Security News

Brit cops have cuffed eight men in England and Scotland amid a probe into SIM-swapping attacks on high-profile US targets - including sports stars, musicians, and "Influencers" - that had money and personal data stolen. Last year unauthorised third parties took over the Twitter accounts of 130 celebrities including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and former US president Barrack Obama.

Because my email address is public, most of these messages are unsolicited; a few might even be dangerous. Scam emails often look real; they're personalized and can be quite convincing.

Hundreds of investors in a fake cryptocurrency scam were bilked out of $11 million by John DeMarr, who advised them to invest in fake cryptocurrency "Bitcoiin," took their money and spent it on a Porsche, jewelry and upgrades to his home, a criminal complaint from the Department of Justice alleges. Actor Steven Seagal was hired to promote the company, also known as "Bitcoiin2Gen" or "B2G," and was ordered last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission to pay a $157,000 penalty, without admitting to any crimes.

More than 40 scammer groups are actively engaged in schemes leveraging a scam-as-a-service offering that provides users the tools and resources needed to conduct fraud, according to threat hunting and intelligence company Group-IB. The automated scam service has been named Classiscam by Group-IB and it's meant to help cybercriminals steal money and payment data from unsuspecting victims, through the use of fake pages mimicking those of legitimate classifieds, marketplaces and delivery services. Simple and straightforward, the scheme has gained a lot of popularity, with over 5,000 scammers registered in the 40 most popular Telegram chats by the end of 2020.

A new automated scam-as-a-service has been unearthed, which leverages Telegram bots in order to steal money and payment data from European victims. These groups have bought into full-fledged scam kits, equipping them with Telegram chatbots for automated communication with victims, as well as customized webpages that lead victims to phishing landing pages.

Threat actors are hacking verified Twitter accounts in an Elon Musk cryptocurrency giveaway scam that has recently become widely active. In 2018, scammers raked in $180,000 using a successful Elon Musk giveaway scam promoted on Twitter.

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The United States Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has issued an alert to warn financial institutions of fraud and cyberattacks related to COVID-19 vaccines. In its newly released alert, FinCEN tells financial institutions to be wary of "Potential for fraud, ransomware attacks, or similar types of criminal activity related to COVID-19 vaccines and their distribution."

A large scale phishing scam is underway that pretends to be a security notice from Chase stating that fraudulent activity has been detected and caused the recipient's account to be blocked. One recipient said they fell for the scam after their card was denied in a purchase online and thought the email was a legitimate Chase fraud alert.

As if the exponential rise in phishing scams and malware attacks in the last five years wasn't enough, the COVID-19 crisis has worsened it further. Many scammers have rolled out campaigns offering COVID-19 vaccines, free medical tests and testing kits, tax rebates for donation to pandemic relief funds, information on COVID-19 cases, and new job opportunities due to the economic downturn.