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Published:
7:43 AM October 12, 2022
Email and social media hackers are using stolen personal photos and videos to extort money from their victims.
The trend has prompted a warning from police.
Police in Lowestoft say they have received reports of the crime and have urged people to secure their online accounts with two-step verification as a result.
According to Cyber Aware, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, a criminal with access to a victim’s email address could get in to online accounts using the ‘forgot password’ feature.
This means they can access personal or business information to scam victims and those around them.
In order to combat the scam, the government body has urged people to use a strong password for their email address featuring three random words which mean something to them along with numbers and punctuation marks.
Two-step verification – which is also recommended to keep the criminals out of accounts – means even if fraudsters have a stolen password they cannot access the email.
It works by asking for more information when people sign in to their accounts such as getting a code sent to a phone when signing in on a new machine, it can be set up in the settings menu of most email accounts.
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