Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered productivity tool that integrates with various Microsoft 365 apps. It uses natural language to interact with these apps, the Microsoft Graph, and a Large Language Model (LLM).
Here are some key points about Copilot:
Functionality: Copilot can understand and generate text based on your content and context. It performs actions within the apps, making tasks more efficient and streamlined.
How It Works: Copilot processes your prompts and responses, leveraging grounding, processing, and post-processing techniques. It interacts with organizational data to provide relevant answers.
Use Cases:
Drafting Documents: Copilot assists in creating documents, emails, and presentations.
Summarizing Emails: It can summarize lengthy emails.
Chatting: Copilot can engage in natural conversations.
Business Insights: It provides insights based on Microsoft Graph data.
Privacy and Security: Copilot respects your privacy and security. It does not retain or train on your data.
Technology stocks have been the driving force behind the longest-running bull market in history.
The technology sector is vast, comprising gadget makers, software developers, wireless providers, streaming services, semiconductor companies, and cloud computing providers, to name just a few, according to Motley Fool. Any company that sells a product or service heavily infused with technology likely belongs to the tech sector.
And, the pandemic has been mostly positive for the tech industry. Companies like Amazon have thrived as consumers shifted hard toward e-commerce. Additionally, companies like Microsoft have also done well, buoyed by demand for collaboration software, devices, gaming, and cloud computing services as people spend more time at home.
Many of the most valuable companies in the world are technology companies.
Growth stocks have outperformed for 12 years and counting. Since the end of the Great Recession in 2009, growth stocks have been a driving force on Wall Street. Many of the most valuable companies in the world, like Apple and Microsoft, are technology companies.
Historically low lending interest rates and the Federal Reserve’s ongoing quantitative easing measures have created a pool of abundant cheap capital that fast-paced businesses have used to expand operations and investors have used to fuel the longest running bull market.
Technology stocks have been a key component of the market’s rising trend. Since the financial markets collapsed, demand for consumer electronics and related products and services has caused the tech sector to far outperform every other segment.
However, revenue growth is starting to slow, although the delta variant surge may drive consumers away from stores once again. The economic dynamics favoring technology’s 12 year growth are changing.
Inflation is running rampant, and the Federal Reserve has indicated it’s become more hawkish on fighting it, indicating as many as three interest rate hikes may be in the cards calendar year 2022, effectively ending its loose money policy. Higher interest rates hurt growth stocks because growth stocks intrinsic value is based on the value of their future earnings. And, those future earnings are not worth as much if interest rates go up.
To best analyze tech stocks, first determine if the company is profitable or not.
For mature tech companies that produce profits, the price-to-earnings ratio is a useful metric. Divide stock price by per-share earnings and you get a multiple that tells you how highly the market values the company’s current earnings. The higher the multiple, the more value the market is placing on future earnings growth.
Many tech companies aren’t profitable, so the price-to-earnings ratio can’t be used evaluate them.
Revenue growth matters more for these younger companies.
If you’re investing in something unproven, you want to make sure it has solid revenue growth.
For unprofitable tech companies, it’s important that the bottom line be moving from losses toward profits.
As a company grows, it should become more efficient, especially when it comes to the sales and managing expenses. If it’s not, or if spending is growing as a percentage of revenue, that could indicate something is wrong.
Ultimately, a good tech stock is one that trades at a reasonable valuation given its growth prospects.
Accurately figuring out those growth prospects is the hard part. If you expect earnings to skyrocket in the coming years, paying a premium for the stock can make sense. But if you’re wrong about those growth prospects, your investment may not work out.
Thus, investing in technology stocks can be risky, but you can reduce your risk by investing only when you feel confident their growth prospects justify their often lofty price to earnings valuations.
“Ignoring technological change in a financial system based upon technology is like a mouse starving to death because someone moved their cheese.” Chris Skinner
The integration of technology with financial services is today’s new and present reality. These technologies not only improve the efficiency and productivity of financial services but also enhance the customer experience.
Fintech is a hybrid industry of two nearly opposing parts—finance and technology
Fintech’s disruptions may transform not only the way we transact money but the definition of money itself
Financial technology is a rapidly growing industry.
We’re on the precipice of a major evolution in the domestic and global financial services industry. How we send, receive, store, spend, and invest money may undergo a few radical changes.
