SEREMBAN: A man who had sold a pair of vintage Converse shoes for RM40,800 had become a victim of cyber attack.
The man from Kota Baru, Kelantan, was extorted to pay RM4,000 for each file in his computer which he could no longer access following a virus attack.
Wan Irfayuim Azim Wan Ab Aziz, 31, was unsure if the attack was specifically targetting him or random, after he went viral for the shoes sales recently.
"My computer was hacked when a ransomware virus was sent to me two weeks ago. Since then, all files cannot be opened.
"A note is posted on each folder instructing me to pay USD960 (RM4,000) for me to regain access to these files," he said when contacted today.
He had been advised not to pay up, Wan Irfayuim Azim said, he had no option but to delete all the affected files on his computer.
"If I pay, I may be extorted again. So I have to purge 80 per cent of the files including those I categorise as important.
"I thought this will resolve things, but the Facebook page used to sell shoes was also hacked and I had been removed as the account administrator when the hacker took over," he added.
Wan Irfayuim Azim said he should have made a police report, but could not do so yet as issues with his Facebook page were yet to be resolved.
Meanwhile, crime analyst Kamal Affandi Hashim said trading activities including selling shoes via social media platform would make it easy for hackers to create havoc especially when the seller responded to messages or clicked on links given.
"The victims are usually chosen randomly. It was the right move not to give in to the hacker. However, a police report should be made before referring the matter to CyberSecurity Malaysia (CSM)," he said.