A Calgary real estate agent is encouraging others to protect themselves against cybercrime after his social media accounts were hacked and a ransom demanded.
Mohit Dhillon, with Royal LePage Solutions, says both his YouTube page and his Instagram account were targeted in two separate attacks.
“Social media is so important to my business. It’s where clients get regular updates on what’s happening in the market. It’s scary to think it can just be taken away,” Dhillon says.
The ordeal started with Dhillon’s YouTube channel, in which hackers claimed his videos were copyrighted content and were being illegally uploaded.
After repeated failed attempts to contact YouTube and lodge a complaint, Dhillon hired a lawyer and managed to resolve the issue, retrieve his content and put an end to the threats.
But the scammers weren’t finished with Dhillon yet.
From YouTube to Instagram
A while later, Dhillon’s Instagram account was targeted by (he suspects) the same hackers, causing him to be locked out of the platform.
For eight months, he was either banned from his own account or had his access heavily restricted, significantly compromising his business development and marketing efforts.
“This is where we had a lot of difficulties,” says Dhillon. “It’s hard to recreate what I have – it’s not easy to just make another account and start all over again.”
The hackers contacted Dhillon through a number he had listed on his Instagram page, posing as a service that offered to recover his account for a fee. Dhillon didn’t meet the ransom demand.
“My main concern was that you don’t know when it’s going to stop. So, even if I made a payment, how did I know it would end? I just felt that wasn’t the right way of going about it.”
As crafty as the hackers were, Dhillon was craftier, using the number the hackers called him from to pinpoint their location in India. He then reached out to his contacts in that country who filed a report with the Indian police on his behalf.
“That was a long battle, but in the end I was able to get my account back and haven’t had any issues since.”
Trusting Cyber Shield
Dhillon has learned a hard – and expensive – lesson and now encourages other realtors to take steps to protect their social media accounts from being held hostage like his were.
“I was so interested to learn about Cyber Shield as something that could help. I went through my struggle because I didn’t have the right support system,” he says.
“There are so many scams out there, it’s very hard to trust these services. When you have something like Cyber Shield that you know you can trust, you feel a lot better about it.”
To learn more about how Cyber Shield can protect you and your business, and to register for the free program, visit REIX’s Cyber Shield page.
The Real Estate Insurance Exchange (REIX) provides mandatory errors and omissions insurance to over 17,000 Alberta and Saskatchewan real estate industry members and more than 1,250 brokerages. We’re dedicated to providing high value to our subscribers through exceptional claims, risk and financial management. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn!