Many people have gotten into the habit of sharing even the smallest thing about their lives on social media. Cyber security experts remind us that giving out too much information in media that even strangers can access puts us at risk.
Not everybody who reads what we put on social media—Facebook, Twitter and Instagram—is a real friend who has our best interest at heart. Certain things should not be shared online for our safety.
A friend recently posted digital plane tickets for her and her son. Recalling a recent story I read by Rosie Vare for AOL Travel UK, I immediately advised my friend to delete her post.
In the story, “What your boarding pass says about you (it’s a lot more than you think),” Vare said cyber security expert and blogger Brian Krebs reported on how somebody was able to get a lot of information about a person through the boarding pass posted on social
media.
The story said the “seemingly harmless piece of paper could reveal a lot more about you than your flight number and destination.” The information on a boarding pass is also on a ticket. It may be just as easy to use the ticket, as the boarding pass, to steal sensitive personal information that can be used for criminal activities.
As reported by Krebs, somebody “spotted a boarding pass posted by one of his friends on Facebook and decided to use a simple online scanner (these are freely available online and very simple to use) to get into his friend’s Lufthansa account. By scanning the barcode online, he (the reader of the online post) found the record locator for the flight and managed to gain access to his friend’s frequent flyer account using that information along with his friend’s surname.”
The reader, if he was so inclined, could sabotage his friend’s travel plans, as he could see every future flight his friend was taking and could change seats or even cancel flights. He also found that his friend’s phone number and the name of the person who had booked each flight were readily available.
Vare wrote, “On his blog, Krebs notes that such access could easily be exploited by attackers, and suggests shredding old boarding passes instead of just throwing them away.” That should apply to used tickets, too.
Pasaload scam
The Pasaload scam has evolved once again. In the past, unscrupulous people would send text messages about rewards, overcharges, etc. to con somebody and get victims to send them mobile phone load. This time they are “giving” you the load.
I got this message recently: “You have just received P300 from (telephone number). This load will expire after 75day/s. Trans ID: 947313248 04/16/2016 10:21 p.m.”
The text is exactly the same as what people get when they buy additional load or when somebody gives it to them, except that the legitimate message comes from a four-digit number, not a regular mobile phone number.
What I found hilarious was that the sender of the fake message sent this follow-up text: “Iho/iha nagkamali ata ako ng share-a-load sa iyo ko ata na-ipasa yong 300 na load na para sa aking apo baka pwede mong ibalik ito yong number ng apo ko ____ Gawin mo lang 300 send mo sa (phone number) replayan mo ng YES ang sunod na mensahe pasensiya na sa abala maraming salamat, pagpalain ka sana.”
I think this scam is a total failure. Whether or not people believe they erroneously received P300 in phone load, I do not think they will bother to “return” it.
Just the same, Globe encourages its clients to report scam/spam cases to www.globe.com.ph /stopspam
Send letters to The Consumer, Lifestyle Section, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1098 Chino Roces Ave. cor. Mascardo and Yague Sts., 1204 Makati City; fax 8974793/94; or e-mail [email protected]
