Blake Hall

total aid to ukraine is 65.9 billion dollars the u.s defense budget is 824 billion dollars so if you take about half it's about half the defense budget lost every year to fraud just federal dollars at the federal level it's two percent of gdp an aircraft carrier costs 13 billion dollars so that's the magnitude of what we're losing

total aid to ukraine is 65.9 billion dollars the u.s defense budget is 824 billion dollars so if you take about half it's about half the defense budget lost every year to fraud just federal dollars at the federal level it's two percent of gdp an aircraft carrier costs 13 billion dollars so that's the magnitude of what we're losing

right now when we have extraordinary debt of over $30 trillion in interest payments. And so it makes ransomware look almost insignificant by comparison. We played a pretty central role in stopping fraud during the pandemic. So there are seven states on a record that have credited us with stopping $270 billion worth of fraud. And let me zoom in on the impact that we had.

right now when we have extraordinary debt of over $30 trillion in interest payments. And so it makes ransomware look almost insignificant by comparison. We played a pretty central role in stopping fraud during the pandemic. So there are seven states on a record that have credited us with stopping $270 billion worth of fraud. And let me zoom in on the impact that we had.

We went into Arizona in October of 2020. When we went in there, this is six months into the pandemic, Arizona had 570,400 new weekly unemployment claims in a state where there's only 7 million people, including kids. And the state agencies would tell us, we know it's fraud, not because we have any advanced tooling, but because the bots are filing the claim end-to-end in less than 60 seconds.

We went into Arizona in October of 2020. When we went in there, this is six months into the pandemic, Arizona had 570,400 new weekly unemployment claims in a state where there's only 7 million people, including kids. And the state agencies would tell us, we know it's fraud, not because we have any advanced tooling, but because the bots are filing the claim end-to-end in less than 60 seconds.

Because all that you need is a name, date of birth, social. You could pinky swear that you're a Lyft driver and you could start collecting $600 per week. The week after we were introduced, it went down to 6,700 claims per week. And so then Michael Weishart is the director over there of Arizona DES at HeyBlake.

Because all that you need is a name, date of birth, social. You could pinky swear that you're a Lyft driver and you could start collecting $600 per week. The week after we were introduced, it went down to 6,700 claims per week. And so then Michael Weishart is the director over there of Arizona DES at HeyBlake.

He said, listen, we processed about 265,000 claimants that we're paying on a weekly basis. And he's like, I feel it's my job to make sure that we're not paying these out to organized crime and overseas groups. So we're going to run those six months worth of claimants back through y'all in December. I said, OK.

He said, listen, we processed about 265,000 claimants that we're paying on a weekly basis. And he's like, I feel it's my job to make sure that we're not paying these out to organized crime and overseas groups. So we're going to run those six months worth of claimants back through y'all in December. I said, OK.

So when they did that, of the 265,000, how many do you think even tried to verify their identity?

So when they did that, of the 265,000, how many do you think even tried to verify their identity?

92,000. Two thirds didn't even try. We were able to successfully authenticate, I think about 86, 87,000 of the 92, which is our job. And then other service channels handle the rest. We were immediately hit with four denial of service attacks out of West Africa. We had, there's something called the DNS query, which is, Yellow pages look up, it maps out your infrastructure.

92,000. Two thirds didn't even try. We were able to successfully authenticate, I think about 86, 87,000 of the 92, which is our job. And then other service channels handle the rest. We were immediately hit with four denial of service attacks out of West Africa. We had, there's something called the DNS query, which is, Yellow pages look up, it maps out your infrastructure.

So we had 2.2 billion queries from IP addresses around the world. And then we saw hundreds of millions of Yandex IPs, which is Russia's internet service provider. I've never seen anything like it before. my life. What's really devastating is that every name, date of birth, social that these criminal groups were using, that's a real person.

So we had 2.2 billion queries from IP addresses around the world. And then we saw hundreds of millions of Yandex IPs, which is Russia's internet service provider. I've never seen anything like it before. my life. What's really devastating is that every name, date of birth, social that these criminal groups were using, that's a real person.

If they need help, if the bad guy beat you to your own identity, you're done. The government agencies weren't able to tell who was friend and who was foe. So California shut down for two weeks at the same time. We enabled them to reopen. And so on and on. Then the fraud, it moved to Florida with the bot attacks in January, it moved to New York in like March.

If they need help, if the bad guy beat you to your own identity, you're done. The government agencies weren't able to tell who was friend and who was foe. So California shut down for two weeks at the same time. We enabled them to reopen. And so on and on. Then the fraud, it moved to Florida with the bot attacks in January, it moved to New York in like March.

And that's ultimately why 27 state unemployment agencies adopted us in 15 to 18 months. Now, the crazy thing was, I actually hadn't built it for fraud. Initially, it was more for customer experience to put people in control to help homeless veterans, international veterans get access to VA. Because when I left the military, you had to go into the VA in person to prove your identity.

And that's ultimately why 27 state unemployment agencies adopted us in 15 to 18 months. Now, the crazy thing was, I actually hadn't built it for fraud. Initially, it was more for customer experience to put people in control to help homeless veterans, international veterans get access to VA. Because when I left the military, you had to go into the VA in person to prove your identity.