It all started with an e-mail message that arrived at 11.55 pm on 14 August: “Hi Michela, we are sending you this e-mail to confirm that you are no longer administrator on the Michela Marzano page. If you still want a role, you can ask the page administrators to add you again ”. Meaning what? I wondered when reading the Facebook email. What happened? How is it possible? Who would be the new administrators of MY page?
Why is cybercrime so fond of the Green Pass?
by Pierluigi Paganini
Incredulous, I tried to connect and access my page, but, after a while, I had to surrender to the evidence: the page no longer existed, it had vanished into thin air. Why does it all happen to me? I repeated to myself more and more distraught, continuing in vain to click everywhere, as it came back to my mind the story told by Kafka in Process, when K., waking up one morning, finds two policemen at his bedside arresting him, without explaining to him what he was accused of or who the accusers were. Then, suddenly, I had a flash. The previous day I had attended a meeting on Zoom organized by an American agency that, a few weeks earlier, had contacted me with the intention of helping me discover and use new features on my page. And I, who spend time repeating to my elderly parents not to let strangers into the house, not to accept any telephone proposals, to throw any suspicious e-mails in the trash, I fell for it.
I attended the meeting on Zoom, I clicked where I was asked to click, I copied and pasted various links and, in short, I practically gave the keys to my house in the hands of a gang of sophisticated hackers. Less than twenty-four hours later, I had lost the ten years of my life that I had entrusted to Facebook. Because? I asked my husband bewildered, who is even less knowledgeable about computer science than me and who, however, had encouraged me to follow the advice of these guys who, very professionally, had contacted me with an e-mail above all suspicion: business@thespotlightmarketing.com . What do I do now? I asked my friend Serena, who is a very good social media manager, and who, astonished, said to me: “Sorry, but why didn’t you contact me before connecting on Zoom?” It was only after, following the directions of Serena and other friends, I reported the theft to the postal police and contacted the Facebook team. Which allowed me, after a few days, to regain possession of my page, which always existed although slightly incomplete, since in the meantime the hackers had deleted nine months of posts and direct.
It seems to be interesting appropriate pages followed by a certain number of followers, empty them of all content and then sell them. It seems that it is a frequent practice and that many are those whose profiles, identities and pages are stolen or cloned. It seems that hackers always find ways to take advantage of our naivety or even our distraction (be it through phishing, keyloggers or social engineering). For them, a page is synonymous with earnings. Even if that page, for those who own it, is a precious space certainly not from an economic point of view, but in sentimental terms. Photos, posts, direct, everyone builds their own space day after day entrusting them with part of their memories. A memory written by several hands, given that one of the most beautiful things to be found on Facebook or Instagram are the comments, observations and expressions of affection of those who follow a profile or a page. A memory that is part of us and of our identity, despite apparently Facebook and Instagram are just a showcase. And for some, perhaps, it is even so. But for most of us they represent a kind of diary on board, a book written by several voices that stops important moments, a set of photographs that, revised after years, bring out the same identical emotions.
Beware of emails: record levels of phishing in the first quarter of 2021
by Pierluigi Paganini
I still do not understand the lightness with which I let myself be manipulated. I still can’t seem to shake off the guilt. But, just like when thieves break into your house or, even worse, the intimacy of your body is violated, there is no point in feeling guilty. On the contrary. What it takes is the acceptance of one’s own fragility and limitations. Without ever forgetting that there are things that depend on us and others that, instead, are independent of our will. And that wisdom, more often than not, consists only of knowing how to make a difference.
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