With attackers knowing financial fraud-based phishing attacks are best suited for the one industry where the money is, this massive spike in attacks should both surprise you and not surprise you at all. When you want tires, where do you go? Right – to the tire store. Shoes? Yup – shoe store. The most money you can scam from a single attack?

Every year, Australians lose over $6 billion due to financial fraud and cybercrime , so it is great to see the collaboration between banks in Australia to fight fraudsters head-on with the help of the Fraud Reporting Exchange (FRX ). The FRX is a trusted, secure, single platform providing timely and efficient means of reporting and actioning fraudulent (including scam) activities between banks.

For all the recent focus on artificial intelligence and its potential for deepfake impostures, the boiler room is still very much active in the criminal underworld. WIRED describes the ways in which people in many parts of the world (Ireland, France, Nigeria, and Mexico) have been recruited to work as freelancers for a company that seeks to profit from lonely people looking for love. This is how a typical operation runs.

Scott McClallen – Staff Reporter – The Center Square (The Center Square) – Nationwide, electronic benefits transfer fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers up to $4.7 billion annually, according to the Government Accountability Office. In 2022, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program distributed over $113.7 billion to nearly 22 million households. The federal government entrusts states to reduce fraud in safety net programs. In March, the U.S.

While there are an estimated 30,000 daily cyber attacks on business websites, there are roughly ten times as many attacks against social media accounts every single day, equating to roughly 1.4 billion accounts every month. Social media attacks and scams have become pervasive problems, with threat actors finding innovative new ways to deceive users and steal their information.

New data from the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics shows that this often overlooked scam has grown significantly in interest – likely because it pays off. If you’re not familiar with this kind of scam, it’s pretty simple: the scammer presents the victim with an opportunity for a grant, a prize – something of value – but requires a small payment up front (often called a processing fee, etc.).

Auditors and other anti-fraud professionals have fresh guidance this week on how to manage fraud risk, with an emphasis on data analytics, internal reporting hotlines, and discussion of how effective fraud risk management can deter fraudsters from trying their schemes in the first place. Said guidance comes from COSO and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, who released the document earlier this week.

For many financial institutions and retail businesses, there is a need to balance the risks associated with payment fraud and advanced persistent threats against the economic imperative to provide excellent customer experiences in a competitive market. When good users are mistakenly flagged as fraudsters and can’t access payment services, customers get angry and brands lose revenue. These false declines result in lost customers, damaged reputation and lower revenue.

Researchers at Group-IB have found an extensive campaign in which criminal operators have created a large number of fake Facebook profiles that repost messages in which the scammers misrepresent themselves as tech support personnel from Meta (Facebook’s corporate parent). Researchers discovered some 3200 bogus profiles in twenty-three languages. By far most of the profiles were created in English, more than 90%, followed by Mongolian (2.5%), Arabic (2.3%), Italian (0.8%), and Khmer (0.6%).

Texting has taken over the global communication space; marketers and predators are seeing huge dollar signs. Email continues to be a reliable, but somewhat fraught with problems, alternative form of communication. In fact, the average user interacts, sends, and receives 25% more texts than email, and usage is skyrocketing. Most electronic device users have loads more unopened emails than texts.