Scams use deception to steal money, credentials, or sensitive data, making them a cybersecurity risk for individuals and organizations.
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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.
Scammers now use AI to instantly whip up SEO-friendly bereavement scams, and it's never been easier to swindle mourners or use them to get to their employers.
A massive malware campaign dubbed Sign1 has compromised over 39,000 WordPress sites in the last six months, using malicious JavaScript injections to redirect users to scam sites
AI Is Also Making Traditional Scams More Convincing, Warns VisaArtificial intelligence technologies such as generative AI are not helping fraudsters create new types of scams. They are doing just fine relying on the traditional scams, but the advent of AI is helping them scale up attacks and snare more victims, according to researchers at Visa.
Also: CryptoFX Ponzi Scheme, North Korean Hackers Gonna HackThis week, FTX emergency CEO John Ray filleted previous CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, the SEC charged 17 members in a $300 million Ponzi scheme, Hong Kong warned against Bybit, reports said North Korea made half of its revenue from cyberattacks, and police rescued hundreds from a pig-butchering scam center.
Secureworks is warning of fake obituary sites which expose visitors to fake AV scams
Operators pack twenty phones into a chassis – then rack 'em and stack 'em ready to do evil Chinese upstarts are selling smartphone motherboards – and kit to run and manage them at scale – to operators of outfits that use them to commit various scams and crimes, according to an undercover investigation by state television broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) revealed late last week.…
Latest figures paint grim picture of how viciously the elderly are targeted The FBI says investment fraud was the form of cybercrime that incurred the greatest financial loss for Americans last year.…
We Need Cryptocurrency Forensics Now More Than Ever BeforeA new analysis has unearthed that cryptocurrency scammers siphoned off a staggering $43.6 million in 2022. Those who enjoy forensics should have a field day in this domain. From ethical hacking to penetration testing and incident response, there are tons of well-paying opportunities.
875 workers liberated after falling for promises of lucrative work, nine arrested Filipino police rescued 875 "workers" – including 504 foreigners – in a raid late last week on a firm that posed as an online gaming company but in reality operated a forced labor camp that housed romance scam operators.…