Tag: Mom | SpinSafe

Jacksonville mom ‘didn’t know son’s Xbox could connect to social media’ after he threaten day care shooting, police say

June 11, 2022/in Computer Security

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville teenager was arrested Friday after police said he threatened to shoot up a daycare center in San Marco. Investigators said he posted the threat on a gaming chatroom using his Xbox.

After police spoke to the teenager’s mother about what her son did, she told police she had no idea her son could use his gaming system to communicate on social media.

To many parents, an Xbox is just a gaming system. But in reality, the Xbox is a computer much like a desktop hard drive.

An Xbox is a gaming system that can be linked to the internet to download games and movies, and even connect to social media. This was evident when Jacksonville police showed up at an apartment inside this Northside complex and arrested a 15-year-old boy.

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That’s when the boy’s mother told police she had no idea her son’s gaming console could connect to social media.

News4JAX spoke with cyber security expert Chris Hamer who said this should be a wake-up call for all parents who are not computer savvy.

“Parents need to be aware that these consoles are fully-fledged computers with the capacity of surfing the internet and communicating in both directions,” Hamer said. “That issue is if you leave your child alone with an Xbox or PlayStation, not only can they present a credible threat to the outside world but they can also be groomed by people who deliberately go into the chatroom, game rooms, and the lobbies for these different programs to find their next victim.”

So in addition to monitoring your child’s activity on the home computer or smartphone — parents are being urged to monitor their kids’ activities on gaming consoles.

Hamer said while parents may not be too computer savvy, kids who are caught posting threats online are also not as computer savvy as they may think.

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“The individuals that are making less than intelligent decisions as to their activities online may or may not be aware that their IP addresses can be tracked right to their provider and thus to their house,” Hamer said.

One tip parents should know is that it doesn’t matter if you’re using a home computer, a cell…

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Phony job left mom out nearly $3,000

December 1, 2021/in Computer Security

People hoping to make extra money during the holidays are finding out the job they landed isn’t going to pay. In a time when more people are looking for work-from-home positions, one job opportunity seemed like the real deal. One mom wanted to share her story in hopes of helping others. KPRC 2 Investigates explains how these potential employees are being tricked.

“I’ve got two kids at home. So it was just it was more feasible for me,” says single mom Lacey Calder.

Calder was surprised to have a company reach out to her on the job site Indeed.

“They told me, you know, $2,200 a month plus $50 a package that you send out successfully,” said Calder.

The job with Satori Parcel, LLC was simple. Calder says all she was told was she had reship products sent to her home. Just days after signing up, the packages started arriving to her home.

“I got $1,000 computer like seven GoPros, eight, nine and 10, 11 kitchen sinks. It was just random things,” she said.

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The company’s official-looking portal included training and a dashboard to track her work. This was also the location where Lacey uploaded all of her private information including W2 forms, her driver’s license and Social Security card.

“They had a dashboard that we would sign on to and it would stay the packages, and then we’d accept it. We’d get it sent to our home. We checked, make sure it was good. package it up and take it back with the label. We had like, less than 24 hours to do it,” said Calder.

Calder needed the money to pay rent, so she quickly got to work. But when payday came she says all communication stopped.

“All of a sudden, I couldn’t get into my dashboard and they didn’t answer the phones, or email me back,” said Calder.

A recent alert from the Better Business Bureau warns job seekers about Satori Parcel. The BBB suspects the victims are used to traffic stolen…

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Homecoming Queen (and Her Mom) Arrested for Alleged Vote Hacking

March 21, 2021/in Internet Security

This week saw new revelations of election interference, both big and small: On one end of the spectrum, an alleged mother-daughter conspiracy to digitally rig a Florida high school’s vote for homecoming queen. On the other, Russia’s influence operations designed to bolster Trump and sabotage Biden in the 2020 presidential election. News of this insidious scheme has raised questions about the fundamental resilience of American democracy—and the thing with the Kremlin is pretty bad too.

On Tuesday, a newly declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shed light on how Russian intelligence agencies sought to influence the 2020 presidential election and swing it towards Trump—though without the same kind of disruptive hacking that plagued the 2016 election. In other Russia news, Apple caved to Moscow’s demands that it prompt users to preload Russian-made apps on its iPhone there, opening the door to similar demands from other countries.

In the UK, police and internet service providers are testing a new surveillance system to log users’ online histories, following the country’s passage in 2016 of a law that’s come to be known as the “Snooper’s Charter.” And in better news for the security of the internet, Facebook has built a so-called “Red Team X” of hackers who seek out vulnerabilities in not only Facebook’s own software, but all the software Facebook uses—and in the process making that software more secure for everyone.

Toward the end of the week, a SpaceX engineer pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The SEC filed a complaint as well, marking the first time the agency has pursued charges related to dark web activity.

And there’s more! Each week we round up all the news we didn’t cover in depth. Click on the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

Last fall, election software maker Election Runner contacted school administrators at J. M. Tate High School to alert them to something fishy about their recent vote for homecoming queen. As the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would later write in charging documents, 117 votes had been cast from a single IP address, all for a single 17-year-old girl, the…

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