Bahrain expatriate under hacker’s threat

An expatriate in Bahrain is unable to use his own computer after a hacker took control over it.

The person is victim to a hacker who stays in a different country. Manama resident Saad Abdul Kareem said that the scam started with a phone call. The hacker made a phone call posing as tech-support executive and advised Abdul Kareem to follow a set of instructions. After being hacked Abdul Kareem is now under threat of 'further repercussions' for not sending the hacker the money that he is demanding.

"They called me up from an international number. I think it was a number from the US. They informed me that certain illegal activities were identified from my IP address. Worried that someone might have hacked my computer, I asked them for more information. Not being a computer expert and under pressure, I believed them. They gave me a set of instructions, which I promptly followed. I was asked to visit certain links and I did it without asking too many questions," Abdul Kareem explained.

"After I visited the links, I could no longer use the computer because the control of the computer transferred to the hacker. He asked me for a huge sum of money to return the computer. I refused to send the money,” he said.

“I called up my internet service provider as well as IT experts to help me with my situation. The computer is currently with an IT service company and I hope that they can remove the hacked software before the situation gets worst,” he added.