Your Password Isn’t Enough Anymore | Ep. 60

Does it feel like staying safe online is getting harder?

In this episode of the Plain English Finance Podcast, Tré and Sierra talk about one simple digital safety step that more people need to understand: using an authenticator app for two-factor authentication. This is especially important for bank accounts, email accounts, MyCRA, investment accounts, shopping accounts, and anything else that could cause serious problems if someone gained access. 

Scammers are getting better, passwords are getting leaked, and older family members are often being asked to make a technology leap that feels overwhelming. A username and password may have been enough years ago, but today they are often not enough to keep important accounts safe. 

In this episode, we discuss:

•  What an authenticator app is 
•  How two-factor authentication works 
•  Why passwords alone are outdated 
•  Why leaked usernames and passwords are such a problem 
•  Why authenticator apps are stronger than relying only on passwords 
•  Why older adults are especially vulnerable to online scams 
•  How scammers use fear, urgency, and emotion 
•  Why you should protect email, banking, CRA, and investment accounts first 
•  Why the human being is usually the weak point, not the technology 
•  How authentication apps use changing codes 
•  Why setting this up may feel annoying but is worth it 
•  How trusted contacts can help prevent scams 
•  A real family story involving a fake emergency phone scam 
•  Why AI and voice scams may make this problem worse 

The main point is simple:

If an account matters to you, protect it with two-factor authentication.

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Transcript

Tre 0:00

Does it feel like it's getting harder and harder to stay safe online? In this episode, we're gonna talk about something that even if you're older, you really, really need to learn how to do.

Sierra 0:15

AI? Deepfake scammers, fraud So, so we're, we're actually gonna

Tre 0:19

talk about authentication apps

Sierra 0:21

Oh, I was wondering about, like, you were gonna say two-factor authentication is what you really need to learn?

Tre 0:27

Pretty much, yeah. Okay. But we're gonna talk specifically about authentication apps because, uh, two-factor authentication is great, and it's, it's basically on the same theme and line as, as that.

Sierra 0:39

Okay.

Tre 0:39

Um, do you know what it is?

Sierra 0:42

An authenticator app?

Tre 0:43

Yeah.

Sierra 0:43

I think so. It's like a specific app that generates a code every 10 seconds or whatever, so you have to, like, log in and then use your app at a specific time. Is that right?

Tre 0:55

Yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. I'm like, I used to- It's a little bit slower than, little bit slower than 10 seconds. I could be a bit faster. I could not remember Uh, normally around 60 seconds to a minute or something like that.

Sierra 1:04

60 seconds is a minute.

Tre 1:07

S- 30 seconds to a minute.

Sierra 1:11

I remember 'cause I had to use one for work. I- Okay like back, when I worked.

Tre 1:15

Yeah. So there's something happening, I guess, as technology's improving, and a lot of people are being left behind, and this is a conversation that I've actually had with a lot of, clients over the age of, 50, that I'm really pushing them on. I've had a few clients get scammed for this and that over the last little while- Yeah. Which is really unfortunate as they're, getting much, much older and the, the scams are becoming significantly more... Like, they become better. Yeah. Like you said, becoming better, and the technology out there to make it, make it as bad as, as possible, for older ones to get caught up in these type of things, it's improving at a significantly faster rate than you are going to be able to-- If you're listening to this and you have parents, than you are ever going to be able to teach them. Because a lot of these individuals have fallen behind on the technology side of things, right? So like you, even you think of a lot of people that well, you was in banking, so you would see the people that would come in and they would still pay their, all their bills over the counter because that's how they'd done them for the past, by check, for the past 30, 40 years, and they hadn't moved to online banking.

Sierra 2:33

Right.

Tre 2:33

And like small things like that, it might seem like a small thing, but the reality is because they haven't kept up, the technology leap, that they have to take in order to be able to remain safe is so big now that it's unlikely that they're going to develop the skill set to be really good at it.

Sierra 2:57

Mm.

