When the FBI warns people about the scam , this is serious, but this is actually just a variation of the scam that perpetrated upon the Asian community for a while. To make a long story short... Stage 0 Beware when you are contacted via some method, text message, pop-up on your computer, a direct phone call, supposedly from a company that you had patronized before (a national brand, like Amazon, Best Buy, Uber, and so on). Those companies usually do NOT contact you directly, but these imposters will. Anyway, the message claims you need to call them right away to mitigate any damage. Stage 1 When you call, the imposter will ask you to download some program so they can control your computer from afar, in order to show you some supposed "evidence" that either have been hacked or will soon be hacked, ask about your bank, and claim your bank's fraud department will be contacting you shortly. This is of course, another imposter. Stage 2 "Your bank's fraud departme
After I got my cybersecurity certificates and certifications, I decided to hang out in subreddit /r/cybersecurity_help for a while, as that's where people go for help. I've noticed the questions tend to come in 3 major categories: a) I noticed something odd. Could I have been hacked? b) I REALLY have been hacked, what do I do now? c) I did something stupid! Could I have been hacked? I have found that some people are just super-nervous when it comes to technology, as if they can be hacked everywhere doing nothing, while others are almost completely oblivious to the risks. Let's discuss each in turn. a) I noticed something odd. Could I have been hacked? OP started noticing some oddities with his or her phone, and wonders if it's connected to some previous event. EX1: Op got a call from the doctor's office. X minutes later a call with caller ID "Health Center" arrived. Op asked for more details, and was hung up on. Op wants to know if the spammer has h