Security News > 2022 > April > Cybercriminals do their homework for latest banking scam

A new social engineering scam is making the rounds, and this one is particularly insidious: It tricks users into sending money to what they think is their own account to reverse a fraudulent charge.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center issued the warning, which it said involves cybercriminals who have definitely done their homework.

"In addition to knowing the victim's financial institution, the actors often had further information such as the victim's past addresses, social security number, and the last four digits of their bank accounts," the IC3 said.

"The con starts off as many that target individuals do nowadays: With a text message. In this case it's not a phishing attempt, it's an attempt to ascertain whether the person receiving the message is susceptible to further manipulation. Posing as the target's bank, the message asks whether a large charge was legitimate and asks for a reply of YES or NO. Replying no leads to a follow-up text:"Our fraud specialist will be contacting you shortly.

"Victims often only realized they had been scammed after they checked their financial account's balance," the FBI said.

The FBI said, "Financial institutions will not ask customers to transfer funds between accounts in order to help prevent fraud."

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/04/15/the_latest_scam_pay_yourself/