Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

November 2022

Lookout Discovers Hundreds of Predatory Loan Apps on Google Play and Apple App Store

Researchers at Lookout Threat Lab have discovered close to 300 mobile loan applications on Google Play and the Apple App Store that exhibit predatory behavior such as exfiltrating excessive user data from mobile devices and harassing borrowers for repayment. These apps, which were found in Southeast Asian and African countries, as well as India, Colombia, and Mexico, purportedly offer quick, fully-digital loan approvals with reasonable loan terms.

Operation Elaborate - UK police text 70,000 suspected victims of iSpoof bank fraudsters

UK police are texting 70,000 people who they believe have fallen victim to a worldwide scam that saw fraudsters steal at least £50 million from bank accounts. 200,000 people in the UK, including the elderly and disabled, are thought to have been targeted by conmen who masqueraded as highstreet banks.

Lookout Study Identifies an Ongoing Consumer Scam Surge

Over 60% of the world’s population relies on technology to navigate their daily lives — that’s over 5 billion people! Unfortunately, with such a large audience online, bad actors have turned to technology to deploy scams and make a profit. Scammers use an array of channels to target people with phishing and social engineering scams that appear real, in order to trick them into handing over valuable personal information.

What Is Identity Fraud? Definition, Types, and Examples

Identity fraud is the unauthorised use of a person’s personal information by another person to commit a crime or deceive or defraud that person or a third party in order to take advantage of the pleasures that come with that synthetic identity. The majority of identity fraud is performed for financial gains, such as gaining access to a victim’s credit card, bank accounts, or loan accounts.

Curbing Rampant CEO Fraud in 2022

If it seems like you’re constantly hearing about cybercrime these days, there’s a reason for that. Globally, reports of cyberattack instances increased by a staggering 125% in 2021, a trend that shows no sign of slowing. As businesses and consumers turn their attention to cybercrime and protective measures, enterprising cybercriminals continue to fine-tune their approach to exploiting vulnerabilities. In fact, cybercrime is on track to become the world’s third-largest economy.

Evicting Typosquatters: How CrowdStrike Protects Against Domain Impersonations

Threat actors constantly unleash phishing attacks that use emails or text messages containing domains or URLs, all designed to impersonate well-known companies and trick users into visiting fake websites and entering their logon or other confidential information. Unfortunately, many users fall prey to such attacks, unknowingly giving threat actors access to their work or personal accounts.

Hospitality Industry: How to use Identity Verification to combat Credit Card Fraud?

Historically, the hospitality industry in India did not devote considerable resources to fraud prevention, but this is changing. The scope of fraud in the hospitality industry is becoming more popular, and the Indian hospitality sector must implement tactics and technologies to mitigate these risks.

Why KYC is an effective tool against Digital Fraud in Money Services Businesses (MSB)

MSB services have come to the rescue of many, who can’t access banks immediately and want to transfer money or carry out trade exchanges. So, it surely provides time and place convenience. We all know MSB services include cash acceptance for a transaction or currency exchange, global remittance services, check cashing outlets, and facilitating payments between payer and provider without the performing KYC verification.

Black Friday Cautionary Tales: Phishing, Card Cracking, and Gift Card Fraud

Christmas shopping season is a lucrative time of year for cybercriminals. In the UK alone, shoppers lost more than £15 million to fraud in the run-up to Christmas 2020. Of this, £2.5 million was lost over a single weekend: Black Friday to Cyber Monday. Online shopping scams are expected to ramp up ahead of Black Friday this year, too. Card cracking is particularly high risk, as heightened traffic volumes make it more difficult for many retailers to detect high volume brute force attacks.

Verified users beware! Scammers are exploiting Twitter turmoil caused by Elon Musk's takeover

As everyone has surely heard by now, Elon Musk has bought Twitter. The controversial tech maverick's takeover of the site has caused some consternation for the site's users, employees, and advertisers - and has also proven a golden opportunity for scammers. Numerous verified Twitter users have reported receiving phishing emails from fraudsters, purporting to be a legitimate message from the website.