Do you remember in the “old days” when you would see fliers or ads promising to make money working from home? You send the person the $5 to get the details only to find out you are now supposed to post fliers saying work from home and get people to send you $5. Or letter chains saying send $1 to each person in the letter and if everyone does it, you will all be rich. Scams have existed since the beginning of time but now they have moved into the cyber age. There are many types of scams online that can cause several different types of damage. We will go over the most ways cybercriminals will try to scam you and what they are after.

What do they want?

In a word, money. Usually, that is the end result but how they get there may sometimes not be so obvious. However, that is almost always their end goal.

Sometimes the criminal wants information from you that they can in turn sell online. Examples of this are identity items like social security numbers, birthdates, insurance card numbers, and other similar data. The purpose here is to be able to sell your identity, including your healthcare information, to others who will buy it. There are many Dark Web market places where you can find this sort of information for sale.

The example above is a forum for hackers where they give away and sell data that they have stolen. In this example, the hacker has compiled a database of nearly 10 million US homeowners with all of their personal details. This was given away for free to anyone who wanted to download it. This particular forum is a hangout for ransomware and identity theft criminals. This information could be used to help them in their attacks.

This is why it is so important to keep our personal and practice information private. You never know where it will end up and who will be using it.

What are the most common types of online scams?

Phishing

Phishing is when an attacker sends you an email pretending to be someone they are not in an effort to get you to do something you normally wouldn’t do. For example, you may get an email telling you that your Amazon order won’t be delivered today and have a tracking link. When you click on the link, you will be presented with a site that looks exactly like the Amazon site and you will log in. Now the attacker has your Amazon login information and they can use your account to purchase things.

You may also get an email with an attachment claiming to be a bill you need to pay. But when you open the attachment, it actually contains malware and it will infect your computer. Never open an attachment from someone you don’t absolutely trust.

Tech Support Scams

This one is extremely common. You may get a phone call or have a popup on your computer claiming that you have been infected. The caller may identify himself as being from Microsoft. Their goal is to get you to allow them onto your PC where they will show you all kinds of signs of why your computer isn’t working correctly. With this, they are preying on the average person’s lack of knowledge of computers as nothing will be wrong. They will say it will be $200 to fix the issue.

These are all scams and they make a LOT of money each year. In fact, a growing number of internet vigilantes has taken it upon themselves to target these scammers and bring them down. They hack back into the scammer’s computer and delete everything, try to find the victims to return their money to them, and report them to the police. If you would like to see examples of this, check our Jim Browning’s YouTube channel. He has a LOT Oof videos where he totally wrecks scammer’s call centers.

Jim Browning YouTube

Ransomware

Ransomware will infect your computer with malware and encrypt all of your data. Then the hackers will demand money to decrypt your files. Now, these criminals have leveled up their methods to include threatening to release the data they have stolen to the public, contacting patients and vendors to let them know a practice was hacked, and even contacting the media to let them know. This prevents the hacked practice or business from keeping it quiet, ensuring a HIPAA investigation. Ransomware is a multi-billion dollar industry and is often controlled by organized crime. Wherever there is money to be made, organized crime will be involved. In fact, the amount of money cybercrime earns each year surpasses that of all other forms of crime combined. That includes illegal drugs, prostitution, gambling, and all others.

“I saw you watching porn”

this one is clever because what it will do is find your email in a breach that has been made public. The breach will include your password as well. The email will come to you saying I have hacked your email account and here is the password as proof. Because of this, I was able to hack your computer and see all the things you were doing. They will claim to have made recordings of your screen and also of your webcam. They will send all of this to friends and families unless you pay money to them. Because they have your password or at least one you have used in the past, this will cause fear as to what else they may have done. This often works because the attacker presents information you know to be real.

You can check to see if your email accounts have been breached for free by going to Have I Been Pwned.

The key to all of these is that users need to be more suspicious and less trusting when dealing with anyone online. Take your time when reading any email that tries to scare you. When you’re scared, you don’t think clearly and that is what the attacker is counting on. Look at each link to make sure it is the same as what it claims to be. Never click a link and then enter your login information for anything. If you think the Amazon email is real, open a web browser and type in amazon.com and log in normally. You would be able to see the issue that they are emailing you about. If it’s not there, it’s probably a scam.

Slow down, be suspicious, and stay safe.