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FORT BRAGG, N.C. -“Is this you?!” a woman barked at a hotel bar in Orange Beach, Ala., brandishing a cell phone with a picture on it. “You told me you were in Kuwait this weekend!”
Master Sgt. Stuart James knew the photo, and this wasn’t the first time a stranger had accosted him since he returned from deployment to Afghanistan in 2011.
This was just one of nearly 30 encounters he has had over the last three years with women who thought they had established an online relationship with him.
The crooks, who had targeted her in a romance scam, used unsecured pictures from a MySpace account that James had forgotten about.
James had not put any security controls on the account.
“Back in ’08 [when he created the account], I really didn’t care about that stuff,” he said. “I had a MySpace account, and I went on it once or twice a week and didn’t really think about it.”
Scammers are counting on that sort of complacency and use the images of thousands of soldiers every day in their schemes. Most are used in obvious attempts to fleece their targets out of money using the trust the public has in the American soldier.
Soldiers with public personas are at high risk for their images being used illicitly. Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Talley, the chief of the Army Reserve, routinely has his staff request fake Facebook sites be removed from the company’s network. However, new ones appear almost as fast as they are removed.
It isn’t just senior leaders that can be used. Staff Sgt. Aaron Butler won the Army Reserve’s Best Warrior Competition in 2009. In February 2011, scammers from Nigeria used public photos of him in an attempt to buy land in West Virginia. Thankfully, the realtor called Butler’s unit to verify his information, and the plot was uncovered.
Butler’s image has also been used illegally by companies advertising special programs for military members. While the companies usually take them down quickly when asked, it can be unnerving for the soldier involved.
“It’s just heightened my awareness to not have my image floating around there somewhere,” said Butler.
“It’s a cost of doing business in the internet age,” said Kimberly Register, the chief of Information Assurance for the U.S. Army Reserve Command. “There is no way to stop public images from being used.”
While a soldier with a public profile may be hard to protect, Register believes that all soldiers need to be more careful in protecting their online personas and their images from being used without their consent.
“We have to educate them on being less trusting,” Register said. “They’ve grown up with it [the internet] so they nonchalantly participate in it and don’t think how their actions affect them.”
James had that mentality, and while the scams have not affected his bank account or credit ratings, there have been inconveniences that he has had to endure.
“At one time, if you Googled my name, some of my military pictures would come up and it would say ‘fraud’ on there,” said James. “I don’t want someone to see that and have someone say, ‘Hey, Stolen Valor Act!’”
There are several steps soldiers can use to protect themselves against uninvited guests to their online accounts. First, Register says people should never share their passwords with anyone … ever.
Second, she suggests having your online accounts, which commonly have an email account as your login, to be actually linked to a secondary email account. A hacker can easily find out about the primary login account, but will not easily find out about the secondary e-mail and will not be able to get a new password if they claim to be you in a “forgotten password” probe.
Third, Register said to remember to use all of your online site’s security features. Facebook and other online companies routinely improve their security to meet the threats, but most often, the default settings of your account will have little or no security.
Fourth, never identify or “tag” people in photos. Doing so makes the work of a hacker trying to break into your account and your friend’s accounts a lot easier.
Finally, don’t click on any links. Hackers commonly use “Trojan horse” viruses that are attached to these links to gain access to others’ computers. This can be a danger to you and your friends.
“If you have 20 contacts, all of those 20 are impacted by you clicking that link,” she said.
Once scammers have a hold of your pictures, it is nearly impossible to stop their use. James still gets emails and calls from women who believe they have met him online.
“I tell them I’m married and have kids. That way, they don’t harass me,” he said.
| Date Taken: | 09.04.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 01.13.2014 16:15 |
| Story ID: | 119109 |
| Location: | FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 99 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Betrayal of Trust (Part 2 of 2), by LTC Matthew Lawrence, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
