00:00:00.000recently the ontario provincial police of collingwood and blue mountain ran into a scam
00:00:08.640so sophisticated that they said quote i've never seen this one before scams keep evolving from one
00:00:15.040of the senior constables martin hashey to talk more about it about scamming in canada in 2026
00:00:21.360and how it's affecting us someone who spent over two decades in cyber security an expert the
00:00:25.920principal at devsecops cloud security arvin money arvin how are you i'm doing great how are you
00:00:32.960well i'm good and this scares me because i have a mother about to turn 85 and i have friends um
00:00:39.520of all ages who are being victims of scams and this one was um basically there was bell canada
00:00:47.360were in the area doing work and all of a sudden someone got a call and an email thought it was
00:00:53.360legit and next thing you know the scammers were able to see emails from alleged telecommunication
00:01:00.080providers to allow scammers into the victim's computers arvind i've not heard of this how
00:01:05.840how new of a scam is this for people of canada so this is not a a new technique this has been around
00:01:13.360for a long time right uh ever since 2020 we have lost over 2.4 billion reported issues right so
00:01:21.200So many of them goes unreported as well, right?
00:01:24.800The ones who are there enough to kind of happy to report it back to the provincial police,
00:01:30.440they're the ones who kind of identify that over 2.4 billion has been lost since 2020, right?
00:01:36.700And with the new generation of AI voice impersonations, it has become much more common, right?
00:01:44.120So you're right, like the last couple of months, not only Hamilton, Kingston, quite a bit of other police operations have also been reported the same thing.
00:01:57.500That increased amount of scam has been seen, especially targeting the seniors, right?
00:02:03.180The most vulnerable group, I would suggest.
00:02:05.760So this has been on the rise, and people need to be aware that this happens in two channels.
00:02:11.460first they try to see if they can send an email to you saying that hey there is an upgrade happening
00:02:16.980the moment you see an upgrade happening and you see some people working on your belt
00:02:21.380that's where they hit the thing right they kind of give you a call and say that they come from
00:02:25.780belt they need you to troubleshoot certain things and you being on your vulnerable age just kind of
00:02:32.020makes it easier for them to say you don't worry i'm just sending you a link just click on the link
00:02:37.460boom they click on the link they take control of the device the mobile the laptop the phone
00:02:42.580transactions and they kind of transfer the wire the money out and it becomes very hard for uh
00:02:48.420police or anyone else to kind of catch these things like so if if i receive an email like
00:02:54.340this arvin and i'm a bell customer and i see the bell five truck and they're obviously
00:02:58.820they're working but then i get an email how do i know if it's legit or not
00:03:03.220it's always better to verify right the old technique is we assume people wearing a
00:03:11.220jacket jacket from bell is coming from bell no it's always better to verify right oh the first
00:03:17.060thing i would always do is go to my phone or anything call bell directly say that hey there
00:03:22.740is a guy who's standing outside my door asking permission to enter mine but i haven't received
00:03:28.100any notice by default you are in full rights to kind of deny them entry into your home or a call
00:03:35.700or anything by default right like i said that's the consumer's power unless and until we get a
00:03:41.300notification we don't need to allow or let anyone to work on i promise so call bell directly try to
00:03:47.700know if this is a legitimate thing if they say yes then ask them how can we verify and you can set up
00:03:54.020some verification some question again the alter spy technique right to making sure that the guy
00:03:59.860who's entering is who he is author authorizing him to kind of enter in as well as to call them
00:04:06.900you know canadians are in love with the movies like mission impossible and all those kind of
00:04:10.900movies in these scenarios play out in the movies but we're such trusting nice people is that part
00:04:17.940of our fault that we're get sucked in because we're like oh it's someone working oh what do you need
00:04:22.420to do so to be very honest i've been kind of um surprised with this nature i come from
00:04:30.020south asian background where we don't trust anything and then kind of put things out but
00:04:36.340here it's the other way around so the last 10 years i've changed right if anyone comes and i'm
00:04:40.660like come in let me get a glass of water for you how are you right i'm like okay what happened to
00:04:46.260me again uh it's not about the the warm polite thing it's about how the attackers try to exploit
00:04:54.740us right again we are humans we are supposed to have this good nature kind nature by default
