The Beekeeper, Keeping it Unrealistic
The Beekeeper, released in January of this year, is an action suspense thriller that stars Jason Statham with a premise around cyber scams. We follow him through a campaign of vengeance as he tries to avenge the death of a mother-like figure in his life.
The film starts off with the Beekeeper or Adam Clay grieving the death of a beloved women Mrs. Parker, who he rented barn space from. Mrs. Parker was a retired woman who lived on a remote farm in Maine and rented out her barn for some extra money. She falls victim to a call center scam and takes her own life because of it. We follow Adam on his journey to avenge her death by going after the scammers.
This movie is absolutely ridiculous and over the top, but it does start off by showing the harsh reality of scamming. The scams in this film are tech support scams that pray on lonely elderly people. The entire scheme is run by the son of the president of the United States who created the call centers and was the money behind the scam. The call centers and scammers in this film are incredibly high tech and far from reality. Adorned with neon lights and $10,000 PCs wall to wall the call centers look like a gamer's paradise. Every operator is making millions and dresses like a hipster millennial. Of course, in the end, the good guy wins, big shock. However, his methods are far from realistic. Instead of trying to understand the logistics of blowing up a building with a single match or using a severed finger to get through a biometric lock, let’s look at what started this vendetta expedition.
What is a call center?
A normal call center is the department that handles customer communication. Most go beyond just customer calls to include emails and online chats. In this movie though the ‘call centers’ are places that scammers make their calls from. Real scam call centers normally consist of an organized group that impersonates a legitimate company in order to fraud people. The callers plan ahead to target the most vulnerable people they can find. The targets are mostly elderly people. The preparation for a call often involves gathering as much information as possible on their target. They could do this through social media, public records, or even old data breaches. The idea is that the more they know about a person, the better they can manipulate them. The easiest way for scammers to get their targets to answer the phone is by using ID spoofing. ID spoofing is a tactic that allows the caller to appear as a recognizable number, often with an area code near the person they are calling. Throughout the call the scammer works to urge the target to take some sort of immediate action, and it often works. This is accomplished mostly through social engineering. Social engineering is a form of planned manipulation that these scammers use to gain trust and establish credibility. It is a combination of choreographed lying and fearmongering to take control of the call. They often follow scripts or guidelines that the center provides for them. The problem that the scammer presents is normally urgent. Some examples would include problems with insurance or taxes. From there, the scammers have multiple routes they can take. Either leading the victim to give up money or data. Scammers will try to sell nonexistent software, or protection plans to get money directly. Other scammers try to get password information to take money straight from your bank account.
What is a tech support scam?
Call centers mostly run tech support scams, like the scamming network in The Beekeeper. Tech support scams trick people into paying for technical support services that don’t exist or outright steal money and data from the victim. They often impersonate a real company, so the victim is more likely to trust their directions. These scams use all sorts of scare tactics to get their targets to comply. They employ pop-ups that seem urgent and once they get a call, they alarm the victim by reporting a possible loss of data. Tech support scammers also use complex technical jargon to confuse their target into compliance.
What happened?
In The Beekeeper, Mrs. Parker gets a pop-up on her computer that advertises a number she needs to call so that she doesn’t lose all her data. By calling the number, she is actually getting in touch with the scamming call center. They then have her install “data saving software” that is actually software that allows them to mirror her laptop. Mirroring is a wireless way to share your screen with someone. Without her knowing, the scammers can now see everything she does on her laptop. From there they convince her to sign into her bank accounts so they can ‘properly refund her money’. Once they get her passwords, they wipe her accounts and hang up. This process is known as a tech support scam.
There are a few parts of this portrayal that aren’t entirely accurate. For one, the call center in the movie is in a building owned by a high-profile company that is secretly funding and managing the center. Another off-base depiction is the profile of the scammers. They have all made their wealth off the scams and seem well dressed and enthusiastic about scamming the elderly. In reality, the majority of call centers are located in India and are not as glamorous as this Hollywood portrayal. Around 85% of tech support scam calls originate from India. The scammers often work in night shifts because they target people on the other side of the world. They aren’t working out of high-tech office spaces, and they definitely aren’t making millions that they get to keep. Sometimes these scams don’t even need to reach out directly to their targets. Often their numbers are listed in online ads offering help for various computer issues. This means that some targets come straight to them. Only about 7% of tech support scams can be traced back to the Unites States followed by 3% coming from Costa Rica.
The reality of elder fraud
The elderly are the most targeted demographic for scamming. Last year the FBI reported that over $3.4 billion in losses as a result of “elder fraud” or financial crimes against the elderly. Over 101,000 individuals over age 60 reported some sort of financial scam against them in 2023. In comparison only 18,000 individuals under 20 made reports in the same year. Tech support scams were included in the majority of these reports. Over $590 million was lost to tech support scams, coming second to investment scams that caused losses of over $1.2 billion. The elderly are so vulnerable to these scams because they lack the ability to recognize when they are being targeted. Often these scams demand immediate action, taking advantage of their targets' lack of technical knowledge. The stress and urgency of the entire situation is the main reason the elderly fall victim to these scammers.
What is realistic ethical hacking?
The Beekeeper shows the main character Adam blowing up buildings and constantly killing people to get his revenge on the scammers and in infiltrate the bigger network of criminals. This is of course extremely unrealistic. Ethical hackers in the real world take a far less dramatic approach then Adam, they aren’t blowing up buildings or killing people. Instead, ethical hackers are authorized to gain unauthorized access to a system. They are security professionals and experts who perform security assessments for companies, groups, or individuals. The key factor for real ethical hackers is that they stay legal. It is about finding vulnerabilities so that systems can be better protected. The key factor for ethical hacking is to learn how to legally access and perform penetration tests. There are plenty of ways for a cyber professional to get this information such as cyberTAP’s advanced cyber range training or ethical hacking courses. Educating people on what scamming looks like is the easiest way to prevent these losses, especially when it is impossible to make sure everyone’s systems are completely vulnerable free.
Scambaiting is also considered a form of ethical hacking by some cyber professionals. Scambaiting is the process of exposing and manipulating scammers. This is mostly done through pretending to be a victim, acting as if they are susceptible to the scammer's plan. This kind of baiting applies mostly to call centers and one on one interactions, but scam baiters also work to expose websites or systems through other methods. This type of ‘ethical hacking’ is highly debated because of its risky nature and varying outcomes.
While this movie is unbelievably cheesy and over the top, it centers around an important reality. The elderly are unproportionally targeted by cybercriminals and scammers every day. In the most unfortunate circumstances, they lose the entirety of their life savings and all their data. It is so important that we work to properly educate as many people as possible to prevent these scammers from succeeding.
