Families mourning the loss of loved ones to the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Fla. are now being urged to check the credit of their deceased relatives thanks to a group of heartless hackers targeting victims in a new identity-theft scheme.
Apparently, cybercriminals are watching the news and stealing the identities of victims read during the broadcast. Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told local Florida news station 10 News that law enforcement is working to track down the cybercriminals.
“It’s terrible,” Burkett told 10 News. “I can’t wait to put a face to these deeds right now, and I think all of South Florida is eager to see who would do something like this – what kind of person would do something like this. But I’m looking forward to our police department apprehending them, and they are out there looking. I wouldn’t want to be that person right now.”
Officials aren’t releasing details about how many of the victims have already been targeted. The death toll from the tragic condo collapse is currently hovering around 100.
Cops Want to ‘Make an Example’ of These Cybercriminals
Of course, this isn’t the first time hackers have shown just how cruel they can be.
Throughout the global COVID-19 pandemic attackers have gone after life-saving vaccine-makers, tried to swindle people out of their relief checks and interrupted critical supply chains. And the Dark Web is full of stolen personal data just waiting to be exploited by threat actors with recent high-profile data dumps from LinkedIn, PlayStation and LimeVPN.
Law enforcement working on catching Surfside victims’ identity thieves isn’t providing any additional details about the investigation but is urging family members of victims to check both recent credit history and contact the Social Security office, according to Insider, who also interviewed Burkett. The mayor vowed to punish the criminals behind the identity theft.
“We want everyone to take steps to lock their credit down,” he said. “We’re going to track down the people responsible for this and we’re going arrest them and make an example of them.”
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