00:05:00.900things have changed uh the power of money had changed us a lot but then the same thing had
00:05:06.020happened to the evil side as well people who want to attack now want to kind of act polite they do
00:05:11.140much more polite than us they're very kind to us they say okay i will help you with anything you
00:05:15.940want don't worry just kind of click on the link which i've sent to your link so that's how polite
00:05:20.980they have become as well i i i we we mentioned seniors and i do have concern for my senior
00:05:26.820mother but i get the sense arvin that canadians of all demographics and all ages are at risk of
00:05:32.500these scams and just because you think you're in your 20s and smart and sophisticated doesn't mean
00:05:37.620that someone couldn't scam you okay it's a surprising fact people at the age of 18 to 34
00:05:44.100say that they are very confident on spotting a spam and they are 18 percent of the spams which
00:05:49.540had happened wow so it's no longer the ability to say i can spot a spam rather the process what you
00:05:58.900need to know because ai had kind of changed the way how it is if i'm speaking to you right now
00:06:04.980the moment you publish it out my voice can be impersonated in three seconds and someone can
00:06:10.660call us arvin and exactly with the same intonation my breathing my accent everything can be
00:06:18.900impersonated within three to five seconds right and they're gonna call you and say hey this is
00:06:23.220arvin can you just transfer me a thousand dollars and you're gonna be like oh i have spoken to this
00:06:28.420guy before i know it is him i see it as a number very similar to him i'm gonna do it and imagine
00:06:35.140if it is coming from a family right hey i'm in an accident i'm in an emergency my phone's dead
00:06:40.900i'm calling from a different number mom can you transfer this thing to me
00:06:45.460you are in a panic mode they feel the panic to you
00:06:49.140and they kind of get the the money out of work this is not to disparage the people who work for
00:06:55.460the different police forces in the country they're all really qualified people but here you are some
00:07:00.660of over two decades of experience saying that with the use of ai scammers are so sophisticated
00:07:07.140they could slip one by anyone are police in canada are equipped to handle what's coming in
00:07:13.140this year in the next few years so um i would say bell uh to be very honest like this initiative
00:07:20.020from bell had kind of started off in the late 2022 and it has kind of evolved into a big program
00:07:25.300in july 2026 uh 2026 they announced their first uh project of bell anti-spam program where they
00:07:33.540are using ai to detect all these ai calls they have blocked over 1 billion calls in canada so
00:07:41.380this has been a major part in it and the government has kind of come up with a program to have every
00:07:48.180telecom provider implements such measures to ensure the least amount of spam goes through
00:07:55.940after these ai bots have kind of stopped them out so when i my phone rings and it says likely fraud
00:08:03.300is that that system at work exactly exactly so there are two ways to do it if you have an iphone
00:08:10.420by default all the bell providers they get a spam alert they get oh this is likely a stand and
00:08:17.060everybody else right if i'm an android i have an option to bypass that and kind of take control of
00:08:24.020my phone so there are settings where i can turn on caller identification in android and then i can
00:08:32.340still kind of aid it it's kind of a double-edged swap right sometimes bell has more intelligence
00:08:37.940knowledge and more data to prove that they can identify more scams right so it's better to
00:08:44.740sometimes leave it i've been testing that product for the last uh three months and it is doing well
00:08:49.540like i don't answer calls if it is coming from an unknown number which i don't know unless and
00:08:54.580until it directly now redirects to a voicemail they give me a text and then i read the text to
00:08:59.620see if this is a legitimate call which i'm expecting and then answer the call if not i
00:09:03.700don't even do that am i correct to assume arvin that not just police forces in canada but
00:09:10.260bell and rogers and other telecommunications now have to hire their own department
00:09:15.460to protect their customers and protect themselves exactly so again being from cyber security this is
00:09:22.420an opportunity for everyone who is part of the cyber security thing right because like you said
00:09:28.260more advancement on ai needs more people who needs to protect the defenses as well right
00:09:33.940bell has invested billions and so are rogers and other providers invested billions and billions
00:09:40.100to ensure that they can provide the best sales again we're talking about three major services
00:09:45.940in canada so if you don't protect your service you are going to lose those customers and the
00:09:51.860customer is going to kind of go dissatisfied to another one another one another one so you don't
