Which one was it this time? Your Instagram? Snap Chat? Gmail? Bank accounts? Let me guess, you recently received notice that <insert brand here> had a little mishap and some data may have been compromised? Or, your data got stolen during the OPM hack. Or the Equifax hack. Or the Yahoo hack. Whatever it is, somehow, somewhere, your information was stolen. P.S. if you want a really good listen to what hackers can do, listen to this episode from the podcast /Reply-All/.
But you say, I was using two-factor authentication! I promise. That’s great, it really is, but unfortunately in today’s world, that doesn’t mean you’re safe anymore. I’ll talk about that in a bit.
Maybe you’re just sharing too much information on social media.
Maybe the hacker got lucky. Probably not.
So let’s talk through a few different areas where I see people making mistakes.
Scenario 1
Girl on Instagram (not naming names here) posts on her Instagram stories that two of her accounts got hacked. She goes on t1o say that many of her accounts all had some variation of the same password and she has no idea how she got hacked. I didn’t ask her what that password was, nor did she share that information (smart), but I spent some time going back and forth with her, giving her tips of what to do.
The thing is, this is more common than it should be, but it seems like most people are too worried or nervous to talk about it, same as in the commercial world (think about all these big box stores or companies that take months if not longer to come out about a compromise). How do we change this? Well one, it’s not a death sentence if you’re hacked, and two, it’s not something you should be embarrassed about. Hackers are getting better, and we’re all sharing more information on the internet than ever before.
If you’re an influencer or are aspiring to be an influencer, you’re probably posting a lot. Well, what are you posting about? Pictures of where you live? Places you frequent? Your family? Throwbacks from high school? Embarrassing stories? Now take a second to think about how compiling all that information could paint a pretty substantial file on you. Look through the last few weeks or month of your Instagram posts and stories, your blog posts, your Facebook.. Now think about it from an outsider’s point of view. If you were someone else looking into your life from the outside, what kind of story are you telling? Do your pictures have any sensitive information (address, delivery boxes, favorite coffee shops, and don’t laugh, I’ve seen it all)? You might ask how your favorite coffee shop could be considered sensitive. Well, if you go there every Saturday morning at 11am, and then again every Tuesday afternoon at 2pm, you’re setting a pattern for yourself. All I have to do is set up shop an hour before you get there and look busy. Then I can use a multitude of tools in an attempt to hi-jack your information, or I could just strike up a conversation with you based on the information I already have. You say you don’t talk to strangers? Well what if I know your favorite obscure band or sports team and I happen to have that shirt on? You’re probably going to be more inclined to at least have a short conversation with me now aren’t you?
Scenario 2
Now let’s think about those security questions we’ve answered again and again when we set up an account so if we lose our password we can still get in. What city were you born in? What was your first pet’s name? What was your first car? What is your mother’s maiden name? What is your paternal grandfather’s first name? What is your best friends first name? What is your favorite color? What is your favorite food?
Now remember when the quarantine started and everyone was posting quizzes on Facebook and Instagram? Let’s take a second and think about what kind of questions they were asking.
I’ll give you a couple minutes.
Now what kind of information are we seeing here? They are a lot of the same questions, aren’t they?
How many times did you see something like this go around? Well, I’m glad that at least went somewhat viral because it’s true. Yes, of course that isn’t a real quiz, they’re just making light of the fact many of these quizzes are indeed allowing the bad guy to learn a lot of information about you.
I’ve talked a little about phishing and social engineering, both here and on the podcast, but it’s worth repeating. People share a lot of information about themselves on the internet. We all have a desire to be liked, to be respected, to fit in. Social media makes that a lot easier, but it also raises the risk of what information people can use when they are targeting someone or something. You can change your privacy settings to avoid public posts, but what happens when you get a new friend request from an attractive individual you may or may not have met at the bar last weekend? Do you blindly accept it? This is another way that attackers are able to bypass the “friends only” settings. Again, we all want to be liked and to have friends. It’s not a bad thing, as long as we recognize it as a potential bias or flaw at times.
Scenario 3
Sometimes I join random groups on Facebook so I can get an idea of what the non-tech world is doing. Sometime last week someone posted this in one of those groups:
My first reaction was confusion, then a little bit of shock, then a lot more confusion. Maybe it’s a generational thing, but then again I’m not that old and I still can’t get behind TikTok either. Or maybe I’m just paranoid because I work in cybersecurity.
