an extreme case, of course, but the threat came unannounced from the outside like many that occur within the corporate infrastructure.  My wife was prepared and I was uncomfortable yet, we still needed to handle the situation and mitigate the risk.  With your corporate infrastructure, be prepared, have a plan, mitigate risk and you will feel secure and know that you are.  And if an incident does arise, you’ll be ready.  Find that common ground between the head and the heart.  Often that’s hard when various groups have different fears and things that make them uncomfortable.  Acknowledge the human factor, ask questions and communicate. 

I truly appreciated the F5 support and warm wishes during this ordeal.  I’ve been with F5 since 2004 and while we recently announced that we’ve passed $1 Billion in revenue, which is an amazing financial accomplishment but I have to tell you that it is the feeling of family that keeps F5 rolling.

ps

Technorati Tags: F5, personal security, police, london, Pete Silva, security, BTP, vulnerabilities, crime, child, CCTV, the tube, abduction, identity theft

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