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.
Avast is rolling out Scam Guardian, a free AI-powered protection layer that analyzes websites, messages, and links to detect rising scam threats. Powered by Gen Threat Labs data, it reveals hidden dangers in code and adds 24/7 scam guidance through the Avast Assistant. [...]
Ping Identity and Ameris Bank on Stopping Fraud Without Alienating Legitimate UsersIn the latest "Proof of Concept," Rich Keith, director of product and solutions marketing at Ping Identity, and Todd Smith, senior vice president of customer IAM at Bank Ameris, joined ISMG editors to discuss how AI-based fraud is breaking trust models faster than many systems can adapt.
The collaborative effort combines multiple federal departments, along with private companies to reduce, if not eliminate, billions lost annually to fraud.
A malware campaign presents fake websites that can check if a visitor is a potential victim or a security researcher, and then proceed accordingly to defraud or evade.
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a set of seven npm packages published by a single threat actor that leverages a cloaking service called Adspect to differentiate between real victims and security researchers to ultimately redirect them to sketchy crypto-themed sites
Claims he reported the attack in January after fraudsters tried to scam him A security researcher says Coinbase knew about a December 2024 security breach during which miscreants bribed its support staff into handing over almost 70,000 customers' details at least four months before it disclosed the data theft.…
Civil recovery order targets PlugwalkJoe's illicit gains while he serves US sentence British prosecutors have secured a civil recovery order to seize crypto assets worth £4.11 million ($5.39 million) from Twitter hacker Joseph James O'Connor, clawing back the proceeds of a scam that used hijacked celebrity accounts to solicit digital currency and threaten high-profile individuals.…