By the end of the day I think there were over 100 comments on this, many of them showing pictures that they’ve airdropped to strangers in Target, or have received themselves, waiting in line at the grocery store or walking through the airport. What?! Airdrop is really handy at times, I get it. I’ve used it a handful of times, but my airdrop is usually turned off, and when it’s on, I have it so only contacts can send to me. I also don’t have many contacts, so it might as well be off 😉
I then did a quick google search of airdrop attacks, I’m talking two minutes total here. There’s this one from December 2019 where hackers can block iPhones and iPads via Airdrop attacks. There was this one in August of 2019 that would show your phone number and passwords to malicious third parties. Oh and don’t forget, you can also hide malware inside images using an old technique known as steganography.
Can we see why hacking might be occurring more and more?
Here’s an experiment, influencer or not. Look back at the last few months of your posts across your most used social media outlet. Or even better, look back to your first Facebook or Instagram pictures and posts. What kind of information are you finding?
How about some potential good news. In 2016, Norton released a report where they surveyed 21,000 people in 21 countries. According to this report, 76% reported sharing passwords and engaging in risky behaviors despite knowing they need to actively protect themselves; 44% said they felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information they’re responsible to safeguard (raises hand, guilty); and 35% have at least one unprotected device. Does it get better with the more recent 2019 report? Depends on how you define this word “better”. A little over 10,000 individuals from 10 countries were polled, with 66% saying they have chosen not to download an app or use a service based on its privacy policy (good!); 84% reporting taking at least one step to protect their online activities; 60% saying it is impossible to protect their privacy or that it is too late to do so because their information is already out there; and 66% that are worried their identity will be stolen.
There’s still a lot to do, we are seeing a little progress between 2016 and now, but we can see there is still a lot of fear out there. The 84% that reported taking steps to protecting their online activities is huge, but it was also reported that these were very basic activities such as clearing cookies or limiting information shared online, not using VPNs, using anonymous payment methods, or even going so far as to delete social media accounts. Progress is progress though. Little by little I hope people will start to see they don’t have to lock down their entire lives, but they can take steps to make it more secure at least.
Do you want help in securing things? Let me know, I can try and help out.
499 comments
I was short of words and shocked when Nakamotoguard RECOVERY FIRM reached out to inform me that my funds were recovered requesting my bank details for liquidation to my account, I didn’t believe it at first but on seeing my lost funds back in my account I got overjoyed. Writing down my recovery story and pasting it on every forum available is in hopes of helping victims of online scams seeking retrieval of their losses,nakamotoguard Recovery Firm are the perfect experts for your lost investment funds recovery. To my greatest surprise they recovered all my investments back for me, I couldn’t be more thankful, I thought there were no such good genuine people anymore but this team brought my trust to humanity again. GOD bless you guys for what you do, their services to humanity knows no bounds.
CONTACT DETAILS;nakamotoguard@ GMAIL DOT COM OR TELEGRAM @NAKAMOTOGUARDHQ .
USDC – USDT – BITCOIN RECOVERY CONSULTANTS: HIRE META TECH RECOVERY PRO
I invested $380,000 worth of USDC in a crypto stock market trading app, believing it to be a legitimate opportunity for me to make a profit, as all you keep hearing and reading in the media is how crypto assets are the future of oil. It wasn’t until later that I discovered it was a Ponzi scheme, some horse shit deal that nearly ruined my life, business, and family. I sometimes wonder how these fraudsters operate. I think it’s more spiritual because of the way they get you hooked on their lies and schemes. It was late, as I had fallen deep. As a full-time investor, I was devastated by the loss and felt immense regret for trusting the marketing admin with my hard-earned money. While grappling with the aftermath, I came across Reviews of META TECH RECOVERY PRO on Google while looking for ways to recover my stolen funds. After researching, I found them to be a genuine and trustworthy crypto recovery team. I reached out to them, and they promptly guided me through the entire process via email. Thanks to their expertise and dedication, my USDC was fully recovered. I highly recommend their Service to anyone seeking assistance in recovering their crypto or money lost to fraud online. Contact them via.
h t t p s: // m e t a t e c h r e c o v e r y p r o(.)c o m.
