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.
Also: Pump.fun Hack, Arrests in $73M Pig-Butchering ScamThis week, Gala Games and Pump.fun were hacked; alleged pig-butchering scammers, Incognito admin and illicit banking racketeers were arrested; Pink Drainer was shut down; the U.S. House approved a crypto bill; a man pleaded guilty to wire fraud; and tech companies formed a scam-fighting coalition.
Microsoft researchers discover an old-timey scam with a facelift for the cloud era: hacking retailers' portals to make it rain gift cards.
According to Enea, these campaigns use cloud storage platforms to host malicious websites, sending links via SMS to bypass firewalls
You shouldn't – Indian infosec researchers warn you'll get random junk instead Indian infosec firm CloudSEK warned on Wednesday that scammers are selling counterfeit code advertised as the NSO Group's notorious Pegasus spyware.…
$4.5M slushed through accounts from state healthcare and lonely people Georgia resident Malachi Mullings received a decade-long sentence for laundering money scored in scams against healthcare providers, private companies, and individuals to the tune of $4.5 million.…
UK Finance figures reveal romance, purchase and investment scams drove up authorised push payment fraud in 2023
Fraudsters based in the US and Europe indicted for helping North Korea's nation-state groups establish fake freelancer identities and evade sanctions.
Agency Spells Out Measures to Avoid Falling Victim to Costly SchemesHealthcare organizations should take steps to avoid falling victim to evolving threats involving costly business email compromise scams and related phishing schemes fueled by social engineering, warned the Department of Health and Human Services' Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center.