1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,640 Today on our Tech for Business podcast, we're joined by our marvelous marketing masters. 2 00:00:07,640 --> 00:00:09,480 I think is what we were called. 3 00:00:09,480 --> 00:00:15,160 Tara, our marketing and business development manager at Kelsey, our graphic design and 4 00:00:15,160 --> 00:00:17,040 brand strategist. 5 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:18,040 What long titles. 6 00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:21,360 But there's so much that we do. 7 00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:25,520 And today we're talking about is it malicious or is it marketing? 8 00:00:25,520 --> 00:00:31,040 I'm actually going to go into Kelsey because I know that this idea kind of came up in a 9 00:00:31,040 --> 00:00:32,040 different podcast. 10 00:00:32,040 --> 00:00:37,040 And I was wondering if you'd give us a little background about how we ended up here today. 11 00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:38,440 Yeah, totally. 12 00:00:38,440 --> 00:00:42,520 I know this is weird to be on the other side of the mic to be like, not just listening. 13 00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:44,640 I actually have to say something to you. 14 00:00:44,640 --> 00:00:50,440 But we were talking post podcast as we do talking about your codes and people going, Hey, it's 15 00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:51,440 spammy. 16 00:00:51,440 --> 00:00:55,400 And then we were like, okay, when it really boils down to it. 17 00:00:55,400 --> 00:00:58,760 And then we're going to do it for marketers and right for ad actors, people that design 18 00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:02,440 fishing campaigns is what I'm going to call it for today. 19 00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:05,180 We're both trying to get people to take an action. 20 00:01:05,180 --> 00:01:08,160 So then it brings the question with all these tactics. 21 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:10,640 And Q R goes right, we'll go into all of that. 22 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:16,040 Is it malicious or is it just a creative marketing attempt to try to get you to buy a product 23 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:17,400 or connect with a company? 24 00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:21,040 So yeah, that's long story short how we landed here today. 25 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:22,040 Sure. 26 00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:26,400 So, Kara is our fearless leader. 27 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:32,280 I just want to level that a little bit because most of our listeners are in business of some 28 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:33,280 sort. 29 00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:37,780 But could you explain a little bit the difference when we're talking about spam fishing and 30 00:01:37,780 --> 00:01:40,040 marketing because sometimes it can feel similar? 31 00:01:40,040 --> 00:01:41,040 Yes, it can. 32 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:45,280 And I think it's very pointed that we're talking about that today. 33 00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:51,240 Most of our customers and prospects are used to CIT and how we go about engaging them. 34 00:01:51,240 --> 00:01:57,200 And we do a lot via our emails that we send out to them and our website as well. 35 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:01,720 And we are big proponents of education to our customers as well. 36 00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:08,880 So, we want to make sure today of how do you recognize some of those fishing pieces or spam 37 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:13,800 and ensuring that the email that you're getting from CIT is legit. 38 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:19,880 And we'll go into a little bit detail as to how you can find which ones would be malicious 39 00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:21,200 and which ones are not. 40 00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:28,320 But I know from the marketing perspective that CAND spam, excuse me, log went into place 41 00:02:28,320 --> 00:02:29,820 in 2013. 42 00:02:29,820 --> 00:02:35,960 And it's really basic information to protect us as CIT, but also the users that are going 43 00:02:35,960 --> 00:02:37,760 to be getting those emails. 44 00:02:37,760 --> 00:02:42,920 And it's really just as simple as is it looking like it's coming from CIT? 45 00:02:42,920 --> 00:02:47,800 Are there weird and deceptive subject lines that are different from what generally CIT 46 00:02:47,800 --> 00:02:49,320 would send out? 47 00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:54,440 Is there an ad that somehow is in that email that might be a little too good to be true 48 00:02:54,440 --> 00:02:56,880 that kind of makes you cause for a pause? 49 00:02:56,880 --> 00:02:59,600 And I like to say it of, well, that's really weird. 50 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:02,960 I wonder if that's really actually happening at CIT. 51 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:05,160 And we really have to tell you to like where we're located. 