Like fish in a barrel (of felonies): fattest scam targets
the true crime that's worth your time
I had a lot of thoughts while reading Vice’s story from Monday on the wedding-fund hack at Zola. The first: that the wedding industrial complex is enough of a scam on its own; I won’t bore you with the details of how much money I saved on my own backyard nuptials by (truthfully!) telling vendors I was prepping a “family gathering,” but Eve and I could probably get a week’s worth of material for B.E. out of wedding-crap price-gouging alone.
The second, as I read the part of the piece that explained how the hackers got into Zola couples’ accounts and stripped them of assets and CC info via
credential stuffing, whereby hackers try to break into accounts using passwords and logins that have been exposed in other data breaches hoping that the targets re-used those passwords[,]
was that this wasn’t the dumbest demographic to target. I wondered if the same group had hit TheKnot.com, or that site that lets guests chip in for your honeymoon…or jewelers’ online presences. And then I thought, if I had to pick one customer base to target — which of course I would never do, we are just talking here! — which one would I pick?
…Goop. No question. People with more money than sense, who don’t pay their assistants enough to change up their passwords and who can probably absorb the losses? Done. (Although anyone who used a credit card on the hotel-room minibar at CPAC is also in the conversation.)
If you had to choose a hackee — and you wouldn’t, we abide by local statutes, but IF you had to: who you got? — SDB
Our subscription sale is still on, and it’s no scam! $51 for an annual sub, all week — makes a great gift!