Personal Lessons in My Cybersecurity Journey
The time-tested axiom that Asset Protection comes before Asset Growth has never been more important than in these Digital Days. In fact, Figure 1.1 on page #2 of our book presents a graphic of this essential investment rule. This blog is the first of a three-part Traders Journal series on cybersecurity and would no doubt be an addendum chapter if we published a revised edition of our book, Tensile Trading. It is truly that vital and fundamental.
PART ONE: The Big Picture
Today’s online thieves—scammers, hackers and fraudsters—are employed by multi-billion dollar corporations. With vast resources, they’re housed in high-rise skyscrapers located primarily in Russia and Asia. A very small percentage are lone wolves working from their kitchen table. The Wall Street Journal (4/21/26) published a front page story titled “How Cybercrime Made Cambodia.” It’s a sobering piece about a gold-hued skyscraper rising in the capitol of Cambodia owned by a 64 year-old convict and casino mogul. A monument to the billions scammed by him and transnational cybergangs.
Our big American brokerage houses are somewhat similar to drug-testing enforcers in the sports world. As Lance Armstrong taught us, top competitive athletes and their sponsors are generally years ahead of the drug testers. New untraceable drugs get developed and administered for years before drug testers become aware of them. Only when effective tests are finally developed to test for the illicit substances can enforcement occur and prevention mechanisms be implemented.
Brokerage houses are in a similar disadvantage up against today’s fraudsters, who are extremely sophisticated and very generously financed. Only when the latest scam hits the internet do the sirens go off and the fraud prevention squads jump into action. The point being that there’s always a lag.
These modern criminal entities are increasingly empowered by AI tools that are exceedingly powerful. One example: they can create a chatbot that’s authentic-sounding and entirely conversational using just a 5-second snippet of your real voice. How scary is that?!
These fraud corporations—today’s organized crime entities—are uniquely focused on every possible niche and sphere of commerce. Some specialize exclusively on hospitals and health care. Others focus on small businesses. Some zero in on individuals who have been successfully scammed before. In fact, “recovery scams” are very profitable for them—targeting victims and then claiming they’ll recover lost assets. Other scammers research and mark high-net worth individuals for weeks before moving in for the “Big Score Scam.” Others are experts on phone fraud. And the list goes on.
With these fraudsters and their AI tool kits, no website, no company, no organization and no individual is 100% safe from their reach. Everything and everyone is vulnerable, and the incidents are growing exponentially.
Imposters and impersonators are a very profitable sector of the market for these tricksters who are master manipulators and expert pretenders. These con artists don’t seem phony with their slick narratives. They are adept at posing as authentic IRS agents, bank executives, jury duty court clerks, government employees, etc. They’re proficient at avoiding any red flags or negative warnings that might reveal their criminal intent. They work off detailed scripts with answers for every possible objection or scenario you might raise—thereby keeping you on the phone long enough for their ill intent to succeed.
A 2026 study of cybercrime by KELA and reported in Forbes identified no less than 2.8 billion compromised credentials. What’s more, the study showed that info stealer malware now infects macOS devices and increased 7,000% in 2025. Updating software regularly does matter and is essential.
Finally, fraudsters love chaos! They pivot to change tactics regularly to take advantage of the present environment—whatever that may be. Your radar needs to be alert at all times, but especially during turbulence.
I’ll publish PART TWO of this blog soon. It describes the 10 steps you need to take and the specific tools to use to diminish the probability of you becoming a victim of a scam or fraud.