52 00:03:05,160 --> 00:03:09,760 So, if you get an email that doesn't have any of the contact information below or your 53 00:03:09,760 --> 00:03:13,720 unsubscribe link below, those are kind of weird things that you want to kind of raise 54 00:03:13,720 --> 00:03:15,920 your hand and be like, I think that's on. 55 00:03:15,920 --> 00:03:18,400 Maybe I need to mark that as spam because it's not from CIT. 56 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:20,280 Yeah, we're all about that training. 57 00:03:20,280 --> 00:03:21,960 We're all about that end user training here. 58 00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:24,560 We talk about that more. 59 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:29,520 And I will have plenty of like educational materials and things in the description, even 60 00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:33,680 some stuff you can kind of send out and train your employees on. 61 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:38,960 But I'm kind of wondering if it would be valuable to go a little bit into like, we talked a 62 00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:41,400 little bit about like the different channels. 63 00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:50,120 So email or Google ads or even an advertisement on TV, sort of what we kind of look for or 64 00:03:50,120 --> 00:03:51,120 what's sort of expected. 65 00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:52,120 Yeah, absolutely. 66 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:53,120 I'm excited to say, Terin, so much. 67 00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:54,120 Do you want to go first? 68 00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:55,120 Yeah. 69 00:03:55,120 --> 00:03:57,600 Yeah, I'll go first and then I can hand it over to Kelsey. 70 00:03:57,600 --> 00:04:02,600 So she had mentioned previously, like we in marketing are looking for what we call the 71 00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:05,120 CTA, called the action. 72 00:04:05,120 --> 00:04:11,160 So typically some type of email that we would send out or if it's a QR code on a postcard, 73 00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:15,280 we're wanting you to take some type of action to then get some additional information because 74 00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:17,480 we want to be very particular. 75 00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:21,560 And when we're sending those that we know that you're a prospect or that you're a customer 76 00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:24,080 and that you're interested in X, Y and Z. 77 00:04:24,080 --> 00:04:27,920 So we do focus a lot on the segmentation of those messages. 78 00:04:27,920 --> 00:04:33,080 So it would be odd if you're in, you know, finance and you're getting an email, you know, 79 00:04:33,080 --> 00:04:37,460 about something that's not pertaining to you that typically will raise some of those red 80 00:04:37,460 --> 00:04:38,460 flags. 81 00:04:38,460 --> 00:04:42,520 And, you know, just kind of take a look at that, but that call to action is really kind 82 00:04:42,520 --> 00:04:43,520 of that next step. 83 00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:47,400 And there are ways that you can hover over and kind of take a look at it and see if it's 84 00:04:47,400 --> 00:04:49,160 coming from the appropriate domain. 85 00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:52,200 But I'll pass it to Kelsey and she can talk a little bit further on that. 86 00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:53,200 Yeah. 87 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:56,160 And just to kind of zoom out a little bit, I think Terin's done a great job being like 88 00:04:56,160 --> 00:05:00,600 here at CIT, we do all of these things and then kind of going, hey, as a consumer, what 89 00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:02,720 do you expect? 90 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:04,680 What card, what sort of ads are you expecting to see? 91 00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:07,280 It's the whole, hey, did you mention something? 92 00:05:07,280 --> 00:05:09,880 Now you're getting five different Instagram ads about it. 93 00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:11,520 And I'm like, this is both a good and a bad thing. 94 00:05:11,520 --> 00:05:13,640 It's the hyper personalization, right? 95 00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:18,360 I'm going, you're expecting to see these things because you took an action, which insider 96 00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:19,360 knowledge, right? 97 00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:22,320 That's going, hey, if you're using a private browser, you're not then right giving up your 98 00:05:22,320 --> 00:05:23,320 IP address. 99 00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:25,600 You're not showing what you're doing on their website. 100 00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:30,520 So that's kind of the good and bad of going, hey, if you're expecting to be hyper personalized 101 00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:34,680 marketing to that problem, it means that don't do the browsing. 