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Commercial email scams continue to grow and evolve, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. Between July 2019 and December 2021, IC3 reported a 65% increase in exposed global losses, in part due to the accumulation of virtual activities as a result of the pandemic.
BEC or email account compromises targeted government agencies, businesses, and Americans guilty of moving funds. Scammers lie to email or SMS recipients by posing as a manager or business provider and asking them to transfer cash to fake accounts.
In recent BEC scams, criminals send victims text messages that look like bank fraud alerts asking them to verify that they have transferred the quote through a virtual payment app. If the victim responds to the alert, the cybercriminal calls from a number that seems to fit. the valid aid number 1-800 of the monetary institution. Thinking that the caller is helping them cancel the fake cash transfer, patients are tricked into sending the payment to the offender’s bank account.
The popularity of cryptocurrencies generates BEC attacks.
IC3 followed two BEC scams in which criminals relied on cryptocurrency to hide their tracks. One of them led a user to make a direct move to a cryptocurrency exchange. In the other case, a “second jump” move to a CE concerned extortion of criminals, fake technical support, or love scams to obtain the non-public data they needed to open a cryptocurrency wallet with the victim’s name on it. The scammer then sends payment commands to the victim that direct the budget to the new fake wallet, which the bad actor then charges in. In either situation, the victim does not know that the budget is sent to exchange it to cryptocurrencies.
In one variant, according to IC3, criminals take valid business accounts and send emails to workers asking for their personally identifiable information, W-2 forms, or even cryptocurrency wallets.
In some other scam known in an IC3 ad, criminals touch cryptocurrency home owners and alert them to a fictitious security factor with their crypto wallet. another wallet to “back up” the content. Scammers have also created fake sites where they convince crypto home owners to reveal login details or control of their crypto accounts.
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