Scams use deception to steal money, credentials, or sensitive data, making them a cybersecurity risk for individuals and organizations.
Search across headline titles and summaries.
Background for this topic.
Scams are deceptive schemes intended to make people surrender money, credentials, sensitive information, or access. In information security, they commonly use phishing messages, impersonation, fraudulent websites, business-email compromise, fake technical support, or malicious attachments. Their defining feature is manipulation: the attacker creates a credible pretext and pressures the target to act before verifying the request.
Security teams should treat scams as an attack surface spanning email, messaging, telephone calls, social media, and payment workflows. Material risks include account takeover through stolen credentials, unauthorized payments, disclosure of personal or company data, and malware execution from deceptive content. Useful controls include phishing-resistant authentication, secure payment-change procedures with independent verification, filtering and domain protections, user training focused on reporting, and rapid review of suspicious messages or transactions. Incident handling may require revoking sessions, resetting credentials, contacting financial institutions, preserving evidence, and notifying affected parties where applicable.
The Bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center has provided a list of indicators for potential cryptocurrency scam victims to avoid a double whammy
AI-powered trading platforms have been observed exploiting deepfake technology to trick investors with fake endorsements
The sophisticated campaign aims to steal credentials of sponsor license holders to facilitate immigration fraud, extortion and other monetization schemes
Four senior members of a Ghana-based criminal network have been indicted for stealing over $100 million through romance scams and BEC frau