Unknown to most on how easy it is to use caller ID fraud to displayed alternate numbers, it has now been used with various bomb scare extortion tactics.
Grocery store chains, discount retailers and even banks have been targets by extortionists using cell phone caller is fraud and spoofing threatening to detonate bombs on the premise unless money was immediately wired to a specific account.
Thousands have been extorted from victims, including $10,000 from a WalMart in Newport, RI, but no bombs have been found, reports CNN.com.
One caller id spoof-er also ordered shoppers and employees in a Kansas store to remove their clothes, which some did, believing the caller was observing them.
A law enforcement official stated that “it seem very realistic that they may have been right in the building or right outside, almost like they have a visual.” The authorities believe the fruadsters may have had “visual access” to some stores, but could have gained that access by hacking into the security systems.
With such events on the rise the question begs to be asked, “when will the US Senate start taking such fraud seriously?” Who knows when a national terrorist uses such simply to create a diversion while the REAL b.omb goes off elsewhere!
It’s time for people to wake up to the fact that the novelty of caller id fraud is more than an entertainment option and poses the potential of serious risk to our national security.
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