Scam Alert #21 — Lockdown App & Bitcoin Baron

June 21, 2018
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Categories: Archer News, Cyber Crime, Cyberattack, Hacking, Mobile Devices, Posts with image, Scam Alerts, Smart Devices

School’s out for the summer, but teachers are getting ready for school shootings in the fall with a new lockdown app.

This and more in this week’s scam alert.

Watch here:

Lockdown App

One of the newest apps for schools — a lockdown app that helps you shut down the school in case of a shooting or other emergency.

The Tracking Appropriate Behaviors or TABS app came out this week.

Administrators can send a message saying “lockdown.”

Teachers then say they got the message and if they are safe.

Schools can send a lockdown notice through the TABS app. Image credit: TABS Facebook page

Two teachers at Crestwood High in Michigan developed the app.

“Every day you wonder if you’re going to be safe that day,” developer and teacher Matt Ridenour told the Detroit Free Press. “You assume you are, but there’s always that chance that you won’t be.”

New Coin Hack

Hackers broke into a crypto coin company and stole more than $30 million worth of digital currency.

The popular Bithumb crypto currency exchange discovered the new hack on Tuesday.

It asked customers not to make any deposits for the time being.

The value of Bitcoin quickly dropped after the news of the hack.

It was worth more than $20,000 last year.

Attackers are descending on digital currency companies, stealing $40 million worth from the company Coinrail this month and taking $500 million from Coincheck this year.

Bitcoin Baron

A man calling himself the Bitcoin Baron finally knows how he’ll pay for his cyber attacks on cities.

Randall Tucker of Arizona reportedly attacked places like Madison, Wisconsin, San Marcos, Texas and Chandler and Mesa, Arizona in 2015.

In one case, he took out the city’s 911 system.

In another case, he claimed he attacked the Shriners Hospitals for Children site and defaced it with child porn, reported the Observer.

On Monday, a judge sentenced him to a year and eight months in prison — and almost $70,000 in restitution.

Randall Charles Tucker will spend 20 months in prison for attacking city computer systems. Image credit: Arizona Department of Corrections

Name Hijacker

You may wish you had a really cool domain name, like Donuts.com or Bacon.com.

But how far would you go to get it?

For a guy in Iowa, it meant breaking down a door, using a taser and pointing a gun at someone’s head to make them give up a domain name, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

What was the name in question?

Doitforstate.com.

If you check out the various Do It For State Twitter feeds, you’ll get an idea of what it’s all about — a lot of raunchy and/or dangerous stuff done in the name of a state university.

The feeds have thousands of followers on Twitter, so “Do It For State” could make a pretty penny as a web page.

Now the domain name hijacker will spend 20 years in prison.

Multiple Twitter accounts show posts of people doing various risky or raunchy behaviors in the name of state universities. Image credit: @doitforstate_og on Twitter

Smart Flush

For the super smart home, you can now choose from a number of smart toilets.

LGPlus is offering up a Wi-Fi toilet and bidet service where you use your phone to control and personalize things like a fan for the toilet or water temperature for the jets on the bidet, according to ZDNet.

Xiaomi’s smart toilet bidet can recognize you by the way you sit —and your weight on the seat.

It can also massage your cheeks.