Fintech—“financial technology”—is an emerging hybrid industry that brings together legacy financial services and technological innovation. With this combination, the Fintech industry is likely to compete with and disrupt traditional financial services, especially banking.
Financial technology is the driving force behind the rapid digitization of the world. Fusing the concept of financial services with new technology, fintech companies aim to improve traditional methods of moving money around by offering lower costs, time efficiency and improved access for businesses and consumers to manage their finances.
The term fintech can describe many processes, such as online money transfers, mobile payments, loan management, or investments, all done digitally without the need for intermediary.
There are countless examples of how Fintech is reshaping the world of money, commerce and financial services, but they all fall into three primary categories:
New tech (such as apps) that allow for monetary transactions online,
Digital money which is a blockchain technology-based alternative to cash and
The Internet of things (IoT)-enabled credit and loan services (which are replacing and digitizing traditional banking services).
Naturally, fintech is often described as a disruptor of the finance world. The financial services once recognized as the domains of banks, brokerage houses and desktop computers are now available on mobile phones.
It’s one thing to invest in a financial asset for the long term. It’s another thing to invest in the very source and infrastructure that may give all financial assets their substance, mobility, and meaning.
Fintech’s growth is driven by three primary factors:
Cryptocurrencies: Fintech’s fortunes are closely connected to the skyrocketing popularity of cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, and blockchain technologies that provide a safe, decentralized platform for them.
Mobile devices: Smartphones, tablets and laptops are used for nearly everything these days, and it’s almost hard to imagine how we lived without them. None of these devices would have been able to thrive without the rise of mobile apps and related technology.
Millennials: This generation is the most tech-savvy in U.S. history. Millennials are the first people to grow up with the internet and smartphones, and they’re on track to become the biggest wage earners, buyers and money managers since baby boomers.
To invest in this rapidly evolving industry, you might consider paying attention to all the moving parts that feed into the engines of financial progress and disruption. In a way, the current areas of only scratch the proverbial surface of Fintech’s potential.
A metaverse, to put it simply, is a space where individuals can participate in a shared virtual universe. Meta’ is a prefix that means ‘beyond,’ and ‘verse’ comes from ‘universe,’ making the word ‘Metaverse.’ The term can refer to digital spaces which are made more lifelike by the use of virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR).
The Metaverse, with a capital M, is the idea that there will be one single virtual reality that individuals will become avatars in. These individuals will engage in this shared virtual reality space, talk to each other, hang out, play games, watch movies, even browse the web. It will be a new internet.
The Metaverse will have texture, dimension and color, according to the website cryptonews.com. People will meet, watch shows, hang out, visit virtual museums, ride virtual parks, go to websites all within the same Metaverse.
Investment bank Jefferies defines the metaverse as “the convergence of physical and digital in a way that is persistent, real-time rendered, and infinite in its ability to offer shared experiences allowing for a total sense of presence to the point where it embodies us.”
Metaverse might use AI, AR and VR technology to create artificial world
Think of the metaverse as an artificial world created by new technology like artificial intelligence, augmented reality and virtual reality. It’s a virtual world that looks, feels, tastes and smells like the real world.
The movie Matrix depicted a storyline where a future society is unknowingly trapped inside a metaverse called the Matrix, which intelligent machines have created to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source.
Facebook (FB) founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg intends to rebrand the FB enterprise with a new name that focuses on the metaverse. And, Zuckerberg expects FB to be seen primarily as a metaverse company and not just a social-media company in the coming years.
At its heart of the rebranding is the concept that by creating a greater sense of “virtual presence”, interacting online can become much closer to the experience of interacting in person. The metaverse has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social and economic opportunities.
No one company will own and operate the metaverse, Facebook reported. Like the internet, its key feature will be its openness and interoperability. Bringing this to life will take collaboration and cooperation across companies, developers, creators and policymakers, Facebook explained.
Currently, the metaverse is extremely speculative concept. It will take significant time, corporate collaboration, financial and technical resources to create and to make operational.
Fraudsters and cybercriminals are getting sneakier – sometimes even claiming to be your bank or financial institution. Outsmart scammers with these tips.
With more than 2 billion people worldwide accessing the internet through smartphones, hackers have never had greater incentive to devise new scams. Getting scammed is an unpleasant experience, but you can be one step ahead.
