{"id":46739,"date":"2025-02-21T14:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T13:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.steinmuehle.de\/blog\/2025\/02\/21\/people-make-life-easy-for-cybercriminals\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T07:19:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T05:19:58","slug":"people-make-life-easy-for-cybercriminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/blog\/2025\/02\/21\/people-make-life-easy-for-cybercriminals\/","title":{"rendered":"“People make life easy for cybercriminals”"},"content":{"rendered":"

On \u201cdata condoms,\u201d whistles, and loss of control: Cem Karakaya, who has specialized in cybercrime and prevention since 2008, spoke to teachers, parents, and alumni of Steinm\u00fchle about cybercrime and media literacy. The following day, the former Interpol employee returned to Steinm\u00fchle to speak to students in grades 7 through 10\u2014offering plenty of tips on the topic. <\/em><\/p>\n

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He\u2019s not on Facebook. Nor is he on Instagram or TikTok. You\u2019ll also search in vain for Cem Karakaya on the professional network LinkedIn. Instead of WhatsApp messages, he sends good old-fashioned text messages\u2014because of the terms and conditions under German law. And that\u2019s where he catches the audience off guard for the first time: \u201cYou always just check the \u2018I\u2019ve read this\u2019 box on every set of terms and conditions. Right?\u201d <\/p>\n

Well. Who actually reads everything carefully? And who worries about the digital footprint they leave behind? Cem Karakaya holds up a mirror to the audience at the Steinm\u00fchle Forum: Be sure to provide your date of birth\u2014and, ideally, your city and street address, too. Email address, of course, and phone number too. Photos of yourself, and of your family as well. The stage is set for identity theft. <\/p>\n

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Don’t post photos of children online!<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Please, please, don’t post photos of your children online,” warns the Turkish-born trained police officer, former Interpol employee, cybercrime expert, and founder of blackstone 432, a company with 198 employees. Why do you think Mark Zuckerberg covered his children\u2019s faces with emojis online? The internet is not a lawless space; the right to one\u2019s own image and copyrights apply just as they do elsewhere. The only question is: Who actually follows the rules? <\/p>\n

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Most attacks begin with phishing emails<\/strong><\/p>\n

Karakaya laments the German police\u2019s frequent lack of recourse and shares stories\u2014stories that, unfortunately, are true. How quickly passwords can be cracked (\u201cplease make it 13 characters long and include only special characters\u201d), how incredibly easy it is to gain access to other people\u2019s devices via a hotel Wi-Fi network, how easily you can occasionally read the emails of the person sitting next to you on the train or the messages of the passenger two seats away on a plane. That charging your phone on a public Wi-Fi network can expose your data; that an email purporting to be from the \u201cbank\u201d often isn\u2019t actually from the bank; or that it\u2019s not the package delivery service asking you to open its email attachment. Please\u2014don\u2019t! \u201c80 percent of all attacks start with phishing emails.\u201d <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Clip made from two photos and AI<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cem Karakaya focuses on education so that people can understand how these mechanisms work, thereby preventing damage to computers and harm to their owners. “Did you know that two portrait photos online are enough to create a video of you speaking every language in the world, with perfect lip-syncing?” The speaker demonstrates this in his presentation: Cem Karakaya suddenly starts speaking French. AI makes it possible. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“They don’t have an awesome life”<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his presentation, the speaker touches on numerous topics. Artificial intelligence\u2014also an issue among influencers who \u201cenhance\u201d their appearance and fake their vacation backgrounds. Cem Karakaya: \u201cIn reality, they often don\u2019t have such an amazing life.\u201d There are small details that usually only insiders notice, revealing that it\u2019s not actually a South Sea beach: a repetitive cloud pattern, incongruous vegetation, and more. <\/p>\n

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“People can swipe and click\u2014that’s all”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cem Karakaya doesn’t demonize technology. “It’s not the computer itself that’s bad\u2014it’s people.” In addition to data that people enter about themselves online, their behavior on the Internet is also analyzed. Big Data. \u201cSearch engines are the biggest source of user identities. Even the way you type on the keyboard helps form a user profile.\u201d Online relationships do the rest. \u201cPeople make life easy for criminals\u2014whether out of negligence or ignorance.\u201d Karakaya\u2019s take: \u201cPeople can swipe; people can click. That\u2019s all.\u201d <\/p>\n

The speaker sheds light on even more. \u201cQuishing,\u201d for example\u2014the attempt to redirect recipients to a specific page via a QR code in a snail mail letter. It looks legitimate\u2014but it isn\u2019t. \u201cThat\u2019s a reason to double-check the sender,\u201d says Cem Karakaya. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Warning sign: Lots of small red numbers on your phone’s home screen<\/strong><\/p>\n

The speaker also throws in a few more tips and suggestions during the presentation. It doesn’t hurt to give them some thought: <\/p>\n

– Delete unnecessary files and emails\u2014mail servers consume a lot of electricity, generate heat, and require cooling. “A lot of little red numbers on your phone’s home screen mean you’ve lost control.” <\/p>\n

– No backup\u2014no sympathy<\/p>\n

– Hacker attacks usually occur on weekends or holidays<\/p>\n

– Take a close look first, then react. If an email sender seems suspicious to you, hover your cursor over the name for a few seconds. In such cases, the “real” sender will appear next to it after a while. <\/p>\n

– A data blocker (“data condom”) prevents data transfer while charging<\/p>\n

– Don’t choose a password that’s too short. It takes 11 hours to crack an eight-character password, and a whopping 47 years to crack a thirteen-character one <\/p>\n

– Do not reuse passwords<\/p>\n

– If you receive so-called “support calls” from Microsoft, Amazon, PayPal, or Europol\/Interpol, blow the whistle<\/p>\n

– Watch out for typos in email addresses (O instead of zero, capital “I” instead of “l,” etc.)<\/p>\n

– Keep data minimization in mind: Rental cars may, in some cases, access a smartphone’s entire address book<\/p>\n

– Set up a guest Wi-Fi network for visitors at home or in the office<\/p>\n

– The laws of the location where the server facilities are located always apply<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Media education is the parents’ responsibility”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cem Karakaya, a Spiegel bestselling author, bids his audience farewell with humor, but not without urging them to reflect: \u201cMedia education is the school\u2019s responsibility. Media training is the parents\u2019 responsibility. Every adult serves as a role model. Everyone decides for themselves when to turn it on and when to turn it off.\u201d <\/p>\n

Perhaps one or two members of the audience went home feeling uneasy. Steinm\u00fchle School also raises its students\u2019 awareness about using the internet cautiously on many occasions, but here the information came in a concentrated dose. The many statistics presented were also impressive\u2014for example, the fact that three years of Facebook membership amounts to 1,200 pages of personal information. <\/p>\n

– Don’t have any plans for the weekend yet? We have an idea: Delete any unnecessary information online and check the security settings on your phone. Angela Heinemann<\/em><\/p>\n

More information on this topic can be found in Cem Karakaya’s two books (“The Cyber Pros” and “Click Here”) as well as on his company’s website, blackstone432. <\/em><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On \u201cdata condoms,\u201d whistles, and loss of control: Cem Karakaya, who has specialized in cybercrime and prevention since 2008, spoke to teachers, parents, and alumni of Steinm\u00fchle about cybercrime and media literacy. The following day, the former Interpol employee returned to Steinm\u00fchle to speak to students in grades 7 through 10\u2014offering plenty of tips on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":46744,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digitalization-ai","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51117,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46739\/revisions\/51117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}