Naive hacker tries to scam a chat app user. Watch this dude’s hilarious response

What happens when your friend’s chat app account gets hacked, and the scammer tries to cheat you of your money? For most of us, we’d either ignore or block the person. Not this dude.

Jonathan Wong, a search ad evangelist at Microsoft, received a curious message on chat app Line from a scammer pretending to be his friend. He asked Wong to buy a few iTunes cards from a 7-11 convenience store.

Wong was tickled by this, and decided to engage him in a conversation. What’s funny is how far the hacker went to pretend he’s a friend. Here’s how it went down:

See more: Line has 30 million users in Indonesia, now 2nd biggest market

Update at 9.40pm Singapore time:

Boy, things got serious quickly. Turns out scammers have been targeting quite a number of Line users in Japan and elsewhere of late, as this, this, and this report show (Google Translate needed for some of these articles).

Line has responded to these attacks with a statement:

LINE prioritizes user privacy protection and stable service support as our top priority, as we continue to offer the most dynamic services that can be trusted anywhere around the world.

Some cases have shown that personal information retrieved from other weakly-protected sources may be misused on LINE for unauthorized access, if the user keeps the same log-in ID and password for multiple services.

As LINE becomes more popular around the world, LINE would like to remind users to protect their personal information by using individualized password for LINE and changing it on a regular basis. It is also important for users to not disclose their IDs publicly.

In addition, users can choose the setting ‘Reject Message’ to stop receiving messages from unknown contacts and block or report contacts that send spam messages or links with malware. Users should also take extra caution with the content or links received from unknown contacts.

[4.5.0 version update & Migration PIN Code]

With the release of LINE 4.5.0 version, LINE has taken an extra measure to further enhance user security.

Users who only sign-in via Facebook account will be requested to register with their phone number or e-mail address. If they register with the e-mail address only, an additional set up of Migration Pin Code will be required. The Migration PIN Code function allows users to set up four-digit security code for mobile devices. In order to prevent unauthorized use of personal account information, LINE users can use the same PIN code to log-in and access their account information, even after changing their mobile devices.

[How to prevent scam cases]

The recent reporting of scam cases are, in fact, the issue of compromised accounts, which personal information retrieved from other weakly-protected sources are misused for unauthorized access to users’ LINE account. In order to prevent such cases, LINE would like to remind users to take caution when using the service in order to prevent any loss through scams or frauds.

1) Be careful with the content/links you send and receive.

2) Do not disclose your ID in public.

3) Change your passwords on a regular basis.

4) Choose the setting ‘Reject Message’ to stop receiving message from unknown contacts.

5) Block or report the contact(s) that send you spam messages or links with virus/malware.”

To add on to the Official Statement above, LINE would like to point out that the gift card scam incident is, in fact, the issue of compromised accounts. LINE requires login information such as email address or other SNS accounts. If the user uses the same personal information for other weakly-protected sources, it can easily be retrieved and can be misused for unauthorized access to users’ LINE account. For better clarification, LINE has provided the definition of both terms below:

Hacking is generally defined as an attempt to gain access to systems the person isn’t authorized for, involving the altering of hardware and/or software. This is typically extremely difficult to do on major systems and only a very small and selected group of people have the skills and resources.

Compromising is entirely different, it is often referred to as phishing. It involves the aggressor bringing into light, or exposing, information about the victim. This can be accomplished in many different ways, either by unknowingly telling someone or by not using proper security. Things like weak passwords and easy to guess “Secret Questions”.

Naive hacker tries to scam a chat app user. Watch this dude’s hilarious response