In the late 1990s, I was victim of attempted social engineering once. Somebody tried to collect my biography and its personal data by pretending to include me in a dictionary of the top 1,000 most influential persons in the internet. Nowadays, an attacker would simply buy such data of dozens of millions of people.
Afterwards, no attempt of social engineering was made for some two decades. Hackers would simply send email attachments with malware or links to no avail because I read emails in plain text and do not open attachments automatically.
Recently I have become victim of repeatedly attempted, targeted social engineering. The basic hacking scheme has remained the same: email attachments with malware or links. The hacker has, however, added either attempted encryption and alleged blackmailing threats or social engineering as an additional layer. He impersonates another go player and me, cites texts of go discussion and tries to provoke my reply. His email addresses, accuracy of spelling and effort towards contents change every time. After his major attempts have failed, he is falling back to more time-efficient attempts of copy&paste and basic email malware attachments.
Another or the same recent hacker pretended to be a Maltese CEO's secretary preparing his taking of go lessons. The means of communication were supposed to be proprietary video streaming clients, that is, malware.
Just because the surface is go contents do not fall into the traps of hackers! Always be careful! Computers have become more secure so hackers try more specific attacks. Do not feed jet set life or dubios states!
Social Engineering
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RobertJasiek
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Re: Social Engineering
That sounds quite unusual. Such a persistent but totally inept attempt. Do you have some examples of the texts they essay?
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RobertJasiek
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Re: Social Engineering
I have made <edits> to protect you, people and a go organisation.
Example
Example
Example
Example
Before, the hacker(s) tried much more severe attempts involving encryption threats, alleged blackmailing threats, alleged teaching and alleged bulk book orders.
Example