The culprit was a bitcoin blackmailer, a title the Federal Trade Commission has appointed to the internet hackers that threaten to seize money or reveal unflattering details about someone’s personal life unless they receive gobs of bitcoin.
He had not requested any such sale, but when he logged into his account, his fears were confirmed: Someone had broken into his account over the weekend and placed a sell order on his Apple stock to occur on Monday morning.
Luckily the transaction in my father’s account was still pending when he found out, and the hacker had not yet linked an account to wire the money.
The fraudster sent multiple emails to my dad throughout the day suggesting that he’d hacked his account and wanted more.
You may receive an email that appears to be from your bank, the IRS or another institution asking you to click on a link and update your password or login to retrieve an important message related to your account.
In my dad’s case, he recalled an email from “Amazon” asking him to update details for a recent order.
My father also believes the bitcoin blackmailer was ultimately able to access his E-Trade account because he had not signed up for two-factor authentication.
The police wanted to gather more information for an investigation, and the social services team was calling to ensure my dad wasn’t too shaken up and that his financial health was OK .