102 00:05:34,680 --> 00:05:38,160 If you'd rather that us as marketers not know anything about you, turn on that private 103 00:05:38,160 --> 00:05:40,640 browsing 100% again, we're not technical resources. 104 00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:45,360 We have separate podcasts about social engineering, all of that jazz, but go on from there and 105 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:50,880 then pulling back yet a step again of going, hey, we mentioned TV ads and QR codes. 106 00:05:50,880 --> 00:05:56,960 That was the one thing that we talked with Todd, our, yes, COO and CISO. 107 00:05:56,960 --> 00:05:59,480 Yeah. 108 00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:00,480 But right. 109 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:01,800 So we asked him, we said, okay, super cool. 110 00:06:01,800 --> 00:06:05,200 You see just a QR code on the screen, there's no branding. 111 00:06:05,200 --> 00:06:06,200 There's no nothing. 112 00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:07,360 It's just a QR code. 113 00:06:07,360 --> 00:06:08,360 What do you do with that? 114 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:14,680 Again, if you pick up your phone, hover over it, it's going to pre-display a URL. 115 00:06:14,680 --> 00:06:19,320 Now with a lot of different marketing software is that URL may not look, it may have some 116 00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:21,760 Google gibberish before it. 117 00:06:21,760 --> 00:06:24,120 It may have some Mercado gibberish before it. 118 00:06:24,120 --> 00:06:25,440 So that alone, right? 119 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:30,480 Isn't telling you a ton about it, but it is going, you still haven't taken action. 120 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:34,760 And just by scanning a QR code, your phone is not automatically taking an action. 121 00:06:34,760 --> 00:06:38,280 Yes, as their technology is going, hey, now you can do all of these different things. 122 00:06:38,280 --> 00:06:39,880 You can open all these different things. 123 00:06:39,880 --> 00:06:43,280 Yes, but typically in order to take that next step, you're clicking on it. 124 00:06:43,280 --> 00:06:45,800 It's then opening the URL from there. 125 00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:48,520 A lot of times then right there's the credential harvesting. 126 00:06:48,520 --> 00:06:51,400 There's going through and saying, hey, enter all of this stuff. 127 00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:54,720 Exactly as Tara talked about, if you scan it and all of a sudden it's going, get six 128 00:06:54,720 --> 00:06:57,120 months of managed services free from CIT. 129 00:06:57,120 --> 00:07:01,320 Yes, sadly, that's probably not an offer that we're running that maybe seems a little bit 130 00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:04,400 sus by going back to, hey, it's a Super Bowl. 131 00:07:04,400 --> 00:07:10,280 The amount of money and the amount of infrastructure that goes into those ads and the amount that 132 00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:14,560 they're reviewed, it's highly unlikely that that's a malicious link. 133 00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:15,560 Why? 134 00:07:15,560 --> 00:07:20,600 Because right the advertising company, people test that before it goes live on the air, 135 00:07:20,600 --> 00:07:23,040 where we see right ads on Google. 136 00:07:23,040 --> 00:07:27,080 Those are being reviewed by Google, but the amount of ads that are going out daily that 137 00:07:27,080 --> 00:07:31,360 people are submitting are just too many to be able to capture everything. 138 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:35,640 Even write the like suggested you are on the top of your Google search results. 139 00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:38,120 Maybe phishing, hover over that. 140 00:07:38,120 --> 00:07:42,240 They can make it look like just about anything, especially as we get into holiday season, depending 141 00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:43,680 on whatever this episode airs. 142 00:07:43,680 --> 00:07:48,160 Yeah, if you're shopping, maybe scroll down below, which then also is marketers, then 143 00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:51,200 you're not paying for clicks on those top ones. 144 00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:56,320 Little insider knowledge on all of those fun Google ads, but that's going from anything 145 00:07:56,320 --> 00:07:58,960 from a QR code to a commercial to any of those things. 146 00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:03,640 Just look at what's the source is that your local per is it a YouTube ad? 147 00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:05,240 Those are Google ads. 148 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:07,000 That's probably easier to get on there. 149 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:08,000 Maybe pause. 