00:09:56.660want to lose customers this is a kind of a subscription business month on month everyone
00:10:01.540needs a form you need and they need to pay for it so well everyone is investing money to ensure
00:10:08.980that their customers are protected how can they do it better and now with the government enforcing
00:10:14.100a mandate it becomes much more harder and mandate for them to put the money to ensure this has been
00:10:20.420happening even someone like you with all your experience and knowledge arvin how how shocked
00:10:25.380are you how sophisticated the scammers have become in the last few years all right um i'll have to
00:10:32.100kind of give you a live example so this is um again this is a different type of scam a little
00:10:38.260bit off right i wanted to kind of buy a phone so i went to a brand new phone cost me two thousand
00:10:44.340dollars i checked in facebook marketplace and the guy said it's a brand new phone i have the bill i
00:10:49.700have everything from best buy come over and buy i went on i believe i have it's the exact replica
00:10:56.180of a new samsung s25 right i gave 700 to the guy and i got cheated right home turned on it worked
00:11:06.580actually it worked i tried to make a call take a picture it worked but then came home after one day
00:11:11.940i could feel that okay this is not the right one because i used to have a similar phone before
00:11:16.740i switched to iphone between to just play around yeah but then i realized that it was an exact
00:11:22.340replica and 700 is gone so so you got scammed i got scammed i'm telling you so if i and the right
00:11:30.900age the right department i know exactly what things are and again it was the urgency it was
00:11:36.500a necessity i just kind of made it possible they kind of made me come to a place at an evening time
00:11:42.900on a gas station the guy was like okay perfectly dressed out saying like so no my aunt gave me as
00:11:49.220a gift this is my gift and he had the best buy gift right the best buy bill received which said
00:11:54.420yeah it was being gift received on this day everything is perfect so imagine like me looking
00:12:00.180at all these informations i'm going to assume that i'm going to save a thousand dollars here
00:12:04.180by just kind of buying a phone outside and that's exactly has gone up now so if you see any facebook
00:12:10.980marketplace ads you've got to be a little bit more careful on how to kind of process it that's
00:12:14.980why facebook is also trying to put in more verification to ensure that the guy who says
00:12:20.100it is is coming through so uh we got to be more careful now i'm glad you brought that up because
00:12:25.620i i know my family and my friends facebook marketplace has become a big big deal and
00:12:32.020you know sometimes i'll buy secondhand golf clubs or secondhand things because it's so much cheaper
00:12:37.780and i you know we meet in a parking lot by shoppers it looks legit like okay here's your money
00:12:43.460and so i just assume that they're not you know it's it's it's not stolen or it's not scammed or
00:12:48.900anything so yeah you won't believe i bought probably like two two laptops and kind of
00:12:54.820shipped them over to my home for my friends and family right again those worked amazing
00:12:59.540i'm not saying everyone's a son but like well there's one of an incident where it was an exact
00:13:04.260phone i even in fact had the phone here i would just show it to you but yeah yeah um it that's
00:13:09.780that's how scammers are now right again they're gonna kind of make you believe that if there is
00:13:16.100is a work happening in this street bell gives a notification or any company gives notification
00:13:21.460that okay i'm going to walk on your street you might see some trucks moving in that's their
00:13:26.260opportunity right and we post things on facebook saying hey i'm going here i'm going there so they
00:13:32.100take this information they make it so personal that you're going to believe that this is coming
00:13:37.460from a legitimate customer a legitimate account right so that's how they are kind of tricking
00:13:43.780peaked imagine a residential place where like hundreds of families everyone of all ages are
00:13:51.380going to be there ten thousand calls going into that five thousand answering two thousand talking
00:14:00.340thousand clicking that's their business and there is a service fraud as a service being sold out in
00:14:05.940dark web right you pay twenty dollars get the fraud as in service package ten thousand calls
00:14:12.740automated off that finally you get thousand calls 500 that get money done 20 you invest
00:14:20.420people try to get 500 600 bucks out that's it simple money just boom boom that's what they do
00:14:26.340so who who are the scammers in canada uh do they live in certain cities are they offshore
00:14:33.940are they different ages like that's one thing i don't understand arvin so uh it's it's a diverse
00:14:40.100thing right again uh there's no one particular group who does it there's been targeted people
