Money stolen by scammers hijacking UK social media accounts rises 400%
She said the hackers impersonated her so well that her friends and family genuinely thought they were speaking to her.Others have been scammed by fraudulent WhatsApp and text messages in which a criminal pretends to be their child or a relative who is in an emergency situation and urgently needs cash. A passkey uses an individual’s device and biometrics to authenticate them and cannot be hacked like a password.Explore more on these topicsScamsSocial mediaHackingConsumer affairsCrimenewsShareReuse this content
- ▪She said the hackers impersonated her so well that her friends and family genuinely thought they were speaking to her.Others have been scammed by fraudulent WhatsApp and text messages in which a criminal pretends to be their child or a rela
- ▪A passkey uses an individual’s device and biometrics to authenticate them and cannot be hacked like a password.Explore more on these topicsScamsSocial mediaHackingConsumer affairsCrimenewsShareReuse this content
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| Original publisher | The Guardian — UK |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/oct/05/scammers-hijacking-uk-social-media-accounts |
| Publication time | Sun, 04 Oct 2026 23:01:40 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-10-04T23:11:02.585Z |
| Last seen | 2026-10-04T23:11:02.585Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | OSTDxOujHEFo · 1 stories |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
The total reported amount stolen via email and social media account hacking reached £6.3m in the 2025-26 financial year, compared with £1.2m in 2024-25 Photograph: Tim Goode/PAView image in fullscreenThe total reported amount stolen via email and social media account hacking reached £6.3m in the 2025-26 financial year, compared with £1.2m in 2024-25 Photograph: Tim Goode/PAScamsMoney stolen by scammers hijacking UK social media accounts rises 400%Many cases involve criminals using other people’s identities to sell fake event tickets to friends and familyRupert JonesSun 4 Oct 2026 19.01 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleThe total amount stolen by criminals who hack into people’s emails and social media accounts and then pretend to be them has risen by more than 400% in a year, official…
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