Latest news with #imposter
Telegraph
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Gabby Logan's daughter Lois: ‘I've never had anything handed to me'
There's an imposter on the gallops at Park House Stables, Kingsclere, the Berkshire racing yard of Andrew Balding. Wearing a bright yellow silk on her riding hat, Lois Logan, the 19-year-old daughter of forthcoming Match of the Day presenter Gabby and her husband, Kenny, is thundering around the track on a race-fit thoroughbred. Yet Lois is a showjumper who only sat on a racehorse for the first time this spring. 'She's been amazing,' Balding's wife, Anna Lisa, tells me as we watch the horses exercise against the backdrop of the sun-scorched north Hampshire Downs. 'To be safe to race involves hard work in the gym and on the horse.' Indeed, to my untrained eye, Lois's riding position is no different from the professionals. 'It's such an adrenalin rush,' she says as she untacks her horse and washes it down. 'These horses are totally different athletes to mine – they're F1 cars not Range Rover Sports. It's the quickest I've gone in my life.' This week, Lois, who is studying geography at Loughborough University, will be riding in the Markel Magnolia Cup – an invitation-only charity race – at the Qatar Goodwood Festival. The event has raised more than £2.7m for good causes since the first race in 2011. She is one of 12 amateur female jockeys who have spent the past few months training at top yards. Park House Stables is where Queen Elizabeth II once kept her racehorses, and is run like a military operation, with 90 staff and 250 horses in training. Gabby warned Lois that it would be tough to fit in training with university, but Lois was determined. 'No time is going to be the right time,' she says. In a relatively short period of time, she has passed a gruelling jockey fitness test, and learnt to ride like a jockey, in a forward leaning crouch above the saddle to minimise wind resistance and maximise control of the horse. 'I've hit the deck once – the horse was going beautifully and from nowhere he slammed on the brakes,' she says. 'I somersaulted over his head and landed on my bum. I was so embarrassed. I just wanted to get back on.' Arguably in contrast to your average teenager, Lois radiates enthusiasm, and can count the number of times she has had a hangover on one hand. 'I've had a couple,' she admits. 'In freshers' week I had one so bad I called my mum and she said, 'You're hungover, welcome to university.'' An early riser, today Lois has been up since 5am, riding a pony she's training to sell – her father came out to help her – before driving 90 minutes to Kingsclere to take two horses around the gallops in the heat. Later this afternoon, she will drive back home to Buckinghamshire to ride her showjumpers and train at the gym. She's kept to a strict diet, with advice from the British Racing School's nutritionists, to ensure she eats enough protein and carbohydrates. Tomorrow she will do it all again. 'I hate waking up past 8am, because it feels like my whole day is gone. I think it comes from my mum and dad,' she says. 'My mum has a day off and spends three hours scrubbing the kitchen floor.' Despite this being her first major interview, Lois, who has appeared on her mother's podcast, The Mid Point – which focuses on midlife challenges and expectations – insists her parents haven't coached her about what to say. 'They trust me to say the right thing,' she says. 'I've seen them in their environments their whole life – I'm not fussed by it.' Gabby's new job presenting Match of the Day has been a proud moment for the family, says Lois, and is totally deserved, as her mother never stops working. 'Sometimes I'll be scrolling Instagram and I'll be like, 'Oh, she's doing that'. She's so busy the whole time.' We are chatting in the 'colour room', a converted barn with walls hung with winning jockey silks. Anna Lisa, who takes all Magnolia Cup entrants under her wing, has left us with a basket of croissants and sausage rolls that she baked this morning. Gabby came here to watch her daughter train a few weeks ago and was so impressed by Park House Stables that she featured them on her other podcast, co-hosted by Mark Chapman, The Sports Agents. 'It blew her brains,' Lois says. 'Even though she isn't horsey, her grandfather was a bookie and she dreamt of being a racehorse trainer when she was younger.' Was Gabby's heart in her throat watching her daughter tear the gallops? 'She's more nervous watching me jump,' Lois says. 'She has to stand at least 10m from my dad because she jumps every jump with me.' The Logans must be one of the sportiest families in Britain. Gabby is the daughter of Welsh former football player and manager Terry Yorath, and before becoming a television presenter she was a rhythmic gymnast, representing Wales in the 1990 Commonwealth Games. Meanwhile Lois's father, Kenny, is a former Scotland international rugby union player who now runs his own sports marketing company. There was never a question that their offspring would play sport – Lois has a twin brother, Reuben, a professional rugby union player for Northampton Saints – although Lois insists that they always did so willingly (with one possible exception during lockdown when Gabby made them exercise for six hours straight to raise money for charity). 'There is this assumption that Mum and Dad are pushy, but they're not,' says Lois. 'They just wanted us to enjoy sport. For them, it's about mental health and release and keeping yourself fit and happy.' She reels off all the sports that she played competitively as a child: swimming, tennis, lacrosse, netball. Oh, and she could have become a professional athlete. 'I had to choose between high jump or showjumping and, weirdly, at university, I've picked up pole vault,' says Lois. Her boyfriend is the South African golfer Cam Raubenheimer; they met at school. The family are all extremely competitive with each other; a game of rounders quickly becomes serious, Lois explains, and there's a healthy amount of mother-daughter rivalry. 