Beware! Scammers and Scams in the Cyberspace on the Rise
By Faiza Zia Khan
Newport Beach, CA
Have you recently received a text from a number you do not recognize? The text looks innocently legitimate and is asking you to click on a link from a person or place you may or may not know and looks very familiar. Stop right now! In 2020 we are all very aware of cyber scams and have trained ourselves to know how to detect those and protect ourselves from it.
Sadly, the truth is far from this as statistics reveal despite all warnings, education, and information around cyber-fraud, data-breaches, and identity-theft there are 48% of Americans victimized in one way or another. While reading this article if you are not in the 48% congratulate yourself as you are successfully navigating the murky waters of the cyber-world safely.
The vulnerability mostly comes in times of crisis when scammers, hackers, and cyber attackers are the most active. To exemplify, amidst of the Novel Coronavirus/COVID-19 confusion cyber-criminals are trying to take advantage of this unfortunate situation and play upon people’s fears. There has been a multitude of mass texts to cellular phone numbers where recipients have received a link that looks legitimately innocent enough to be clicked open. Once the link is touched it is all doom and gloom. The user may never know what virus the link was loaded with and what damage it is doing to their data and/or phone behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, there is no going back to the damage that has been done as the malware or virus lives forever despite all kinds of digital scrubbing the tech gurus clean it with. Some items can be salvaged but not personal information. This valuable cargo aka your information is out there eternally with some entity who has malicious intent. Simply the fear of knowing this is unsettling.
If the individual is not tech savvy enough there may be no way of knowing the link in the phishing text is now relaying information to someone who can remotely access your texts, erase them, or send them on your behalf without you ever knowing that they were sent or received. As cyber security becomes tighter and more fool proof so do the hackers. Some of the actions the links in “smishing” scams can take are that they often contain malicious code that can encrypt your files and lock your phone. If that happens, “smishers” essentially hold your phone hostage and can demand money to provide you access back to your phone. Or if they do not want to resort to that, the code may potentially even give them access to personal online shopping websites, health portals, credit cards, and bank accounts.
With the advent of multi-factor authentication, the text component has become integral due to the accessibility to the accounts in enabled with a text code to authenticate the user. Usually to use the app or website, the first task is to enter the text code or Personal Identification Number (PIN) they sent you to authenticate your identity. If the phone is infected with malware or virus, the hacker could intercept that code and access your account remotely. Experts say it is also a good idea to update the smartphones/devices to the latest operating systems due to the built-in enhanced security improvements that come with the smart devices. Smartphones hold our entire world. From waking up in the morning until the time we drop our heads on the pillow we are on our phones. An additional precautionary step to safeguard your phone is to install a reputable app or software that's made for mobile device protection. Some phones offer anti-phishing features that prevents users from clicking on links within a message that are malicious. It provides an extra layer of security in case the user is tempted to randomly click the link.
Money is the crux of our existence and nobody wants to run into money problems with their bank. When a text alerting the user is received that the debit card is locked due to suspicious activity, it's very tempting to click the link the text provides to solve the problem. However, without making sure if this is authentic please do not click the link. Chase bank clearly states on its website, "Don't reply to an email, phone call or text message that requires you to give your personal or account information either directly in the email or on a website the email sends you to." The best way to avoid being scammed is to contact your financial institution directly to find out what's going on with the account rather than clicking on any link a text message or email.
If you are an entrepreneur, a small business owner, or a person who sends and/or accepts payments via Venmo, Paypal, GoFundme, or any other intermediary parties apart from the credible money transferring services read the next few lines carefully. Recently, there have been many scams involving people who ended up sending money to look-alike accounts. An acquaintance ended up sending $700 to a Venmo account that she thought was her friend for purchase of miscellaneous items. When she arrived at the friend’s house to pick up her items the friend was as equally surprised to find out that the money was sent at all. When her friend showed her the Venmo chat and transaction history they both very quickly discovered that it was a look-alike replicating similar information and the fake account holder hacked into the Venmo to get access to real information. The hacker was the real recipient in possession of the $700 both these girls will never see anymore. They filed a complaint with Venmo but were waitlisted with thousands of other such victims. Moral of the story is to be very sure before sending money to anyone.
Similarly, if you are receiving money also double check to make sure it is the right person as hackers plant small amounts of money into random accounts to get access to them and then once they have gained entry they take control of the transactions. Stay safe out there in the cyber-world everyone.
(Faiza Zia Khan holds a Master’s in Journalism degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She has collaborated with news media outlets including Global National and actively volunteers for several community investment projects for the Red Cross, United Way and the Breast Cancer Foundation)