150 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:11,800 Again, if you're a Google ad, you're probably good to go. 151 00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:17,160 If it's a QR code, postcard from somebody at a booth that works for the company that 152 00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:20,280 you're expecting, you can probably scan that code. 153 00:08:20,280 --> 00:08:21,600 That's totally fine. 154 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:22,600 Stick around a light pole. 155 00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:26,280 Yeah, I could probably just Google that company name or Google something about it. 156 00:08:26,280 --> 00:08:28,920 I'm probably not going to just scan that in a coffee shop. 157 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:33,960 Again, slow down enough to question it for just a second is the very boiled down advice 158 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:34,960 there. 159 00:08:34,960 --> 00:08:38,760 Yeah, I did want to mention one thing too, and we talk about this of just overall education 160 00:08:38,760 --> 00:08:43,280 when it comes to cybersecurity is always you can go back out to their website. 161 00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:45,840 If you feel like that email, don't click on the link. 162 00:08:45,840 --> 00:08:47,320 Go out to CIT's website. 163 00:08:47,320 --> 00:08:51,320 If you got an ad from Target, go to Target website and enter in. 164 00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:55,640 If you need to sign into your account that way, that way you know it's a trusted source 165 00:08:55,640 --> 00:09:01,080 and you see the little secure up there in that left hand corner where it's the web link. 166 00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:06,040 Another little tidbit that I heard, I'm sure you guys are hearing constantly from CIT, 167 00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:09,280 but it really does make sense to be like, well, just pause for a little bit and let's 168 00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:11,040 try something different. 169 00:09:11,040 --> 00:09:15,880 One last thing to note, it's going to be rare from marketers though too, like from CIT 170 00:09:15,880 --> 00:09:20,960 that we're going to ask you to put in your password for something related to something 171 00:09:20,960 --> 00:09:23,760 that we're offering, whether it's just a quick little webinar. 172 00:09:23,760 --> 00:09:27,160 We don't have passwords where you have to enter in information. 173 00:09:27,160 --> 00:09:31,880 That's something too, is kind of familiarize yourself with the process from the organizations 174 00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:32,880 that you're working with. 175 00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:36,880 If it's something out of that norm, that's going to raise a little bit of the red flags 176 00:09:36,880 --> 00:09:40,560 to be like, we are, they've never asked of me before, should I do that? 177 00:09:40,560 --> 00:09:41,880 Just wanted to mention that piece. 178 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:45,960 100% and kind of right to go, hey, this is everything that we're doing. 179 00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:46,960 This is what to expect. 180 00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:51,440 It's also going, hey, maybe if you're listening and you have an internal marketing department 181 00:09:51,440 --> 00:09:53,440 and they're sitting and I know, Terry. 182 00:09:53,440 --> 00:09:55,320 We sit at our leadership meetings, right? 183 00:09:55,320 --> 00:09:59,040 And we occasionally get feedback internally of now looks spammy. 184 00:09:59,040 --> 00:10:02,000 That looks like fishing, which right is a marketer here? 185 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:04,400 Like, no, it's nothing that I ever wanted. 186 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:09,400 And right as our in-house kind of graphic designer is one of my roles, we try to pride 187 00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:13,360 ourselves in doing graphic design that looks professional. 188 00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:19,920 It doesn't look like we used word art to make it, which right is kind of a fine sort of, 189 00:10:19,920 --> 00:10:20,920 right? 190 00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:25,400 And I'm not saying that occasionally also realizing that your mail, right? 191 00:10:25,400 --> 00:10:27,120 So I'll look at my desktop. 192 00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:33,720 Could review all of the good, beautiful, gorgeous images that we threw in an email all formatting 193 00:10:33,720 --> 00:10:38,360 and all of a sudden you got Gaby Gooke and you're like, yeah, that does look like fishing. 194 00:10:38,360 --> 00:10:42,520 Do I also love our security team and realize that there's a lot of things in place internally 195 00:10:42,520 --> 00:10:44,280 to make sure that we're secure? 196 00:10:44,280 --> 00:10:46,240 Yes, 100%. 197 00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:49,000 Does that email occasionally look a lot better on my phone? 198 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:50,000 Yes. 199 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:51,000 100%. 