Keep hearing about data breaches? Here’s how scammers can use them to target you

You might hear about data breaches so often the cacophony of warnings becomes white noise in the background of your mind — something easily tuned out.  

But even if a data breach doesn’t end with someone using your credit card details, that doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. 

Because, depending on what kind of information is compromised, scammers and hackers can still find a way to use it against you. 

Here’s how.  

Big bad guys and little bad guys

There are two distinct types of cyber criminals to consider here. 

Well-resourced masterminds do “the big job” first, Charles Sturt University Cyber Security Research Group’s Professor Yeslem Al-Saggaf says.

“They did the data breach, they sold [the details] on the dark web — their job is done,” Professor Al-Saggaf says. 

That’s when the little guys swoop in. 

They might use this information for their scam operations to trick you into handing over cash or impersonate you to take out dodgy loans in your name and pocket the money. 

“The attackers usually have a motivation or a business model,” global innovation chair in cyber security at the University of Newcastle Professor Vijay Varadharajan says. 

“They usually go for easy pickings or low hanging fruits, and most of the time they are driven by financial considerations.”

Sometimes this can happen a long time after a breach, sometimes they may strike while the breach is still in the news. 

Threatening emails

Let’s look at last month’s Ticketmaster breach as an example. 

One reader contacted the ABC about a threat they were sent by someone claiming to be a “professional hacker” who correctly quoted their Ticketmaster account password to them

This threat appeared to come from their own email address and landed in their junk inbox. 

The criminal said they’d gained control of their account and was “secretly monitoring all your activities and watching you for several months”.

“I can see absolutely everything in your screen and switch on the camera as well as microphone at any point of time without your permission,” the message said. 

Then came the threats:

“I have made a video compilation, which shows on the left side the scenes of you happily masturbating, while on the right side it demonstrates the video you were watching at that moment.

“All I need is just to share this video to all email addresses and messenger contacts of people you are in communication with on your device or PC.

“Furthermore, I can also make public all your emails and chat history.

“I believe you would definitely want to avoid this from happening.”

The criminal wanted to be paid in Bitcoin to delete the information they claimed to have about the victim. 

But the threat didn’t have the intended effect. 

“I only use my computer to watch iView and Amazon Prime so I’m not concerned about the specifics of the threat,” they told the ABC. 

What should you do when you get an email like this?

Professor Varadharajan says you should take it seriously. 

He says you should:

  • Immediately change your password for that account
  • Inform the authority of the account — in this case Ticketmaster
  • Immediately change the password for all other sites and services you’ve used this same password for — making sure they’re all different 
  • Inform the authorities of these services that your password has been compromised
  • Keep an eye out for unusual transactions within the accounts that password had been used for
  • Contact ID Care and let them know that your password has been compromised 

He says it’s likely the person’s email account has been compromised. 

“This may be something totally different or the person could have used the same password that they used in the Ticketmaster for his or her email system.

“There are several ways email systems can be compromised. 

“One of the ways is clicking on a malicious link, by which some malware is installed in the email client, that is the victim’s machine, or opened an malicious attachment which was sent to them.

“Or even the person has gone to some dodgy website and browsed through certain documents or images or even clicked or downloaded something from this website.

“Once the malware is in the system it can infect several things including email clients.

“Alternatively, the email server could have been compromised — this is more serious in the sense that many people will be impacted.”

Can someone hack your camera and microphone?

Yes. 

“Usually, some malicious software has got to be inside your system,” Professor Varadharajan says. 

“For an attacker to get to your webcam or microphone, they have got to get to the system where these devices have been installed.”

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