Tre 2:57

Right? And so if you're teaching somebody how to spot a fake email We're now, we're now getting into what's the domain and what's like-- We're looking at so many different things that they're just not gonna be able to do. So a really, really key thing that you can do for your parents, for you, is to start using authentication apps. Because the difficulty increases by many times to break into an account or something like that if somebody's using two-factor authentication.

Sierra 3:30

Mm-hmm.

Tre 3:31

So password and username is very outdated now. It's been outdated for a while, but we're now getting to the point that it is really important that you learn how to do it. The amount of times where I've, I've gotten notifications 'cause I use, um, like even like Google Password Manager and stuff like that, and it'll tell me that some random site was hacked and the, the password and stuff and the username and stuff like that is now out there that I can never get back. The CRA was hacked and a bunch of stuff was- Yeah like all of this stuff is happening, but you know what they can't hack? Two-factor authentication.

Sierra 4:08

So wh- uh, like maybe this is a dumb question but why?

Tre 4:13

Because it changes

Sierra 4:14

so quickly?

Tre 4:15

So the way that it works, espe- which is why I'm specifically talking about authentication apps. If I'm gonna log into my authentication app right now, I need to use my thumbprint to get in, okay? So I'm on my computer, so on a- you imagine yourself from a scammer's- Mm point of view.

Sierra 4:29

Okay. You're on a computer. You've gotten Tre's username and password, right, to get into his online banking. Yeah.

Tre 4:37

Sounds great, so you would... If you go back 10 years, you put that in and I'm into online banking, and I'm good to go. Send money, do whatever I want.

Sierra 4:44

Yeah.

Tre 4:45

Now, I need to now convince Tre to give me his six digits that is automatically generated, and I need to do that every 30 seconds. Ev- like, it changes every 30 seconds, so I need to- Yeah get him to do it within that timeframe, which is annoying as it is. And then if I ever log out or I'm logged out, the next day I'm gonna have to redo it-

Sierra 5:06

Yeah

Tre 5:07

and redo it again, and redo it again. So it, it is a... When, especially older ones, when they-- because they do, they give out their passwords. They'll be on their computer, and they'll log in and like this, they'll... There's things that will monitor your keystrokes and all of this type of stuff. There's techn- there's technologies out there, and it's used to scam people and it, all the time.

Sierra 5:30

Mm-hmm.

Tre 5:31

A password that changes every 30 seconds on a different separate device is huge.

Sierra 5:38

Yeah.

Tre 5:39

Huge, huge, huge. And they are-- The level of encryption now is extremely high. It is not the- It's not the technology very often. It's not the technology that fails, it's the human-

Sierra 5:52

Yeah

Tre 5:54

is the part that breaks down. And so if I-- The reason I'm mentioning this is just if you're going to learn and try to keep yourself safe online and bring yourself up to date, I want you to go and download... There's a few authentication apps that I would use, like Google has one. Go to your Play Store, Google has one. Apple has one. Microsoft has one. And I want you to enable two-factor authentication on anything that matters to you. Mm-hmm. If it's a, your email, absolutely. Your Gmail accounts, your MyCRA account, your bank accounts, your all of it. Right? And it-- You will be annoyed about it one day 'cause it is annoying. You're like, "Oh, I just wanna do this quick thing." But you will get better at just bringing up your phone and logging in. But that one step makes such a, such a big difference. It's-

Sierra 6:49

I was gonna say, it's also one of those another thing that's really like a preventative thing where because you can't live the parallel life and stuff, you might think to yourself, "Oh, why am I still doing this? It's so annoying." But you don't know who's behind the scenes trying to log into your accounts.

Tre 7:06

Mm-hmm.

Sierra 7:06

While you have that set up, like that could be protecting you, and you wouldn't even know necessarily.

Tre 7:12

I get it all the time with, with my website.

Sierra 7:14

Yeah.

Tre 7:15

So you can... There's like a back, a back way that you would log into the developer side of the website, and there was a period of time when somebody was trying to brute force it from somewhere, where it was like every few seconds they were trying a different password and stuff like that. And it was like, to me it doesn't matter 'cause... But it's happening. Happens all the time and stuff.

