Online privacy, account theft, AI scams and what to do when you are targeted

In Bezbjedni i informisani u onlajn prostoru, a podcast for young people by Udruženje za odgovorni i održivi razvoj, we talked about whether privacy still exists online. We discussed the threats young people face most often and what to do if you become a target.

Big platforms live off our habits

Privacy is getting harder to achieve. Big companies such as Meta, Google, TikTok and Snapchat make their money from targeted ads, so they need to know our habits and show us the right ad at the right moment, nudging us towards a purchase in 3, 4 or 7 days. Regulation tries to limit the data they collect, and they lobby against it, so privacy is possible only if we control what we publish and how we use the internet.

They put us into a category by age and stage of life, follow our location and measure, even in hundredths of a second, how long we look at a post or a reel. We are so predictable that platforms can offer us something before we have even thought about it, which is why many people believe their phone is listening to them.

Our name is public anyway, and when it is linked to our location and the details that show who we are, the result is a personality profile that can be misused, even for identity theft, which is perhaps the most dangerous outcome.

Account theft and two-factor authentication

Account theft is perhaps the most common threat, and many people around me have had an account hacked. It is very easy if you haven’t turned on two-factor authentication, which combines two of these three factors:

• —Something you know, usually a password or a PIN.
• —Something you have, a physical device.
• —Something you are, your biometrics, such as Face ID or Touch ID.

A password and a PIN are a poor pair, because someone only has to see you type them once. With the right pair, a stolen password is not enough, because the attacker doesn’t have your device to confirm the login, receive the SMS code or scan the QR code.

Predators on social networks and in games

The most alarming threat, in my view, is predators: adults who pose as teenagers on fake profiles and groom children and teenagers to exploit them, most often sexually, which is perhaps the most dangerous thing that can happen to a child online. It can happen in any app with messaging, and in online games with chat, such as Roblox and Minecraft, it usually goes like this:

1. 01The predator poses as a game administrator and offers in-game rewards, such as new levels or weapons, for information like the child’s address or school.
2. 02They contact the child on a social network, posing as a fellow player, and push for compromising photos, or any photo at all.
3. 03With artificial intelligence they put the face from a real photo onto a fake nude, and the child feels the same shame as if it were real.
4. 04Then they extort money, usually by asking the child to take a parent’s credit card and make a transfer.

Financial scams and fake bank pages

Financial fraud usually doesn’t take advanced hacking, because people are tricked into handing over their data, for example by paying €20 for €100,000 that someone has supposedly given them, a story that is 20 years old and still works. Users of most of the best-known Montenegrin banks were also targeted, in attacks that have since been stopped:

1. 01A message on Messenger or SMS asks you to confirm whether a large transaction should go through, which worries you, so you want to reject it.
2. 02The link leads to a fake bank page that asks for a lot of data and leads you on until the two-factor authentication in the bank’s app is triggered.
3. 03They present it as a check for rejecting the payment, but you are actually authorising it, and they take the money.

Fake videos for parents, watermarks and AI text

Artificial intelligence can be used for good and for evil. Scammers generate a video in which you seem to tell your parents in a panic, in about ten seconds, that you have had a car accident and need money, since today’s tools make clips of 10–15 seconds at most. With Gemini or a similar tool, one photo is enough to make a person say anything, and a small voice sample is enough to make it sound like you. With older parents, these scams have often succeeded.

The same tools help with checking. AI regulation has started, so generated media must carry a watermark, Instagram shows an “AI info” label when it detects AI, and Gemini can tell you in a second whether a photo or video with a watermark was generated. Using AI for ads or educational videos is fine, as long as it is labelled.

Text is harder to check, but people have learned to spot AI text by its style, as on LinkedIn, where it has made posts very dry, and they now value authentic writing from the heart much more, which I think is a very good thing.

What to do if someone threatens or extorts you

I recommend these steps if someone threatens, extorts or grooms you, or tries to take over your account:

1. 01Don’t panic. Anxiety leads to wrong decisions, so breathe in and out three times to give your brain enough oxygen.
2. 02Save the evidence. Take screenshots and keep voice messages, photos and videos, because these are often criminal offences and the evidence protects you.
3. 03Report it to the platform and to the police. Report the profile to Instagram, or wherever it happened, then report the offence and upload the evidence in the Ministry of the Interior’s mobile app, which takes a minute, and the police will contact you.
4. 04Confide in someone you trust. Hopefully that means your parents and close friends, who can support you emotionally and help you see the case through.

The role of parents

One of the most common questions is how closely parents should watch their children online without violating their privacy. Monitoring tools are a last line of defence for children under 14, and Google Family Link asks a child who turns 14 whether they want to end their parent’s supervision. The hardest part, and the one to focus on, is building trust between parent and child, because these problems start in that relationship and get solved there. It sounds logical, but the dysfunctional relationship between children and parents is one of our systemic problems.

Optimism about AI and three rules for surfing safely

I am an incorrigible optimist. Artificial intelligence hit us like a cold shower, but alongside malicious actors there are highly intelligent people who want to use it for the good of humanity and regulators who want to curb its harmful uses, and I believe AI will take over work people shouldn’t be doing and leave them more meaningful work.

What to do

• —Check the security settings on all your social networks. Turn on two-factor authentication and let your device’s password manager generate and store a strong password for you.
• —Make your profile private. Unless you are a public figure or publish business or educational content, a public profile is a huge risk, especially for minors.
• —Before you post, ask yourself whether you would be fine with it ending up in public. If not, don’t post it, because one mistake is enough and getting it off the internet is very, very hard.

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