00:14:46.260know there are easy ways to make money right again these are guys who might be just walking
00:14:52.580sideways and just try to understand close by you anyone there is no diversification and people of
00:15:00.100all ages account again some people who are younger are much more targeted to it because they are in
00:15:06.500in the business of making quick money right they they need the money they need the money to buy
00:15:11.540something they want to say okay why don't we try this out people they have this as a service
00:15:16.580available so they go to dark web provide this service try to do it there's been captures of
00:15:21.940people uh police have captured people as close as like 16 year old so not surprised that it is
00:15:28.100not the guy who's sitting in his garage trying to kind of mask himself is the guy who's just
00:15:32.740kind of walking around the street with a skate and a skateboard right so that that's that's been uh
00:15:38.420the surprise to us all when the scammers are caught and convicted what kind of sentences do
00:15:44.980they receive all right um it's it's funny like um again uh not talking anything political here i'm
00:15:52.420just going to be very honest yes the the um we need tighter rules to kind of ensure that if
00:15:59.620someone has been caught doing a mischievous activities like this they've been kind of
00:16:04.100punished hard not kind of okay to give me a bail of thousand or ten thousand dollars and just let
00:16:09.700them around we need to kind of have them put through difficult challenges in order to make
00:16:15.780sure these crimes don't happen again that's my perspective right there are people who would say
00:16:21.300yeah it's the first mistake to give and forget right but it doesn't go like that if you have a
00:16:27.620punishment harder and stronger that's when it becomes difficult for the younger generation to
00:16:33.460not adapt to those things if you're going to let them go the next day they're going to see the guy
00:16:37.780walking around who's coming at a fraud and everyone would know that he's just walking around
00:16:43.700that's simple so we need to have harder rules is what i i would say from my perspective
00:16:49.700because i'm thinking arvin if i scam you at a five thousand dollars how is that different than
00:16:55.140stealing 5 000 from a bank or a store so the moment something becomes physical the rules are
00:17:04.180harder the moment when then something is virtual there it is a little bit lenient then the harder
00:17:10.340physical it's as simple as like you can talk to talk to me and abuse me over over the call we can
00:17:15.780just have this as a thing that's a conversation the moment it becomes physical that's where i can
00:17:21.140kind of go and larger complaint if it is physical i can't if it is virtual or if it is over the phone
00:17:27.220i can't do much all i can do is report to the the king's in government the dnd and bell and
00:17:33.300other ones to spend but not much thing can happen right after that you made a good point you were
00:17:38.580talking about the scam that took place in collingwood with the opp and blue mountain
00:17:43.220that a lot of people don't report it why don't they report it if they've been scammed out of money
00:17:47.780all right here i have the right thing one of the most common thing is it's shame they're like oh
00:17:54.740come on how do i do it right like again like i said i'm a guy who's been working in the industry
00:18:00.740very long if i got stunned do you think i'm gonna kind of be reported back to them that's what i
00:18:05.780would think but then most of them the second item is most of them don't know what to do this
00:18:12.020i got scan i reported it but then what next what happens there's thousands of these complaints
00:18:18.500available but then people need to know where exactly they need to go and log in they need to
00:18:23.460kind of find it right you see a guy kind of riding riding the bike or riding the car crazy on the
00:18:29.780road then what do you do next you yell at the guy and then you just drive by we need to have a system
00:18:36.420which makes it easier for us to kind of okay click on the button on your phone it's going to
00:18:40.820directly just larger complaint give the number done so those kind of easy assessment should be
00:18:46.820available for the the canadian people so they can report these things much more faster and easier
00:18:52.980than look for five different numbers and kind of wait on a call for 15 minutes because i know when
00:18:58.100i get certain messages on facebook and i like i don't know this person and i delete it you can
00:19:03.780delete and report spam or scam and say hey like this person is trying to get in there so i agree
00:19:09.860that if it should be an option so right away it goes to like a fraud reporting center a central
00:19:15.700area so they can keep track and know what's going on yeah exactly like the moment we make things
00:19:22.500easier it becomes easy for people to report i'll give you a right example i was just driving from
