CNN Business asked a hacker to steal a tech reporter’s data

CNN Business tech reporter Donie O’Sullivan writes about what happened when he asked a hacker to steal his data.

O’Sullivan writes, “She did all this by using some information she found about me online, like which airlines I fly with and what hotels I stay at — because I tweet about them.

“Then, using that information, she called up some of my favorite companies, using software to make it appear as if she were calling from my phone and a voice changer so that she could sound like a man if she needed to. It sounds complicated, but it’s worryingly easy to do.

“To get my home address, she called up a furniture company I had tweeted about. Tobac claimed she was my wife and that she wanted to check that the company had my correct home address on file before she placed another order. She deliberately gave the wrong address and the person on the other end of the line corrected her with my full home address.

“That simple.

“She was also pretty easily able to convince a hotel I had checked into on Instagram to hand over my phone number.”

Read more here.