Unveiling the Secrets of Corporate Espionage: Insights from an Insider Spy: Robert Kerbeck

If you're worried about protecting your corporate secrets and keeping your data safe from hackers, you won't want to miss this podcast episode. We dive deep into the world of corporate espionage and insider threats, discussing everything from cybersecurity best practices to phishing and digital transparency.

We even share some fascinating stories, including one about how Steve Jobs and Apple dealt with a major data breach. And don't worry if you're not a tech expert - we break down complex topics like IP addresses and email security in a way that's easy to understand.

 In this podcast episode, the world of corporate espionage and cybersecurity with expert insights from a former corporate spy. Learn about the latest tactics used by hackers, insider threats, and how to implement best practices for email and digital security. We also discuss the infamous case of Steve Jobs and Apple's battle against IP theft, as well as the importance of digital transparency in today's business landscape. Don't miss this eye-opening discussion on the critical importance of protecting your organization's data and assets from those who seek to exploit them

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Transcript

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Is a dark and often overlooked aspect of business, but its potential for catastrophic consequences cannot be underestimated from stealing trade secrets to cyber attacks. The different types of espionage are diverse and sophisticated. It's not just rival companies engaging in this dangerous game. Governments have been known to profit from stolen information, the consequences of a large scale espionage. Could trigger a world war. And more alarming is that a small third party actor with malicious intentions could spark a larger conflict. In this episode, we delve deep into the corporate espina espionage and examine its real world implications in how it could threaten global security. Join us as we uncover the hidden truths behind the shadowy practice and discuss its dangers to our society. Robert Kerbeck is an award-winning brighter and author of the true crime memoir, ruse Lying in The American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street. He has received praise from renowned figures such as Frank Anell, Valerie Plain, Bradley Hope. Robert's previous book, Malibu Burning won several awards and his writing has been featured in various publications including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Los Angeles Magazine. Additionally, he has been a guest on popular podcast and radio shows. Currently, ruse is in the develop development for a TV series with Silver Lining Entertainment. Robert, how are you doing? For having me. That's a great introduction and I, I love the fact that I, I could have been responsible for starting a World War. No one said that. No one has said that before. That's pretty, that's, that's, that's intense Yeah, well, you're welcome. Oh, Paul's good at writing and he has a little help from some stuff, but I use Chad G to I, I pump it in there and ar I argue with it until I get what I want. Well, that makes a good writer outta you cause you know what you want. Huh. Most people don't know what they want. They just hack at it. Oh, I don't know. But most pod, most people on the podcasts, you know, I have a radio background, so it helps. I'm a nurse so I have no background. That's, we're a good pair. Ah, I'm always the one that like, huh, I don't know anything about this, but I got questions. So . It works that good. So you're, you used to be a corporate spy. Yeah, correct. You know, I, I've now written, uh, obviously this book Ruse, which, you know, I out myself as a corporate spy, so I wouldn't be a very smart spy if I wrote a book about spying and, and continued Des spy. So, yeah, no, I'm out of the game. So how does one become a corporate spy? Do you just wake up one day and be like, I'm gonna be a corporate spy, or did you just happen to fall into it? Or how does that work? Yeah, great question. It's funny, um, there's this woman, Valerie Plain, um, you may recall. Yeah. She was a c i A agent. Um, and she was outed by the Bush administration. Um, it was a re revenge thing, and so they outed her and she wrote a book about it called Fair Game. They made a movie, uh, with Naomi Watson, Sean Penn, and Valerie Plain, and I believe it or not, went to high school together. Oh wow. yeah, I know. Like so what are the odds of that, that a. You know what? I, I actually went, uh, to the eighth grade dance and we did do some slow dancing together. Um, but that's as far as it went. Uh, Valerie is lovely and, um, and we've stayed in touch. Um, and again, what are the odds that two spies went to the same small, you know, suburban high school, um, and did they have, you know, cla instead of, you know, uh, wood shop? Did they have, you know, surveillance 1 0 1? Uh, you know, no, they did not. Um, so yeah, so basically, you know, I, I, uh, grew up in Philadelphia. Um, my great-grandfather sold horse carriages before cars were invented. Um, my grand, he switched over to automobiles. My grandfather took over that dealership, my father took over that dealership, and I was supposed to take over that dealership, He does kind of look like a car dealer. yeah, exactly. Well, car sales, you know, You know, it a, a lot of, uh, uh, you know what any good spy is doing is they're telling a story that people believe, you know, James Bond. Uh, you know, you're telling a story that people believe and so that they tell you things and give you information or do things for you that they shouldn't do. That's, that's, you know, that's spying 1 0 Yeah, it's exactly how you get dates too. Just so you know. Yeah, pretty much. