Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

You can stay safe from gift card scams by checking gift cards for physical tampering before purchasing them and avoiding requests that ask you to purchase gift cards as a form of payment. While gift cards are a common gift that many people choose to give each other, they are also commonly used by scammers for financial gain. According to the Better Business Bureau, gift card scams increased 50% from 2022 to 2023 with losses from January to September 2023 totaling $147 million.

Companies grow through mergers and acquisitions. Marketing teams promote new products. New products spawn new web domains. As brand names, URLs, and cloud IT infrastructure proliferate, so do enterprises’ vulnerability to online attacks. At the same time, security professionals working with limited resources find it increasingly challenging to maintain oversight of their online assets.

The latest consumer alert posted by the federal trade commission (FTC) signals that the upticks in QR code-based scams are being seen by cybersecurity vendors are indeed a valid growing problem. You won’t need to go very far before you find a QR code. Restaurants commonly use QR codes to point you to a menu, parking lots use them to point you to a website to pay for parking, and according to the FTC, scammers use them to engage you in scams.

Trained security awareness professionals are aware that whatever someone says about themselves and personal experiences can be used against them in a social engineering scam. It is always good to share that message, at least once a year with co-workers, family members, and friends. I was reminded of this latest news story discussing a recent Instagram and TikTok trend. Basically, users are sent (or send) a “survey” that asks the receiver to describe themselves.

Online shopping has allowed buyers to find bargains and conveniently purchase from retailers all over the world. However, cybercriminals take advantage of the anonymity of online shopping to scam online buyers. If you get scammed while shopping online, you need to contact your credit card issuer, freeze your credit, change any compromised passwords, contact the online marketplace and report the scam to the FTC.

Be careful of emails, SMS messages, or calls claiming to be from your bank about your card being used fraudulently. If this ever happens, call the phone number on the back of your card. This is a very common sort of social engineering fraud. Do not get scammed like TV host Andy Cohen did.

Read also: Four people arrested over ChatGPT-linked ransomware attacks, a scammer charged for stealing $7.5M from two charities, and more.

Anyone can get scammed. If you think you're somehow immune to being scammed, then, in my opinion, you're a prime target for being scammed. No one is too big, too clever, too security-savvy to avoid being duped because it's only human to make a mistake and screw up. And that certainly seems to be the case with Bill Lou.