THE ILL THAT IS CYBER-ATTACK
With the increasing use and dependence on technology for so many ventures especially those relating with financial transactions, it equally has become important that we safeguard those spaces. Cause, while many use these avenues for online transactions, there also are those who see it as a means to carry out damaging vices.
In recent years, one of the many ills that have shaken our society and put our society in the negative light, and, innocent, unsuspecting people in disarray have been the
The one that was(and maybe still is) a pandemic was the evils perpetuated by so-called yahoo boys/scanners.
One way, especially, that these set of cyber thieves got access to people's bank account, for example, was calling them and asking for their details. Of course, no one is stupid enough to give their details just like that to any random person who asks. What they do was call in the guise of bank officials. Somehow, they sounded real, as they could tell a person's name, date of birth and give off a few other personal information.
Something that I considered smart was how they always planned out their targets. For all I can tell and remember, they were mostly getting in contact with the elderly. Rarely did I learn that they tried a younger person. They did amazing preying on their vulnerability, using emotional intelligence and some tact.
On many occasions, they had called my dad. My dad can be very unsuspecting, sometimes, and considering the much details of himself that they had told him, he believed they were bank officials. He can be very chatty too, so it was no surprise that he held the other person on the line in a discussion that anyone would think of as cordial.
My mum? She would usually need far more probing.
The first time I recall, I was in the living room, laying on the couch and reading a novel from my phone. My dad had walked in, and passed by me with a phone to his ear. I soon began to hear him rummaging through his closet. Next thing, he walked back out and asked if I had his ATM card in my possession, to which I affirmed. He asked for it and I questioned why.
The ATM might be his but I was the one who usually went on bank errands for him, unless he needed someone else to or he had to go out, which I knew was not the case.
Being a person who told his family every single thing, he told me his bank has called and said some of his personal details from his bank profile and identification card wasn't tallying and they needed to correct that swiftly, so they were asking for certain numbers.
I got up at alarm, and snatched his phone from him. I began to speak softly to the other person on the line after identifying myself as my father's child. I could hear a drop in his voice. He went through to tell me the same hogwash and then was telling me to give the phone back to the man. If you've spoken on phone with me, you may have noticed that i sometimes sound cold and unyielding. That probably gave him some chills.
To that, I told him that I was in charge of the account and was the only one who could tell him anything. I asked his name, his job description at the bank and the branch he worked, to which he gave sensible replies. I asked why we couldnt just go by the bank and he said that the correcfion needed to be done hastily. He began to try to play nice, asking for bank account to check if it tallied. I laughed, not outwardly. By this time, my mum had gone and called my two immediate elder brothers and they had mouthed that I just keep the guy engaged and waste his call card.
So, when he asked for bank account, I called it. When he asked for the numbers on the ATM, I called it too. Don't worry, I wasn't so stupid to call anything right. Then he asked for a repeat of it and it was then that i flopped and called another nonsense. Guess what, he cursed me. He told me, 'thunder fire you.' It was so hilarious that myself and my siblings burst out in laughter. The phone was on speakerphone. He hung up.
More times after that, they have called too. Different persons, all calm and unsuspecting. Using different formats but, they don cast.
My friend's mum got admitted in the hospital for about a week when she was scammed. I have known different people whose savings had been wiped out due to the lapses in cyber security. Even those whose media accounts had been hacked and those accounts used to perpetuate varying forms of evils. I've not had a personal experience but I know how disturbing that this is.
About two weeks ago, my friend got on a page that was advertising an online job, when she clicked on the link, it requested her bank verification number(bvn) and her national identity number(NIN). When she showed me, I immediately went off the sight and made her change some of her security passwords.
These days, cyber-attacks come in varying forms and a lot of them look so real that anyone who doesn't pay so much attention and/or is aware of ploys of this kind could fall prey. It's devastating on the prey and can lead to different physical, mental, even financial damages.
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