Personal story on “identity theft”, it is so easy to do, I think we are all in the wrong job!

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Category: Cyber Security (Personal)

This article is from mid-2017 and I just decided to publish it today after re-investigting the topic in June this year, and still finding poor results.

I was happily working at home today (mid 2017) on the phone and the post came. Two envelopes; 1. A congratulations on your new home card since last week I bought a place or really the bank did. 2. A more interesting envelope from a well-known online retailer saying I owe them £1300 and I have missed the payment deadline. Three A4 sheets and one was titled “Notice of Default Sums under the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Erh I was thinking since I have not used that online store in years.

The name rang a bell and I will admit I was wrong here. Not that long ago came a letter from the same online retailer saying your credit statement is zero and your limit is x. I simply read the letter, shredded it and ignored it. Why? Because I have bought from them before and had letters before. Straight on to the phone and they transferred me to their fraud team. They said you have been a victim of identity theft, alarm bells going off and all brain focus has transferred to this phone call.

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An amusing and corrupt 419 scam offer

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Category: Blog

Typically these offer a cut of millions and in this case black money!

"Dear Sir, Madam,

I have a friend whose father is a former minister in Turkey government , during the period when her father was a minister , her dad used his office to amass lots of wealth through kickbacks from oil and aviation contracts , but he has been indicted and all his assets seized locally and he has been restricted from traveling abroad .

Meanwhile he has $19 million dollars in Qatar and his daughter who is my friend is looking for a reputable businessman who can accommodate and invest this fund on the family behalf discreetly , the daughter will not be directly involve in the brokering of the transaction and will prefer to keep it confidential due to political reasons. As i said the fund is presently in Qatar and will be made readily available to you once every thing has been agreed . Can you handle it ? if you can then i will discuss with my friend who will introduce the broker in Qatar to you .

Yours Faithfully

Guru Dev Teeluckdharry"

Charity starts where the home is: stop bashing others before bashing yourselves

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Category: Cyber Security (Personal)

China, Russia, Syria, North Korea and Iran are commonly in the papers for physically attacking us, attacking us or our allies by the wire (the CAT5 cable or whatever type of cable you are using these days). The majority of people including myself agree with the above and I am not here to say these countries are perfect, far from it, they are all dictatorships.

Huawei has been in the media a lot lately though not for a few weeks now. Yes, Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers are not perfect, nor can they be fully trusted because of the government which is a one-party state like many other countries. We are bashing foreign companies and nation states for hacking us, but can we really blame them when our attitudes to cyber security and technical defences are poor?

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