200 00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:56,520 So right, realizing where some of the plain text emails that you may see coming from, 201 00:10:56,520 --> 00:11:00,600 right, that's part of we have to look at it as marketers and go, what makes sense to add 202 00:11:00,600 --> 00:11:06,280 a visual versus what makes sense to have a plain text because the content is more important 203 00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:10,880 than the res of dazzling, even though I love to make things sparkly and love to make them 204 00:11:10,880 --> 00:11:12,120 look good. 205 00:11:12,120 --> 00:11:14,880 But it's just the world that we live in that those images may be removed. 206 00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:18,560 And then you're going, hey, I even got an email the other day that said, if you can't 207 00:11:18,560 --> 00:11:20,920 see this email, click allow images. 208 00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:28,240 And it was like, yes, 100%, you may get some of that just by allowing images again is not 209 00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:31,680 all of a sudden putting yourself in a giant security risk, which again, I feel like I 210 00:11:31,680 --> 00:11:36,160 should ask for a marketer, not a cybersecurity expert. 211 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:38,000 Could that ever be a thing potentially? 212 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:42,760 But all it's doing is allowing those images to download, which we've all had emails that 213 00:11:42,760 --> 00:11:44,920 are completely blank until that downloads. 214 00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:50,120 And then you're going, it's because the marketer wanted to use a gift, whichever one you're 215 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:51,120 saying today. 216 00:11:51,120 --> 00:11:54,760 And they wanted it to look pretty, yes, most of the time. 217 00:11:54,760 --> 00:11:55,760 For sure. 218 00:11:55,760 --> 00:12:02,440 I think I also wanted to add that a lot of our listeners are like, IT admin or security 219 00:12:02,440 --> 00:12:03,440 professionals. 220 00:12:03,440 --> 00:12:08,040 And you might be listening to this and getting like, like it's the holiday season, like what 221 00:12:08,040 --> 00:12:11,560 they're doing on their personal phone is, you know, I hope that they're safe, but it's 222 00:12:11,560 --> 00:12:12,560 not my job. 223 00:12:12,560 --> 00:12:18,600 And you know what, there's a blend of like your work technology and your home technology. 224 00:12:18,600 --> 00:12:22,160 I know that I have teams on my personal phone. 225 00:12:22,160 --> 00:12:27,880 Like there is this blurring line, not that it's the security's responsibility to take 226 00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:32,200 care of what you're doing in your personal life, but you still need to keep these things 227 00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:40,320 in mind when you are doing your holiday shopping, doing these things for Black Friday, because 228 00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:43,920 there might be something on your phone that's going to connect back to your business and 229 00:12:43,920 --> 00:12:44,920 your company. 230 00:12:44,920 --> 00:12:46,920 That just sparks something. 231 00:12:46,920 --> 00:12:52,320 Sorry, Darryl, I'm like, text marketing, text marketing, right? 232 00:12:52,320 --> 00:12:55,840 Because that's another tool in the toolkit of is it malicious? 233 00:12:55,840 --> 00:12:57,200 Is it marketing? 234 00:12:57,200 --> 00:13:01,840 Do I get now an entire, essentially, I'm that person, if anybody listening looked at my 235 00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:05,080 phone, they'd be like, you have that many unredeux messages. 236 00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:07,160 And I'm like, well, I have an Apple watch. 237 00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:11,640 So I see right in the advertisements come up and then I just spray it to mark them as 238 00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:13,200 red has Apple address that. 239 00:13:13,200 --> 00:13:16,600 Yes, I could tangent on that, but we're going to move right on past that. 240 00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:21,080 But go on the text that you get, hey, we couldn't deliver this package. 241 00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:22,080 Please click here. 242 00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:23,080 Right. 243 00:13:23,080 --> 00:13:28,760 And those, again, sense of urgency, very timely, those things. 244 00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:32,600 Typically with UPS, ever send you a text message, without you opting in. 245 00:13:32,600 --> 00:13:34,520 No, you would know you would have opted in. 246 00:13:34,520 --> 00:13:36,040 It would have been from an expected number. 247 00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:40,480 It would not have just randomly been, hey, I put my number in for an order. 248 00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:43,640 Yes, but you still have to opt into texting. 249 00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:47,560 Again, it's that taking the action of going, I said yes to this. 250 00:13:47,560 --> 00:13:48,880 So I'm expecting it. 251 00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:54,800 And the tears point earlier, you can go out and check your order number just to be safe. 252 00:13:54,800 --> 00:13:59,680 But that's to your point, Ariel guy, hey, we have work things on our devices are devices 253 00:13:59,680 --> 00:14:02,760 also managed by work without the other. 