| When a hacker takes control of one of your accounts, your first move is to reach out to the company that manages the account to see if you can get help recovering it, right? Well, if you’re a gamer and you’re trying to get a PlayStation account back that’s been stolen, it looks like Sony may not be much help to you. This week, we reported that one man had his PlayStation account loaded with over $20,000 in games stolen, and Sony won’t talk to him about it. Even worse, he’s not alone.
In this case, the hacker not only made off with the victim’s account but also scolded him on social media for trying to get it back, shamed the Sony employee who gave him the account, and eventually returned the account to its owner, helping him regain access. Years ago, consumer groups rightfully warned that digital game distribution places so much value behind a person’s account that their Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo accounts become extremely valuable targets for hackers. Fast forward to today, and selling stolen accounts is a lucrative practice, and you can find hackers selling them on the dark web or social media. Remember, enable multi-factor authentication wherever possible; even that may not have been enough in this case, since social engineering was the real attack vector here.
Also this week, some relatively good news that suggests some authorities may not be asleep at the wheel when it comes to security: first of all, after an investigation by Maggie Hassan, a US Senator from New Hampshire, data brokers who tried to hide their opt-out and removal request pages from search engines (to make it harder to remove your personal data, obviously) have reversed course and made them easier to find. Hey, we take those wins. Additionally, federal authorities just shut down LeakBase, a huge repository of stolen data from malware, data breaches, and other hacks, and with the help of Europol, de-anonymized several users and took law enforcement action against them.
Speaking of scammers, have you ever peeked in your spam folder and found messages that look like they were sent from your own address? Or maybe you’ve had someone reach out to you and say, “Hey, I got this strange message, and it says it’s from you?” If that sounds familiar, a scammer may have obtained your email address. Either they’ve breached it and are sending out phishing emails posing as you, or, more likely, they’re spoofing your address without actually accessing your account. In either case, we can help.
Also, just in time for tax season, we updated our tips to avoid tax-season text scams. Trust us, the IRS isn’t going to send you a text message asking for money or information. If they need to contact you, they’ll likely send you physical mail first. Don’t fall for texts asking you to pay tax debts, or even deepfaked calls from people who present themselves as IRS agents. If you’re ever suspicious, collect details and call the IRS back directly.
What else went down this week? Let's get to it. |