00:19:28.820back to my office i saw a transit transit bus driver recklessly driving on the road
00:19:36.500i tried to kind of i was driving my customer so i called uh i tried to kind of stay in my ai to say
00:19:42.420hey who do i call and it gave me a number and i just dialed them when i dialed them they say oh
00:19:47.140you've got to kind of call a different number can you make note of that number right i'm driving by
00:19:51.780the way i'm not supposed to take my phone so i'm like okay let's forget it i'm not reporting this
00:19:57.380it just happened last evening right so the more difficult you've made five different numbers for
00:20:02.820me to contact i'm going to lose my interest to call them and report it that's exactly what's
00:20:07.300the reason for 80 percent of people who don't kind of call them is like they don't know where
00:20:11.620to call and when they call them they've been directed to five different places and then by
00:20:16.100that time they're so frustrated arvin they're like i just give up like it's not worth it yeah exactly
00:20:21.620that's the thing and again time is money right like uh we all have beautiful summer weather
00:20:26.660outside and sometimes it rains but yes we want to enjoy the summer so we're going to kind of forget
00:20:31.300all the momentum and then we're going to just carry on in life unless and until something else
00:20:36.340happens again at that point you realize you just stop i know mark carney in his cabinet they've
00:20:42.820appointed a minister now in charge of ai and the future of ai and um i wish them all the best
00:20:51.140you know this the person they appointed is a former broadcaster and writer i i just don't know
00:20:58.580what background they have what depth of knowledge they have in artificial intelligence it seems so
00:21:02.820sophisticated and growing at such an exponential rate i'm not sure if the government really
00:21:08.020understands just how in danger we are as canadians so uh good things about the appointment of the
00:21:15.300minister is that we have recently seen quite a bit of AI guidelines from the Canadian government.
00:21:21.140If you just kind of google Canadian government policies you would see quite a bit of documents.
00:21:27.140Now the challenge is once there is a document available there are enterprises and companies
00:21:31.300which need to follow them up but we need to have them as law right but because of our standard
00:21:39.060procedures and policies which takes time right to put a policy in effect have them pass through the
00:21:44.660build parliament and then kind of finally get signed up it takes time by this time you've
00:21:50.820already lost the five things australia the european countries they have already kind of made
00:21:56.580mandated laws for people to fought not only people the enterprises the big mnc's to follow
00:22:01.700to make sure their people are protected i think that's where we are kind of heading towards we
00:22:06.900have the policies the government has put them laid out guidelines properly it's just an enforcement
00:22:12.580which needs to happen faster and approvals and for the whole legislative process which takes a
00:22:17.460little bit of time arvin for people like you and in your brotherhood and sisterhood of cyber
00:22:22.660security people in the country is the government now the different provinces and the federal
00:22:27.540government funneling fraud stories and scam stories to cyber security people so you're aware
00:22:33.060of maybe new ones that are coming along uh quite a bit of um so i would say the canadian center
00:22:40.420for cyber security so this kind of provide this is kind of the hub where information from all
00:22:46.100these different sources kind of pour in and that has been sent out so you can subscribe it to those
00:22:52.900kind of newsletters which talk about events which happens every month on month or week on week as
00:22:57.940well right uh as of today there is wide information available so i have my agent bots which kind of
00:23:06.260tell me what is my summary of what are the events happening across the globe in the last 24 hours
00:23:11.140right those kind of summaries can help people to be aware of some threats and then know if something
00:23:18.260is happening or not right you can even catch it live at the point the speed of ai has helped not
00:23:24.180only the scammers but also the people who are uh defensive to kind of understand how can we
00:23:30.100protected against each uh of all of these threats if something happens in the far far partners of
00:23:36.900the world it's going to be like days away from coming to us so we need to be aware of those
00:23:42.180things it's not only the canadian market or the north american market we need to be aware of
00:23:47.460something which is happening far far west far east all over the world just to be aware that something
00:23:52.820might happen as quick as tomorrow so because there must be some days arvin you wake up you're like oh