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is, which is why in college I, I fell in love with acting. It was to get dates and when I graduated, I went to work at my dad's dealership, car sales. The kind of trickery of car sales didn't feel right to me, so I moved to New York to be an actor. And of course, actors need survival jobs and who stumbles into a career as a corporate spy, but that's what. Oh wow. Can you, are you nd a still on all these? No, I can tell you anything. Anything and everything you want to know. Who was your first spy gig with Ooh, so the, the, and this is crazy. The first spying gig, major spying gig we did was on defense companies. Oh wow. Yeah, so, you know, the lo the Lockheeds and the Martin Marietta and, you know, uh, the T Rws, I mean, it was insane. And I remember at the time as we're getting this information on these companies going, you know, these people that are giving up this information, they're trained, you know, the, the, this is like, you know, Security clearance, top security stuff, and yet we're calling up, we're actors. Cuz the woman who had the spy company, she only hired actors. Why? Because we could do voices, we could do accents, we could create characters. You know, we were good at improv so we could, Where wa where was the idea in this? I mean, I should have gone, I could have done that. maybe, but I I'm here, I'm here to tell you, I'm here to tell you hundreds of people tried to do this job and three worked. Oh yeah. It's like sales. Sales is the same thing. I mean, it it, out of a hundred salesmen, you get two that make any money. For longevity. I mean they'll, they'll hit it right off the bat and then six months later they're burned out cause they can't sell anything and it's the rare few. And I'm sad sadly, but fortunately I don't know either way. I'm one of those rare, rare few that was able to sell insurance 20 years and make money at it. Good. I know I would've been able to do it. So are you like going in there as kind of like a whistleblower or Exactly. What are you? yeah, so in the beginning, um, we would go, um, in person to events. We would go to conferences, we'd go to bars. But what we quickly learned is that we were actually able to get more information using the anonymity of the phone call. You know, what, what people call the social engineering, or what I call the ruse phone call, where you are basically saying, Hey, You know, this is Bill and I'm in the Charlotte office, or you know, or you know, this is Gek, I'm into office in Germany, right? And whatever, you know, accent or PLO or character we're using and people, you know, what are people taught in, in the corporate world? They're taught to be what a good teammate. So if you get somebody in a different office, a different location, calling up within emergency, um, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense, they're like, well, wait a second, what are the odds? Somebody's calling me from the Germany. Putting on a fake German accent, eh, no, no, nobody's doing that. Of course, this is real. You know? And so then people do whatever you want. They find out whatever you want. They tell you whatever they want. And that's basically what we were doing, is we were getting that, you know, basically any kind of information that our clients wanted to know about their top rivals. That's exactly what we did in sales, cuz we have called the gate, keep a gatekeeper. And it was the receptionist. And if, if you couldn't get past the receptionist, you couldn't get in front of the decision maker. So you'd call the receptionist up and you'd tell her, Hey, how's it going? And you talk to her and you give her, and she can assume anything she wants. And if you give her the right information without actually lying to her, she's gonna let you through to the boss Yeah, well, we didn't worry. We didn't worry about the lying part. Yeah, yeah. You guys were out allowed to lie. We if, you know, I couldn't lie cuz they're gonna call me out on it later and I won't get the sale. So I had to be even more surreptitious than he did. I'm just thinking, I come from a hospital background, so they give us all this education like twice a year about, you know, phishing emails and phone calls and customer service stuff. But they also try to give you information of, look at the, you know, caller id. Is it internal phone call? Is it the person that's supposed to know this information? But how spooky it would be if somebody, I mean, we're a hospital, I don't know what anybody want from us other than social security numbers and take money from people, basically. I don't know. I mean, it gives me the IP address of the heart monitor so I can pop that dude. Oh God, that's scary on so many levels. But, um, and I'm thinking anybody could probably call anybody. He's just shaking his head. and my team and probably get very important information on people's diagnoses and stuff. That's just kind of creepy that what's for a second? And I'm, I'm What? What he's talking about. I did when your mom pulled her stunt. I got the corner and the sheriff's office and they told me everything, remember, Yeah, I think so. Yeah. and all I did was call up and just smooze 'em a little bit. Hey, how's it going? that's so creepy though. It's, it's, once you know how to do it, it's easy. I guess I have a different mindset brain and it's has been shoved down our throat since I've been in, in healthcare about, you know, don't give information out or you'll You will give up any informa. When I dated women, they didn't know I was gleaning them for information because I wanted to know if they're worth dating or not. That's good to know considering we've been together for almost two years. well, Oh my God. Look, look, I, I, I think I'm gonna step off and let you guys work No, no, no. I'm not gonna kill him. Mom just wanna see the look on his face. Um, but yet understand, like I did ICU nursing and we were constantly told, like drilled in our head, you will lose your license. You will lose your license. Yeah. If you give out the wrong information to people. So I was kind of like, For lack of a better term, probably the bitch nurse that people wanna know information like is your, like, is your dad dying? Who are you? What's your name? How are you related? Can you show him your birth certificate? I need to draw your blood for verification wasn't that bad with the birth certificate, but it, they like drilled in our head, so Yeah, well, as they should, you know, I mean, Steve Jobs a legendary c e o of Apple, and of course Apple, in my humble opinion, is the best firm in the world at Protecting Secrets and Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs said, listen, don't talk to anybody about what you're working on for us. Don't talk. Don't tell your wife. Don't tell your mother. Don't tell anybody, because if you do forget about just being. We're gonna prosecute you, we're gonna sue you, right? So he would put the fear of God into his employees. And so Apple has developed a really fantastic culture of protecting private information, you know, valuable corporate secrets. I mean, that's