High-Tech Harassment in Social Media

Technology keeps providing new opportunities for harassment: social media identity theft, cell phone abuse, online bullying, the list goes on.

Over a year ago, I appeared on The Tyra Show to discuss high tech harassment. I met a family from Washington, who found that several of their phones had been hacked and were being used to spy on and harass them. The hacker was able to turn a compromised phone on and off, use the phone's camera to take pictures, and use the speakerphone to record their private conversations. Every time they rerun the episode, I get emails from more victims.

In an even more shocking instance of high tech harassment, a hacker took over a woman's Facebook account while she was on a camping trip, with no Internet and no cell phone service. The hacker impersonated this woman, but instead of attempting to scam her family and friends out of cash, he used her Facebook profile to post suicidal messages, including, "My only friend is the handgun in the back of my closet," and, "I don't want a funeral or memorial, I want it to be like I never existed." After two and a half hours of Facebook drama, the victim happened to regain cell phone reception and discovered twenty voicemail messages begging her not to do "anything drastic." By the time her son was able to get in touch with her, there were police gathered outside her home, preparing to break down the door.

In this incident, the victim was the mother of a Navy Seal who died in Iraq. It's believed that she was targeted because of her charity work celebrating the lives of deceased military personnel.
But this can happen to anybody.

1. Strengthen your passwords; use upper/lower case, numbers and characters. Don't use easily guessed words from the dictionary or pets, kids, birthdates etc.


2. Don't access social media from libraries, internet cafes or any public computers that could have spyware.


3. Make sure your own PC has updated virus definitions and security patches. Don't bother with all the 3^rd party apps in social media. Many are risky.


4. Don't click on links in emails from "friends" asking you to download a video or see pictures. This is becoming a common ruse in social media.

Invest in Intelius identity theft protection and prevention. Not all forms of identity theft protection can be prevented, but identity theft protection services can dramatically reduce your risk.
Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discusses high tech harassment on the Mike and Juliet Show on FOX:

Follow Robert Siciliano on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RobertSiciliano

Comments

[SharpDressedMan]

Robert Siciliano wrote a good article. There is a lot more on this subject. Identity theft is too common and not every web page is secure.

I rarely make payments and purchases online and when I do, I reboot the modem and close all programs except those necessary to run the system. This is done in Windows Task Manager accessed by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del.

I also use a firewall that tracks incoming and outgoing traffic. After taking the time to learn the intricacies of a firewall, I learned to block certain incoming and outgoing traffic. This takes time and requires more knowledge about computers and the internet. For those that can do this, I strongly recommend it.

No matter what measures I take on my end, I have no control over the web site at the other end. I don't know how secure they are with credit card numbers and other personal information. Who hasn't heard of news stories about credit card numbers and personal information stolen by hackers from one company or other? I don't even bank online.

Then there is the operating system, Windows. Just when I think it's secure I am notified by Windows Update of new downloads to address security problems. It's a cat and mouse game. Crooks get ahead, the good guys catch up and the crooks find another way for their misdeeds.

Hopefully truly secure financial transactions on the internet will be a reality. In the mean time, I won't hold my breath.

[overcat]

"Invest in Intelius identity theft protection and prevention."

Is this a blog post or an advertisement?

[littlepitcher]

The new high-tech harassment in a declining economy almost certainly will be harassment from employment competitors, by rumor, credit vandalism, and ID-theft sites or posts designed to eliminate the competitor(s) from the work force. This has been done by house-flipper sharks in the past, but expect to see this activity become more common as workplace, hiring, and promotion sabotage.