For example, you look at your phone and you have a new text message saying it is from your bank or financial institution. The message tells you to click this link and download a new app to secure your identity or customer account. It’s strange because you’ve never received a text from your bank at this number before, and you already have your bank’s app downloaded, or at least you thought?
STOP! Don’t click that link. There are a number of red flags to watch out for to recognize a phishing attack. Although this trick is commonly employed over email, savvy thieves are now trying to install ransomware or steal your financial or personal information by impersonating a bank, credit card company or service provider by phone calls or even text messages. Phishing is when a fraudster tricks a consumer into providing their personal information through a fake app or website. The site may appear have a copy of your bank’s or another company’s logo and appears legit. So how do you tell it’s not?
With increasing number of cases related to cyber frauds or online scams, it’s recommended that you follow these tips to detect a scam by text and protect your identity:
Check the number and search for how your bank has texted you in the past. Are they different? Don’t click the link!
Is this message irregular? If you have not recently conducted business, used your cards or logged into your bank via the app, mobile or desktop, it may feel out of context to be receiving this request. Don’t click it!
Are they using the right terminology for you and your account? Does your bank refer to you as a member but this text message says “customer.” Don’t click it!
REMEMBER: Do not download any software or click on unknown links sent to you by email or text! Banks will typically never ask you to download software in an email or while you are on the phone with us..
Fraudsters often use online methods to enable their scams to take place.
There are some easy ways to ensure the email is from bank. Bank emails typically include a Security Zone to help you distinguish a legitimate email from a fraudulent one. Here is what to look for to help identify authentic emails:
Always hover over the sender’s email address to verify who it is from. Banks will only send emails from an address that clearly indicates it is from your bank.
To be effective, you must verify the spelling of your first and last name and the accuracy of the last four digits of your USAA member number every time you receive an email from USAA.
Phone Calls
RING, RING, RING
The caller ID says your bank across the top. It’s not a 1-800 or a 1-877 number, but when you answer, the caller says they are with your bank and now asks for your customer service identification number to verify you. The caller may offer to assist with installing software you need for your financial services … what do you do?
STOP! Don’t share your personal information before verifying the caller. If your bank is calling you, they typically will never ask for your “customer” identification number, credit card number or other personal information.
Follow these tips to detect a scam by a phone call and protect your identity:
Do not share security or personal data: Your bank will never call you and then ask you for your one-time verification code, PIN, password or other personal identification details.
Always realize that you can call your bank to determine if any request for information is valid. When you call us, know that we’ll use the multifactor identification code from your phone to verify you.
“Grandpa, I need your help. My car won’t start. Please send me money using this app…” OR
“Hi, how are you? I can’t deposit any money into my bank account because I am deployed. Can you send me some money for my phone card so we can continue talking? I really miss you.”
STOP! Imposters have many tricks up their sleeves when they are trying to access your information or steal your assets. As discussed above, it could be by impersonating a company through a phone call, email or text, but now they are even trying to contact you on third-party social platforms, like Facebook or Twitter, or through dating apps and sites.
Follow these tips to avoid a grandparent or romance scam:
Never send money to someone you don’t know in real life, especially using a third-party app like Zelle, CashApp, etc.
If someone claims to be a family member, verify with that family member by calling them directly! If you think your grandson needs help, call him or call his parents before sending money unintentionally to a scammer.
Do your research. If you are getting to know someone online, make sure you look them up, validate they are who they say they are. Some also claim to not have access to common resources overseas because they are serving, which is often untrue.
If any of these situations should happen to you, reach out for advice before giving out any personal information. And, if you get a suspicious email, text, instant message or phone call, you can report it to your bank or to the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov/complaint.
If a scam does trip you up in real life, get help! The FBI has an Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. You can also report identity theft to the Federal Trade Commission to 1-877-ID-THEFT (84338).
There are also some easy ways to ensure a text message is from your bank. Based on your request, many banks may send a one-time code as part of its multi-factor authentication process. If you suspect fraud, you should:
REPORT! Even if you didn’t share personal information or click a questionable link, if you suspect fraud, let us know so we can help prevent it to protect you and other members in the future.
If you receive a suspicious call from someone claiming to be your bank and is requesting account information or security credential information, hang up immediately!
