DISCOVERED: How Local Hackers Steal Your Bank-related Info

Some time last year, a stranger called my elder brother's salesgirl. Some conversations took place. And, all of a sudden, her back account was debited ₦10,000 twice or more (I can't remember exactly).

I asked her so many questions to know how her phone number got into the hands of such a scammer. The truth is that, if you are not cyber security savvy, and a local hacker gets your bank-related phone number with a few more pieces of your bank-related information, it can be easy for him/her to rob you these days.

After asking the girl all the questions I could lay my hand on, I couldn't find any loophole that the local hacker may have used. Then, fast forward to yesterday...

I went to get a new ATM card at a Zenith Bank branch in Nnewi...

As usual, I was given a form to fill. Realizing that I forgot to bring a pen along, I begged a lady who was kind enough to give me her pen. But she told me to be fast about using it because she was in a hurry to leave the banking hall.

You can imagine how hassled I must have been in this kinda situation. I was really hassled trying to meet up before the owner of the pen said "game over".

As I was filling the form, half of my mind was on the paper and the other half was on the lady who was waiting for me. Then, somehow, I realized that something creepy was going on around me.

With my mind so hassled, I'm still surprised I could sense it. Somehow, I just lifted myself from the form I was filling to notice a fat man about 50 to 55 years old shadowing me and stealing a look into the form i was filling - so intently!

As soon as he noticed that I had seen him, he silhouetted away. If he didn't move away in such a 'thiefy' manner, perhaps, I wouldn't have suspected him of anything sinister. But, the way he moved away as soon as my gaze met his, it was too obvious he had been shadowing me to get my info.

What And What Information Could A Hacker Steal From You This Way?

In my case, the hacker could have memorized any one of the following information from the form I was filling:

My phone number
My email address
Even my signature

If he did, he'd just go to a corner to record it before going to the next target.

Depending on the form you are filling, other pieces of information a hacker could steal from you can include:

Home address
Business address
Next of kin's particulars
How much money you're likely to have
Etc.

If You Understand Hacking, You'll Understand This Better

Hacking is all about putting together any information you can access about a target, with the intention of having unauthorized access to a digitally available account belonging to the target.

For instance, if I know the name of your grandma and also know that you are very fond of her, I could guess that some of your online accounts could have been created with your grandma's name.

Let's say your grandma's name is 'Angelina Igwe', I could guess that your email address password 🔑 could be 'angelinaigwe247'. If I try and it doesn't work, I could try 'angelinaigwe360'.

It could become a whole day's work for a professional scammer. If he continues the trial-and-error approach, one of the trials might work. It's one reason online accounts insist on you having 'strong passwords'.

What might motivate a hacker to go through all the troubles to get into the inbox of your bank-related email address are many. For instance, if he gets in there, he can have access to many email exchanges you've had with your bank. This is going to be a huge mine of valuable information.

Other things a hacker can do by gaining entrance into your bank-related email inbox include the following:

He can send a mail in your name to your bank
He can carry out certain transactions that allow you the option of getting an OTP via email especially where 2-factor or multiple factor authentication doesn't exist.
He can view sensitive information saved in your draft folder. Yes, they know that many people now use their draft folder as a cloud filing option.
And, there are so much more that they can do

The more information a hacker has about you, the higher their chances of being successful at taking undue advantage of you.

What To Do?

My story should make all of us realize that it's not everyone in a banking hall who is there for a legitimate reason. So, the first precaution is to always beware of exposing certain information while in a banking hall.

From the experience, I also learned that those hackers are extremely intelligent. They watch to identify bank customers who currently lack mental composure to target them. So, just take note of this.

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