3 Consumer Tips via Ex-Secret Service Cyber Expert

Welcome back to Fox 5 Weekend Live. We are talking about AI this morning and putting your bank account at risk, potentially. As you know, AI has become increasingly a part of our lives, including our finances. But cybersecurity experts are raising concerns about just how much access we are giving these tools. And joining us this morning is Jason Brown. He's a cybersecurity and AI fraud expert with iCounter. And he's also a former U.S. Secret Service agent. And he's here to explain the risks. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you for having me. So we know that these AI agents can make life easier, but on the other hand, they also complicate some things. So what do you want people to know this morning about that? Well, the biggest thing that you need to know about, especially when you're talking about banking, is the banking can really not tell any difference between you and the agent. If you give over your password and your username to the bank account and to the agent to access that account, they can move money at will depending on the settings, and you not have any influence over that. So what do you do? I mean, again, it seems like you can't escape AI in every industry. So what do you do when you have this sort of, in my opinion, I'm just going to say the intrusion, but I know maybe that's not the best word, but what should you do then? It really is depending on what you're intending to do. A lot of us use the AI agents to look at our budgeting, make sure we're spending wisely. We don't have a bunch of subscriptions out there we don't know about. A lot of it makes it easier for us. You know, I use AI at times to help me shop for different items to make sure I'm getting the best deal possible for the best rated item. But you have to keep in mind, if you give them your credit card number, if you give them your username and password and access to accounts, there is situations where they can act on their own and go out there and make purchases that you don't necessarily authorize, depending on the settings that you have set up with the AI. So is the onus on you or is it on the institution that's using it to have safeguards in place? It's completely on you. A lot of the banks are making the stance now that any transaction that they are seeing on their network that comes from the AI, they're treating it as it came from you. So if you don't want to run that risk, what I would suggest you to do is change your password with that service to make sure that they don't have that access. If there's settings within the service itself, make those changes in there where it has to authorize by you to make the purchase and also work with your agent, the AI itself, to make sure that those safeguards are in place. And so you have to physically do this. You know, I know for a lot of people, their eyes glaze over. It feels too complicated. Is it a complicated process? I mean, let's give them the real right here. Or, you know, they've got to take some time to stop and actually do it. Or, you know, tell us the real of how easier or hard it is to have these AI agents, you know, to take them out of contention. Well, let's start from the beginning. If the AI agent has access to an account, you have granted that access at some point in time. So if you don't want that agent to have the access for you, you either go into the AI agent and turn it off or go into the actual service you're accessing, your bank account, Amazon, eBay, whatever that is, and change the password because the AI agent does not have your username and password. It will not have access to You've dealt with cybercrime and fraud. What concerns you most about these AI agents having access to your financial accounts? The biggest thing is them acting when it's not what you necessarily want to do. There's a concept out there that's called a prompt injection. That's when the AI will read instructions in a document or a web page and interpret it as an instruction that comes from you because it's a prompt that's being injected into that conversation. That's one of the biggest ones out there. Outside of that, I believe that they really are useful and they really are a good way of utilizing technology. You just have to make sure that the guardrails are put in place. And on top of everything else, you're keeping an eye on your account. Be aware when money's being transferred, when they are paying your bills or they're making transactions for you. If you keep the human in the middle of these transactions, the AI is a very useful tool. That's very important. And I'm glad that you said that, you know, that you can't remove yourself completely from these transactions. You've got to be there somewhere navigating this, because a lot of times I think that's the concern is that the human element is lost in this and that the robots are taking over. But you've just highlighted that you've got to be there. You've got to be active. Give us your three most important takeaways. If viewers remember only three things from what you've said or touched on this morning, what would that be? The biggest thing is don't grant that username and password to an AI agent to begin with. If you're not comfortable with the situation, don't even put yourself into it. If it's too late, the AI agent already has your username and password, especially to your bank accounts because the banks can't tell if it's an AI agent. Before you normally make that transaction, go into the bank account itself and turn off that access. Normally, that's just done by changing your password with the bank account because the AI will not have the new one. On the third, if you're going to employ these agents in your everyday life, make sure they only have read-only access. Make sure they don't have the authorization to make blanket purchases, blanket transfers, things of that nature without you being involved. Lastly, I'm wondering about iCounter, which is your company. What does it do? How can it help? We are a third-party detection and response for your third-party threats. So we leverage threat intelligence out there on the dark net, and we use that intelligence to make sure that your company does not suffer any intrusions or other network security instances coming from your third-party ecosystem. All right, and how can folks get a hold of you or reach out if they need to? It is our website, www.icounter.com. All right. Jason Brown is a cyber security and AI fraud expert and also with iCounter. Thank you so much for the insight this morning. We appreciate it. Appreciate you having me. Absolutely. Fox 5 Weekend Live. Taking a short break. We'll be back right after this.