Transcript
PRESENTER
In this block of flats behind me, a hacker made tens of thousands of pounds in fraud, and all from the comfort of his own home, until he tried to push his luck a little too far. Ian Wood was using Facebook to fund a lavish lifestyle.
DC BILLY JOHNSON
He would generally pose as someone who wasn't himself. For example, maybe as an attractive woman and he would try and befriend men on Facebook who would look at his profile picture and say, 'Oh yeah, I'll be friends with that person'. And what they were essentially doing was allowing this man into their life.
PRESENTER
He discovered people often use the same usernames for different accounts online.
DC BILLY JOHNSON
What Ian Wood did was he used that username, type it into mainstream banking websites, and as soon as he got the message of username correct, password incorrect. Security questions. He was in play then. And he could use information from the social networking sites to try and find a way in to that bank account.
PRESENTER
Once in, he stole 35,000 pounds from online accounts. He then transferred the money to bogus accounts until he got cocky.
DC BILLY JOHNSON
As a lot of criminals do, they get more relaxed about their behaviour, and that was when he made the transfer from a bank account into his own in his name. We went to arrest him for that offence and that was when we opened the door basically to all the activity that he'd been involved in.