I am normally very paranoid when it comes to digital security. It comes with the territory as I work in that field. So when I go out, I am very careful about what wireless networks I connect to. I know I am not very special that, someone is specifically looking to gain my information. Nevertheless, if they are they will have to work at it some more. You never know what day will be your unlucky day.
Last week I had a meeting at a cafe in town. My friend wanted to browse the internet, so he decided to ask for the wifi password from the attendant.
"Hello, can I have the wifi password?"
" No we don't have it, but there is another wifi that is open, use it that one"
"what? " I quiz
The lady goes on to explain that about six months before they lost the password to their wifi, the same time another wifi appeared without a password. So they started advising the customers to use that one. My jaw dropped. Should I tell her? My friend starts insisting that he wants to see the manager and the lady says she will direct him to our table, this never happens. This is not the first place I that have seen with the allegedly rogue wifis, they are in many places, appearing and disappearing. And in a blink of an eye people's valuable information is stolen and used for malicious gains.
Now during the holidays, there will be a load of forwards, Merry wishes for Christmas. Photos, videos, messages with links. You got to give me a high fire for my instincts. Last year a few of my friends had their phones wiped clean by viruses from these forwards. Another had their social media pages hacked and I cannot begin to explain the level of embarrassment she suffered. You see, human beings can be malicious, and you owe it to yourself to protect yourself whatever the means. I miss the old days when we used to send Christmass cards. Now it is an emoji and a Santa hat. It no longer feels thought out. More so we are giving opportunities and making it too easy for the phishing scams and malware designers to get away with duping us.
I received this yesterday. Look at how well crafted this is. Looks like an MPESA message only from a phone number.
This was very easy to spot. It is not always so. Someone could come up to you. Borrow your phone and save their number as MPESA. send you a similar message and you would believe they actually sent you money. In the spirit of being a good human, you send money back. Your money.
My advice.
- If you must use the internet, choose carefully the wifis you connect to. It would be better to avoid the public ones, but if you must don't log on to accounts you don't want your information stolen.
- On forwarded messages, avoid clicking links. Verify first. And if you get a weird message don't open. Better safe than sorry.
- On the MPESA scammers. TELL THEM TO CALL SAFARICOM TO REVERSE. the reversal services are free.