In the cyber world, hackers are coming up with new ways to dupe individuals. Ghost hackers are presently trapping people online. It has shocked many people as this is a new fraud type that everybody has never seen before.
New methods of scamming people were initiated by the fraudsters, whether by posturing as gift-givers or by parcel delivery agents or requesting KYC updates. By using these methods, they targeted people by cleansing their bank accounts. Did someone of your acquaintance die recently? If so then, it is probably from Ghost hackers who are actively working on social media platforms and particularly by posing as people who are deceased.
Who are Ghost Hackers?
These ghost hackers are the most common on social networking sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and so on. They follow up on a social network of people and once they hear about someone’s death, they start doing their work. Once the death announcement is done on a social networking site, they get hold of the account of the deceased person and retrieve all information available in that account and then exploit them.
These hackers fraudulently rely on the main weapon of social engineering. It’s a kind of cybercrime in which one tricks victims into divulging sensitive information or taking actions that compromise one’s security. Therefore, it’s a psychological manipulation and relies more on human error than weaknesses in software applications.
After gathering the data, they trap the victims by using the same information. They can easily take over weakly passworded social media accounts and reset the account password. Once they access the account, they commit the crime.
Also read: The Top 5 Free Cybersecurity Training For Beginners
How do they commit crime?
Like the ordinary hackers, ghost hackers seek to make money. They send a message or make calls to people through an account that they access so that they can convince them. The hackers leave it rather difficult to trace them due to the fact that the account used in fraudulent activities belongs to a dead person and it is easy for them to escape.
How Not to Be Hacked?
Social media sites, including Facebook and Instagram, among others, have policies not to allow the accounts of deceased people fall into the hands of ghost hackers. You can also request them to hand over management control for a deceased person’s account by emailing the support of the social media site.
In addition, the users can decide who they will entrust with their account when they are away. Users can opt for a legacy account based on visiting the settings of their social media and choosing the Memorialization option. This is in preventing unwanted persons from accessing the account of the deceased person and ghost hacking.
