“Swamp Chic” is the way Hillary Hanning describes the little house, the neighborhood bar that she has on the West Bank of New Orleans.
This is the kind of place where a customer can sip Croatian orange wine while being surrounded by chicken feet and taxidermized alligators.
“Everything with this place, like even the colors of the wall, has something to do with the family or a good memory or a friend,” said Hanning behind the bar. “He struggled to death but we had fun.”
But this effort to keep the bar alive has been much more difficult after fraudsters resumed its social media accounts and stolen about $ 10,000.
While ransomware attacks of several million dollars and data flights targeting governments and industry giants make the headlines, small businesses are increasingly found in online crooks reticulations – they are victims at a rate of almost four times More than large organizations, according to a recent Verizon report.
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Writing room for Golf States States
The reason is simple: Maman-and-Pop are much easier targets. They often have to be their own accountants, installation managers and plumbers in addition to being their own cybersecurity expert – a task where failure can cause closure. Almost half of medium -sized and small companies in a Mastercard survey experienced a cyber attack, with almost 20% of them going bankrupt or fence.
“Small businesses are the perfect target for bad malware because they generally have worse security,” he, Adam McCloskey, director of the Louisiana Small Business Development Center in Louisiana State University. “Cyberattacks are one of the main threats to which small businesses face.”
The most common way in which an online scam begins is with the convincing fraudster someone to freely give access. Doing this often means making an alleged frantic victim. In other words, cyber-species are less on technology and more on emotions.
“They perfected their art,” said Curtis Dukes, executive vice-president of best practices Internet safety centersaid. “They know exactly what pressure points apply to make you react.”
It’s even easier when the target already has a dozen other concerns in their minds, which happened with Hanning.
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Writing room for Golf States States
In November, Hanning was busy creating fundraising for a northern Caroline cellar devastated by Hurricane Helene. She received a Facebook message that seemed to come from Meta’s support team on fraudulent activity on her account. In an instinctive moment, Hanning clicked on the link.
Shortly after, his phone exploded with people who asked questions about strange products – trucks, golf cars, televisions and more. Friends called saying that these items were listed as for the sale on his account. In reality, these messages came from fraudster using the scope of Hanning to try to tear off others.
Hanning could no longer enter Facebook and Instagram accounts for the little house with his password – which was not a little loss. For companies like Hanning, Facebook is not a place for the same idiots. It is compulsory to operate business. The publication on these accounts and in the pages of the district helped her attract customers for events such as erasing.
“We are so small, we cannot afford discretionary things like advertising,” said Hanning. “We just don’t have the money for that.”
Hanning contacted Meta and the accounts were finally closed. She lost the 4,000 subscribers that she worked hard to build on the two sites and left Hanning shocked that she could not obtain the help she needed the social media giant. While the meta has Online aid centersHanning said that it had not helped and that it could not find a way to connect with a real person in the business.
Cybersecurity experts are sympathetic on the Sisyphée de Meta task to protect billions of literal accounts, but also believe that the company should do more. Last year, 41 prosecutors of the State Meta asked to take immediate measures On what they said was a “dramatic and persistent peak in complaints” on the control of the account.
A large part of the reason for the concern is the extent of the damage caused by online scams. For Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, more than $ 250 million was lost in online crimes in 2024.
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Photo AP, file
About three weeks after the flight of his accounts, a friend said that he had finally obtained what Hanning wanted. He logged in with Hanning during a call to three and said that the other person with them was a meta-representative that he had found via the Facebook help center.
Hanning spent four and a half hours on the phone while shopping for a business owner and a mother of three children. She described the experience as the best customer service she has ever had. But when it was over, she realized that it was another scam.
This time, she was defrauded for $ 10,000 – all drained by her mother’s bank account.
“You are vulnerable and you hope because you say to yourself:” I’m going to recover it all “,” said Hanning. “And then you’re just humiliated.”
All Hanning problems – believing that the first message came from Facebook, the company does not restore its account because it no longer had the latest information and false customer service – stems from the challenge of proving who people say they are online.
“This challenge of authentication in cyber space is very important,” said Michael Daniels, head of the Cyber-Menace alliancesaid. “And this is the root of many problems that we have in cybersecurity.”
Daniels said there should be a better way for companies to confirm who you are, and vice versa, but admits that there is no easy correction. There is value to the confidentiality of the Internet, but this anonymity provides a smoke screen for bad players.
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Writing room for Golf States States
Hanning slowly rebuilt it Instagram following on a new accountNow up to just over a thousand followers. In the end, she feels disappointed by herself to put people she loves in danger and fall in love.
Daniel said he is trying to avoid using the language “falling for her”. Although it is important for small business owners to protect themselves in the same way that they should lock their doors when closing, the extent of the problem is so large and unbalanced against mom and pop that it is unfair to blame them.
“I don’t think someone should fight for that because the whole game is stacked against you,” said Daniel.
This story was produced by the Writing room for Golf States Statesa collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting,, Wbhm In Alabama, Wwno And Wrkf in Louisiana and NPR.