'Mum and I ran a half marathon together last year. She took it really seriously and trained very hard, and I didn't,' says Lois. 'We got to the 12th mile and I was like, 'Mum, I didn't train hard enough for this', and she said, 'You're staying with me'. 'Then we got 400m from the finish line and I tried to sprint off and beat her and she was like, 'Don't you dare, because I've got nothing left.' We finished holding hands.' It was Kenny's family who introduced Lois to riding. He grew up with horses on his family's farm in Scotland, and Kenny's mother, a former three-day eventer, was the instigator. At the time, the Logans lived in London, where Lois had to make do with a rocking horse. But at the age of seven, when the family moved to Buckinghamshire, she started having riding lessons. 'It was free childcare for Mum and Dad. They'd drop me at the yard and I'd be there from 9am till 3pm doing chores, scrubbing buckets or filling hay nets, in the hope that I might get a ride if I was lucky,' Lois recalls. 'They'd never drop me off with a lunchbox or water. I'd literally have to fend for myself,' she continues. 'At the start, Mum quite liked the idea of me being horsey. I don't think she knew what I was getting myself into.' Inevitably, Lois's equine passion spiralled. First, she had a loan pony at a local showjumping yard, and then her own pony, Aero. Lois describes Aero as being 'an absolute nut job' who became a winning machine once she got the hang of him. 'I was about eight when I got him and I had no brakes,' she says. 'The first time I jumped him, I fell off and cried. I thought I wasn't going to be allowed to jump him again.' She was a gutsy competitor, with Kenny as her chief groom, driving the horsebox to shows. 'He's learnt along the way with me. He's a proper horseman and amazing with animals,' says Lois. At 16, with a new pony, Oreo Patches, she won two classes at the 2021 British Showjumping National Championships and qualified for the Horse of the Year Show. Now, Lois is moving up the ranks on her horse Jet Stream. 'I'd love to ride in the Olympics, but at this point it seems far off,' she says. Jet Stream is not, however, what horsey people would describe as a 'push button pony' (one that knows exactly what is being asked of it). Lois says she has never been bought a highly trained horse with a proven track record, although people often see her surname and assume otherwise. 'I've never had anything handed to me,' says Lois. 'I'm lucky that my parents have always supported me, but with showjumping, unless you come from a showjumping dynasty – like the Whitaker family – or from obscene wealth, it's really tough. I don't come from either of those backgrounds.' Even if Lois's parents could have afforded to buy her an Olympic horse, she doubts they would have done so. They've given their twins 'an unbelievable set of morals to stand on', she says, and have made them work for everything. Gabby was, she says, the last mother in their year to hand out mobile phones, when they were 13. 'Even when we got them, we were only allowed an hour of screen time a day, on the bus home from school,' she says. 'I think we despised her for a couple of years, but both Reuben and I would do the same,' she adds. 'Social media is such a toxic place for young people.' During Lois's final year at school, when she began to discuss a gap year with her parents, they made it clear that they would not finance her dream of competing in the Sunshine Tour, a five-week annual championship series in Spain. 'I started thinking about fundraising strategies and, in the end, I bought a pony on Facebook. Anything could have turned up on the lorry – a goat! – but luckily he was a lovely pony.' She 'produced' him (equestrian speak for training him to a higher level) and the profit from his sale funded her gap year, paying for her travel to Spain and all the shows. She admits, though, that the luck didn't hold: another pony she bought turned out to have sarcoids (warts), which slashed his value. 'You're never guaranteed to make money with horses,' says Lois. If someone offered her big bucks for her Olympic hopeful, a young horse she has been producing for several years, she says she'd have no choice but to take it. 'With horses, you've got to be prepared to sacrifice certain things to keep the rest of it going,' she says. 'Every time you train [a horse], it costs a certain amount of money. It's like having a child: you've got to think about feed, dentist, vet bills, vaccinations.' She says there is a racy, Jilly Cooper side to showjumping, which she confirms is still alive and kicking. 'There's a bit of naughtiness in all equestrian sports,' she admits. 'Showjumping is so glamorous, with its boots and white jodhpurs and show jackets. There's a big fashion side to it. 'When I was younger I was desperate for a Cavalleria Toscana [a premium range of Italian equestrian clothing] jacket, but my mum wouldn't let me have one,' says Lois. Much to her excitement, the jockey silks she'll be wearing at the Magnolia Cup have been designed by her favourite fashion brand, Rixo. On occasion, Anna Lisa admits she feels nervous for her Magnolia Cup protégées, but not Lois. By Goodwood, she will be truly ready to race. 'She's put in the hours and is beginning to look rather good,' says Anna Lisa. Lois's non-horsey university friends, however, think it's all a bit crazy. She'll have ridden two horses before they've even got out of bed. This summer, she's hoping to take her truck licence, enabling her to drive a large horse lorry, so she won't have to rely on her father. For the time being, though, her focus is on the finishing line at Goodwood. 'I'm the fittest I've ever been,' she says. 'I know there's a risk – the speed is insane – but you can't go about life being scared.'