good here to, I'm here and I'm here to tell you, most firms, uh, I mean, you know, they're not like that at all. And, and, and as we, as you guys were just discussing, you know, people like to talk. Um, and especially in our current, uh, world, young people have grown up in this era of digital transparency. Um, oversharing. And so, you know, you can get a young person on the line who does not understand that the information they're relaying, that they think is just no big deal about a new client, about the size of a contract, about the hiring practices, about what they're charging or what, or, you know, a anything and everything that they're willing to tell you, it's all information. That Arrival, uh, is incredibly valuable to a rival. So when somebody's in a company and, and they're trying to protect from corporate spying, right? Um, what kind of things. Do they need to keep an eye out Yeah. that's really, that's a good point. What's, one, the number one thing is whether it's a, um, phish, uh, you know, again, what I call a ruse phone call, whether it's a text, whether it's an email, um, it's, there's always an element of you need to do this. Now. There's been an emergency, there's been a breach, there's a crisis. Somebody needs help. You know, you know, oh my God, it's a. And, and all of those things are designed to get people to, to, to not stop and think and to click on something, to answer something, to forward something. And then of course, there's big problems. Um, and so I tell people, you know, when, remember when we were kids, we had the five second rule. You know, you, you dropped your gum on the ground and your mom would, if it was five seconds, your mom would pick it up and shove it back into your mouth. It's true. know, I say, I say, look, we're a little older now. I, I feel like I, we can do a little bit better than five seconds. So I have a 32nd rule that anytime you get a funny phone call, funny text, funny email, you take 30 seconds and you don't do anything and you think, you put the device down, you put your phone down, you close your laptop, you walk away and you just think about it. And I guarantee you, if you take that 30 seconds when you go back to that, Text, phone call, email, whatever it might be. You're gonna look at it completely differently and you're gonna all of a sudden check the IP address, you're gonna check the email address, you're gonna see some funny spelling error or punctuation or something, and you're gonna go, oh my God, I almost clicked on this. Or, oh my God. prince cannot be true Yeah. They have that with us at work that they have like examples and stuff from our IT department and I've gotten actually in trouble for sending too much stuff to them. Cuz what you could do is if you don't recognize the IP address and you think it's suspicious, you send it to them and then they'll say, oh, this is okay, or No, this is not okay. The IT guy's like, these are people just wanting you to work at other places. It's, they're not bad Ah, they would get ahold of my work email on LinkedIn or get ahold of me somehow. I don't know. I've told the switchboard people don't give out my information to anybody, and they're like, why? And I was like, I don't care if, if they wanna, like, you know, if I need people to hire people, number one, I don't sign the check for that. And number two, my boss deals with that. Don't, don't give him. Address Right. Well, you know, one of the things that's, that's happened with LinkedIn is because there are so many people using LinkedIn to basically fish. Um, and, and whether the fishing is somewhat legitimate, like someone looking for a job or recruiter looking to steal you away. A lot of people now, a lot of executives, and especially successful executives, Have now gone off LinkedIn, um, because they're killing it where they are. They don't need to be inundated with requests from amateur hour recruiters and headhunters. And so another big element of corporate spying. Is talent. So we would get hired all of the time to develop the organizational chart on, you know, my clients' rivals, their top competitors cuz they would want to know who was at the firm, you know, who was in a group. And then we would, and this is something your listeners may or may not know, probably don't know. Every corporation ranks their employees. They have metrics that they use to rank their employees. And we would find out what the rankings were because. Look, if you're gonna go in for an interview with a company, are you gonna on a, if you're on a team of 20, are you gonna tell them you're number 19 on your team in sales? Or 19? No. You're gonna say, oh, I'm number one. I'm the top designer. I'm the top banker, I'm the top trader. I'm the top salespeople person. Well, we would have the literal, the actual numbers that could prove. Where people ranked, and you could imagine how valuable it is. I always, I always use the football analogy, you know, when Tom Brady was with the New England Patriots and he left in free agency and went to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. All the Patriots haven't done very well since Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl. Imagine the same thing as true in corporate America. If you can poach the top people from your rivals, and of course if you know who the top people are, um, through corporate, SP. You can damage your rival and increase your bottom line exponentially. So you were working against defense contractors to begin with. The curio. The, the next logical thing for me is could that be considered treason? Oh, that's Yeah. Well, and it's funny, we were, yeah, we worried about that and we, we were doing this, you know, so this, we started, you know, very late eighties, early nineties is about when we really started doing this. And it was not long after you remember there was a movie. I think it was early eighties, Falcon and the Snowman, uh, with Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton. And it was about these two cal, these two California kids, um, that actually were taking, uh, one of them had a job at, I forget which firm it was, I'm gonna just say T r w, but I can't remember. But he was working at a defense contractor. Um, his dad I guess worked there. And so he got a job there and he had access to secrets and he and his friend began selling them to the Soviet. Um, and they eventually got caught. They eventually went to jail for 20 some years. Uh, you know, it was a book, it was