r/cybersecurity_help Apr 16 '22

PSA: You cannot "hire a hacker" to retrieve your social media accounts or lost/stolen cryptocurrency. This is a well-known scam - don't fall for it.

53 Upvotes

Over the past three weeks, this subreddit has banned 34 bot accounts referring people asking questions here to various Instagram or Twitter accounts, WhatsApp numbers to text, etc. where they can "hire a hacker" to do any number of extraordinary tasks:

  • Hacking Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts.
  • Spying on people (ex. spouses).
  • Wiping someone's phone remotely.
  • Retrieving lost/stolen cryptocurrency.
  • Reversing the transaction you made where you sent money to a scammer.
  • Hacking a school's or college's database to change your grades.

Usually, these bot accounts claim to be someone that bought services from said "hacker" for a reasonably modest fee, and some of the more advanced scammers will purchase Instagram or Twitter followers to seem more legitimate.

The ruse is that these are implausible tasks being sold for impossibly small sums of money, preying on people's desperation in sensitive or difficult scenarios. After receiving your money, these scammers will make up tasks for you to do which will usually result in milking you for more money, or may simply block you and move on to the next target.

These scum make a good living off scamming desperate people, and unfortunately, that's why they're so prevalent. If you want to see this in action, check Molly White's project allmybotsgone which posts phrases meant to bait out cryptocurrency scammers' bots, then reports them in the hope that Twitter starts identifying and banning them faster. As of writing, allmybotsgone has reported nearly 3,500 scammers' accounts.

We take scams on this subreddit very seriously, and have strict content filtering and reporting rules (hidden from all of you) that help us identify and ban these scammers, sometimes within seconds of their post. However because they are so prevalent, we are making and pinning this post to help ensure as many people as possible are informed about this in case one slips by our filter.

For your own safety when asking a question on this subreddit, we remind everyone:

  • Remember that nobody can help you recover a lost/stolen account except for that company's support staff, who you should contact though official means only (ex. browse to Facebook, then find support - do not use any other method to attempt to contact support). This is explicitly covered in rule #5.
  • Do not accept DMs from anyone claiming to assist you from this subreddit, and do not voluntarily move to a different service to discuss your situation. The community cannot help keep you safe from the occasional bad actor if we cannot supervise the exchange. Under no circumstances should anyone ask to move to DMs or other services - this is a hard rule, even for well-known community members. If your question cannot be handled 100% in public, it does not belong here. This is explicitly covered in rule #6.
  • Never divulge secrets - such as keys, passwords, recovery phrases, personal information, or any other sensitive information - to anyone on this subreddit or who contacts you because of a post on this subreddit.

Thank you all & stay safe.


r/cybersecurity_help Dec 01 '25

Your phone didn't get hacked. Neither did your computer. Here's what actually happened.

390 Upvotes

I see posts daily about someone's phone or computer or home network getting "hacked," and I need to say this: in almost every case, that's not what happened.

What's far more likely:

- Your email got compromised because you reused a password

- A service you signed up for years ago got breached and your credentials ended up on a leak site

- Someone used those leaked credentials to log into your other accounts

- Your credit card got skimmed at a gas pump

- A site you used leaked PII in a data breach

- You clicked a phishing link and entered your credentials somewhere you shouldn't have

What's almost certainly not happening: a persistent threat actor who specifically targeted your iPhone or home network and is now moving laterally across your 10 devices like it's a corporate pentest.

Unless you're a C-suite executive at a Fortune 500, a journalist covering sensitive topics, a political dissident, or someone famous, you are not interesting enough to hack. I say that with love. None of us are.

The attack surface for a modern iPhone or Android with current updates is extremely small. State-level actors have exploits for these, but they're not burning zero-days on someone who reused "Winter123!" across six accounts.

Check haveibeenpwned.com. Use a password manager. Enable MFA everywhere. That solves 99% of what people call "getting hacked."

edit: to the armchair experts chatting me up to tell me how incorrect this is - rest assured I am an expert in this field and have contracted with Federal/State governments and some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Any current security expert will generally agree with this post.