If you provided any personal identifiable information prior to hanging up, alert your bank.
If you did not provide any information, you should still send an email to your bank reporting the phone number or text message and message details. This helps them to actively work to shut down fraudulent callers, sites and emails.
Imposters can come from the least expected places and they are constantly changing their tactics. That’s why it is so important to always be on alert. While financial institutions can use sophisticated detection processes, they are most effective in fighting fraud when they work together with their customers.
The global pandemic has tested the online security resilience and vigilance of people world-wide, while at the same time the pandemic is pushing more and more individuals to conduct their daily personal and work lives online.
Unfortunately, cyber criminals have sought opportunities to create havoc and financial gain in the midst of the chaos caused by the pandemic.
Since our lives have shifted into the digital dimension, educating the online user on cyber security has become more important than ever before.
As a result, cyber security has become increasingly important domestically and globally. But we must all remember that cyber security begins with a few basic steps such as: being vigilant, changing your password often and most important… think before you click on or open a link.
Tips for Securing Your Digital Accounts
Like keeping our doors locked to keep our homes safe from burglars, keeping our online accounts secure is vital to help protect ourselves from cyber criminals – and passwords are the key.
Here are some tips to help you keep your accounts safe online.
1. Choose strong passwords
The stronger your password is, the more difficult it is to hack your account.
Create passwords that are at least 15 characters long and include a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols if allowed.
A good way to do this is to create a passphrase – use a sentence that includes unusual words, or words from different languages.
In addition, always use unique passwords for all your online accounts.
2. Use a password manager
A password manager is a convenient way to take care of your passwords.
Several very good password managers are free and easy to use. It will create strong passwords for you and keep them secure.
If you’d prefer not to use a password manager, write your passwords into a notebook and keep it in a secure place away from your computer.
3. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Multi-factor authentication (like 2FA) provides an extra layer of security to help protect your accounts.
It is an electronic authentication method where you need to present two or more pieces of evidence (factors) to confirm your identity and access your account, for example a password and a code that is sent to your mobile phone. Your account cannot be accessed without entering this code.
4. Do all of the above!
For extra security, use a password manager that will create strong passwords for you and enable multi-factor authentication when available for your best chance to keep your accounts secure.
“There are more financial products for more consumers than you could ever imagine.” Fintech Startup Founder
Fintech, or financial technology, refers to the technological innovation in the design and delivery of financial services and products. The term can apply to any innovation in how companies and people transact business, from the invention of digital money to double-entry bookkeeping. The technology in finance continues to evolve; advancements include the use of Big Data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning to evaluate investment opportunities, optimize portfolios, and mitigate risks.
Fintech refers to any business that uses technology to enhance or automate financial services and processes. The term encompasses a rapidly growing industry that serves the interests of both consumers and businesses in multiple ways. From mobile banking and insurance to cryptocurrency and investment apps, fintech has a seemingly endless array of applications.
Fueled by venture capital and changes brought by the pandemic, fintech is coming for your wallet like never before https://t.co/iFxVUzDEEL via @BW
There are 326 Fintechs, according to one database, from one-stop shops such as PayPal Holdings Inc. and Revolut Ltd. to behind-the-scenes payment processors.
Fintech companies integrate technologies (like AI, blockchain and data science) into traditional financial sectors to make them safer, faster and more efficient. Fintech is one of the fastest-growing tech sectors, with companies innovating in almost every area of finance; from payments and loans to credit scoring and stock trading.
“Fintech’s disruptive potential was unleashed in mature markets such as the U.S. only recently, thanks to a confluence of factors: low interest rates, better technology, rising consumer demand, and a more permissive attitude toward nonbank finance”, according to Lionel Laurent, a Bloomberg Opinion Columnist. “Efficiency gains in software have kept products coming.”
Fintech technology examples include:
Crowdfunding Platforms – Crowdfunding platforms allow internet and app users to send or receive money from others on the platform and have allowed individuals or businesses to pool funding from a variety of sources all in the same place. Instead of having to go to a traditional bank for a loan, it is now possible to go straight to investors for support of a project or company.
