A Cautionary Tale

 

Photo on Visualhunt

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today on this rainy Saturday with a strange story. I received an email from someone yesterday, and they claimed  they’d hacked my account and had all my contacts. They also claimed they’d hacked into my computer and used my webcam to videotape me accessing porn sites and doing “dirty things.”

Photo credit: Scott Beale on VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-ND

They threatened to send these “videos” to all my contacts unless I sent them $3600.00 in Bitcoins. First of all, I know this is a total scam because I don’t access porn sites and I never have a webcam in my bedroom.

Photo on Visual Hunt

I called my lawyer friend and asked, “Do people really fall for this?”

He laughed. “You’d be surprised.”

We mulled over how someone could’ve gotten my email address, and we figured out that they must’ve hacked a site where I applied for a job back when I was looking for one. I used a password that I could remember because I was applying to more than one company so I used that password more than once. One of those companies must’ve gotten hacked. In the email, they claimed to have my password, and they did have the one I used when I was looking for a job. I’ve never used that password for my personal email so I knew they didn’t have my contact list.

This is a cautionary tale my dear followers. Make sure you don’t overuse your email password. In fact, I’d only use it once and change your passwords often. It upsets me that people are doing this and getting away with it. These hackers are getting more and more aggressive because they know they’re hard to catch.

Photo on Visualhunt

A couple of years ago there was another scam going around where someone would call you on the phone claiming to be from the IRS. This one happened to me, too. When I answered the phone, the person on the other end said he was from the IRS and they had money they needed to send to me. They claimed to need my address, social security number, and bank account number. I told them if they were really from the IRS they’d have all of that information and hung up. They tried calling back a few times, but they were unsuccessful in getting the information they wanted.

These hackers must be successful or they would stop. So please protect your personal information. Make sure your passwords are confidential and change them often.

Photo credit: Cigac Semiárido on Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post today. Have you had anything like this happen to you? How did you handle it? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!