Globe and Mail
7 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
You were targeted in a scam. Is your bank liable for the losses?
Crystal Quast had just finished writing a mystery novel when she found herself embroiled in a real-life mystery of her own. Ms. Quast, a corporate communications professional based in Waterloo, Ont., had decided to self-publish her book through Amazon. The technology behemoth's logo was on her receipts, and calls from the representatives she was dealing with came up as 'Amazon publishing' on her phone. But something felt off to Ms. Quast. The company was charging $2,500 for a publishing package that included editing, but didn't appear to be doing much of it. Ms. Quast eventually reached out to a friend at Amazon who informed her that she was dealing with an imposter. 'I was really shaken. My confidence was shaken ... I didn't think I'd ever get taken in by a scam,' Ms. Quast said. Ms. Quast is one of a growing number of Canadians falling victim to fraud, and its changing nature is raising questions about who should be liable for the losses that siphon hundreds of millions of dollars out of the economy each year. Fraud victims reported a total of $647-million in losses to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre last year, up from $577-million in 2023. Those figures likely represent just the tip of the iceberg, as an estimated 90 to 95 per cent of fraud goes unreported, according to the agency. Scammers are impersonating finance experts to steal millions – and the real ones are struggling to stop it As financial institutions have bolstered their defences, criminals have shifted tactics, creating new challenges for banks and other institutions. Victims, meanwhile, are forced to navigate a patchwork of regulations that in many cases leave them footing the bill. Geoff Morton, senior director of fraud strategy at Royal Bank of Canada, said that in the past, criminals would typically commit what's known as unauthorized fraud by gaining access to a customer's bank account and transferring funds out, all without the victim's involvement. 'That was a problem for a very long time across all the banks, not just in Canada but everywhere. And so everybody's been investing very heavily into lots of technological solutions to that,' Mr. Morton said. Banks have implemented stricter authentication requirements in recent years, making it harder for criminals to gain access to client accounts, and have also gotten better at spotting and blocking those types of fraudulent transactions, Mr. Morton said. But rather than putting an end to the theft, the new security measures have prompted the criminals to change tactics to what's known as authorized fraud, Mr. Morton said. Instead of gaining unauthorized access to a victim's account, the perpetrators are interacting directly with the victims, and convincing them to transfer funds. 'The biggest trends we're seeing these days are things like investment scams, romance scams ... where they convince the client to send a payment directly to them,' Mr. Morton said. 'That's been a shift we've seen over the last year really accelerate,' he added. That creates new challenges for banks, whose fraud detection tools are geared more toward identifying the markers of unauthorized fraud – for instance, transactions originating from new devices or locations. When the customer has fallen prey to a scam, those markers no longer apply. Instead, banks have to look for transactions that don't match the client's typical pattern of behaviour, Mr. Morton said. Addressing scams also requires more call-centre resources. In an unauthorized fraud, customers are asked a simple yes or no question: had they authorized the transaction? With authorized fraud, call-centre employees may find themselves in a trickier situation: telling a customer they've fallen prey to a scam, after the bank has blocked the transaction. Still, customers may insist it's a valid transaction and that the payment be made. 'You have to break this spell that the client is under,' Mr. Morton said. In many cases, the victims have been coached by the scammer on what to say when the bank calls to verify the transaction, he added. 'It's a whole element of behaviour that we haven't had to deal with in the past as a bank.' Victims can be so bought into the scam that they refuse to heed the bank's advice. British digital bank Revolut has in some instances resorted to asking suspected scam victims to take selfies while holding up a sheet of paper that states the bank warned them against completing a particular transaction. Banks aren't the only institutions affected by what the Ontario Securities Commission has described as a massive surge in online scams and fraud. The deceptive and unauthorized use of a company's name or logo, known as brand abuse, has had such a significant impact on Amazon that the tech giant has taken the matter to court. In late 2023, Amazon sued what it described as a 'ring' of individuals and entities based in the United States and Pakistan for scamming authors by falsely claiming to be affiliated with Amazon Publishing and Kindle Direct Publishing, the company's self-publishing arm. Authors such as Ms. Quast were lured into paying what the company described as 'substantial sums of money' for inadequate or non-existent services, the company alleged. In February, the Northern District of California court awarded Amazon US$36.4-million in damages. The company said it will 'evaluate its options to most effectively use any damages recovered to benefit those impacted by impersonation scams.' 