M e t a t e c h @ W r i t e m e. C o m
W / S +1 4 6 9 6 9 2 8 0 4 9
THANK YOU.
I’m overjoyed to share my incredible journey with the amazing spell caster, Dr Peter, who helped me reunite with my boyfriend. My relationship was facing numerous challenges, and things got so bad that we ended up breaking up. I was heartbroken. I loved him more than anything. I cried endlessly until a friend of mine, who has a perfect relationship, shared her story and introduced me to the wonderful Dr Peter. He reassured me that everything would be fine and that no relationship is flawless, but he would help me fix mine. He guided me with specific steps, which I followed, and just 24 hours later, my boyfriend returned to me. I’m beyond thrilled! Thank you so much, Dr Peter! I’m leaving his contact information here so you can also benefit from his incredible work: You can reach him on WhatsApp. +2348162247974
Email. drpeterspellcaster21@gmail.com
Read more on his website
https://drpeterspellcaster.wixsite.com/my-site-1
I’m overjoyed to share my incredible journey with the amazing spell caster, Dr Peter, who helped me reunite with my boyfriend. My relationship was facing numerous challenges, and things got so bad that we ended up breaking up. I was heartbroken. I loved him more than anything. I cried endlessly until a friend of mine, who has a perfect relationship, shared her story and introduced me to the wonderful Dr Peter. He reassured me that everything would be fine and that no relationship is flawless, but he would help me fix mine. He guided me with specific steps, which I followed, and just 24 hours later, my boyfriend returned to me. I’m beyond thrilled! Thank you so much, Dr Peter! I’m leaving his contact information here so you can also benefit from his incredible work: You can reach him on WhatsApp. +2348162247974
Email. drpeterspellcaster21@gmail.com
Read more on his website
https://drpeterspellcaster.wixsite.com/my-site-1
With a combination of deep expertise and dedicated support, d a r k r e c o v e r y h a c k s RECOVERY TEAM can help you define your journey and pave the way toward a destination in your Recovery journey, on your terms. There are only two ways to gain the experience necessary to overcome investment fraud, if you ever find yourself on this path of investment ups & down. 1. the Smart Path; by learning from other people’s. i.e if you’ve not lost your asset already or blocked from accessing them entirely. 2. Expensive Path; by making your own investment mistakes and learning from the school of hard knocks.if you are already at No.2 there is no doubt this review is for you, because only d a r k r e c o v e r y h a c k s RECOVERY TEAM is a Fiduciary & willing to assist you out of that fraudulent scheme you didn’t even know you were in.Fiduciary responsibility means they always act in their clients’ best interest, which I can testify to with my investment asset sitting calmly back in my savings account. d a r k r e c o v e r y h a c k s TEAM are legally liable, morally driven and results oriented, meaning; whatever hacking needs /Recovery case you may have, it’s going to be sorted one way or another. d a r k r e c o v e r y h a c k s RECOVERY TEAM did a fantastic job and went into great details on what exactly I need to do to retrieve my Asset and even highlighted different scenario on how the Recovery process could be handled and I’d still end up with my funds. I will be recommending “d a r k r e c o v e r y h a c k s TEAM to everybody ;
Email: DARKRECOVERYHACKS a t gmail d o t c o m Telegram: DARKRECOVERYHACKSBecause the Holiday Season is just around the corner, and scammers are out to break hearts — and wallets, d a r k r e c o v e r y h a c k s TEAM’S watchdog group warns, the reason I felt the need to make this review.
My life was turned upside down due to my involvement with cryptocurrency investments, I trusted an investment platform investing $90,000 with them but lost everything in a blink of an eye. I really don’t know what would have become of me if not for NAKAMOTOGUARD RECOVERY FIRM, they are of great benefits to my life, actually it was my first time investing in a company, where I was introduced by a lady I had met over a dating site. We actually have been friends from there for a while and along the line she mentioned this crypto investment company to me and how she has been earning money through her investment with the platform, she did provide me with some sort of proofs and certificate of the company as well asked me to invest with the company in order to make some money too using her as my referral. I got drawn without knowing it was a scam but all glory to God and thanks to NAKAMOTOGUARD RECOVERY FIRM (nakamotoguard @gmail.com) for their assistance, determination and unwavering commitment to help out with my situation.