254 00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:05,200 Yeah, that's a whole number of tangent that you can get into. 255 00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:08,640 But that's something that, hey, you're running around on your lunch break. 256 00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:11,880 You click on something, because it was text message. 257 00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:14,280 Yeah, 100%. 258 00:14:14,280 --> 00:14:18,840 That's another way that could be just a good educational thing for your entire staff. 259 00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:23,400 Yeah, I was just going to mention along those lines, Ariel, and with the IT folks that might 260 00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:27,480 be listened to, they will adhere to certain policies. 261 00:14:27,480 --> 00:14:32,640 So if you are your acceptable user policy to make sure that you're not doing a bunch 262 00:14:32,640 --> 00:14:36,360 of personal stuff on your work device, because a lot of organizations will have that just 263 00:14:36,360 --> 00:14:38,520 from a cybersecurity perspective. 264 00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:42,520 But I think we've all been, we've all done it, you know, on occasion, like Kelsey said, 265 00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:45,120 you got a text and you have some of it on your personal phone. 266 00:14:45,120 --> 00:14:49,160 But especially with the holidays, I know I was listening to the news that a lot of people 267 00:14:49,160 --> 00:14:52,280 are starting the Black Friday sales now. 268 00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:56,080 And so just keep that in mind that you're going to start to see that because even though 269 00:14:56,080 --> 00:14:59,920 some people may wait into the true holidays, there's a lot of stuff that's ticking up right 270 00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:02,080 now that there's deals going on. 271 00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:06,440 And again, you know, getting back to if it sounds too good to be true, then maybe second 272 00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:09,520 guess it and be like, I don't think that's really going to happen. 273 00:15:09,520 --> 00:15:14,960 Or, you know, there's some type of ad that is like misspelled and looks a little weird 274 00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:15,960 too. 275 00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:18,840 Those are kind of telltale science to kind of shy away from that and be like, no, thank 276 00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:23,240 you on put them in the spam folder, Marcus, spam, phishing and move on. 277 00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:25,440 Marcus spam, yeah, do a little fall cleaning on your inbox. 278 00:15:25,440 --> 00:15:31,200 Do a couple unsubscribes, 100%, which I think all on this too made me think of when Tara 279 00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:35,040 and I were looking at different resources before this that go like, there's malnortizing. 280 00:15:35,040 --> 00:15:37,360 So again, is it malicious or is it market marketing? 281 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:38,360 Is it malnortizing? 282 00:15:38,360 --> 00:15:42,720 If it's an ad that doesn't seem to align with you recently looked at pots and pans that 283 00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:44,920 may see is because they are on a Black Friday sale. 284 00:15:44,920 --> 00:15:49,280 All of a sudden it's an ad for something that's completely outside the realm of anything you've 285 00:15:49,280 --> 00:15:51,640 been shopping for. 286 00:15:51,640 --> 00:15:52,640 That should be suspicious. 287 00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:53,640 It's not just bad marketing. 288 00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:56,880 It could be bad marketing of going, hey, we picked the wrong target market and did these 289 00:15:56,880 --> 00:15:57,880 things. 290 00:15:57,880 --> 00:16:03,240 And hey, if a marketing team is doing Google ads, there's a good chance that they're trying 291 00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:09,920 to make it hyper personalized to you to not just say, as a marketer, I would never go, 292 00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:11,520 hey, your package is late. 293 00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:15,840 By the way, here's how we can secure you for cyber security. 294 00:16:15,840 --> 00:16:17,880 That's a little bit too mean. 295 00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:20,480 That's taking it to a place that I would not want to go. 296 00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:22,560 That's click baiting to a place that's going. 297 00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:25,760 Yeah, I would agree with the feedback that looks spammy. 298 00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:26,760 Yeah. 299 00:16:26,760 --> 00:16:31,880 I think, again, I'll have a ton of resources in the description, but it really comes down 300 00:16:31,880 --> 00:16:38,080 to rust between the customer and the company. 