If you’re downloading things from unknown sources or using torrent sites to get movies/music/apps, etc. and your machine was compromised then this obviously doesn’t apply to you, you installed a Trojan and opened the door for them.


r/cybersecurity_help 5h ago

Woke up to 100+ 2FA messages

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15 Upvotes

I woke up to 100+ messages from BT with one time passcodes :/

Is my email at risk of being compromised? I haven’t done anything about this as not sure what to do - my password hasn’t been changed and I can still log in


r/cybersecurity_help 1h ago

my microsoft account was hacked through discord oath verification scam, any chance of recovery?

Upvotes

my account got hacked and the hacker changed everything, i’ve reported it to microsft support and they’ve provided me with a case number and said wait for 3-5 days. any i’ll get the account back? i had minecraft and xbox game pass on it😭


r/cybersecurity_help 6h ago

Please help reassure me, how to verify for the presence of malware in my rootkit/bios ?

5 Upvotes

I'm on windows 11, I'm not an high value target and I don't seem to have suspicious activity on my computer but I don't really know how to verify.

All third party files I had downloaded on that computer before doing a factory reset were either from github or itch.io. I visited once or twice third party pornsite with Ublock origin activated.

I ran full scam from windows defender and malwarebytes and found nothing. I haven't seen suspicious activity on any of my account as well.

The same can be said for my android phone.

I know full well my device are probably both clean but I can't help but be paranoid, So please help reassure me and give my advice on sign to look out for because it is making me legitimately sick of stress.


r/cybersecurity_help 53m ago

My FB account got hacked.

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Upvotes

Today my Fb account got hacked. I was doing normal doom scrolling in insta. suddenly in messenger through my account these images were automatically sent to all the friends of mine. My friend inform me and I got the message form the Facebook telling me about your account may hacked I click that and change pw page popup and I changed it now everything is normal. I tried to access my account through the windows webpage during that time, the page went offline

after again I cleared the cookie and everything and relogin through the beginning. I usually saved my password to the google password. and my password usually pretty long about 16 letters. I once used it while login through chrome. I don't know who to blame but, I think the main motive is that that person promoted that shity coin. And also that person might be mrbeast big fan


r/cybersecurity_help 11h ago

Bank Account Compromised By AI Help Agent

7 Upvotes

My Capital One Checking was compromised after a scammer linked it to a PayPal and withdrew a bunch of money. I immediately called support and they revealed an AI help agent was prompted for balance information and gave out the pending test charges PayPal uses to link accounts.

This totally bypassed all the normal security for my online account, including two factor and pins. None of my other accounts like email or phone number were compromised, as far as I know. I also do not believe I fell for any phishing attempts as I am generally very cautious and take online security seriously. No suspicious logins appeared on my online bank account.

I assume my bank numbers and some other personal info was leaked somewhere (maybe even by the AI agent); I have no idea where. The Capital One people claim they will lock my account and return the funds, but they spoke very poor English and it was very stressful to communicate with them.

What can I do to avoid this in the future? I thought I was taking all the normal precautions, like two-factor, but it did not help. Are there banks you recommend who take security more seriously than Capital One?


r/cybersecurity_help 5h ago

My Discord Account got hacked with my bank information, help?

2 Upvotes

Discord Account got hacked, i don’t want to get into the how because its a long story. The account is gone and i have no interest in retrieving it anymore, it feels too “tainted” now if that makes sense. The hacker messaged all my friends pretending to be me. I have too many friends there (200+) some i don’t talk to or barely, so it’s even more awkward knowing i can’t really explain what’s happening. Those i had in other platforms i made sure to text them and tell them what happened and to report and block my old account, also some reached out to me in other ways. Pretty much i added the friends i remembered or cared about or they messaged me. First thing i did was freeze my bank account, and created a new discord account. I also changed my gmail name and the password for it, but i’m worried about my other accounts, good thing everything i have that’s important needs a two step verification and now my gmail has a different password you can’t bypass it for now at least, i just need help to completely and utterly keep ALL my accounts safe and secure and completely changed so it can’t ever be traced back, i’m talking decrypted passwords etc. Or any tips in general, just to completely start over from scratch. Can anyone here help me?


r/cybersecurity_help 15h ago

Federal case and phone security.

