Slashdot Mirror
Scammers Target Neopets Users
An anonymous reader writes "If you have children that play on the popular virtual world game Neopets, you might want to warn them of a social engineering scam gleefully targeting 12-year-old kids. Neopets users looking for rare items are sent private messages from the scammers, who direct them to sites hosting keyloggers & trojans. They then use the infected PC as a means to get to data the parents might have stored there, be it credit card details, Paypal accounts or online banking. Seeing the screenshots of some of these people talking about putting these children into botnets is just unbelievable — if ever you wanted proof that people up to no good online will go to any lengths to get their hands on some money (or even just feel good about outsmarting a 12-year-old), here it is."
My daughter spent an entire road trip (two days in the car each way) unlocking her NeoPet. The beeping was enough to make you drive with your elbows so you had both hands free to pull your ears off. Now I can simply say, "honey, if you play with your NeoPet character online, bad people will take all Daddy's money away and we'll have to live under a bridge." Aaaahhh, another aggravation averted. Thanks, scammers!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
If they picked on kindergartners that would be a fair fight.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Neither is any other Slashdot poster. Think about it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Jeeze, all scammers are scum of the earth. Why would you expect them to be any different with 12 yo kids?
hmmm... good question, so good, I think people should mod you up. Where will they get the mod points? Well, the secret Slashdot mod-point-getter! Just log into your slashdot account using their secret admin backend and you'll have all the mod points you want!
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
I dunno, I've downloaded a couple of those myself and they're even more trouble.
First there's the TCO. Keeping them virus-free is a couple hundred a year, plus if you let your subscription to the Kibble service lapse your Pet will stop functioning completely.
They all come preloaded with Poop.app, which can't be removed but needs constant maintenance. And in my models, at least, this sometimes will randomly upgrade itself to Poop 2.0 (code named Diarrhea) - that's a mess to clean up from your desktop, believe me.
And mine always seem to be blocking my access to the Furniture suite of utilities - there are workarounds, sure, but it's just one more thing to keep in mind.
Don't get me wrong, they have a lot of features that make them very worthwhile, but they're not for everyone!
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
"Daddy, can I come inside? It's 40 degrees out, raining, and dark."
"No, it's not your bedtime yet."
Yeah, you're right: you're no parent.
Misquote of the day:
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal