How to Fight Cybercrime with Michael Anaya

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And we are live. Hey, what’s up, guys? This is Reuben from dubs podcast Connection Loop. Today I have Michael and I with me, and we’re gonna get into a really, really serious topic

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Cyber crime. So I don’t know how many of you guys have kind of dealt with cyber crime or a threat or reading about it, Having people talk about it. It’s a real topic, you know, there are There are bad actors out there, and we need to learn how to protect ourselves. So without further ado, I want to get right into this. Michael, if you could just kind of give me a little bit of back story on yourself how you got in a cyber crime? What? You’re sort of general purposes. I love to learn about that.

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Well, first off, thanks for vitamin shot. Really appreciate it. I love just chatting with people who wanted more. So this is perfect opportunity opportunity for me to do that

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s o give you background. I started on Technology College. My first job was thanking soft development, which I always tell me what was really enjoyable and rewarding.

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It was not his board.

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So during that time. I’m not going to something different. And so I applied to join the FBI. I was accepted,

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so I joined the FBI. They put me on a cyber squad as a special agent with the FBI Cyber Squad. I was originally stationed in Los Angeles, California.

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I was there for about eight years where I did just dated reach intrusions, Um,

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count takeovers, anything building Aaron and fraud, anything dealing with a computer. But principally, I really honed in on data breaches. That’s kind of my specialty. And then I’m transition to headquarters with the FBI in Washington, D. C. I did the leadership, they all my program. There was a supervisor there for about two years, and then I promoted again, came to Atlanta, Georgia, and I was running point on a cyber squad here for about four years before, decided to join a start up out here in Atlanta. Unnamed Def con. And that’s where currently at Def Con, basically is a cyber security company that specialized in protecting all forms of Java script that operate on a Web page on, and one of my main things Ally doing is talking to people and helping educate individuals on cybercrime.

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This is a hell of a topic. I mean, you came from the FBI. You were You were in it. You were fighting cybercrime.

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I mean, that’s right out of a TV show. You know, I mean that that position has become so sensationalized,

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You know, um, Mr Robot. And you know so many others, Um,

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you know, Black Mirror. I mean, this idea of these ominous, lurking bad actors that lived within the recesses and the the abyss of the Internet that the dark web, the dark net and that come forward with really terrible malicious intentions and go after an innocent people and innocent companies. Well, most innocent, I presume.

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That’s a really, really form of crime right now. What are some of the things that you dealt with? What did you see being in that game?

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So you know, you what? You brought something different things. So when I left Theo, FBI was surprising. This cyber squad in Atlanta, we got multiple threats from nation state. Those are individuals who are operating the Hezb another country.

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Um, so I worked Chinese and Iranian threats, and then all, I didn’t criminal one of the criminal groups Waas sort of what you’re describing. They were targeting various individuals here susceptible, and they were putting a lot of pressure on them, causing the field tremendous amount of anxiety and stress that they were to compel them to give them money.

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A camera discussed too much because the case is ongoing. But it was really horrific, you know, the FBI took those type of crimes extremely seriously. We put together a group of individuals in the Atlanta office, blended efforts with other offices, including headquarters, and we really amounts of a serious investigation into that group.

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But then, you know, when I was in l. A case, I did work that I can’t talk about identified the first known peer to peer botnet operator. A botnet is a robotic arm network, and these are

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welcome used through multiple means. But basically he controlled thousands upon thousands of computers

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that who is basically grabbing all key piece information or what’s typically turned P II or personally identifiable information.

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So he grabbed that they

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using his advantage. Hey, office skated everything he did by using encryption. It was very difficult to identify him, but we were able to find him other individuals who were going after gaming sites.

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I went after another guy who was bold and brazen. He this is back went Internet kiosks were popular. What he did is he actually went. He worked at a company that they’re facilitating development and usage of the kiosks. He went to one of their locations and just took it over. He took a thumb drive, circumvented their security protocols, loaded his own

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