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.
A Bitdefender researcher was targeted by North Korea’s Lazarus with the lure of a fake job offer
Cheap banking scams are often easier to pull off in a country with older devices, fewer regulations, and experienced fraudsters.
Officials Hope to Curb Global Fraud by Targeting Border Operations in MyanmarIn a drastic move to curb fraud along the Myanmar border, Thailand announced plans to cut power and telecommunications in border areas of Myanmar linked to scam operations. The move is aimed at crippling criminal syndicates running notorious call centers that orchestrate scams, financial fraud and human trafficking.
The North Korea-linked Lazarus Group has been linked to an active campaign that leverages fake LinkedIn job offers in the cryptocurrency and travel sectors to deliver malware capable of infecting Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems
Hackers hijack high-profile X accounts with phishing scams to steal credentials and promote fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes
A Russian-speaking cybercrime gang known as Crazy Evil has been linked to over 10 active social media scams that leverage a wide range of tailored lures to deceive victims and trick them into installing malware such as StealC, Atomic macOS Stealer (aka AMOS), and Angel Drainer