Phishing is one of the most popular online scams with the holidays seeing no exception. The season is rife with phishing scams as threat actors blend in amongst the multitudes of legitimate messages from popular brands. Phishing scams are executed through emails, text messages (SM[i]Shing), phone calls (Vishing), and social media, becoming more sophisticated over…
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News
Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades Android Application
Ashlyn Schultz On 10OCT2023, the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades’ newest android app was shared on the group’s official telegram channel. The first message shared was an image advertising the Al-Qassam app, receiving about 650,000 views and over 10,000 reactions. The second message shared was a download of the app and a text telling users to…
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Getting a Job In Pig-Butchering
Gary Warner Crypto-Investment Scams By now you’ve certainly heard about the link between human trafficking and pig butchering. Last year the Internet Crime Complaint Center received complaints about crypto-related investment frauds resulting in $3.3 Billion dollars in losses to U.S. citizens. It was the first year in recent history where Business Email Compromise losses were…
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New Fraud Trends from the IC3.gov 2022 Report
The IC3.gov annual report shows the top fraud categories in 2022. Crypto Investment Scams and Call Center Scams are surging! Let’s take a deeper look at the underlying trends and causes.
Most Prolific Ransomware Gangs of 2022
Maria Harika Ransomware is a continually evolving type of malware that implements encryption to hold a victim’s data at ransom. When a system is hacked and infected, ransomware has the ability to lock and encrypt data, restricting victim access, and hold the data for a monetary ransom in exchange for decryption. Costs of these ransoms can…
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The Twelve Frauds of Christmas – Holiday Fraud
Robin J. Pugh Have you ever received an email with a too-good-to-be-true vacation offer? You’re right to be skeptical, but holiday or travel-related fraud is a much bigger category than just those “bargain travel” offers. Americans reported almost 54,000 incidents of travel-related fraud to the FTC in 2021, costing over $95 million. You’ve won an…
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The Twelve Frauds of Christmas – Charity Fraud
Joseph Margolies With the holidays quickly approaching, the season of giving for some reigns as the season of taking for many others. One avenue used to trick victims out of their money involves scammers fronting as representatives for charitable organizations. These charity scams operate by contacting victims and asking for donations to fund their efforts…
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The Twelve Frauds of Christmas – Phishing
Rushikesh Bhalekar Take a look at the image below. Can you differentiate between one Microsoft account login page and the other? Pretty tough, right? The main difference is that the first one will take you to your emails, and the second will steal your password and email. This is just one example, but to this…
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The Twelve Frauds of Christmas – Romance Fraud
Robin Pugh Loneliness can hit hard around the holiday season. Everywhere you look, happy couples and families are enjoying the festivities of the season together, which makes the holiday season an ideal time for romance scammers to target victims. Romance fraud occurs when a criminal targets a victim and builds a trust relationship, often based…
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The Twelve Frauds of Christmas – Investment Fraud
Gary Warner Online investment scams have been with us for decades in the form of “too good to be true” investment promises that were often called “HYIP” or High-Yield Investment Programs. While the scammers promise impossible returns on investment, the scams often involve a Ponzi-scheme component, where small investments are paid in hopes of attracting…
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