Cyber Safe Series
Loneliness and our parents
As much as it pains me to say it…..our parents and other vulnerable family members are being trolled on various social media platforms. Love scams have become much more frequent, and scammers know how loneliness is affecting us. In a recent set of podcasts Scam Inc. on Bloomberg; one of the tactics used by scammer is moving conversations from monitored social media platforms and dating apps to apps that are end to end encrypted like What’s App and Telegram. The second trigger you may be getting scammed? Get rich quick schemes FROM those conversations where crypto currency is involved. In one case, the scammer replicated a crypto trading platform. It looked authentic….except it wasn’t. When the client tried to retrieve funds, she discovered that the platform was fake. This was also the case with the bank CEO who fell prey to a pig butchering scheme in last months email.
Tip: Assume your vulnerable family members are being trolled on social media platforms. Communication is a very powerful tool and sometimes conversations about money are taboo….the scammers know this. Take away the scammers tool of our discomfort of discussing money topics.