Took action by contacting COREASSETINC RECOVERY FIRM immediately I learnt that I had been scammed by a crypto trading website that I have been investing in for a while now but I never knew they were not legitimate until it got to the point of me withdrawing my profits and things went left . I was introduced to the company by my acquaintance on telegram , I got this message from an unknown user on the telegram app who claimed to be a broker and offered to help me invest part of my savings in crypto and other stocks which he claimed to be very profitable in recent time . We moved further to setting up an account on the website he introduced me to and then wired a few thousands to a crypto exchange called ROBINHOOD where I purchased USDT for my investment , I purchased USDT worth $37,000 at first and later bought another one worth $13,000 to complete my first investment of $50,000 . After the transfer gone through , I was told that my trading has been activated and that it’ll take 2 weeks for the trades to be completed and after that I can choose to withdraw both my investment and profits or choose to reinvest ,after the trading period ended I withdrew part of the investments just to be certain that the whole system works and after the withdrawal I referred most of my family members from back home in India and all of us ended up losing close to half a million dollars before one of my distant cousin who had invested as well brought the idea of working with a private hacker to recover what we had lost to the scam company and that was how we began the recovery process with COREASSETINC RECOVERY FIRM , the fun part was that the whole process took about a week and everyone was brought back to life financially . We were able to contact the team through email and telegram . Find details below .
Email : C O R E A S S E T T I N C @ GMAILDOTCOM
Telegram :C O R E A S S E T I N C
NATURAL HERBS IS THE REAL DEAL IN CURING HERPES-1&2, HIV/AIDS, HPV, DIABETES, STROKE AND CANCER. Contact drofenmu@gmail.com to get the natural herbs to cure yourself from that horrible disease/virus. I got the herbs from Dr Ofenmu and I made use of it with the instructions he gave to me on how to use the natural herbal product, after usage I went for a checkup and my result was Negative and all the symptoms of herpes were completely gone from my body. I was cured from herpes-1&2 after using Dr. Ofenmu natural herbal medicine. You can contact Dr. Ofenmu on his website https://drofenmuherbalcenter.simdif.com/
Thanks to his knowledge and guidance, I experienced significant improvement and, ultimately, complete healing. His approach was thorough, professional, and reassuring, which made the entire process much easier to handle. I truly appreciated how he took the time to explain every step and answer all my questions patiently. Dr. Ikpoko on Youtube didn’t just treat a medical condition; he restored my confidence and quality of life. I feel healthier, happier, and more empowered today because of his dedication. I wholeheartedly recommend Dr. Ikpoko to anyone seeking expert help for oral herpes or similar conditions. Website: https://drikpoko.wixsite.com/herbs Or email: Drikpoko@gmail.com Thank you so much, Dr. Ikpoko, for your outstanding care and for giving me a fresh start!
I lost a huge amount of my funds to a Cryptocurrency investment firm, it was a very critical challenge and experience to me as I lost every damn investment without being aware that’s all scam, This platform posed as an investment company that could deliver a certain percentage in returns if you invested with them through Bitcoin. it was my first time dealing in cryptocurrency and everything seems confusing to me but they helped me setup the Binance Platform where I had made all crypto purchase from, At first, it seemed real and was moving fine as I got paid from my first investment. I didn’t realize they set up a bot that will completely shutdown your account after you have decided to invest a huge amount of money. I made a couple huge deposits in order to earn more but then I found out that I couldn’t access my crypto and withdraw to my account as usual. Contacted the customer service and they told me about unending website upgrade which led me to paying more. Well it was all a scam at the end but I’m so Thankful to God as I was able to do some research online on how I could possibly recover back my funds held by the scam company and I read some comments about similar experience, in the comments were recommendations to Contact the s i l v e r c r a c k x RECOVERY COMPANY. Well, I quickly contacted them and had them provided with all required details of my transaction with scammers, These guys are amazing as they literally traced all my transactions, tracked the crypto and refunded me 100% of all my lost funds back to my wallet. If you have been scammed of your Crypto or been in a similar situation you contact this team for help.
CONTACT PLATFORMS;
SILVERCRACKX @ GMAIL DOT COM OR TELEGRAM CHANNEL @ SILVERCRACKX