Personal and Company Internet Fraud – Source:davinciforensics.co.za

The internet may have brought about some incredible benefits for society, but with it we are also seeing an uptick in crime and fraud. Threat actors hide behind a screen and attack individuals as well as corporations. They specialise in studying what works, developing sophisticated programs for financial theft, and disappearing as soon as they suspect they are caught.

Cybercriminals will target those that they know are the easiest to steal from. Whether an individual or a company, it involves an elaborate scheme; and since the net is everywhere, they can operate from any country at any time. While law enforcement in various countries are trying to address the crimes, as soon as they catch one, more will show up to replace them.

Six Most Prevalent Online Crimes

Online orders not delivered

These criminals have e-commerce websites that typically require payment using a bank transfer that goes to an offshore account. This type of transaction doesn’t have the safeguards that other services such as PayPal have. An individual places an order for a non-existent product, makes the payment and they have no way to get their money back.

Identity Theft

Stealing someone’s identity can involve locating their personal ID via hacking a company they deal with or through a scamming process where they misrepresent themselves and the individual willingly gives them the information. Hackers can use social media or email as well as telephone calls. Since the cybercriminals are often operating in another country, they are difficult to track.

Email spam

Almost everyone has received some of these emails that present themselves as a familiar company and they ask for passwords, bank account information or personal details. In most cases the criminal includes a link to use which takes the user to a scam website that might appear to be real.

Check your domain and see how secure you are.

Catphishing (online dating) scams

Since online dating has become very popular, so have the criminals that want to take advantage. This form of scamming makes use of someone’s vulnerability in an attempt to meet new friends or partners. It begins as a chat, then evolves to an emotional expression which then turns to a request for money. This is difficult to enforce as the individual has willingly given the cybercriminal their information.

Bad websites

Creating a website has become so easy that grade school kids can now design them. Cybercriminals craft untrustworthy sites that have a look and feel of a credible site to entice someone to input their personal information. These may be used along with email phishing scams. One way to discern whether the site is real is to check the website domain or even click the “reply” on an email to see what the email address is.

Ransomware attacks

One of the most common and successful methods of cyber crime has been ransomware. Threat actors create a Trojan virus that’s embedded in an attachment to an email that appears to come from a credible source. An employee clicks on the attachment and it spreads the virus throughout the network, often locking everyone out of access. The criminals then blackmail the company into paying often exorbitant fees to “unlock” the network. Staff training to recognise these scams have shown to be one way to combat this crime.

“DaVinci Cybersecurity has been a leader in maintaining up to date knowledge and information on the many ways that criminals act online. We work with individuals and companies to share methods to protect themselves and act as consultants to coordinate with IT Departments in assisting to maintain healthy networks to keep threat actors away.” Sharon Knowles, CEO DaVinci Cybersecurity

Source:

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/cyber

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