Imagine your finance team receives an urgent email that appears to be from a trusted supplier, notifying them of an unexpected change in bank account details for an upcoming payment. The email looks professional, is detailed, and contains all the expected business formalities. Without hesitation, the team processes the payment to the new account. Days later, the actual supplier contacts you about the overdue invoice.

If you’re searching for a new job, do so with caution. The rise of job scams poses a real threat to our privacy, finances, and livelihoods. Online scammers are taking advantage of the increase in remote work, Artificial Intelligence, and a competitive job market to post fake job offers or other job scams online.

As we navigate through 2024, banking fraud continues to evolve, presenting new challenges for financial institutions. Driven by advancements in technology and changing economic conditions, these threats require banks to stay vigilant and adopt robust strategies to protect themselves and their customers.

If you’ve been scammed, there are different actions you should take based on what you were scammed into doing. For example, if you accidentally paid a scammer, you should contact your bank immediately. If you gave a scammer your login credentials, you should update your passwords and enable MFA immediately. If a scammer hacked your device, you should run antivirus software and possibly factory reset your device.

The sun produces enough energy every 90 minutes to power the world for a year. Despite this, in 2020, only around 0.2% of solar’s potential power production was utilized. Many organizations and nations have planned to move toward solar power. Still, consumers must have individual wealth, knowledge to vet potential installation companies, and wisdom to recognize and avoid potential traps.

In 2020, the world moved online, and the pandemic kicked industry demand into overdrive. Seemingly overnight, entire organizations yielded to the mandates pushed by health professionals, encouraging anyone not already online to make an account or two. That year, transaction card fraud totaled around $149 million in losses in the US and has only increased since then, up to $48 billion globally.

A scam operation called “Estate” has attempted to trick nearly a hundred thousand people into handing over multi-factor authentication codes over the past year, according to Zack Whittaker at TechCrunch. The scammers target users of Amazon, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Coinbase, Instagram, Mastercard, PayPal, Venmo, Yahoo and more.

Check out our Avast Q1/2023 Threat Report to see how social engineering scams have surged a whopping 61% on mobile and 23% on desktop.

We’re in the throes of another pandemic, but this time, it’s not transmitted through the air – it spreads with just a click. Welcome to the world of deepfakes. While COVID-19 significantly impacted our physical and mental well-being, deepfakes affect our minds differently. Their influence is causing confusion, mistrust and a distorted perception of reality, both personally and globally.

How far are you willing to go to obtain love? Online threats surround us every time we get on the Internet—all of them are out for more than a lasting emotional connection. Romance scams are the most insidious of online threats, not because they wreck the emotional and financial statuses of their victims but because they are incredibly well-thought-out.

The FBI has issued a warning to US retailers about a financially-motivated malicious hacking ring that has been targeting employees with phishing attacks in an attempt to create fraudulent gift cards. Staff at the corporate offices of US retail companies have been the target of highly-sophisticated email phishing and SMS phishing ("smishing") attacks. These attacks attempt to gain access to employee accounts, IT systems, and cloud services used by the company.

Facebook (FB) is the most popular social platform worldwide, hosting 2.9 billion monthly active users. The draw to FB comes from its social connectivity, allowing friends and family to stay connected, updated, and in each other’s lives, no matter where they are. Facebook’s success is also due, in part, to its platform services. The Facebook Marketplace is among the most used, with nearly 16% of active users (491 million people) using the platform to review the available items.

Many members of the younger generations avoid answering phone calls. On the one hand, this avoidance may be personal, as voice calls can sometimes cause anxiety; however, there is more to these rejections than nervousness. In our ever-evolving world, threat actors are always looking for a new way to manipulate and steal from their victims—and phone calls have become a strange, new frontier for cybercriminal fraud, unlike anything the world has seen before.

Travel fraud is a growing concern within the industry, posing significant challenges to businesses and consumers alike. As travel becomes increasingly digital, the opportunities for fraudsters to exploit online transactions and reservations have also expanded. Research from global Edgar, Dunn & Company, on behalf of eNett, said in total, fraud costs the travel industry over $21 billion dollars annually, including $6 billion dollars in damages and $15 billion in overheads.

MLM (multi-level marketing) business models are believed to have existed since the 1920s - it is estimated that approximately over 1,000 companies in the US currently use this model. MLM has gained immense popularity over the past years, especially among individuals who wish to earn extra income, want flexible work opportunities, have financial independence, or become entrepreneurs without the associated risks and overhead costs of starting a business.

Snapchat is a mobile-based social media platform owned by Snap Inc.; it is a global platform, hosting over 734.8 million users, the majority of which are Gen Z. The platform began as a resource for sharing pictures between friends but has evolved to include options for creator content, group conversations, and the sharing of media. As Snapchat’s audience continues to grow, so too, do the threats those members face.

The “Security Alert” scam is a prevalent tech-support fraud that threatens both Windows and Apple users. It exploits the trust of users by masquerading as an official support site, using fake pop-up warnings to lure users into dialing scam phone numbers by conveying a sense of urgency. The ultimate goal is gaining remote access to the user’s system and pilfering personal data to extort money.

Suspected North Korean threat actors are attempting to trick software developers into downloading malware during phony job interviews, according to researchers at Securonix. The threat actors contact software developers with seemingly legitimate employment opportunities before scheduling virtual job interviews.

Best-selling writer Maria Konnikova once wrote, “Fraud thrives in moments of great social change and transition.” These words ring truer than ever as additional aspects of business and everyday life move swiftly online. Whether you think about eCommerce, remote work, online banking, or digital government services, the opportunities for fraudsters continue to multiply. The online world currently creates such a fertile ground for fraudulent activity that U.S.