Our World | Fraudsters can target anyone - avoid being easy prey.

“I’ve been hacked!” Three words no one wants to hear.

Lisa Mulheron , our Head of Technology EMEA Support, knows all about protecting our tech at work. But when cybercriminals hacked her daughter’s accounts, this time it was personal. The Our World team sat down with Lisa to find out more.

It all started when Lisa’s daughter received a series of threatening messages demanding money... “It was awful,” she said. “When I saw the messages, my stomach dropped. My daughter was already stressed doing her A-levels – this came at the worst time for her.”

Through her daughter’s email, the cybercriminals had access to several other accounts she had created at a younger age using the same password. They even trolled her, telling her she needed to use a different password.

“They set up dating profiles using my daughter’s information. It made her feel so ashamed and scared.”

So how did they fix it?

The first step was to find out how many accounts the hackers had targeted. Thankfully, most accounts now check in with you to share when and where you’ve logged in. “That was useful but took a lot of time,” says Lisa. “We went through every account she has and changed the password to strong individual ones just to be sure.”

The hackers had also set up rules on the email account. This meant Lisa and her daughter couldn’t send any messages from that mailbox without the hackers seeing them too. That made it so much harder to contact the support they needed. But, as Lisa explains, there was a small silver lining.

“My daughter’s only 17, so she doesn’t use email much. If it were me, the hackers would have accessed far more personal information. It was a small relief in a stressful time.”

“It’s been a lesson for both of my daughters. They’ll never use the same password for anything ever again.”

How to avoid the hackers

For starters, Lisa emphasises: don’t use the same password for every account!

“It’s been a lesson for both of my daughters. They’ll never use the same password for anything ever again.”

She also says that, whenever possible, use Multifactor authentication (MFA). It’s an extra step when logging in but extra protection from the fraudsters.

It’s also good practice to not click on unknown links and never reply to emails you don’t recognise. If something looks suspicious, even if you’re not sure, it’s always safer to flag it – just in case. And, as Lisa’s experience reminds us, it can happen to anyone. 

Hard lessons learned

Lisa’s daughter learned the lesson the hard way, so by sharing her story, we hope we won’t be involved in cyber horror stories of our own.

The good thing about cybersecurity is we can all play our part. If we all give it the attention it deserves, then we can prevent any attack that comes our way before it happens.