00:23:57.940i got another one i gotta deal with it's it's not days now i wait on it's just like i would say
00:24:04.180every night right something's been happening on the other side so i'm like oh sure this is
00:24:08.740happening so keep the phone down and get up in the morning you see something else right so it is so
00:24:14.180fast that like we get fatigued like we are like tired to be very honest we're tired of kind of
00:24:19.140seeing so much of things happening and how can we materialize and how can we just make sure
00:24:24.820our companies the products our system is ecosystem is protected so it's it's kind of a race right
00:24:32.660now so we are all kind of trying to be faster leverage as much as ai bots agentic workflows
00:24:39.700to protect as well as to ensure the information what we kind of see far east is coming to us fast
00:24:48.340the things like nordvpn and uh mcafee or mcafee however you want to pronounce it and all the
00:24:54.500different cyber security software things you can get at best buy or on amazon but a are they good
00:25:00.420and b are they helpful in preventing stuff like happened with the bell scam in collingwood
00:25:05.860oh um they're good that's the first thing i would say right but again they are not full
00:25:12.340you need to kind of make sure that like you protecting your antivirus or updating these
00:25:17.540tools and having a vpn would give you one piece of money right it's it's better to have something
00:25:24.500than nothing but the second piece is that they're not going to kind of protect you from the scam
00:25:30.100posts right they are okay to protect your system from a malware running around but if you had
00:25:37.140approved someone to run something on your system right there are places where the new tools can
00:25:43.940turn those things off because of the permission we give to by clicking on that link it turns off
00:25:49.940those controls on the system and have them run to uh remote access they're called the rats right
00:25:55.700so they're again sophisticated right like let's say like they first check what systems you have
00:26:01.220it's called a passive information gatherer at that point they try to see okay you have a mcafe
00:26:06.820you do have nothing you have others can other anti-antivirus systems they try to see what can
00:26:12.500i do next to turn them off so those are called silent detection uh the way how detection works
00:26:19.460is simple right you're going to get the message and immediately if you send something back they're
00:26:23.540going to end up alert they're going to wait these alerts are going to wait they wait for a time
00:26:28.820where it is going to be small packets being sent out that way the information goes out to the
00:26:33.940hacker he analyzes that and then kind of sends the next packet flood out so it's kind of a
00:26:39.940a win-win situation that's interesting because i think myself and a lot of canadians are going to
00:26:46.100assume that once you click on like the the fake bell email like the people in collingwood it
00:26:51.620automatically goes but you're saying they're playing the long game and they'll wait days
00:26:56.260and weeks and months to get into your system so you may have clicked on something three months
00:27:00.820ago that's just hitting you now exactly so uh people need to understand that it's something
00:27:08.740we kind of answer on a known number right you remember the robocalls pretty sure you would have
00:27:14.020kind of talked quite a bit of they just wait for you and you hear beep sounds on the background
00:27:19.780those sounds are nothing but dial tone they're just trying to kind of click one two three on
00:27:24.820your dial the moment you hear a silent thing i would say better hang up if you see a likely call
00:27:30.420don't even answer that because again like i said not everyone's after the the money right there's
00:27:37.220quite a bit of people who wanted to kind of have the long game right let's say like you work for
00:27:42.580the canadian government right i'm trying to kind of play the long game here what sort of an influence
00:27:47.860can you do it what sort of an information can i dig through your phone right again phone is
00:27:54.180something an extended arm right now to everyone right the moment you lose it you just want to
00:27:58.420kind of go panic with all those things and coming in play i'm playing the long game right the the
00:28:03.940hackers playing that as well so they're trying to kind of see what can i get out of this person
00:28:08.340how much how much of a maximum impact can i get out of this hack so we've got to be very careful
00:28:14.900and people who are especially on uh high high places need to be very aware of these scans and
00:28:20.660they need to avoid to kind of stay off of this and arvin i i know it's become commonplace now
00:28:25.940we're free months to hear a story that someone hacked into the email server of a a company and
00:28:31.940And all of a sudden, a business person, a politician's or celebrity's emails are being broadcast on the internet and social media because someone hacked into them.