301 00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:42,080 We trust you to opt in, and if you don't want that information, we give you the opportunity 302 00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:43,080 to opt out. 303 00:16:43,080 --> 00:16:50,960 And so if anything is outside of that relationship, then I would question it. 304 00:16:50,960 --> 00:16:52,520 But I wanted to open it up. 305 00:16:52,520 --> 00:16:54,560 If there's anything else you wanted to share. 306 00:16:54,560 --> 00:16:56,640 Again, it's a part of the end. 307 00:16:56,640 --> 00:16:59,760 I was saying anything from you, Tara? 308 00:16:59,760 --> 00:17:02,760 We like to tangent so we can always go down different routes. 309 00:17:02,760 --> 00:17:06,160 But I think that really gets to the gist of it. 310 00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:09,680 We wanted to make sure that everybody was just aware of what's out there, especially 311 00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:13,760 like I had mentioned, the holiday seasons coming up, just cause for pause, as I like 312 00:17:13,760 --> 00:17:16,120 to say, of what's really going to be real. 313 00:17:16,120 --> 00:17:20,440 And if you ever have questions, that's why you have your IT department is to ask them 314 00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:25,480 to because maybe if there's something weird, market is fishing because they can always retrieve 315 00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:28,400 it back if it actually was a legitimate email. 316 00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:32,800 So again, better be safe and sorry, because you don't want to be that person we talk about. 317 00:17:32,800 --> 00:17:38,320 It's really the end user that typically is causing the most issues when it comes to cybersecurity. 318 00:17:38,320 --> 00:17:43,160 So make sure you're not going to be that one user that happens to click something that 319 00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:47,680 could could lead to a lot of damage to your organization. 320 00:17:47,680 --> 00:17:51,720 And on the flip side, and any of the organizations that are big enough to have internal marketing 321 00:17:51,720 --> 00:17:55,600 or if you work with somebody external and you're going, should we be concerned? 322 00:17:55,600 --> 00:17:59,720 I'm seeing all these reports that QR codes are being used for fishing. 323 00:17:59,720 --> 00:18:01,680 Should we not use QR codes? 324 00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:03,320 Should we not use these additional technologies? 325 00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:05,920 Should we not use Google ads? 326 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:07,200 It is your business's decisions. 327 00:18:07,200 --> 00:18:09,400 I'm not here at all to go, no, you should do this. 328 00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:13,560 Of course, I'm going to lobby for the side of going, hey, trust your marketers to do 329 00:18:13,560 --> 00:18:17,520 things that are ethical. 330 00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:19,720 Don't look too like 80. 331 00:18:19,720 --> 00:18:25,680 Don't have misspellings, aren't sending out things without an unsubscribed link, right? 332 00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:30,520 Just good best practices, but still allowing that bit of creative freedom to go. 333 00:18:30,520 --> 00:18:36,480 Hey, it is a super nice way to link somebody to the information they need with a QR code. 334 00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:39,360 That's accessible that people are getting used to. 335 00:18:39,360 --> 00:18:42,040 So right, that would be my little personal that I'm like, please don't shy away from 336 00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:47,400 this great technology that we have or from using texts as part of your advertising scheme 337 00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:52,760 from using Google ads from doing these things, but also realizing that with your brand, you're 338 00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:57,440 still being consistent, you're still using the same voice, you're still doing things 339 00:18:57,440 --> 00:19:02,640 that your customer base expects and you're hyper personalizing everything to them with 340 00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:06,360 realizing that they have the ability to opt out of giving you any information that you 341 00:19:06,360 --> 00:19:10,000 still have to have a fallback of going, what do I do if I know nothing about you? 342 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:13,600 I did want to mention, sorry, one last thing, Ariel, and then I will, I promise I'll be 343 00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:14,600 quiet. 344 00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:20,760 So with CIT, we're somewhat small enough that we're able to let all of our CIT employees 345 00:19:20,760 --> 00:19:24,240 know when we're sending out large customer communications. 346 00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:26,920 And I wanted to mention that because I do think that is key. 347 00:19:26,920 --> 00:19:31,560 I mean, we use our internet and also our team's messaging. 