a movie. It was a huge thing, and their lives were ruined. Right? And here we are doing this thing, which was not dissimilar, right? But we were just actors. We were getting $8 an hour. We weren't selling our secrets to the Soviets. We were selling, you know, if we were researching T R W. We were selling the secrets to Lockheed Martin or you know, whatever other, you know, rival defend. Right. Um, and that's the thing that a lot of people don't know. We all know the Russian spy on the Chinese, the Chinese spy on us, but what most people have been shocked about with Ruse is that major corporations are spending tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year desy on each other. Oh yeah. And if they're not, they're crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Well spies in their ranks. I mean, they're getting their secrets stolen and you're not gonna do it. Whatever. Well, our big thing around here is Walmart. Do you think that they're like, someone's coming in there getting corporate ESPs on Walmart database, they would love to have the spending habits. Target would love to have the spending habits of Walmart. Customers see Walmart's based out of Bentonville, Arkansas, which is not far from us, and it's like Walmart's on every corner here pretty much everywhere. There's some form of Walmart around here. Wow. I'm here to tell you that one of my clients was in the industry that you're talking about. yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. because I mean, those numbers define the spending habits of your customers and what they're doing, especially if it's a store that's, especially if you're esp, if you're doing espionage on Walmart, the amount of numbers. That they do compared to everybody else is going to tell you the market trends before. I mean, that's why Walmart wins a lot because now they know the market trends because of how many people shop there. Well, they can't keep up with Amazon, so they must not be doing too good. Well, they're not really, it's different though. It's a different shopping experience. Amazon is everything and everywhere. Amazon's actually losing market share right Mm. I just know I like it coming to my door and I don't have to go in shop. Walmart does that now? No. Out where I live, Well, of course not. I mean, I don't live in deliverance country. Before you go there, I was just gonna say that the delivery drivers don't mind going out there because they enjoy the banjo music. Oh my god. So , I live off a country road that he swears it's walking into deliverance country and it's not that bad. Ah, It's very quiet. I have acreage. It's nice though. I don't get a lot of the fun little things big cities do, like, you know, Uber and that kind of stuff. But what do do you get? Uh, uh, uh, you get, um, half naked Australians that chasing chickens in your backyard. Gosh, that was like one time. Wow. he's our neighbor. He's a little have to say, this is the first podcast that I've done where a half naked Australian chasing a chicken showed up. He loves bringing that up. We're the, our, our format is just a conversation and we're goofing off and we, we, we talk about the subject MO for the most part, but, you know, if you have a funny story to share, feel free. There's, we, we, we wanna talk to the human. We don't wanna talk to the, we don't wanna talk to the book. We wanna talk to the human. Well, lemme ask you this, have you almost gotten like caught, busted? Where they would've known and that you were in there basically spying. Of course, you know, there's no way that, you know, at some point you're not getting busted. Uh, and, uh, you know, there were some seriously, you know, uh, dangerous moments, closed calls. Uh, at one point, you know, every major authority in the country was after me. So yeah, it was, it was intense, the fbi yeah. Yeah. F b Why were they after you? Yeah. Really? Well, because they, they got onto my trail because at the time they were searching for the world's most famous hacker who they believed was trying to shut down the internet. Uh, when the internet was, you know, in the early days of the internet and, uh, in their chase, uh, for this guy, they stumbled onto the trail of me and the buddy who got me this job in the book, I call him pacs, and all of a sudden we were in the crosshairs of the. Oh, cuz that's not some people you really wanna fuck with, for lack of a better term. No, no, Yeah. Because the FBI and the CIA and nsa, you will, you have a chance of working for the NSA or cia or you have a chance of falling down in the deep dark hole that they've dug out in the Atlantic Ocean Yeah, creepy if you think about it. So, um, it's, how do, how were you, how could you know that your secrets you were gleaning weren't going to a foreign government or. Well, I mean, that's a great question. I mean, I guess the, the short answer is, is I don't know, but I, I, you know, I know who I was dealing with in terms of my contacts, um, and they were, you know, always, um, in the us you know, occasionally in London. Um, but, uh, but yeah, it, it, look, there are certainly examples of especially Chinese nationals being hired by Silicon Valley firms. And then later on, uh, they learned that those Chinese nationals were planted and they were, you know, um, selling those secrets back to China. So, yeah, I mean, sure that happens, you know, and, and, uh, I did a virtual event with my, my former, my former high school, uh, slow dance partner ball plain. Uh, we, we did an event this summer, past summer, and we were talking about that very issue about the kind of the, when political spying and corporate spying kind of intersect and how, and how dangerous that. So it's possible, I said in the intro that it's possible that it could start a international war and you know, if you spy the right thing for the right company, against the right company and had had, had that ever crossed your mind when you were doing this. Well, I don't think so. Um, I don't know what kind of secret I could determine that would start a World War. I mean, I, I, I don't know about that. Um, But look, you know, it sounds cool and, and you know, it sounds like there's a screenplay in there. Um, but, uh, but no, I, you know, look, the secrets we were getting were designed to increase our client's bottom lines. And like you, you said earlier, you know, It. You know, people say to me, well, you know, you know, what percentage do you think, uh, of corporations higher spies? And I