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.
In May 2025, the U.S. government sanctioned a Chinese national for operating a cloud provider linked to the majority of virtual currency investment scam websites reported to the FBI. But more than a month later, the accused continues to openly operate accounts at a slew of American tech companies, including Facebook, Github, LinkedIn, PayPal and Twitter/X.
A mobile ad fraud operation dubbed IconAds that consisted of 352 Android apps has been disrupted, according to a new report from HUMAN
Microsoft, PayPal, Docusign, and others are among the trusted brands threat actors use in socially engineered scams that try to get victims to call adversary-controlled phone numbers.
Agency: Fraudsters Used Valid Beneficiary Info to Create Fake Medicare.gov AccountsThe Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is notifying 103,000 people that their personal information was potentially compromised by fraudsters who set up scam beneficiary online accounts on Medicare.gov. CMS said it has deactivated the fake accounts and is taking other steps in response.
Just as attackers have used SEO techniques to poison search engine results, they could rinse and repeat with artificial intelligence and the responses LLMs generate from user prompts.
Interpol warns that scam centers are expanding beyond Southeast Asia
Resulting in two indictments, one arrest, and 137 laptops seized The US Department of Justice has announced a major disruption of multiple North Korean fake IT worker scams.…
Glasgow City Council is alerting residents to a parking scam which could be linked to a recent cyber-incident