We’ve all heard politicians and public figures claim their accounts were hacked after sending out an ill-advised Facebook post or tweet, but what about a member of the general public being the victim of an attack?

On May 25th of this year Nadia Gustavo did what many people do when they wake up – she charged her phone and checked in on Facebook.

Here’s how she recounts her day:

Normal routine of taking phone putting it on charge while I got ready for the day. I noticed that I was logged out of my messenger. I tried to log in but it wouldn’t accept my password, eventually I was able to log on and I didn’t think anything more of it.

A message then appeared, but I didn’t take much notice of it as I was busy. I just saw it was something from Crime Watch, clicked and then carried on with my day.

I then received a message saying that I should delete the post. I then started to read the post and realised that something was not right.

That post would be a Facebook post, the kind that has seen many a South African landing themselves in hot water this year alone.

This message was posted on the pages of numerous news organisations, and although Nadia deleted and reported many the damage was already done.

At 12:29 that day she received a call from John Justice of Virgin Active, her employer, and a second call from an acting manager requesting a meeting at 3PM.

More from Nadia herself:

I arrived for the meeting at 2:40pm. Meeting started at 2:45pm. I was handed a copy of a letter stating my termination of contract.

There was no hearing – I was dismissed after 10 years of service, having started working for Virgin Active on 14th Oct 2006.

Worse yet, Algoa FM were already running THIS article saying that she was fired before she was made aware of that herself.

Nadia has since asked Facebook to track the I.P. address from where the posts were made, but because she had deleted them all they were unable to assist.

She is now waiting on a URL report from MTN, and if you think an incident like this couldn’t happen to you then think again. We spoke to security experts NEWORDER about Nadia’s story, and they had this to say:

This is an everyday occurrence in South Africa, and thousands of people are affected by these hacks. Not everybody gets to tell their story or make it public to drive awareness. Mobile phones are THE target for cyber-criminals nowadays, as this is the easiest way to gain access to personal information AND to impersonate a person for the wrong reasons.

The malicious software installed on mobile devices is so sophisticated that, in some instances, the end user won’t even know that such software is installed. Although Nadia knew something was wrong she still fell victim, and that in the end cost her dearly.

The security features on mobile devices by default are not enough to provide protection against such hacks. There is software available from various mobile stores though, such as Kaspersky, to prevent your mobile phone from being compromised.

What happened to this user is just the tip of the iceberg. More and more serious crimes are being committed through the use of mobile devices, and corporate companies are also suffering through hacks like these.

Now I know we drum on about cyber-security, but it really is one of those things we don’t pay attention to until it’s far too late.

We’ve got NEWORDER looking after both our personal and business interests, which helps everyone sleep at night, but what exactly are you and your company doing to ensure someone doesn’t sneak around the back and do serious damage?

Nadia will be interviewed on 2oceansvibe Radio from 6PM tomorrow (listen live HERE), so be sure to tune in and hear the full account of what went down.