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency – Cryptocurrency and blockchain are hallmark examples of fintech in action. Cryptocurrency exchanges connect users to buying or selling cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or litecoin. But in addition to crypto, blockchain help reduce fraud by keeping provenance data on the blockchain. And while cryptocurrency and even blockchain have certainly taken parts of the investment world by storm in recent years.
Mobile Payments – It seems as though everyone with a smartphone uses some form of mobile payments. In fact, according to Statista data, the global mobile payment market is on track to surpass $1 trillion in 2019. Using increasingly sophisticated technology, services have emerged that allow consumers to exchange money and payments online or on mobile devices – including popular payment app Venmo.
Insurance – Fintech has even disrupted the insurance industry. In fact, insurtech (as it’s been so-called) has come to include everything from car insurance to home insurance and data protection. Additionally, insurtech startups are increasingly attracting funding.
Robo-Advising and Stock-Trading Apps – Robo-advising has disrupted the asset management sector by providing algorithm-based asset recommendations and portfolio management that have increased efficiency and lowered costs. Since the rise of more advanced technology that can analyze various portfolio options 24/7, financial institutions have adapted to offer online robo-advising services. Perhaps one of the more popular and big innovations in the fintech space has been the development of stock-trading apps. When once investors had to go directly to a stock exchange like the NYSE or Nasdaq, now, investors can buy and sell stocks at the tap of a finger on their mobile device. And with inexpensive and low-minimum apps, investing from anywhere with any budget has never been easier.
Budgeting Apps – One of the most common uses of fintech is budgeting apps for consumers, which have grown exponentially in popularity over the years. Before, consumers had to create their own budgets, gather checks, or navigate excel spreadsheets to keep track of their finances. But after the fintech revolution prompted the development of financial services apps, consumers can easily and efficiently keep track of their income, expenses and other budgeting tools that have revolutionized the way consumers think about their money. Budgeting apps help consumers track their income, monthly payments, expenditures and more – all on their mobile device.
With fintech innovations, firms can better meet customer needs and expectations. With clear benefits, fintech is quickly changing the landscape of investment management. Advancements include the use of robo-advisers, Big Data, AI, and machine learning to evaluate investment opportunities, optimize portfolios, and mitigate risks. In the area of financial recordkeeping, blockchain and distributed ledger technology are creating new ways to record, track, and store transactions for financial assets.
Additionally, artificial intelligence (AI) is having a major impact on the finance industry as part of fintech. AI is being used to analyze investment opportunities, optimize portfolios, and mitigate risks, among many other functions, but the applications go well beyond the investment decision-making process. For example, automated wealth advisers (or “robo-advisers”) may assist investors without the need for a human adviser, or they may be used in combination with a human adviser. The desired outcome is the ability to provide tailored, actionable advice to investors with greater ease of access and at lower cost.
The annual Forbes Fintech 50 compiles some of the hottest fintech platforms on the market worth noting.
Fintech is changing the landscape of financial and investment management. At its core, Fintech exist to help companies, business owners and consumers better manage their finances, processes, and lives by utilizing specialized technology, software and algorithms.
American investor, inventor, engineer, philanthropist, entrepreneur. Robert F. Smith is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, focused on investing and partnering with leading enterprise software companies.
The software titan Robert F. Smith is a philanthropist and the wealthiest African American in the U.S., with a self-made net worth of more than $5 billion. He was raised in a working-class Denver neighborhood in the 1970s. And, it was a high-school science class in his junior year that sparked his interest in transistors, the building blocks of computers, cellphones and other electronic devices.
Mr. Smith was educated as an engineer at Cornell University, earning his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering in 1985. After graduation, he worked at Goodyear Tire and Rubber, followed by Kraft General Foods, where he obtained two United States and two European patents for coffee filtration systems.
Upon receiving his MBA in 1994, he joined Goldman Sachs in tech investment banking, first in New York City and then in Silicon Valley. At Goldman, he advised tech companies such as Apple, Yahoo and Microsoft on over $50 billion of mergers and acquisitions activities. Mr. Smith knew his talents and his niche, and Goldman gave him the platform to showcase them. He became the first person at Goldman to focus purely on mergers and acquisitions of technology and software companies.
In 2000, Mr. Smith founded Vista Equity Partners to invest in businesses that develop and use technology, software and data to promote economic equity, ecological responsibility and diversity and inclusion for the prosperity of all. Vista invests and develops businesses focused on using tech to create value, new businesses, or helping to solve some of the world’s issues.