say, how about 99.9 9, 9 9 9 9% of corporations? Um, and of course they're not doing it, or they're rarely doing it directly, you know, so these major corporations, publicly traded companies that were hiring me are not doing it directly. They're almost always hiring spies to an intermediary through a consulting firm. to that. That's right. They have to have plausible deniability. But I will tell you that you know, many times when it came for the presenting of the data that I obtained, they would want me to come and present it in person. So I was presenting this data to individuals, multiple individuals, that today are one step from being the CEOs of some of the largest companies in the I would've sent my buddy and paid him half my wage for doing that. It's like, no, I'm not, I'm not, I don't want them to know it's me. Yeah. Cause this, you know, it just puts a big bullet on your head, essentially. Well, and you know those companies, some of 'em take it seriously. You could you, if you were spying against a company that doesn't actually operate inside the United States as a headquarters, you could, if you go on vacation to wherever you could d. What companies have you spied for? Are you allowed to say that? You know, in the book, I changed the names of all the companies because even though I can prove, you know, who I worked for, because I've got emails and, and pay stubs and all of that stuff, um, these companies have armies of attorneys on Oh yeah. Yeah. You wanna get sued? Yeah, that's true. This and they could just, they could just Sue me you out of existence. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I would not be able to fight that. So, um, my publisher, penguin Random House, um, and Steer Fourth Press, uh, we decided it was just better to change all the names of the companies. Now look, if you're a real, uh, corporate sleuth, um, I think a lot of times you can tell, you can figure out who the companies might be. Um, but, but we did not name them, well, you can glean from what information they're trying to steal, what they are. of course. Yeah, no, no doubt. if they're after sales numbers or they're after metrics of a product right. Then you know, they're another, they're another retailer. More than likely. Well, it sounds like all companies can do this. I mean, they're after your silicone, how you built your silicone chip, then you know it's gotta be another silicone manufacturing corporation. Or, or, or Apple or Microsoft. It's gotta be big. The poor HR departments are like, man, I hired this guy cuz he was awesome and he was a spy. Well, You know what I'm saying?? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I don't think it really falls on them because I mean, if the paperwork is done right, they're never gonna find them because they don't care. The people in hr Yeah. They used, are all the boxes checked? Yes. Next person. Well, like some hospitals have like stock and the least that I've worked for and they've been out there. I, I wonder if people are doing that cuz quality scores and metrics are a big deal to hospitals and it's their bottom line. How their, their image. It's money. That's kind of creepy. I think in your case what they would want to, what they would wanna spy on. You're going to give a talk on an Actis, so why would they spy when you're gonna freely give the information an actis. I'm just, you know what I mean? I mean, it's out there for everybody. They'll just call you and ask you, you'll tell Yeah. No, I'm starting to think, I'm not calling to talk to anybody. I started a department in my hospital. I was asked to kind of start it from scratch and it's got some national recognition, so it's kind of a big she's a big deal now. and what it does for my Yeah. World in nursing. So she won't won't let her britches get too big for her though? No. Or she'll get too big for her britches, I guess. It's a big deal. Like I had to talk in front of room of like several hundred people. So it's gonna be yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's quite a, it's, I keep trying to tell her she's doing a good job. She doesn't believe Oh, well con congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. So, but, um, I was sitting here kind of looking at some of the questions that, you know, you, we some, you've done some pre-work on the questions here. Not everybody does that, so I appreciate it. Um, jail time. Oh yeah. I'm curious about that. Have you ever had to do jail? I have not. I have not. You know, I, I, I, I like to, I like to think, uh, you know, in, in, in the infamous words of our, uh, former president, I like people that don't get caught He's, he is, you know, I mean, why not? You know? That's funny. But did any of your, any of your, uh, cohorts end up in jail You know, I, I, I'm not gonna really answer that because, um, my cohorts, um, might not like that. Um, and I try to, I try to show some respect for my, my fellow spies, um, because they're only, there are really only a handful of us out there, um, kind of at the level that, that I was spying. And so, um, I, I would never actually be a spy. So there's that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, sometimes people, you know, get into trouble and then they come out and what do they do? They go back into it because they need the money. Right. And so I don't want to say anything that's going to compromise anybody's current situation. I can just tell you that I, uh, waited for the statute of limitations for any potential crimes that I may or may not have Oh hell yeah. Um, and that, that's why I was able to come out with the book now because I waited long enough and, uh, and I'm an author now, I haven't spied for a long, long time. Um, and I now actually consult with companies, including hospitals, um, to help them, um, prevent, um, not only corporate spying, but especially ransomware attacks because they are a huge issue now, um, obviously, um, and very, very, mean, destructive, uh, devastating explain ransomware and expensive. Yeah, explain ransomware attacks. For those who don't know what it. Yeah. So, you know, I I, I'll give you a hospital example. A hospital that I know, um, that I've, I've, I've, stuff. Mm-hmm. been, I've, I've dealt with, um, they had their systems frozen. They could not book an appointment. They could not, uh, they couldn't do anything. Um, and so now, and this was a hospital that I think had six locations. So think about that, right? They basically completely shut