348 00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:36,920 So our support staff does know if we send out a large message to customers. 349 00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:41,160 So if any questions do come up, they're able to look into that information to say, yes, 350 00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:42,320 that I actually was marketing. 351 00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:43,880 There are actions that need to happen. 352 00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:49,320 So kind of another fail safe thing just to make sure everybody is included on those communications. 353 00:19:49,320 --> 00:19:54,120 I know with larger ones, it might be difficult to let everybody know everything that marketing 354 00:19:54,120 --> 00:19:55,120 is doing. 355 00:19:55,120 --> 00:19:59,160 But some of the ones that are very important when it goes to a larger group of customers, 356 00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:04,600 I think it's really nice to keep that interdepartment communication very active and knowing what's 357 00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:05,600 happening. 358 00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:08,200 Tara, that was a great point that I saw that I saw almost done. 359 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:14,800 You're like, I was like, see you, I'm going, what Tara is talking about is what we define 360 00:20:14,800 --> 00:20:16,120 as operational email. 361 00:20:16,120 --> 00:20:20,880 So to go back and if you're like, hey, I got an email from CIT and there was no unsubscribing, 362 00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:23,400 may have been an operational email. 363 00:20:23,400 --> 00:20:26,640 Operational emails are things like you signed up for a webinar and confirmation here is 364 00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:30,960 something that we think those typically do not have an unsubscribe link at the bottom 365 00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:34,240 because there is no sales method going. 366 00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:38,520 You could have unsubscribed from something, but we want you to get the email link to a 367 00:20:38,520 --> 00:20:40,080 webinar if you got that. 368 00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:44,480 If you're a user of one of the services and we have an important communication to you, 369 00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:50,080 that's considered an operational send versus a marketing send, which yes, 100% document 370 00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:55,960 what you're doing, communicate to internal and then externally know what to expect. 371 00:20:55,960 --> 00:21:00,640 I realized that just because something doesn't have unscribed, look at what the content is. 372 00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:05,440 If it's you're a managed services customer and this is an update of something that you 373 00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:09,320 have installed, yes, of course, we'll also provide the phone number and the email. 374 00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:12,000 You don't even have to respond to that email. 375 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:15,840 You can call to verify, but those types of things. 376 00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:20,360 Now if it's like red alert, all this stuff is on fire and it seems to be out of CIT's 377 00:21:20,360 --> 00:21:22,160 process, yeah, calls for pause. 378 00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:23,160 For sure. 379 00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:27,200 I was just going to re-highlight the communication, not only in between the business and the customer, 380 00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:32,400 internally like Kara said, and then we work closely with our security department. 381 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:36,360 If they have questions like the QR code question, they will just ask us. 382 00:21:36,360 --> 00:21:42,080 If you are an IT professional and you're concerned about something, just ask. 383 00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:48,440 Just talk to your marketing department, see if they consider it, or do some research and 384 00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:50,000 help each other out. 385 00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:54,200 I think on that note, thank you, Kara and Kelsey, for joining us today. 386 00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:57,360 This was such a fun, different podcast. 387 00:21:57,360 --> 00:22:00,320 If you enjoyed this, please like and subscribe. 388 00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:03,760 It's how we know that you are interested in these topics. 389 00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:10,000 If you have a question or a topic, reach out to us at info at cat-net.com, or head out 390 00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:14,840 to our website, cat-net.com slash podcast. 391 00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:27,040 And we'll be back next week with an all-new episode.