Security News

Nearly one in 10 smartphone users in the UK, as many as 5.7 million people, have fallen victim to identity fraud in the last 12 months, according to a research by GBG. The report can reveal that young adults aged 18-to-24 were hardest hit with 18% becoming victims of identity fraud compared to 9% of 45-to-54-year-olds, and just 3% of consumers aged 55 and over. The report revealed that fraud is major concern across Europe - with 9% of consumers across the continent also being hit in the last 12 months.

Other types of bank transfers or transactions involving payment cards typically take at least a day to clear. Once crooks scare or trick victims into handing over money via Zelle, they can siphon away thousands of dollars in seconds.

European merchants spent nearly €7 billion on fraud detection and prevention in 2021 alone - more than three times the value lost to fraud in the same year, CMSPI estimates. These practices are unsustainable for the continent's merchants, who are currently facing compound annual fraud growth of 1.5%. As retailers' margins are squeezed, fraud and its wider impacts are just another inflationary pressure that see merchants and good customers losing out.

Millions of Americans fall victim to identity theft and fraud each year, resulting in billions of dollars in losses. "In today's digitally connected world, cyber fraud and identity theft have become the ultimate crimes of opportunity: as quickly as vulnerabilities are detected and protected against, new ones emerge. Yet, few resources exist to help Americans, experts and the news media understand digital fraud and the latest attacks," says Emily Snell, President of Allstate Identity Protection.

The US Federal Trade Commission said today that Americans reported losses of more than $5.8 billion to fraud during last year, a massive total increase of over 70% compared to the losses reported in 2020. The FTC added a total of roughly 5.7 million consumer reports to its Consumer Sentinel Network secure online database in 2021.

Metaverse companies face 60% more attacks last year, and 5 other online fraud statistics. By its reckoning, 21% of all online traffic was fraud or cyberattack related, one in four new account registrations were fake, 80% of all login attacks were credential stuffing attempts and the travel industry was hit particularly hard, with a 12.5 time increase in attacks as people return to traveling.

Bolster published a report which shows an unprecedented level of fraud activity, spurred by the continuing growth of digital commerce, leading to an explosion of companies' external attack surfaces. Using data gathered from analyzing more than one billion sites, the 2022 State of Phishing and Online Fraud Report highlights the trends that drove digital scams in 2021.

SquirrelWaffle - the newish malware loader that first showed up in September - once again got its scrabbly little claws into an unpatched Microsoft Exchange server to spread malspam with its tried-and-true trick of hijacking email threads. In a Tuesday post, Sophos analysts Matthew Everts and Stephen McNally said that typically, in SquirrelWaffle attacks - which typically entail the threat actors walking through holes left by unpatched, notorious, oft-picked-apart ProxyLogon and ProxyShell Exchange server vulnerabilities - the attack ends when those holes finally get patched, removing the attacker's ability to send emails through the server.

Faced with a seemingly endless onslaught of schemes and scams, anti-fraud pros have doubled down on analytics, finds the latest anti-fraud technology study by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and SAS. Based on survey responses from nearly 900 ACFE members worldwide, the report illuminates how organizations across sectors are using technology to fight fraud. "Navigating the pandemic-forged business landscape, we've seen increased reports of fraud - a trend we don't expect to slow any time soon," said Bruce Dorris, J.D., CFE, CPA, President and CEO of the ACFE. "To stay ahead of not only the increased volume of fraud instances, but also emerging trends, it's critical for organizations to be flexible and proactive in adopting new anti-fraud tools and processes."

"From the earliest days of online information to the rapid evolution of today's metaverses, the internet has come a long way. However, this latest data shows that it is more under attack than ever before," said Arkose Labs CEO Kevin Gosschalk. The latest research took a deep dive into UK business specifically to understand which sectors were the most attacked by online criminals.