Sierra 7:36

Yeah. That's crazy.

Tre 7:37

You just never know where, when it's not... You just never know. So if you're- it's just so much safer that... it's just really important that if you are gonna teach your parents; if you're gonna learn something and take the time to do it when you're a little bit older and you're not as tech-savvy, that's a simple thing that you should learn. You should sit down, Google... Type it into YouTube, and watch somebody do it and set it up and-

Sierra 8:02

Yeah, I feel like that. I was gonna ask you, because I-- Setting up two-factor authentication to your phone, I feel like is one thing, but to have an app, I've only ever done it through work. I don't know how to do it on my like personal stuff.

Tre 8:15

Well, it's thing, it's really simple. Because everything is the QR codes- Yeah so like I'll, I'll maybe it'll be useful. But you should go and just like go to YouTube and look it up and watch somebody go through it, because I can't show you that. Yeah. But it's pretty simple. You go, you type in, like I use the Microsoft's auth- authenticator. You go in, you download the app. You then, on whatever program, let's say it's Amazon, that you're wanting to enable your two-factor authentication on, you would just go to settings. It'll be there, enable two-factor, and it'll give you a little QR code that you scan with your phone with the app. Like, in the app, you'll be like, add account or whatever. You scan that, done.

Sierra 8:56

Really? That's cool.

Tre 8:58

So easy. Super easy. Super easy. And then once it's done, it will ask you for, you'll put your username, you put your password in. It'll ask you for your password. I've actually seen it where some places are getting rid of passwords entirely- Hmm and they're just using that.

Sierra 9:13

Yeah.

Tre 9:13

Which is interesting. So instead of you putting in a password, you put your username in, you put in that code.

Sierra 9:18

Done. 'Cause yeah, if the pass-

Tre 9:20

Cause it changes-

Sierra 9:21

Yeah

Tre 9:21

every 30 seconds. You know, at, at the, at work, we have to change our password every, whatever it is. Like, it's very common practice. The IT or department will make you change it. This thing is like- Yeah.

Sierra 9:33

You're

Tre 9:33

forced seems like every other day, but it's not. But imagine how much more annoying it is to try to get into something when the password I don't even know what that is. It changes every 30 seconds.

Sierra 9:43

Yeah.

Tre 9:44

You Without me giving that to you, it's on a separate device. If somebody gets onto that one device and is doing stuff on that one device, this is on a separate device entirely.

Sierra 9:55

So they'd basically have to break into your home, have all your devices, and multiple

Tre 9:59

passwords. Force you at gunpoint to put your fingerprint-

Sierra 10:02

Oh,

Tre 10:02

yeah. on there, 'cause it's fingerprint protected, like for me on my phone, right? It's like you- Yeah. Most of these type of attacks cast a really wide net and see what bites. They're not individually targeting one person. Oh, gee. If you're in the type of position that you'd be individually targeted um, like I, like I am for instance, right? Where it's like because of my profession, I would have the potential to be individually targeted for stuff like that. Yeah. Because the payout would be so great, right? I am extremely safe when it comes to my practices for that, that type of stuff. But if you're not in those type of positions, it doesn't-- it's unlikely. Just basic two-factor authentication is gonna make you so untouchable that- Yeah you, you'll be, you'll be great. You'll be fine.

Sierra 10:51

Yeah. For sure. The only other thing is with these older ones, it's like have the two-factor authentication, but still continue to teach them. Because I've heard a lot of scams are still, over the phone. It seems to be-- So it's like as much as you set them up, it's like, "Okay, now tell me that authentication code." It's like they could still do it, right?

Tre 11:09

For sure. Yeah. Which is like- and that's why you still wanna be encouraging these people to... I often will tell people, just ask. pick somebody in your life, like, we have, trusted contact people and stuff, and I'll say, "Even if it's me, just pick up the phone and ask me. I'll tell you very quickly whether it's a scam or not."

Sierra 11:26

Yeah.