He is Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, which includes 64 companies. Companies like TIBCO, a technology company. He climbed from humble roots in Denver to the pinnacle of the 1990s dot-com boom as a Goldman Sachs banker in San Francisco; he went on to found Vista in 2000 in Austin, Texas.
Vista currently manages equity assets under management of over $81 billion and oversees a portfolio of more than 70 enterprise software, data and technology-enabled companies that employ over 75,000 people worldwide.
Vista had grown into an impossible-to-overlook force, delivering a 31 percent average annual return since its founding. “Vista Equity Partners Emerges from Private-Equity Shadows” read a Wall Street Journal headline.
Mr. Smith is also the founding director and President of the Fund II Foundation. Started in 2014, the foundation has made significant contributions to support scholarships for minority students interested in science, engineering and math, research on breast cancer in Black women and the preservation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth and family homes. It also backed Mr. Smith’s recently announced Student Freedom Initiative to ease the debt burden of students at historically Black colleges and universities.
This is another great example of institutions and corporations joining forces to do well and do good. We know that social and economic justice are inextricably linked, and we can tear down barriers when strategically allocate capital at scale. https://t.co/MXzAzW5ET4
Throughout all of his successes, Mr. Smith has demonstrated the importance of giving back. In 2017, Mr. Smith signed the Giving Pledge and was the first African American to do so. In his pledge, Mr. Smith committed to investing half of his net worth during his lifetime “to causes that support equality of opportunity for African Americans, as well as causes that cultivate ecological protection to ensure a livable planet for future generations.”
But it took a grand gesture at Morehouse College to cement Smith’s status as one of the world’s most interesting philanthropists. To the shock of Morehouse officials, Smith went off-script during his commencement speech and told the 396 graduating students that he would pay off their student loans at a cost to him of about $40 million.
“I was looking at 400 students 400 years after 1619,” he says, referring to the beginning of American slavery. “And they were burdened. And their families were burdened. They had taken on a tremendous amount of debt to get that education. And liberating them was the right thing for me to do. Honestly, I didn’t think it was going to be that big of a deal,” he continued. “I mean, globally. I didn’t realize how many people understood the pain and debilitating effect that student debt has for decades—not just on that individual but on families.”
Mr. Smith believes strongly that “anyone can achieve success if they believe they are worth it and think deeply about how to achieve their goals.”
From an August 2020 article in Urbjournal.com, here are 5 pieces of advice Mr. Smith gives to all young professionals:
You need to recognize and use all your skills – Understanding and evaluating your skillset is important; it will let you know what skills you have and more importantly, which ones you need to improve or acquire. It will also give you a very good indication as to who you need on your team, depending on what skills they have.
Give yourself the best chances of succeeding – To achieve a level of success, you’ll need to give yourself the best chances of succeeding by picking promising sectors and business industries which are projected to grow in the long-term. By focusing on growing and promising industries, you’ll give yourself the best chance of coming up with innovative products, services or solutions that create demand.
Learn to take risks – Taking risks whilst you’re young is important. Smith has consistently taken risks. “So what makes me tick? I didn’t want to be ordinary. I wanted to create something that had not been done on this planet,” Smith said. Taking risks doesn’t mean jumping into any and everything – that can be as detrimental as not taking enough risks. In Smith’s words, “take thoughtful risks”.
Recognize the importance of diversity, and work to increase it – Diversity has become increasingly important to companies, everyone is looking at ways to increase the diversity of their leadership and people. And, Black professionals have an important role to play: yet, to become successful, you first have to get through the door by creating processes and institutions which value equal opportunity above all else. “We must get as much mass pushed through the system by opening up the process as wide as you can. We need to take that approach instead of going retail in which corporations only select one or two exceptional students from elite schools,” Mr. Smith said.
You’ll need to make sacrifices – It’s no secret that to achieve success, you’ll need to make some sacrifices. For Mr. Smith, it was work-life balance: “Our world isn’t designed for spectacular success and a balanced life” he said in an interview.
The Youtube video interview features Robert F. Smith and Robert Green, President & CEO of the National Association of Investment Companies (NAIC). NAIC is the largest network of diverse-owned private equity firms and hedge funds. NAIC is focused on increasing the flow of capital to high-performing diverse investment managers often underutilized by institutional investors.
