Many characters raise red flags of being potential victims of cyber crime. I have prepared a list of parameters to determine whether you are a potential target for hacking and having your life upside down.
This discussion interviews what is at stake in cybercrime and how to shield yourself against cyber attacks. Cybercriminals thoroughly know their potential victims, and they prey on their targets’ weaknesses. What do they normally look for?
Cyber Fraudsters tend to target seniors sixty years of age and above. The second group is those 30 years of age to 39.
Ignorance, loneliness, and sheer greed to become instantly rich converge and conspire to destroy many a life.
Cyber Fraud Defined
Cyber fraud is a type of cybercrime that involves using the Internet to illegally obtain money or other valuable assets from individuals or organizations. Cybercriminals use various techniques to commit cyber fraud, including identity theft, phishing, social engineering attacks, and automated bots.
Cyber fraud can result in financial, data, and reputational losses for the victims, merchants, banks, and card issuers.
Some examples of cyber fraud include fraudulent sales on online auctions or retail sites, scams and mass-marketing frauds, and phishing scams.
Cyber security is a way for individuals and organizations to reduce the risk of being affected by cybercrime.
Why are Oldies Easy Picks for Cyber Fraud?
Oldies tend to trust people because they are trustworthy. They deem others, even strangers, to be well-meaning people like themselves.
Oldies, on average, tend to ignore cyber security functionalities available in their tech gadgets.
RELATED: Your Phone Can be Tracked: 10 Digital/ Cyber Safety Tips & Privacy Measures to Save You
If it is passwords, they may even pick their names, birthdays, past schools, or a city they live in. The real reason for password simplification tends to be the fear of amnesia.
Oldies may trust others but doubt their memories. This is why simplicity in passwords fits the bill.
Passwords are also being reused in other facets of life. Reused passwords are hackers salivating PDiddy’s freak-out parties.
So, here’s the deal—many folks are just wandering, clueless about securing their digital turf.
Plenty of people have terrible password habits. Millions of us still use the password ‘123456’, for instance (eye roll).
And many of us recycle our one weak password across multiple accounts.
People must get serious about crafting strong passwords [SB003: Uses a strong password or passphrase]. And they need to understand the dangers of reusing them [SB151: Do not use weak passwords].
When people understand what makes a secure password and why it’s important, we’ll all slam the door shut in criminals’ bewildered faces.
Investment is an area where cyber criminals target most for a simple reason: many people, including companies, are always looking for easy money-making opportunities. Interestingly, the connection between bogus investment and cryptocurrency is growing at a damning rate.
Cryptocurrency criminals known as Forex have invaded Africa, too.
In Kenya, young people are displaying filthy wealth, such as the most expensive cars and houses. Always, these dudes are counting dollars in a bed or sofa to entice their victims into their snares.
Recently, these youths have been met with horrible deaths.
Some say the unruly youths were mere middlemen of well-nourished international syndicates that scam people in the developed world and moved their cryptocurrency bootleg into African countries where commercial banks or cryptocurrency companies exist to facilitate conversion to fiat, such as the US Dollar or the Euro.
These middlemen are expected to transfer the fiats into conventional criminal accounts.
It is a well-orchestrated money laundering scheme. The middlemen get their cut for cleansing dirty money. The problem of greed consumes the youth.
They tend to keep the whole bootleg and spend it on fancy cars, mansions, romancing the stone and similar excursions.
Once international criminal gangs know they have been fleeced of their ill-gotten wealth, they are infuriated and determined to teach their thieves an unforgettable lesson.
So, they hire local assassins who lure them to their kidnap, torture and painful and slow deaths. Investors in cryptocurrency are the latest surge of cybercrime.
Cryptocurrency scams behave more or less like a Ponzi scheme, wherein, in such elaborate schemes, earlier investors tend to make some cash by investing in the spiralling value of cryptocurrency in the global market.
Victims are enticed to throw their money for a quick buck.
Many are convinced by the people they trust, who may have been unaware that it is a pyramid scheme. Earlier investors earned because the spigots of cash kept flowing, so the scammers had something to pay back while keeping the lot for themselves.
Once the money begins to trickle to a standstill, the last investors, who tend to be many, do not get paid.
The pyramid scheme crumbles in a manner that a cookie crumbles.
The scammers close their shop and disappear without a trace, abandoning their victims, who suddenly learn how to spell “OUCH” the hard way.
Again, of curious interest, it is the elderly, those over 60, who are most vulnerable to cryptocurrency scams.
The oldies tend to have invested their money into slow wealth-generating schemes like pensions, fixed deposits, stocks, Treasuries, bonds, and real estate.
So, when bombarded with information about cryptocurrency and how it could turn them from a pauper to a rich fairy tale, the oldies tend to fall for it.
Over time, they move their savings and other cash after selling their assets cheaply into fictitious accounts if the scammers that ensured poverty, not riches, stalk and haunt the oldies for the rest of their miserable lives.
Youths, too, are not left out. Scammers are aware that youths are on the job hunt, so they pose as employers.
The youths fall into their snares. In this situation, youths may be persuaded to relocate to a foreign country after being promised a huge salary.
Once they arrive on foreign soil, their nightmare begins. Slave-like conditions without any compensation confront them.
The promised jobs are non-existent, but they accost different menial jobs that drive them crazy with no slowdown.
And some fall into human body parts criminal gangs where they are slaughtered like sheep for their body parts! Romance pretence scams often target lonely oldies who are looking for genuine love.
Once in the hands of scammers, stories about a relative in jail or sick or suddenly having a financial situation need to creep in!
The scammers ask for help, which proves how much lonely hearts care for their newly found distant love. Once one payment is successfully made, more cash demands follow until the victim is left cashless.
Once the scammers know the hit has succeeded, they look for ways to terminate the virtual relationship. It was all about fleecing the victim, and nothing was personal.
Over time, some potential victims will wake up and defend themselves against cybercrime, but until then, many will be hurt financially or lose their lives on “too good to be true” bait, hook, and sinker.
If an offer is too good to be true, please know it is not what it claims to be. Just say no.
Be assertive, for once! Your life, quality, and livelihood may depend on it.