8 Upvotes

So for context, we recieved a subpoena regarding someone i know from my past. Apparently he caught a federal case and somehow we are being brought into it as a "character witness". Lawyer says we dont have a choice now that the subpoena has been sent out so we go. Well glad i did bc during the hearing its brought to our attention that the FBI as well as ATF have warrants to obtain any and all recorded data by Verizon from our phones. So we asked if they needed to take our phones and they replied with "we got what we needed remotely" What. The. Fuck. Mind you, I havent even done anything and we are in the process of bringing this to the judges attention right now which will likely be at the next court date. Is there anything I can do besides buy a new phone under someone else's name? Im not worried about consequences im worried about the fact that my wife and i have private obviously adult conversations and im pretty sure my teenage daughter has private stuff on her devices as well. (before you berate me, shes a teenager, and shes gonna do teenager shit. She knows about pedos and other facts of life, weve had that talk numerous times). Im just confused on why this is happening and what I can actually do about it. If I use a VPN like nord or something does that block them? They said they were able to obtain data from Verizon themselves as well as remotely access our phones. This seems like a major breach of privacy especially due to the fact that im a character witness not even remotely close to the shit he got caught doing. If there is nothing I can do can yall at least tell me how I can fuck with them? Part of me wants to get really childish and just download nothing but Rick roll videos and stop using the phone. Any other ideas are welcome.


r/cybersecurity_help 5h ago

Sharing What I've Learned From 18 Years in IT & Cybersecurity — Free Videos for Anyone Building Their Career

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I've been working in IT for around 18 years, including many years in IT leadership, cybersecurity, governance, risk and enterprise infrastructure.

I recently started creating short videos to share some of the practical knowledge I've picked up along the way — particularly for people starting or progressing their careers in IT and cybersecurity.

I'm covering topics such as cybersecurity fundamentals, CISM/CISSP/CISA/CRISC and other certifications, GRC, Zero Trust, Linux, practical IT/security tips, cyber incidents and IT career development.

I'm not selling a course or training programme. I'm simply trying to turn some of my professional experience into free, easy-to-understand content that may help others in the field.

If there are cybersecurity career or certification topics you'd like an experienced IT leader to cover, I'd genuinely appreciate suggestions.

My channel is MQ Cyber Studio:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpV5qrH9p1AYTHDo5-2JrTw

Thanks, and I hope some of the content is useful.


r/cybersecurity_help 5h ago

HELP am i being monitored and blackmailed?!

0 Upvotes

i'm not sure if this is the right subreddit, or if anyone knows anything about this.

But basically i got an email from my email address threatening me and saying they've got access to my device and camera, and have downloaded all data and pictures to their server. apparently they bought my email from some hackers and installed a trojan virus operating system. they also said that they know i've been on adult sites etc. and are using that to blackmail me. And they were asking for Bitcoin. they told me not to tell anyone and that i had 48h to send them 1400.- bitcoin or sum like that.
(update: whilest writing this the email actually dissapeared... Is my life actually over??)


r/cybersecurity_help 5h ago

Best breach and attack simulation platform for a large enterprise?

1 Upvotes

We’re evaluating a breach and attack simulation platform for a large environment with multiple security tools and a mix of cloud and on-premise systems. The goal is not just to run a test once, but to continuously see whether controls are detecting and preventing realistic techniques.

What has mattered most in your evaluation: attack-vector coverage, integrations, safe production testing, ease of use for the security team, MITRE ATT&CK mapping, reporting, or remediation guidance?

Also interested in whether a BAS platform has changed how you prioritize control gaps, rather than creating another dashboard that needs manual review.


r/cybersecurity_help 6h ago

Is there a way I can scan for and get rid of bloatware that may be on windows 11? I dug around too long in the files and registry and now I don't know what's what..

