A Texas-based couple was subjected to an unfavorable incident of extortion from a malicious hacker who demanded a whopping amount of $400k in Bitcoin holdings after sabotaging their Amazon Ring doorbell. Tania Amador, the 28-year-old woman who became the target of the hacker, used her intelligence to save herself from the perfect-looking imperfect scam planned by the hacker.
The lady showcased the entire incident in a video given to local news channel portal WFAA to warn other people from falling into the trap of such scammers. She stated that her Ring doorbell was getting off like a person has entered her house without her knowledge. The couple later got hell shocked when a strange voice started coming out from the doorbell. The voice said, “Ring support! Ring support! We would like to notify you that your account has been terminated by a hacker.”
“Very scary to hear a threat shouted over the camera for a ransom. The fact that the person was watching and we don’t know for how long is even scarier,” told Amador to WFAA.
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The hackers then asked the couple to provide them with 50 Bitcoins, which amount to approximately $400,000. The unreasonably huge amount triggered a doubt into the mind of the couple who refused to accept the demand as legitimate and soon sensed the scam. When the couple refused to address the requests of the hackers, they threatened the owner to “terminate” her if she refused to follow their demands. To worsen the situation, the hackers made Amador believe that they were outside her house by hacking the Ring doorbell camera.
However, Amador tricked the plotters with the help of a new counter technique known as “taking the batteries out.”
Ring has been under constant scrutiny ever since Amazon took over the firm in 2018 for $1 billion. A report published by Motherboard revealed that a person could avail a software for a meagre amount of $6 if he/she wants to hack Ring doorbells. In counter to such claims, Ring stated that the attacks were not because of any faults in the system but were channelized because of a third-party data breach. The government authorities worldwide are putting in efforts to put an end to cybercrimes.
Earlier in November, the Australian government released a draft code of practice focused on IoT cybersecurity. Also, a few weeks before, the FBI gave a suite of recommendations about IoT devices.
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With the growth in the number of cybercrimes, it is essential to keep oneself alarmed and informed at every moment whenever any such malicious demand is made by a person.
