By Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka (Ten) Mbarara, Western Uganda.
PERHAPS you have heard about internet scammers or pirates. Have you also heard about a phrase, “phishing?” Fraudsters send fake emails or set up fake web sites that mimic Yahoo’s sign-in pages (or the sign-in pages of other trusted companies) to trick you into disclosing your user name and password!
In computer or internet grammar, this practice is known as “phishing” - a figurative way of pronouncing, “fishing.” This is called so because a fraudster “fishes” into your private account information. Then the hacker sends e-mails to anyone - as though you are the one sending them!
These ruthless thieves, call them ‘fraudsters’ if you like, are smart in tricking you to provide your user name and password so that they can access your online account! Once they steal your password, they use your personal information to commit identity theft, charge your credit cards, empty your bank accounts, read your e-mail, and lock you out of your online account by changing your password!
Such Internet rogues at times con people that Yahoo is soon reducing the number of its users and therefore its management wants to know customers who wish to continue using it. And that users still interested in using it should send in their e-mail addresses and passwords! Then someone may believe that the sender is a staff of Yahoo! And because someone has very significant and sophisticated information and a chain of indispensable contacts in his/her e-mail, one fears losing all that. So one sends the required information about one’s email account! And then this eases the hacker’ criminal work.
I was once dumped by these electronic hooligans. I even replied their scam with the above requirements, but the e-mail bounced back! I got disgusted and deleted it. Now someone, I don’t know from where, hacked into my e-mail on September 25, 2008 and sent a fraudulent message to every contact whose e-mail address I saved in my address book!
I was shocked when my office-mate showed me an e-mail coming from my e-mail: tenbifubyeka@yahoo.com bearing my name and titles at the bottom, and claiming monetary assistance! The e-mail read that, ‘I, Ebenezer, is stranded in Nigeria, and I need immediate assistance of US$2,500 to clear the hotel bills and pay for my air fees back home!’ Besides the shock of my lifetime, this e-mail has earned me disgrace, humiliation, stress, disorganisation, loss of my incoming messages, contacts and vital data!
The barbaric guy who abused my e-mail even changed my mobile phone number (saved under my name) and put this number: +256-782 047 420. When the fake e-mail got to the addressees, my concerned friends immediately called my own telephone line from across the world - wondering about how I got stranded in Nigeria, a country that I have never set my foot on! Their calls convinced me that they have believed in the ‘fake’ e-mail message! Some of them must have been irritated by that scam. Someone asked my neighbour, 'Is Ten Ok?' This implies that this person doubted my sanity! Anyhow, it has happened to me; next time they could use your e-mail; your friend’s or relative’s. Beware!
As if the humiliation, tension and interference weren’t enough, the wicked hacker also locked my widely disseminated yahoo e-mail address account (mentioned above). I can’t access it; I have logged in many times in vain! I’m stuck; I don’t know what to do to access my indispensable information and e-mail addresses saved therein.
And many people are falling in the same hackers’ boat. Recently, I read an article in Sunday Vision (June 22, 2008, page 16: Cyber criminals take on Kampala), that Joshua Masinde, a Makerere University student, also failed to access his e-mail address. Within a day, his contacts were receiving e-mails from him about having lost his baggage and needed some emergency money! And when he wrote to his e-mail address, the guy who ‘hijacked’ it replied telling him to send US$600 if he wants his e-mail back!
Meanwhile, for e-mail’s sake, I need your prayers as I search for a scientific advice to get out of this horrible mess! Well, I have informed the management of Yahoo but I’m worried whether I will be bale to access my e-mail again.
I therefore find it very imperative to let everyone know about this burgeoning e-crime.
In computer or internet grammar, this practice is known as “phishing” - a figurative way of pronouncing, “fishing.” This is called so because a fraudster “fishes” into your private account information. Then the hacker sends e-mails to anyone - as though you are the one sending them!
These ruthless thieves, call them ‘fraudsters’ if you like, are smart in tricking you to provide your user name and password so that they can access your online account! Once they steal your password, they use your personal information to commit identity theft, charge your credit cards, empty your bank accounts, read your e-mail, and lock you out of your online account by changing your password!
Such Internet rogues at times con people that Yahoo is soon reducing the number of its users and therefore its management wants to know customers who wish to continue using it. And that users still interested in using it should send in their e-mail addresses and passwords! Then someone may believe that the sender is a staff of Yahoo! And because someone has very significant and sophisticated information and a chain of indispensable contacts in his/her e-mail, one fears losing all that. So one sends the required information about one’s email account! And then this eases the hacker’ criminal work.
I was once dumped by these electronic hooligans. I even replied their scam with the above requirements, but the e-mail bounced back! I got disgusted and deleted it. Now someone, I don’t know from where, hacked into my e-mail on September 25, 2008 and sent a fraudulent message to every contact whose e-mail address I saved in my address book!
I was shocked when my office-mate showed me an e-mail coming from my e-mail: tenbifubyeka@yahoo.com bearing my name and titles at the bottom, and claiming monetary assistance! The e-mail read that, ‘I, Ebenezer, is stranded in Nigeria, and I need immediate assistance of US$2,500 to clear the hotel bills and pay for my air fees back home!’ Besides the shock of my lifetime, this e-mail has earned me disgrace, humiliation, stress, disorganisation, loss of my incoming messages, contacts and vital data!
The barbaric guy who abused my e-mail even changed my mobile phone number (saved under my name) and put this number: +256-782 047 420. When the fake e-mail got to the addressees, my concerned friends immediately called my own telephone line from across the world - wondering about how I got stranded in Nigeria, a country that I have never set my foot on! Their calls convinced me that they have believed in the ‘fake’ e-mail message! Some of them must have been irritated by that scam. Someone asked my neighbour, 'Is Ten Ok?' This implies that this person doubted my sanity! Anyhow, it has happened to me; next time they could use your e-mail; your friend’s or relative’s. Beware!
As if the humiliation, tension and interference weren’t enough, the wicked hacker also locked my widely disseminated yahoo e-mail address account (mentioned above). I can’t access it; I have logged in many times in vain! I’m stuck; I don’t know what to do to access my indispensable information and e-mail addresses saved therein.
And many people are falling in the same hackers’ boat. Recently, I read an article in Sunday Vision (June 22, 2008, page 16: Cyber criminals take on Kampala), that Joshua Masinde, a Makerere University student, also failed to access his e-mail address. Within a day, his contacts were receiving e-mails from him about having lost his baggage and needed some emergency money! And when he wrote to his e-mail address, the guy who ‘hijacked’ it replied telling him to send US$600 if he wants his e-mail back!
Meanwhile, for e-mail’s sake, I need your prayers as I search for a scientific advice to get out of this horrible mess! Well, I have informed the management of Yahoo but I’m worried whether I will be bale to access my e-mail again.
I therefore find it very imperative to let everyone know about this burgeoning e-crime.
Ends.
Word count: 720.
2 comments:
Sorry about your hassle with Yahoo email. Have you considered switching to Gmail?
Hacker Forums
Yes please, I have laways been on Gmail: tenbifubyeka@gmail.com
There was no way I could open a blog on Gmail without a Gmail e-mail account.
Thanks for the concern.
How is my staff on this blog?
Regards,
Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka,
Environmental Journalist/Writer.
Post a Comment