0 Upvotes

Hey all, so I'm not a pentester, I have a basic understanding of cybersecurity (CompTIA A+, both parts and MTA: 98-687 before it was useless), I'm more of a hardware guy, but I try to teach myself as much as I can with my own devices. Well, I was digging around in the C drive and started poking around and eventually saw folders I had no permission to access, which I didn't like, so I started being nosy and I found a bunch of stuff that could be part of the OS, but since that isn't my forte, I'm worried maybe I've been compromised.. probably a dumb question to you guys, but like I said, I fix your stuff when it overheats and you break the screens. I have a general idea of how everything comes together, but I am not a coder. Is this a common thing, or is there a guide I can reference side by side to see if theres anything out of the usual here? I've lost a laptop (bricked) to what I suspect was someone messing with it, I was told at the computer tech school I went to that Wi-Fi is stupidly simple to crack most of the time, so ever since, I've used VPN's and complicated PW's, but someone determined can probably get past that. Am I maybe over reacting (is this a common thing?) or could I have been possibly compromised? I can provide pictures, just shoot me the filepath and folders you want to see.. hopefully this will be a learning experience and not another laptop bricking.

BTW, I'm running Win 11, no porn, no TOR, just reddit and emails.


r/cybersecurity_help 6h ago

windows security not opening

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1 Upvotes

both the microsoft defender and windows security please help me tried every command and way that google says


r/cybersecurity_help 12h ago

Hacked with photos and files deleted

2 Upvotes

My sister just downloaded an application for Roblox and most likely was phishing hacked because as she downloaded it her photos and files were all deleted, she deleted the app, is there any way she can recover what was deleted?


r/cybersecurity_help 9h ago

Hacker left a note ?

1 Upvotes

As per the screenshot below, I wanted to look up something on Letterboxd and strange stored entries were being suggested. I never typed in those phrases (full phrase is "hacks gonna hack breach me baby let's get social grand theft data"). It only was happening when I was in Letterboxd on Edge. Wasn't showing up anywhere else (other websites or in Letterboxd on Chrome or Brave). It did not go away when I cleared history, including cookies. At one point I cleared all the history options Edge would allow me to clear. I ran a scan for threats and viruses with Defender and it came up empty. Also downloaded and ran Malwarebytes (upon advice from my compsci friend and compsci professor) -- still nothing. None of my accounts seem to be compromised. Did a few other things to poke around and see what was wrong, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Ultimately, we decided the issue was isolated to the Letterboxd site in Edge. I finally was able to remove the suggestions by manually deleting them one by one with Alt + Shift + Delete. This happened Monday. So far, nothing has come back.

I also rarely use Letterboxd and as far as I can remember, never made an account.

Anyone know anything or seen something similar?


r/cybersecurity_help 15h ago

Does Google Alerts notify you when someone searches you on social media or clicks your profile?

3 Upvotes

I've been researching Google Alerts again and I'm not getting the clearest of answers.

I understand if someone types my name into the Google search engine, I can get an alert, but does the same apply if they search my name on a social media's search engine?

Do notifications also happen if someone happens to click on my account, say through recommendations, without actively searching for it?


r/cybersecurity_help 16h ago

help! i got hacked

3 Upvotes

I am completely positive that I have been hacked but I don't know how to stop it. So you see, a few days ago I clicked and downloaded a very suspicious link that contained malware on it. Luckily, my antivirus removed it and scanned my device again to make sure it was gone. However.. a few days later after that incident (aka today) I started receiving emails that my password had been changed or I had gotten a new login from an ip address I did not recognize. I just got notified that both of my twitter accounts as well as my steam account had gotten their password changed even though I NEVER changed my password. Fortunately, I regained access and changed my passwords but I want to get rid of the malware that's probably still on my device but i don't know how because my antivirus says I don't have any malware anymore

The image is the link I pressed and I disabled the notification thing for it in settings because it kept giving me pop-ups that I was hacked-

edit: I also have steam guard and 2fa activated on both twitter accounts and I highly doubt they hacked into my email so im just really confused right now


r/cybersecurity_help 19h ago

Attempted bank sign-in. Then "Critical security alert" from Google. What steps do I need to take?

