Security News
The man who headed an international criminal call center racket that conned Americans into handing over tens of millions of dollars in the belief they were being chased for money by the US government has been jailed for 20 years. 24 of some 60 individuals charged in relation to the scam - essentially, those who were based in the US - have been found guilty and sentenced.
November saw a spike in phishing emails spoofing shipping companies such as DHL, Amazon, and FedEx, says Check Point Research. A blog post published Tuesday by cyber threat intelligence provider Check Point Research examines the recent spike in phishing email notifications that impersonate popular shipping companies and offers advice on how to defend yourself against these types of scams.
An Indian national on Monday was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the Southern District of Texas for operating and funding India-based call centers that defrauded US victims out of millions of dollars between 2013 and 2016. The first-ever large-scale, multi-jurisdictional investigation targeting the India call center scam industry saw the US Department of Homeland Security and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration charging Patel and 60 co-conspirators for orchestrating a "Complex scheme" that involved employees based out of call centers in Ahmedabad masquerading as officials from the IRS and US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Hackers are looking to cash in on the top shopping days in the U.S. - Black Friday and Cyber Monday - as well as other events, like Singles' Day, which recently occurred this week in China. Last year, researchers said that social-media scams and domain-impersonation scams were some of the biggest types of attacks during the holiday shopping season.
Instagram and TikTok social-media influencers Kelly Fitzpatrick and Sabrina Kelly-Krejci are among 13 defendants in a lawsuit filed by Amazon, which alleges that they participated in an an online scam to sell counterfeit luxury goods. Counterfeit goods are strictly forbidden in the Amazon marketplace, but generic products - often called "Dupes" - are allowed.
Fake shipping notices and charity frauds are two scams cited by the security company GreatHorn, which offers tips to consumers on how to avoid them. In a blog post published on Thursday, security company GreatHorn warns of four different scams likely to pop up this season and offers advice on how to combat them.
In closed forums on the dark web, criminals are trading vast databases of consumer information gathered via data breaches and phishing attacks, but also through readily-available government databases. Already a marketplace for drugs, weapons, stolen bank details and leaked website databases, the dark web has now become a thriving underground community where individuals discuss and trade techniques for capitalizing on COVID-19.
The smishing campaign is concerning as it employs multiple HMRC phishing domains and tactics, with new domains added every day as older ones get flagged by spam filters. Not only do the phishing pages mimic HMRC's web interface meticulously, but they also have entire online banking workflows built into them, depending on who your banking provider is.
Ransomware gangs are increasingly failing to keep their promise to delete stolen data after a victim pays a ransom. In the Coveware Q3 2020 ransomware report released today, we learn that some ransomware gangs do not keep their promise to delete stolen data after a ransom is paid.