Of all the things in the world that unite us, friendship is the most wonderful. It is strong enough to endure the most of trying of circumstances, and yet equally fickle in that it could collapse at the smallest of inactions and often, fall victim to fraud.
We all go through the habit of collecting friends; not in a bizarre way entailing isolation/ preservation in a glass environment akin to rare insects, but in a funny way akin to how once upon a time we collected stamps, coins and other trinkets/ tokens. These amusing artifacts were stored preciously and kept safe, to be gazed at only in times of longing, as their value would hopefully appreciate with time.
Previously, we had our friends segregated by such titles as neighbors, work colleagues, associates, school chums, university pals, travel buddies etc. following the advice of Seinfeld’s George Costanza about the Worlds Theory. Nowadays however, our collection of friends is no longer limited to our speed- dials, but rather brazenly put on display in the most vivacious of ways; Facebook.
Facebook, the melting pot of all things, where your grannie’s happy birthday post is liked and seen by the friend you recently met whilst scuba-diving off the coast of your latest adventure destination. That kind of transparency is at times slightly perturbing, for the collision of worlds is not necessarily a good thing. One soon learns that just because something looks like a duck, it does not necessarily entail any aspects of duck-dom. Case in point, the recent wave of identity theft sweeping Facebook.
It starts innocently enough; you receive a notification of an incoming message from an old acquaintance. Nothing newsworthy. It’s a rather boring, been a while, how have you been? You respond as you usually would, not thinking much of the entire situation. And then comes the hook, in my case it was, and I quote “did you heard about the good news on Facebook about the CEO of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg??”
The intrepid reporter in me should have, upon intuiting the scamming nature of the comment, dug deeper for more information and attempted to infiltrate the Facebook hijackers. I simply responded with a question of my own, tell me how we met. For you may look like a duck (please kindly note that I am in no way referring to my unfortunate hacked friend as a duck) but do you have that duck’s memories? Their response was agitated and riddled with sloppy spelling and grammatical gaffs.
Feeling that Facebook was compromised, and since I had no number to reach said friend who had since moved to Guam, I messaged them on neutral grounds – LinkedIn. They then confirmed my suspicion, their account had been infiltrated.
Full disclosure – this had happened to me once before, a ghost from the past reached out asking for money, however, as they were able to answer the sphinx’s riddle (I asked them questions from over a decade or more ago) I verified they truly were my friend and in need and I jumped to their assistance.
Now, far be it for me to toot my own horn, but some people might not be as skeptical of the online world as I and could unwillingly fall prey to such predators. It is not only your identity theft you need to worry about, it is that should an acquaintance of yours be ensnared in such a trap, you become a target as well. It may not be as obvious as financial theft, at least not immediately. It could be a request to follow a certain link, download a certain app, anything that gains access to your trusted device and all the secrets (i.e. passwords, bank apps etc.) it holds.
Remember how before you would argue, do not carry cash as it is easily stolen/ misplaced? Have you kept up with the times that would have you send physical cash through an ATM to anyone with a mobile number? It has become all too easy nowadays to dubiously part ways with your hard- earned money as a result of something phish-y.
Guard your online presence well, for you have no way of knowing who is truly on the other side. And remember, it is better to be cautious that cashless.
Like the Rubik’s Cube, Ayman Nassar is multi- colored in his interests, from running to organizing races, stand- up comedy and internal audit, plus a little writing on the side. You can find him on YouTube or follow him on Instagram @LordAymz. Photo by Hannah Rodrigo on Unsplash.
