Scurvy dogs be warned! Learneth how to guard yerself from spectre scams of yer departed mates. Arrr!
2023-12-01
Arrr, ye scurvy dogs and bilge rats be beware! Says Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson, these scurvy scammers and hackers be plunderin' the gold of the dead and their kin, mainly on the cursed land o' Facebook!
Online, the dead live on as digital ghosts. You may have encountered some of them, perhaps without even knowing it. As more and more people pass away, their online profiles will soon outnumber the living ones, especially on Facebook. This creates a lucrative opportunity for scammers and hackers who prey on the deceased and their friends and family. They’re not trying to break into your account. They’re using your dead relative or friend’s account instead. It’s a scam called ghosting. With cybercrimes already costing internet users $10.2 billion and more than 1.4 million cases of identity fraud reported so far this year, online scams are becoming more prevalent dangers in our lives. Losing a loved one is hard enough, but it can be even harder when their online identity is compromised by hackers. Hackers may try to access your relative’s Facebook account to send spam, scam or malicious messages to their friends and family. They may also try to steal their personal or financial information or use their account for other nefarious purposes. Cybersecurity solutions company Check Point reported a 38 percent increase in global cyberattacks just last year. Fortunately, there are ways to protect yourself. Facebook has a feature that allows you to memorialize your deceased loved one’s profile. If you don’t want your relative’s Facebook account to remain online after their death, you can request that Facebook delete the account permanently. This will remove the profile, photos, posts, comments and messages from Facebook. Deleting your relative’s account is a way to protect their privacy and prevent hackers from accessing their account. However, it also means that you and their friends won’t be able to see their memories or posts on Facebook. You should consider this option carefully before making a decision. Create strong passwords for your accounts and devices and avoid using the same password for multiple online accounts. This will prevent hackers from accessing your personal information and assets, even if they manage to breach one of your accounts. Consider using a password manager to securely store and generate complex passwords. It will help you to create unique and difficult-to-crack passwords that a hacker could never guess. Another way to protect your relative’s Facebook account from hackers is to enable 2-factor authentication (2FA) on their account. 2FA is a security feature that requires you to enter a password and a code sent to your phone or email every time you log in. This way, even if a hacker gets your relative’s password, they won’t be able to log in without the second factor. Reporting suspicious activity to Facebook will help them investigate the issue and take appropriate actions, such as locking, restoring or deleting the account. An effective antivirus software is a must-have to protect against scammers and hackers who prey on the deceased and their friends and family. The best way to protect yourself from clicking on any malicious links on Facebook, fake websites, in phishing emails and text messages is to have antivirus protection installed and actively running on all your devices. If you find you or your loved one is a victim of identity theft, the next steps include changing passwords, looking through bank statements, using an identity theft protection service, reporting breaches to official government agencies, getting the advice of a lawyer, alerting credit bureaus, and running your own background check. It's important to take immediate action to mitigate the damage and prevent further harm. To protect your profiles in advance, use strong passwords, set up two-factor authentication, and designate someone to ensure your accounts are properly memorialized or deleted.
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