down for close to two weeks, Oof. Um, and it all was because some junior person, you know, basically took a phone call. Got Roz, gave up information, um, then, uh, clicked on some, you know, and, you know, and basically this whole, you know, thing started with one young person that just was, was just clueless as to. How these things they were doing could be so detrimental to the firm. And, um, the hospital eventually had to pay obviously ransomware, um, which is money and a lot of it, millions of dollars, um, to be able to get back into business. And one of the huge things in these ransomware attacks almost never has anybody caught and. Firms are willing to pay the money and not even report it to the authorities because the reputational damage. So imagine if you're a hospital and it becomes public. That you paid, you know, 82 million to get your systems back, you were shut down for two weeks, maybe you're not gonna go to that hospital anymore, right? Um, you're gonna be like, wow, I don't wanna go there. They, they, their systems aren't secure. My data's gonna get stolen. You know, maybe I'll be on the operating table and the systems will shut down, whatever. So I think that a lot, and that's the, uh, the real tragedy with these ransomware attacks is most of them, I think I've read numbers that say 80% aren't even report. It's like kidnappings a lot of times aren't, as long as the money is exchanged within the first 24 hours, you'd Yeah. Well, I would say, I would say, yeah, and I would say kidnappings in other countries. So maybe in Mexico, for Yeah. And North America doesn't really, yeah. Yeah, you're right because there's insurance policies for kidnappings in Mexico for crying out loud. loud. Is it really? Oh, wow. It's a Oh my gosh. I did not know that. it's crazy, isn't it? So, um, you know, I think what my mind goes to the next ransomware attack is gonna be on your individual vehicle. Oh yeah. Well that's happening all the time. Yeah. Where you all, all of these cars now, people, you know, you can Google it on YouTube and you can be like, how to hack a Tesla and how to hack a, you know? Um, and you, you can find ways to literally get into people's cars and steal their cars. no, I would just say lock it down. Call this number or release it. Pay me $400.$400. That's cheap. right? you'd have a bigger chance of getting the 400 right then than if you asked them for three grand? May be, I don't know if 400, $400 is, it's not worth it. You know? It's not worth it. So, Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking you could, if you did, if you did 30 of them and uh, every 10 minutes, $400 a piece, Yeah, I don't know if they, Yeah. wouldn't get reported to go under the radar for so long cuz it's just 400 bucks and nobody's gonna care, I'll let 'em have my car for $400 at this point. Exactly, exactly. It's not worth it. It's. Uh, this is like, so what advice do you give people? In general. I mean, I know most consumers don't realize that some of the places that they go to have spies in it. I think probably most people don't care, but What advice do you have out there for people on, like, have you've dealt with any, like on any personal level or just strictly business? Like if anybody ever come to you with like issues that they've seen or dealt with or anything like that? Well, of course. Look, we're all, we're all every day getting Phish phone calls, texts, emails, right? We, you know, that's just the, the world we live in now, um, both as individuals and, and companies. You know, I just tell everybody to. You know, uh, give up as a little information as you possibly can, you know? Um, and so, you know, if you're on LinkedIn, you know, you shouldn't be going on and on about your company does this. And we have this many offices and this many employees, and currently our clients include, you know, and you see this all the time, especially again with younger people where they're putting so much information up and making what formally was private public, right? You know, and so that's just one very small example, but you know, it, there's just so many, so many times, you know, where people say things they shouldn't say. Um, you know, it's just too easy. It's just too easy to get information. I mean, I you know, yeah. Your client list is very important because it's sometimes if you're doing something extremely eclectic like a software or a certain type of software, and you're not really penetrating the market that well, and if you know the client list of your biggest competitor, the one who owns the market, then you know who's buying. Yeah. And it's gonna have not only the client list, it's gonna have the contact. And if you can get in front of that contact and you're cheaper and you do the same thing, you're gonna be able to steal that person's business. Well, of course you're gonna be cheaper because you're go, you know, in, in, in my scenario, I would have the contract, I would have what was being paid, I would have when the contract expired, and so my client would know exactly when to swoop in exactly the price to offer, and then they would steal that client. Yeah. And you know, and you go, okay, well, you know, I'd love to have that as if I'm, when I was selling Cisco systems. Oh, hell yeah. I'd love to have that. yeah. Yeah. I'd know exactly I'd, I'd go in and I'd make a mi, I'd make a few million dollars in about that's right, that's right. Well, look, you know, when I started doing my spying job, I was getting$8 an hour, and by the end of it I was making $2 million a year. Oh wow. Nice. I, that means we can't hire 'em to spy on anybody. He costs too much. Yeah. Well, no, I was, I was, I was expensive. I was expensive, you know? well, people who know what they're doing always cost more. You get what you pay for Yeah, that's true. So you got the book Ruse Mm-hmm. in it's, it can be a series. Oh, yes. Thank you for asking. Yeah. You know, um, so, you know, when you, you know, when Penguin, uh, and Steer Forth accepted the book for publication, you know, what they do is. Send the book out to, to, you know, really well-known people, asking them to read it and asking them if they might be willing to give a, what they call a blurb, a testimonial. And um, so one of the people that they asked me, my dream list of people that would blurb my book and right at the top of the list was Frank Abbott now who wrote, catch Me If You Can. Right. Which of course was a great book and, and an even better movie. Everybody