Tre 11:26

Right? It's just, it's so obvious so much of the time, but they prey on emotion, and they prey on- Yeah they just- Fear, like- And they put the-- You set the c- you set the net wide enough, somebody over the millions that you email and millions that you message, somebody will be scared enough to, to answer- Mm to call the number, to, like, go through that, and it's just-

Sierra 11:48

I remember my grandma- it's just an education got that scam. I wanna tell the story. Yeah, yeah. Because it's-- I've heard a few people have the same one. Somebody called my grandma, and she answered And they started saying like, "Uh, help, I'm in prison. I was in a car accident." And, or, and they asked like, "Do you know who this is?" And my grandma's like, "Is this Tre?" And he's like, "Yes, it's Tre." So anyways, he, he made this story up that he was in this accident, he's in jail now, and he needs $10,000 bail or something like that, right? Yeah. And so of course my grandma's like, Tre needs $10,000?" And thankfully my mom was living with her at the time, and she asked my mom, and my mom picked up the phone and obviously told the scammer to get lost. But afterward we ph- they phoned Tre and you were like, "Grandma, I am never gonna phone you for $10,000. If I'm in prison and I need help, I'm not phoning you for help.

Tre 12:52

I deserve to be there, obviously. If that's the... It was

Sierra 12:55

just so fu- She was so ready though, and it's just crazy. Like, isn't that sad? It was... Like, she was ready-

Tre 13:01

Very, I felt very loved because of it, but-

Sierra 13:02

Yeah, she was like ready to sign the check. Yeah. But yeah, like I've heard a few people have a sim- like similar scams. A few people have said they've gotten those phone calls too, and it's just like-

Tre 13:12

Oh, yeah. It's super common now,

Sierra 13:13

but- But again, it's like you needed the trusted person. If Mom wasn't there, I don't know what would've happened later. Thankfully she was-

Tre 13:20

Yeah

Sierra 13:20

there, but yeah, like-

Tre 13:21

And the thing is with AI and stuff, like at that time she gave up that information, but there will come a time when if it does get more targeted, when it would be my voice on the other side of the phone.

Sierra 13:32

I know. That's what freaks me out.

Tre 13:33

Right? And things like that, it's just so... The technology is improving and oftentimes the, it's used in such a malicious way first, and because people aren't, they don't keep up with the changes and all the progress that technology has made. You don't understand the ways that you can be scammed.

Sierra 13:52

Mm-hmm.

Tre 13:54

It, and AI is a scary one. It is honestly- Yeah very, very scary. Um- Yeah. So you will, you have to, you have to learn

Sierra 14:04

We don't even know at this point what could happen and-

Tre 14:07

No

Sierra 14:07

I know. I, it freaks me out to think too much about it, so-

Tre 14:10

Yeah

Sierra 14:10

we'll just have to see.

Tre 14:11

Kinda crazy. But anyway, that was, yeah, that was my public service announcement, is just please take the time maybe in this, maybe in the YouTube version of this I'll find a how to set up the authentication app by Microsoft- Yeah or something, and I can link it in the description, because it is just take the time to... It will be a pain, especially if you've spent a long time not understanding the technological side and the advancements. It will be a pain to set up. But once you do it, it is something that is worth you learning about. There's many things that, uh, who cares? But this is one of them that if you want to remain safe online, please just, the important stuff to you, get a simple, simple two-factor authentication. Yeah. Okay?

Sierra 14:58

Perfect.

Tre 14:59

Perfect. I will see you in the next one, as long as you set it up.

Sierra 15:06

Okay. Threats and just kidding... Bye.

Tre 15:11

Whatever makes you set it up. See you guys later. Bye.

Sierra 15:14

Bye.

Speaker 5 15:16

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Plain English Finance Podcast. Trey BYO, certified Financial Planner. Chartered Investment Manager is a financial planner with TC Wealth Management and a Visa wealth. You should always consult with your financial, legal, and tax advisors before making changes. This podcast is provided as a general source of information and should not be considered personal investment advice or solicitation to buy or sell at any securities. The views expressed are those of the individual and are not necessarily those of a Visa Financial Inc. Mutual funds and other securities offered through a Visa wealth, a division of a Visa Financial, Inc.