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."
This brings up an interesting side issue...
At some point, we (the human race in general, although Slashdotters more specifically) will be giving our kids robotic pets. What happens when they get hacked?
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
They are more than welcome to search any of my devices for child porn and malware, with a proper warrant.
And they will do so at their facility downtown, and take 18 months to do it.
Yes, you are innocent until proven guilty. But the initial investigation would start with you and your home network.
And, after the case is dropped, the local newspaper might print a retraction, saying that Mr. PitaBred is not guilty of distributing child porn. Of course, after the initial flurry of press coverage, you've lost your job, your kid is taken away for a time by DSS, and your front window has been broken 3 times by angry vigilantes.