Security News > 2021 > December > Threat actors steal $80 million per month with fake giveaways, surveys
Scammers are estimated to have made $80 million per month by impersonating popular brands asking people to participate in fake surveys or giveaways.
The scam themes are the typical and "Trustworthy" fake surveys and giveaways from popular brands with the holiday season making targets more susceptible to fraudulent gift offerings.
According to a report by Group-IB, there are currently 60 known scam networks that use targeted links in their campaigns, impersonating 121 brands in false giveaways.
"Judging from the number of visitors, almost 10 million people can fall victim to the scamming scheme per month on the above mentioned network alone, while the traffic attracted to the largest network in terms of the number of domain names was about 2-fold less." - Group-IB. Info-grabbing redirections.
While Group-IB did not share a list of brands targeted by these campaigns, BleepingComputer has seen fake surveys and giveaways impersonating Google, Target, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Samsung in the past.
Big brands offer Christmas gifts these days, and they also run giveaways or surveys with prizes, which is precisely what the scammers aim to exploit.