Over the past week, some Facebook users from the Furth im Wald community area have received friend requests and messenger messages from what appears to be a young woman by the name of “Lisa Wittmann”. It was an attempt to blackmail gullible users.
According to the Further police report, anyone who accepted the request of the apparently harmless stranger unintentionally gave access to information that is otherwise often not visible to outsiders and to the list of friends. The profile was therefore created by a blackmailer who specifically operated “social engineering” to find potential victims.
An attentive Further citizen was among those contacted, who in turn had already successfully informed “friends” about the threat potential of this fake profile in order to block it and report it to Facebook. Nevertheless, this ultimately became fatal on Saturday for a 31-year-old from Furth im Wald.
What started with a harmless chat ended in a rude awakening. After being invited to a video conference, the victim was tempted to expose himself and perform sexual acts. However, the victim was not aware that the video chat was being recorded by the other person. The blackmailer threatened to circulate the material on the friends list and upload it to the internet unless certain payments are made. The victim then broke off contact and filed a complaint.
The profile has since been deleted by Facebook. The police started investigations into this case and warns against accepting supposed friend requests without hesitation.