'The ultimate fraud machine': Scammers are using AI to target people and businesses with increasingly convincing deepfakes Some countries have implemented shared liability models, which aim to prompt institutions such as banks and telecoms to bolster their anti-scam measures by holding them responsible for losses. In Britain, for instance, liability for reimbursing the victims of what are known as authorized push payment scams is split equally between the bank that sent the money and the one that received it. (An authorized push payment scam occurs when a customer is tricked into a sending money to someone posing as a payee.) Singapore, meanwhile, has adopted what's known as a waterfall approach to determining who should bear the cost when a customer loses money to a phishing attack. The responsibility for compensating the victims falls first on the financial institution. If the bank has met all of its obligations under the rules, the burden shifts to the telecom company involved, then finally to the customer. 'I think that shared liability model on the surface is a good idea, because it really incentivizes every person in that chain to have skin in the game,' said Carl Davies, head of fraud and identity at Equifax Canada. 'The real challenge is, at some point, those organizations can do everything that is asked of them but the consumer will still do it because they've been bought into the scam,' he added. In Canada, the discussion around fraud liability is continuing. 'It is a patchwork right now in Canada,' said Sara Eve Levac, a lawyer and analyst at Montreal-based consumer advocacy Option consommateurs. For unauthorized credit-card transactions, the Bank Act limits the consumer's liability to $50, as long as the consumer wasn't grossly negligent. 'For any other modes of payment, there's no protection by law,' Ms. Levac said. 'You have to look at the rules under civil liability, or the contracts that the consumer has with the bank, and what we've noticed is that in many circumstances the bank will say that the consumer authorized the transaction, even if we're in the situation of a scam and the information was given under false pretenses,' she added. Option consommateurs has been advocating for changes to the Bank Act, including a uniform legal framework for all payment methods, and wording to specify that a transaction should not be considered authorized if the consumer has been tricked into providing their banking credentials. In Quebec, the government is looking to limit consumer liability for unauthorized debit transactions to $50, making the rules consistent with those governing credit-card fraud. RBC's Mr. Morton says the responsibility for tackling authorized fraud lies with multiple parties, including banks, customers, telecom companies, social media platforms and search engines. 'It's not just a bank problem to solve, we really need to bring everybody to the table,' he said. The Canadian Bankers Association has convened a roundtable, billed as the Canadian anti-scam alliance, in an attempt to do just that. Nathalie Bergeron, a spokesperson for the CBA, said banks are 'one of several lines of defence' in the fight against scams, and are continuously strengthening their security measures. 'Banks have controls – including fraud alerts and one-time passcodes – to help protect customers from fraud. Under client banking agreements, customers also share responsibility for protecting their personal information, including keeping PINs and passwords confidential,' Ms. Bergeron said in a statement. A report published last week by the Washington-based Bank Policy Institute calls on telecom, tech and social media companies to assist in the fight against fraud. 'Financial institutions cannot solve this problem alone and need cross-industry collaboration with tech and telecom to protect their mutual customers,' it reads. Scams can cost victims more than their money. Here's how to recover emotionally from fraud Ms. Quast has seen firsthand how scams impact the broader business ecosystem – from Google, whose search engine had taken her to the Amazon imposter's website, to Amazon to the banks that facilitated the payments. She used two different credit cards to pay the fake Amazon publisher. The Bank of Nova Scotia has refunded her for the payment made on its card. Ms. Quast said Toronto-Dominion Bank eventually also issued a refund, after protracted communication back and forth. A spokesperson for TD declined to provide details but said the case was closed in the spring. Ms. Quast's book Dinked: Serenity Acres: Where Secrets Barely Stay Hidden – which, coincidentally, contains an Amazon phishing scam subplot – has since been published, through Amazon's legitimate self-publishing arm. 'I'm happy with it, but it's turned what was a really joyous experience into a nightmare,' she said. 'I was thrilled that I had written my first novel, I was really happy with it, and it went from being something I was really proud of to being ashamed that I got suckered into a scam.'
Fox News
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
AI Impersonates Marco Rubio, Spews Anti-Semitism on Elon Musk's Site
Howie Kurtz on an imposter using A-I to impersonate Sec. Rubio in message to officials, Trump threatening to bomb Moscow and questions escalating about Texas flood warning system. Follow Howie on Twitter: @HowardKurtz For more #MediaBuzz click here
NHK
09-07-2025
- Politics
- NHK
Imposter used AI to pose as US secretary of state, contact foreign ministers
Multiple US media outlets say that an imposter posing as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio contacted foreign ministers using voice and text messages generated with artificial intelligence. They reported on Tuesday that the individual created an account on the Signal messaging app under Rubio's name and used it to send messages that mimicked his voice and writing style using AI-powered software. The imposter reportedly contacted at least five people, including three foreign ministers. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the department is aware of the incident and investigating the matter. She also said, "The department takes seriously its responsibility to safeguard its information and continuously takes steps to improve the department's cybersecurity posture to prevent future incidents for security reasons." But she declined to provide further details, saying doing so could interfere with the investigation. A similar case was reported in May, in which someone breached the phone of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and used it to place calls and send messages to senators and others while posing as Wiles.
News.com.au
09-07-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
Rubio imposter used AI to message high-level officials, reports say
An imposter posing as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent AI-generated voice and text messages to high-level officials and foreign ministers, reports said Tuesday, the latest American official to be targeted by impersonators. A cable from the top US diplomat's office said the unidentified culprit was likely seeking to manipulate powerful officials "with the goal of gaining access to information or accounts," the Washington Post and other US media reported. The imposter contacted at least three foreign ministers, a US state governor, and a member of Congress using both text messaging and the encrypted messaging app Signal, according to the cable dated July 3. Starting in mid-June, the imposter created a Signal account using the display name " to contact the unsuspecting officials, it added. "The actor left voicemails on Signal for at least two targeted individuals and in one instance, sent a text message inviting the individual to communicate on Signal," said the cable. The contents of the messages were unclear. Responding to an AFP request for comment, the State Department said it was aware of the incident and was "currently investigating the matter." "The Department takes seriously its responsibility to safeguard its information and continuously takes steps to improve the department's cybersecurity posture to prevent future incidents," said a senior State Department official. The impersonation of Rubio was one of "two distinct campaigns" being probed in which threat actors impersonate State Department personnel via email and messaging apps, the cable said. The second campaign began in April and involves a "Russia-linked cyber actor" who conducted a phishing campaign targeting personal Gmail accounts associated with think tank scholars, Eastern Europe-based activists and dissidents, journalists, and former officials, it said. The cyber actor posed as a "fictitious" State Department official and sought to tap into the contents of the users' Gmail accounts, added the cable. - 'Malicious actors' - The hoaxes follow an FBI warning that since April cyber actors have impersonated senior US officials to target their contacts, including current and former federal or state government officials. "The malicious actors have sent text messages and AI-generated voice messages -- techniques known as smishing and vishing, respectively -- that claim to come from a senior US official in an effort to establish rapport before gaining access to personal accounts," the FBI said in May. In May, President Donald Trump said an impersonator breached the phone of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. US senators, governors and business executives received text messages and phone calls from someone claiming to be Wiles, the Wall Street Journal reported. The breach prompted a White House and FBI investigation, but Trump played down the threat, saying Wiles "can handle it." Senior Trump administration officials have courted criticism for using Signal and other unofficial channels for government work. In March, then-national security advisor Mike Waltz inadvertently added a journalist to a Signal chat group discussing US strikes in Yemen. The episode led to Waltz's ouster. With proliferating AI voice cloning tools -- which are cheap, easy to use and hard to trace -– disinformation researchers fret the impact of audio deepfakes to impersonate or smear celebrities and politicians. Last year, a robocall impersonating then-president Joe Biden stoked public alarm about such deepfakes. The robocall urged New Hampshire residents not to cast ballots in a Democratic primary, prompting authorities to launch a probe into possible voter suppression and triggering demands from campaigners for stricter guardrails around generative AI tools.
