Tag: Scams
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WhatsApp Web Swamped by 131 Spam Bots Hidden as Chrome Extensions
Security researchers at Socket have uncovered a large-scale spam campaign orchestrated through WhatsApp Web, revealing 131 Chrome extensions that are, in essence, variants of a single mass-messaging automation tool. Disguised as legitimate utilities for managing contacts, these add-ons penetrated the web.whatsapp.com interface and silently operated alongside the platform’s own scripts, enabling the circumvention of WhatsApp’s…
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The Phishing Trap: How AI Tools Are Weaponized for Fake CAPTCHA Scams
Artificial intelligence has made web development accessible to the masses: today, even those without programming skills can build a website or application using AI-powered services. These platforms enable projects to launch with remarkable speed and ease—but that very simplicity has also become a convenient weapon for cybercriminals. Trend Micro has recorded a sharp rise in…
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Record-Breaking Fraud: Older Americans Lost $700 Million to Scams in 2024
In 2024, Americans over the age of 60 lost an astronomical $700 million to online fraud—a record high in the entire history of monitoring by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The latest Consumer Protection Data Spotlight report shows increases across all loss categories—from minor sums to multimillion-dollar cases—compared with previous years, with the sharpest…
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Meta’s New WhatsApp Features Combat Rising Group Chat Scams
Meta is waging an intense campaign against organized scam networks in Southeast Asia, where dozens of fraudulent schemes operate in parallel. In just the first half of the year, more than 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts linked to such operations were removed. At the same time, the platform is introducing new security features aimed at strengthening…
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ClickFix: The Evolving Social Engineering Trick That’s Replacing Fake Updates
Over the past year, a social engineering technique known as ClickFix has witnessed a meteoric rise, propelled by a fusion of unique delivery methods, persuasive narratives, and sophisticated evasion tactics. According to analysts at Guardio Labs, the rapid proliferation and scale of this scheme have even displaced long-standing fake browser update campaigns that plagued users…
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The Dark Side of Crypto ATMs: Treasury Warns of Rising Fraud and Scams as Losses Near $250M
Amid the rapid proliferation of cryptocurrency ATMs across the United States, the Department of the Treasury has issued a warning about the growing risk of their exploitation for illicit purposes. In a recently published advisory, the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) urges banks and other financial institutions to exercise heightened vigilance over transactions linked…
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Cybercrime Fueling War? Thai-Cambodian Conflict Linked to “Cyber Slave” Scams
The conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, rooted in a longstanding territorial dispute and controversies surrounding the Angkor temple, has once again flared into armed confrontation. This time, however, the escalation is driven not only by historical and cultural disagreements but also by modern digital threats—chiefly, the operations of transnational criminal networks exploiting Cambodian territory to…
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Pavel Durov Warns: New Extortion Wave Targets Telegram Users for Digital Assets
Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, has issued a warning about a new wave of extortion emerging within the platform. The scheme involves fraudsters demanding that users surrender valuable digital assets—rare Telegram gifts, premium usernames, and distinctive phone numbers. Once acquired for mere dollars, these items can now fetch prices exceeding $100,000. According to Durov,…
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Crypto Black Markets Rebound: Telegram’s Purge Fails as Money Laundering Hubs Resurface
In May, Telegram launched what appeared to be a decisive strike against the shadowy Chinese-speaking underworld of cryptocurrency fraud by blocking its largest marketplaces—platforms rife with services for money laundering, the trade of stolen data, and other illicit activities. Yet this purge proved to be little more than a temporary reprieve: the black markets quickly…