Tag Archive for: Scams
Are Technical Support Scams Getting More Advanced?
Technical support scams (TSS) are responsible for a growing amount of financial losses year after year. Nevertheless, while the victims are losing more money than ever, the number of interactions between criminals and victims is decreasing. Why? Because the scammers are getting better at what they do. In this paper, I demonstrate through examples how the TSS practices have become more advanced recently.
This article is available in a more reader-friendly format to download from here.
Abstract
First, the criminals improved their existing methodologies. Second, they introduced new practices to make the TSS schemes more lucrative. One of these improvements is the transition to robocalls, which enables TSS call centres to engage more people than ever. This shift to the auto-dialler approach allows call centres to find people more susceptible to TSS. The second significant change affects the management of online advertisements. The magnitude of TSS advertising campaigns assumes large-scale infrastructures, software logic and automation capable of delivering the pop-up ads more effectively. Also, TSSs borrow practices like code obfuscation and context-aware evasion practices from the malware world to improve their advertisements further. Other additions to the TSS industry include specialisation and the division of labour. TSS operations were found to divide their business up into advertising and call centre divisions. This segregation of duties allows the entities to optimise their core business processes. For example, call centres now employ English tutors to improve their staff members’ communication and English-language skills. In conclusion, my discoveries demonstrate how TSSs can trick more money out of the victims than before. Also, the number of interactions between scammers and their victims is shrinking because TSSs can engage the more gullible.
Introduction
Social engineering, scams, and fraud are well-known criminal activities that eventually found their way into cyberspace. These crimes are not only responsible for direct financial losses but also foster fear and distrust within internet users. In other words, netizens are less likely to trust individuals, businesses,…
Telegram App Scams & The Steps To Protect Against Them
Billing itself as a fast and modern cloud-based messaging app, Telegram is a major competitor to Signal and WhatsApp, with more than 700 million active users. Privacy represents Telegram’s biggest draw. Users have the option of protecting their chats with end-to-end encryption and even setting messages to self-destruct.
Unfortunately, these privacy features add a layer of obfuscation to criminal transactions and activity, making both digital forensics and threat intelligence notoriously difficult; a recent study found Telegram is the preferred communication tool of cybercriminals for precisely this reason.
Moreover, Telegram’s encryption does little to address the security, regulatory, and liability risks your business could face if employees use the platform in violation of company policy. If you’re unprepared, you won’t even know your people are using Telegram in the first place. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that it is possible to mitigate Telegram’s risks — provided you understand those risks.
The Five Most Significant Business Problems Posed by Telegram
1. Safety-Free Digital Collaboration
Telegram makes it easy for your users to collaborate both internally and with third parties. It fully supports most communication methods with few restrictions, including phone calls, video and audio sharing, and text chat. Telegram chats that happen behind your security team’s back also happen without oversight or protection.
This means no data leak prevention, no malware scans, and no access control. Remember also that Telegram’s Secret Chat feature must be enabled. Users could well share confidential data without end-to-end encryption, putting it at risk of falling into the hands of unauthorized and unscrupulous third parties.
2. Anonymity for All
As befits an app that sells itself on privacy, Telegram requires next to no personally identifiable information from its users. Creating an account requires only a phone number, and users can connect and chat with one another by username alone. One need not even use their real first and last name during the on-boarding process.
With that said, Telegram does request certain permissions that give it access to personal…
Consumer Connection: Discussing Scams and Fraud with Your Family Members over the Holidays | Lifestyle
This holiday season, Iowans will gather with loved ones making it a great time for discussions about financial fraud to help prevent those you care about from becoming victims. The Iowa Insurance Division’s Iowa Fraud Fighters program focuses on fraud against elder Iowans, but younger Iowans are also falling victim to scams at a higher rate than ever before. Fraud prevention firm SEON analyzed data collected in 2020 by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and found fraud complaints from consumers under the age of 20 had the largest increase in 2019 and 2020. Victims under 20 had collective losses of approximately $3,000 per person. The report also found that the older the victim, the more money they lost. This finding may be due to older Americans having more assets than our younger consumers. Fraudsters do not discriminate when it comes to age.