Security News
At the same time, you'll also know how easy it is to get accused of copyright wrongdoing yourself, even if you're always careful only to use third-party material in accordance with the original creator's licensing guidelines. Because of the frequent argy-bargy that surrounds online copyright issues, social networks have established formal procedures for making complaints and appealing against takedowns.
T-Mobile says it blocked 21 billion scam, spam, and unwanted robocalls this year through its free Scam Shield robocall and scam protection service, amounting to an average of 1.8 billion scam calls identified or blocked every month. Last year, when it announced the Scam Shield service, T-Mobile said it could detect or block approximately 12 billion scam calls in 2019 and that around 30 million Americans fell victim to a phone scam within 12 months.
The US Federal Trade Commission said Americans reported losing $148 million to gift card scams during the first nine months of 2021, following a significant increase compared to last year. Almost 40,000 consumers reported falling victim to scams where gift cards were the chosen form of payment throughout the year.
The global pandemic has provided cover for all sorts of phishing scams over the past couple of years, and the rise in alarm over the spread of the latest COVID-19 variant, Omicron, is no exception. U.K. consumer watchdog "Which?" has raised the alarm that a new phishing scam, doctored up to look like official communications from the National Health Service, is targeting people with fraud offers for free PCR tests for the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
Black Friday is approaching, and cybercriminals are honing their malware droppers, phishing lures, and fake sites while shoppers prepare to open their wallets. The security firm shared a detailed report highlighting the most common threats expected to surface during this year's Black Friday, as well as the Christmas shopping season.
Black Friday cyber-pariahs have revamped gift-card scams to better target modern online shoppers hungry for deals post-Thanksgiving. Internet-based Black Friday and Cyber Monday scams have become as common as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned today that online shoppers risk losing more than $53 million during this year's holiday season to scams promising bargains and hard-to-find gifts. "During the 2020 holiday shopping season, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 17,000 complaints regarding the non-delivery of goods, resulting in losses over $53 million," the federal law enforcement agency said in a public service announcement issued through the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
There has been a surge in reports of people getting scammed after visiting TSA PreCheck, Global Entry, and NEXUS application service sites, being charged $140 only to get nothing in return. Reports about these scams first appeared in March 2021, and by July, threat actors were abusing Google Ads to promote the fake sites on Google Search and increase their traffic.
A recently discovered phishing scam tried to takeover more than 125 high-profile user accounts on TikTok. Researchers at cloud email security provider Abnormal Security detected the scams that attempted to take over people's accounts by sending emails impersonating TikTok and asking users to verify their log-in information.
As the agency describes it, the scammer will contact their victim and somehow convince them that they need to send money, either with promises of love, further riches, or by impersonating an actual institution like a bank or utility company. After the mark is convinced, the scammer will have them get cash, and head to an ATM that sells cryptocurrencies and supports reading QR codes.