Last late April a friend of mine had his iPhone stolen in the streets—an unfortunately familiar occurrence in big, metropolitan areas in countries like Brazil. He managed to buy a new one, but kept the same number for convenience. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary at first—until he realized the thief changed his Facebook password.
Fortunately, he was able to recover and update it, as his phone number was tied to his Facebook account. But a pickpocket accessing his victim’s Facebook account is quite unusual. After all, why would a crook be interested with his victim’s Facebook account for when the goal is usually to use or sell the stolen device? It didn’t stop there; a day after, my friend curiously received a phishing SMS message on his new phone.
What’s interesting here is the blurred line between traditional felony and cybercrime—in particular, the apparent teamwork between crooks and cybercriminals that results in further—possibly more sophisticated—attacks.
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