Written by Patience Nyangove
Thursday, 01 October 2009
AS cyber crime slowly takes hold on Namibia, internet hackers have defrauded a great number of people and companies of thousands of dollars.
The criminals hack into websites, emails and data bases to gain access to sensitive information and passwords.
Telecom yesterday confirmed that some hackers had even resorted to hijacking modems.
The latest victim of this crime is Director of Mt Sinai Centre, a non-governmental organisation which deals with breastfeeding mothers living with HIV whose Yahoo email account was hacked into two weeks ago.
The hackers used Mt Sinai Director, Christaline Vega-Biart’s, email - m123@yahoo.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it - to beg for £1,200 from all contacts in her mail box claiming that she had been robbed.
Part of the email sent to her contacts reads: “How are you doing? Please I will need this personal (sic) until when I get back okay? Right now I am in London. I had to attend a very important meeting which I was not able to (sic) anymore due to the incident that happened here at the hotel. You will not believe this. I got robbed off (sic) everything I brought down with me including my wallet and luggage’s (sic) too, right now I am so confused down here (sic) and don’t know what else to do, please I will be very happy if you could help me send down (sic) £1,200 so I can add up with the money I raised from my good friend? I will make sure I refund you the money as soon as I get back. Please you will help me have the money sent to me through western union since luckily for me I still have my passport here with me, just in case here is the information you will require to send down the money to me right away, I need (to) settle the hotel bill I am owing here so I can leave here at once.”
The address given by the hackers is 12 Boston Road, Hanwell, Ealing W7 2HJ, London, United Kingdom.
Vega-Biart says she only got to know that the NGO’s website had been hacked and her email password accessed after former Informanté News Editor Tawanda Kanhema, one of the people who received the email, sent a text message to her asking how she was fairing after the alleged robbery.
Vega-Biart said: “I was attending a gala dinner at the Anglican Women Fellowship when (Tawanda) Kanhema sent me a text message. The hackers got hold of my password and gained access into my email box and changed my password so that I could not get access to it.
“From there, we phoned banks notifying them not to release any money to anyone and everyone else in my mail box contacts.”
Vega-Biart suspects that a group of Nigerians could be involved in the crime based on information she received that the alleged hackers have been traced to Nigeria.
“I really do not know how people can do such a thing. We can really get into trouble.”
She says the hackers almost got away with £1,200 pounds from her friend Susan who responded to their SOS message promising to send money as soon as she knocks off from work.
An official at an internet service provider MWeb who spoke on condition of anonymity said although they have not yet received reports of websites being hacked, they had received numerous reports of hackers trying to access people’s and companies’ passwords.
Telecom acting Head of Corporate Communications and Public Relations Oivo Angula said over the past few months, a good number of local internet users had had their modems hijacked.
Angula said modem hijacking is when consumers using dial-up Internet access are charged for international telephone calls they did not make.
“Modem hijacking takes place when the hijacker installs a dialer on the victim’s computer (usually through a virus or seemingly innocent download), which switches the local telephone number used for dial-up access to the Internet to an international or long distance telephone number that charges expensive fees,” he said.
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