EDITORS DESK
You never really would know what hit you until you get the successive message alerts on your phone, your online friends screaming from the phone screen: “You’ve been HACKED!”
A review of the string of screenshots would then show how messages have been deviously crafted at your expense, engaging your unsuspecting friends in a conversation to make them believe that it’s you they’re chatting with, and not some faceless hacker.
But what would really stagger you is a screenshot of money being sent through a mobile payment service or e-wallet account that belongs to some fictitious person. Of course, all because you purportedly asked your relative or friend to make the transfer.
At first, anger will set in as you realize that you’ve just been had and duped by some faceless hacker as was able to steal a precious procession that you’ve always kept secure on your person – in your cellphone or in your computer.
Then you would feel disbelief that a number of your friends, or relatives, could actually fall for such a scam, and even end up sending money to an e-wallet account that’s not even yours.
And as you go about the tedious process of notifying your cyber friends that you’ve just been hacked, you also get a grasp of the reality that you just might have to junk your old social media account if efforts to recover your old, tarnished account would turn out to be futile. Or lose all the photos and videos that you kept in your previous social media account.
Then you ask: What do I do next? Who could I consult for help?
Consider these:
First step, would be to look for a relative or friend, who maintains the common set of social media friends as yours. Then ask that they sound off your common friends about the hacking.
Next would be to contact the mobile payment service, or e-wallet service, and report the spurious account being used to scam your relative and friends.
Then you should proceed to report your hacked account with the administration of the social media entity. Facebook, for one, has safety measures in-place for you to recover a hacked account.
But should you remain helpless or clueless about what just happened to you, you could go to the Inter-Agency Response Center (I-ARC) Hotline 1326, which is a 24/7 help line manned by trained professionals who can assist with a variety of scam cases.
The I-ARC is a cybercrime response collaboration involving multiple agencies including the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC), Department of Information, Communications, and Technology (DICT), National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), National Privacy Commission (NPC), Philippine National Police (PNP), and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
Apart from the main hotline 1326, victims of online scams can also reach the I-ARC through other numbers associated with different telecom providers: 0947-714-7105 (SMART), 0966-976-5971 (Globe), and 0991-481-4225 (DITO).
#ScamWatchPH, co-founded by Manila Bulletin (MB) and reputation management brand Truth360, is a cybersecurity movement aimed at educating Filipinos on cyber fraud and online scams. It recently signed a covenant with DICT, CICC, NTC, and NPC, institutionalizing the movement as the government’s national citizen arm for cybercrime prevention.
The role of the I-ARC Hotline 1326 extends beyond reporting scams. It serves as a resource to help scam victims recover their accounts and, in some cases, their money. The hotline is also intended to prevent scams by answering inquiries about potential online threats.
Under the usual circumstances, I would dismiss the immediately previous paragraphs about securing our e-possessions. That they were just another set of numbers or letters to consider in a situation that doesn’t concern you for the moment.
That everything is as easy as changing passwords. The hacker definitely knows more than you do.
This, I dare say, constitutes a “believe you me” moment, as I declare that it’s not that simple.
Take it from someone who has just been a hacking victim. And as such, please take careful note of these cyber-security tips. These will definitely be of big help when cyber misfortune cruelly comes your way.
(Rocky Nazareno is the News Editor of Manila Bulletin.)