Ransomware attacks surged 300% in calendar year 2020, according to Chainalysis. And in 2020, $406.3 million was paid out in cryptocurrency ransoms, 337% more than the previous year. This calendar year’s ransom payments are on pace to pass seven figures.
The attacks have crippled supply chains and critical infrastructure by holding digital information hostage.
Colonial Pipeline, one of the largest fuel pipelines in the US, was forced offline for six days in May.
An Iowa grain co-op was hit by a cyberattack, and hackers demanded $5.9 million to unlock the organization’s data.
Ransomware is something that government agencies are extremely focused on these days. They’re viewing it on par with terrorist financing attacks. The victims of ransomware attacks are mostly big businesses, where more sophisticated attack appear to be sanctioned by foreign governments such as Russia, China, North Korea or Iran.
However, big business are not the only victims of cybercriminals. Nearly 7,000 individual investors lost a collective $80 million to cryptocurrency scams from October 2020 to March 2021, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Currently, the biggest type of cybercriminal activity in terms of volume is scamming: your investment scam, your Ponzi scheme, or just a phishing attack. Retail investors are oftentimes more vulnerable to being taken advantage of by scammers. But these scams impact the government as well, because the SEC is chartered to make sure they’re protecting consumers.
The bottomline is that “illicit activity on the blockchain is heating up, from minor scams to elaborate ransomware attacks”, explained Kimberly Grauer, director of research at Chainalysis.
The majority of cryptocurrency activity is legal according to the U.S. Treasury Department. But, cryptocurrency can be exploited by cybercriminals and leveraged for ransomware attacks. Crypto’s decentralized nature can make it more difficult to track down hackers.
The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy issues periodic Investor Alerts to help investors identify signs that what is offered as an investment may actually be a scam or fraud. They urge investors to be on high alert in order to protect themselves and others from becoming victims of investment cyber fraud.
The key to avoiding investment fraud and scams is to be an educated investor. Below are five tips from the SEC website investor.gov to help you avoid investment fraud:
Be Wary of Unsolicited Offers to Invest – Cybercriminals look for victims on social media sites, chat rooms, and bulletin boards. If you see a new post on your wall, a tweet mentioning you, a direct message, an e-mail, or any other unsolicited – meaning you didn’t ask for it and don’t know the sender – communication regarding a so-called investment opportunity, you should exercise extreme caution.
Look out for Common “Red Flags” – Wherever you come across a recommendation for an investment – be it on the Internet or from a personal friend (or both), “red flags” such as (a) It sounds too good to be true since any investment that sounds too good to be true probably is; (b) The promise of “guaranteed” returns since every investment entails some level of risk, which is reflected in the rate of return you can expect to receive; and (c) Pressure to buy RIGHT NOW because should not be pressured or rushed into buying an investment before you have a chance to research the “opportunity.”
Look out for “Affinity Fraud” – Never make an investment based solely on the recommendation of a member of an organization or group to which you belong, especially if the pitch is made online. An investment pitch made through an online group of which you are a member, or on a chat room or bulletin board catered to an interest you have, may be an affinity fraud. Affinity fraud refers to investment scams that prey upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, the elderly, or professional groups. Even if you do know the person making the investment offer, be sure to check out everything – no matter how trustworthy the person seems who brings the investment opportunity to your attention (think Bernie Madoff). Be aware that the person telling you about the investment may have been fooled into believing that the investment is legitimate when it is not.
Be Thoughtful About Privacy and Security Settings – Investors who use social media websites as a tool for investing should be mindful of the various features on these websites in order to protect their privacy and help avoid fraud. Understand that unless you guard personal information, it may become available for anyone with access to the Internet – including cybercriminals.
Ask Questions and Check Out Everything – Be skeptical and research every aspect of an offer before making a decision. Investigate the investment thoroughly and check the truth of every statement you are told about the investment. Never rely on a testimonial or take a promoter’s word at face value. You can check out many investments using the SEC’s EDGAR filing system or your state’s securities regulator.
Investors on the Internet and social media should always be on the lookout for cyber scams and fraud. If you have a question or concern about an investment, or you think you have encountered fraud, you should contact the SEC or FINRA,
