CBWY Blog

Every day, thousands of people fall victim to fraudulent emails, texts and calls from scammers pretending to be their bank. And in this time of expanded use of online and mobile banking, the problem is only growing worse. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission’s report on fraud estimates that American consumers lost a staggering $5.8 billion to phishing scams and other fraud in 2021—an increase of more than 70 percent over 2020.

Spell check is a feature used by countless people in their everyday typed communication.  It’s accuracy ensures the number of typos in your documents decrease; this allows people to type with ease.  Most people install spell check extensions to make sending emails and writing papers faster.  However a new study shows that spell check extensions on your browsers are collecting your personal information, such as username, email, date of birth, Social Security number, and passwords essentially Spell-Jacking your information.

Gift card fraud affects digital and physical gift cards alike. While fraudsters may approach gift card fraud with a variety of scams, the goal is to steal the funds from the cards while remaining undetected. Most likely, you’ve probably bought and/or received at least one gift card this year. Whether it was for a birthday, holiday, special event or “just because,” gift cards are the most wanted – and the most popular gift in the U.S. for nearly any occasion. Retailers and consumers have felt an increase in gift card scams, with victims reporting over $148 million stolen in the first nine months of 2021, more than all of 2020. Gift card fraud is on the rise, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns it’s a popular method for scammers to steal money. Let’s look at some ways that fraudsters use scams to commit theft.

Scams are everywhere as criminals try to cash in by stealing money or valuable personal information from victims. And given our modern reliance on technologies like smartphones and the internet, if you haven’t been a victim of a scam, you’ve likely been targeted by one.

Recognizing the tactics used by attackers and understanding how they work together can help us avoid them. Cybercriminals use several tactics to access your personal and business data. Increasingly, they’re layering these tactics so one attack strengthens the next.