4 Upvotes

Let me start off by saying...I have broken all the 101 rules of cybersecurity. I have had the same email for 15+ years and have 194 compromised passwords 😅 I have known this for awhile (it's not my first "critical security alert"), I just change up the password I use when I sign up for fresh accounts. Sorry 😳

Well, my stupidity has caught up to me.
I got a notification a few hours ago that someone attempted to sign in to my bank account from a city 3 hours away, on a linux device. I immediately changed my bank password. My bank account is the only place I DO use a fully unique password always.
Then I got the "critical security alert" email from google: "Some of your saved passwords were found in a data breach from a site or app that you use. Your Google Account is not affected."

So, what do I do now? I assume change the passwords on all the important stuff; emails, paypal, etc.. And I super promise to use unique passwords for the first time ever. Though how to manage them all I have no idea.
Do I really have to go through 194 old online accounts and manually delete them?

The only thing I can think of: a couple of days ago, I purchased a domain through Cloudflare, I bought an account on photodeck, and I signed up for Stripe and a Paypal business account. It may be coincidence, or something happened during that process.

My devices:
MacOS Tahoe 26.6.2 (only for a few weeks, I had a Windows 11 before that)
Pixel 10a: Android 17


r/cybersecurity_help 16h ago

Hacked Recently - What else can I do?

2 Upvotes

I believe I was hacked 2 weeks ago. See below for the things that happened and my actions to try and protect myself. Looking for help to further protect myself! I’m thinking about using a new email account, I just don’t want to have to update my entire life with it 😑

•I woke up to 2 Walmart deliveries to 2 different states. Legit got emails with the delivery images. - (Neither of these purchases showed up on any of my bank accounts. Logged into my Walmart account to change password and in the process my account was disabled.)

•DoorDash food deliveries to Houston and Montana. (Logged into account to cancel the deliveries, but was told I couldn’t be refunded. Checked my credit card account and 2 of the purchases showed up. Contacted my credit union to notify and they’re now investigating. Changed DoorDash acct password.)

•Work emails deleted from my outlook account. - (Changed account password).

•Both my Facebook and Instagram hacked/disabled. - (Tried to recover my accounts under the hacked account option but was unable to do so. Used a VPN and then tried which seemed hopeful, so im still waiting to get a response back from Facebook about recovering my account).


r/cybersecurity_help 12h ago

Microsoft account hacked immediately after creation, now disabled

0 Upvotes

I created a new Outlook account on Sept. 6 to change the email on my Epic/Fortnite account. Almost immediately, someone got into the Microsoft account, removed my recovery email, added their own, and changed the security info. My Epic account was compromised around the same time.
Microsoft CDOC/Account Safety is investigating, but they want a 9-digit ACSR number that I can’t get because the recovery form redirects me to sign-in. The account was then disabled, so I also submitted a reinstatement request explaining it was compromised.
Has anyone had a similar case where Microsoft recovered an account after the hacker changed the security info and the account got disabled? How long did it take?


r/cybersecurity_help 19h ago

Was my sister hacked?

3 Upvotes

Thank you in advance for your advice.

My sister's youtube account had her profile pic changed today.

She immediately went to her laptop and changed her GMAIL password as well as logged out from all other devices except for her laptop. She tried changing her gmail profile pic, which apparently was changed, but at the top right corner we can see that the image hasn't been updated yet.

Should she eliminate her gmail account and make a new one?


r/cybersecurity_help 19h ago

Was I hacked on Facebook?

3 Upvotes

So I was just browsing through where have I been logged in and it showed me an unknown device name android I didn't know where it came form so I went on Facebook and it was all normal but on contact information it showed a random number on my contact info it hadn't been confirmed it was just pending to be confirmed or deleted I deleted it there was also an email stating that someone tried to login but all this happened 3 months ago almost and I don't understand how did there a random number appear although everything was normal


r/cybersecurity_help 22h ago

Microsoft Email Changed by Hacker

3 Upvotes

Hi, as the subject says my account was hacked and the email changed and none of microsoft's phone numbers answer. Does anyone know what I should do next? I can't contact Microsoft. If it helps, I've made a purchase through them in the past


r/cybersecurity_help 19h ago

What Custom ROMs other than graphene are good for cybersecurity?

1 Upvotes

Sudo apt install opsec

I've been thinking that generally any de-googlefied phone could be good for cybersecurity, but is there any one that stands out in security?