remembers Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. And so, uh, to my shock, not only did Frank Abil read the book, but he flipped over the book and he gave me this really incredible endorsement, which is on the cover of the book. And obviously, you know, when the Catch Me, if You Can, guys says Good things, you know, Hollywood's Ears, ears pricked up. And they were like, wait a second. You know, who's this Keck guy? You know, um, and what's this ruse book? Um, and so, um, I had a bunch of producers, uh, big production companies reach out. And one of them has been, uh, fantastic. And, um, we're developing the series. It's pretty far down the road. Um, and so knock on wood, um, you know, you'll be able to watch the RU series, you know, sometime in the, hopefully near finding the right showrunner. For that, it's going to be the make or break. If you get the wrong showrunner, then it doesn't matter, the director, it doesn't matter the writing team, the showrunner's, the one that counts. You get the right showrunner and it'll be a hit. And for your, for the audience who might not know what a showrunner is, the showrunner, uh, on a TV series is basically the c e o of the series. And, um, the showrunner usually will write the pilot and maybe even one or two of the early episodes. Um, but the showrunner is controlling every aspect of the show. The casting. The writing, the directing, the sets, the cost, everything. Right. And then eventually, as time goes on, the showrunners usu. Yeah. He's, he's, he, he, he, he, he or she moves into the background and they're not writing every episode. They're not directing every episode anymore, but in the beginning, usually they are. Um, And he gets so, yeah, of the money. yeah, yeah. I'm, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Maybe, maybe, I don't know. I don't, you know, but, are the usually the highest paid next to like a Brian Cranston, so Yeah. No, you're, and and it's funny you mentioned Brian Cranston, Paul, because, um, that show, your honor, my production company, they, that's that show. They produced that show. Okay, cool. Yeah. You know, I, you know, um, it's, it's, it's interesting to watch some of these things come down and I, I like it that they're becoming more and more factual in the, in the TV shows, and they're not getting, they're not throwing weirdness out there like we used to in the eighties and nineties. Yeah, when I was doing TV shows, cuz you know, one of the things I, I think is most fun, I'm most proud of with my book is obviously there's. You know, corporate spying element, um, which I was told that nobody's ever r no corporate spy has ever written a book about corporate spying before. But, but what I love about the book Ruse is it's kind of two books cuz it's corporate spying, but it's also this kind of behind the scenes Hollywood tell-all book. Um, you get to see me go on a, a blind date with J Lo. You know, you get, you get to see me drink beers with Paul Newman. I get hit on by Kevin Spacey. I get hung up on by Yoko Oho, everybody got hit on by Kevin Spacey. Unfortunately that's Yes. Oh. unfortunately that's true. I was at a barbecue once, uh, you know, with a bunch of actors and, and I think I told my story. I was like, yeah, Kevin Spacey. And then some other guy was like, yeah, Kevin Spacey hit on me too. And then other guy was like, yeah, me too. You know, it was like The bartender's like, Hey, me too. The guy taking the trash to the curb is like, really? You too He was that bad. yeah. He was, he was, he was, That's why he's in trouble now. that's why he's in trouble now, you know, because look, when you, when, when you get the type of heat that he's gotten, it's not one incident. It's not, you know, two times, you know what I mean? You had to have been a serial offender so that finally it's just, it just reached critical mass where he had attempted to molest, you know? You know, you know, Weinstein too. Man. Yeah, same thing. Same thing. It's like, you know, that's not just one. That's not just one time, you know, or two times. That was a pattern of behavior that eventually you did it so many times for so long you got to you. Absolutely. Wow. Like it looks like Kevin Spacey probably does not have a career anymore. He's such a good actor though. I mean, he's, him and Gary Oldman. You put those two in the same room and you, it'll probably be phenomenal. Yeah. Gary Oldman's Good. Gary Oldman's an excellent actor, and he's a good person too. It's like Patrick Stewart's a decent person. So, and the guy that played the Magni, him and Patrick Stewart are super friends. Hmm. Oh, Ian Mcklellan. Mckalen. Yeah. They're super friends. They hang out together all the time. Huh? yeah. And it's weird that it makes sense that they did a movie together, but I don't know why they hadn't done it since. I don't know. They should do something stupid. It'd be fun to see those two guys, those two old cats in something. Stupid movie where they're just like drunk losers or something. Patrick Stewart is always very serious, kind of his roles. I know. That's why it would be funny. um, is there now, where can we find the book? Oh, thank you for asking. I, you know, I always just guide people to my website. It's easy. It's just my name, Robert Kerbeck. K e r b e c k.com. Um, you can buy Ruse there. You can buy my previous book, Malibu Burning There. You can see the trailer, uh, for Ruse so you can get a sense of what the TV show will look like. Um, got like a little pilot. Pilot. Yeah. Yeah. Basically it's just a trailer for, you know, you know what the, what the show's gonna, you know, the, you know what the show's gonna be yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I enjoy it. I make films for a living, so that's what, that's my, that's my day job. Yeah. Oh. And, and she, she pays insurance companies or makes insurance companies pay. I think that's what you do, yeah. I help documentation and make insurance companies start paying for diagnoses. They keep denying cuz they just, they're cheap Assholes. Yeah. Yeah, She can't say that, but I can cuz I don't have anything to do with it. that's. Well I appreciate you being on and um, you know, is there anything that you could leave us with that might help somebody who's now completely freaked out and thinks that the world's gonna end because of. Yeah. Well look, I think, you know, remember back in the day, you know, with Reagan and the, we were worried about, you know, nuclear war