Scammer poses as friend on social media, sends Safety Harbor woman into online nightmare
July 29, 2021 – Published on Fox13 Tampa Bay
A woman from Safety Harbor is living an online nightmare and wants to warn others of a seemingly simple hacking scheme.
It started on Friday when Tiffany Carra received a message from a person she thought was one of her friends who said they were having issues getting into their email. “I’m having issues getting on my yahoo mail. It requires me to add alternative phone number to get my [login] code. Can you help me get the code in your phone and send it to me as soon as you get it?” the message said.
Suddenly she was locked out and her friends started getting messages from her online accounts asking for money.
The hacker posted social media statuses asking if anyone wanted to buy a puppy and from her email account, they found a picture of Tiffany’s driver’s license and posted it on a dating site.
“They were trying to scam people for money and giving local, random men my address,” she said. “I feel like I am in danger.”
Fox 13 Tampa Bay spoke with Gary Brickhouse, CISO at GuidePoint Security: “It is low-hanging fruit,” said Brickhouse. “In this instance, they are after a little bit of money.”
Brickhouse suggests turning on two-factor authentication and using complicated passwords to make it harder for guessing software to get through the first layer.
“It is really about having a good defense,” said Brickhouse.
Watch the story HERE.