and yeah, we were trying to, you know, Verify how many missiles the Soviets had and and Reagan had this thing. Trust but verify. Trust but verify. Right? Well, I'm here to tell you, no more trusting. Don't trust anybody. Stop, verify. It's just verify. So when you get the funny phone call, you get the funny text. Don't worry about being nice. You can be. Um, but you gotta verify before you do anything. and, and I think that's the big thing, cuz once you click on the link, once you forward the link, once you open the thing, yeah. Once you give somebody the information over the phone, it's too late, it's over, you know? And now your company's systems are frozen or you know, uh, you know, you know, and now there's this massive breach because you did this thing. So don't do that And it could be anybody. It doesn't matter if you're a low man on the totem pole or the C F O. Yeah. Well, yeah, and, and it and it and it, it's funny. It usually is one or the other. When we were doing our spying, we would either go after young people, new people within a company or major executives. Believe it or not, I got more information from major executives, people with a C in their title. It was amazing to me. Because they had the keys to the kingdom. And if you could get somebody that was a C E O A C F O A C O O A C T O to tell you stuff, man, they knew everything. you know, when you are spying on governments and stuff, it's the honey pot is always seems to one, be the one that works. Yeah. And that's kind of sad that people think with their genitals more than they think with their brain. And it doesn't matter, men and women, men, women can be just as success susceptible to the honeypot as a man. I'm sure makes sense. more so because once they trust, they're all in. You got it. All. A man gives it up for no, for different reasons. And here's something I that I always found interesting. You know, when, when we started this job and this woman had this spy firm, she only hired women. Um, she felt that women were much better spies. And when I was doing that event with Valerie Plain, I said something about that to Valerie and Valerie said, of course, women are better spies. And I, and, and she was sort of joking, but she was also serious. And I said, why? And she said, because women. Are, um, able to reflect and deflect better than men because they don't let their ego get involved. Um, and I thought that was very interesting and I, I think it's true. I think it's true. You know, the, when we started the, the Best Buys were women and my buddy and I, uh, my buddy Pax, um, we, it took us a long time to get as good as the women. It really did. We really had to kind of find our own pathway through. well women's stock and trade a lot of times is. That, that's what they do to each other. Yeah. So it's easy for them to do it that way, you know, it's just kind of natural. So, and I, I appreciate you, Robert. Yes. Coming on the program and. Oh, well thank you for having me, A a. Absolutely. And you know, we learned a little bit and I I like that. That's cool. And I got to play some really creepy music, so That's awesome. And we look for, we look forward to your book. I, I'm definitely wanna read it myself, that's for sure. And I wanna see the TV show cause Yeah. I'm curious. I am really curious Oh, well thank you. And, and the book's on Audible too. Um, I know a lot of times in the podcast world people would rather listen to something than read something, so you can listen to it on Audible and I narrate the audio book, uh, cuz it's obviously a true story, my story, so, um, so, um, I, that's my favorite version of the book. Yeah. nice, cool. Nice. So what's coming up, We have a clinical criminal psychologist. Ooh, I'm excited about that one. Do I like true crime stuff? Uh, let's see here. What an ex executive coaching person coming on. I think that's what I got in my notes. Yeah. And a motivational speaker, cancer survivor possibly coming on. We're getting some more details on him, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're gonna try to reschedule the Star Trek or Star Wars guys. Yeah. The, the Jedi Religion people. If I can figure out how to get them on. Maybe I need to go to London. I need to contact somebody in London to get them. No, that would be because they're the where it started. It didn't start here. It started in Well, let's give it a whirl. Maybe we can get a Harry Potter fan, or, or not they're religion. Cause there's, that's starting up now too. Is it really? Yeah. It's crazy stupid, didn't it? Wow. I guess. Whatever makes you happy, Well, at least you're, at least they're not furries, Oh Lord. That's, that's something that I can't wrap my brain around. Are you furry? Yeah. Okay. I don't get it, but that's just, I'm different, don't get it either. I mean, you know, you get all that furl on, how are you gonna feel? Anything? Oh my God. Stop. saying, it. It got me to say it guys. All right. So yeah, I look forward to it and, and I don't know, listen to Paul G's corner for some extra stuff, cuz I, I do about 30 minute interviews with those guys and sometimes there's good ones and sometimes there's bad ones. And leave us a rating, a five star rating in comments and say who you are. five star review If you like us, on, on the, on the podcast, iTunes or Apple Podcast, right? Yes. And then underneath that you can write a rating that says, Andrew is so cute and beautiful, but Paul, he really sucks ass. And I'm okay with that because that's, you know, we'll get the five stars and let a review and it puts us up higher. You can gimme your pizza review. Tell me if you like pepperoni or Give us a review, give us your day. But I'll shout your name out on air. You haven't done that yet. Well, you keep forgetting. I need to go look. Sorry guys. I mean I have a lot going on with this whole access conference. All right, so look for Andrea at the next conference. May are they going? Are they going? Probably not. the I If you really need a nap. Stop. Go to the actress concerts conference cuz it's all about hospital numbers and insurance. Wow. a big deal. All right. Anything else? I think that's it. All right. Go to paul newton.com, paul g newton.com, and look at all the stuff we have there. You can buy a photograph from me, and I will sign it and put it in a frame and send it to you. Uh, it's always gonna be a custom price because it's always shipping and everything's always changing, so also too, um, that's it. I think I think so. Bye