Analysis of a new phishing attack highlight just how easy it can be to spot these kinds of attacks if recipients were properly educated. Action Fraud, the U.K.’s national fraud & cyber reporting center, recently warned U.K. residents of a scam impersonating Starbucks.

If there’s one fraud statistic worth dwelling on as Fraud Awareness Week 2024 passes, it’s this – in the past year, scams of one type or other siphoned $1 trillion globally, according to the Global Scam Alliance’s State of Scams Report 2024. But this figure only scratches the surface of cybercrime’s total global cost, projected to reach $10.5 trillion in 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures, the world’s leading source of cyber research.

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) recently released a report Occupational Fraud 2024: A Report to the Nations, where they estimated that most organizations lose about 5% of their revenue each year due to fraud. We have joined in our support of International Fraud Awareness Week and applaud the ACFE and their efforts to help raise awareness and reduce fraud that hurts all of us, whether we work for these organizations or are consumers of the goods and services they provide.

About five years ago, I was having trouble with an expensive brand-name refrigerator that my wife and I had bought. It was a great refrigerator feature-wise. My wife and I initially loved it. But it kept breaking. And each break, even though it was covered by the warranty, took weeks and weeks to repair.

The holiday season is here, and with it comes the thrill of Black Friday deals and holiday shopping sprees. But it's not just shoppers who are gearing up – cybercriminals are ready to take advantage of the holiday rush, hoping to catch unsuspecting consumers off guard. While Trustwave generally focuses on protecting enterprises from cyberattacks and scams, we feel it’s important to help consumers, as well. After all, many people use work devices for online shopping and accessing social media.

As the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear, cybercriminals are gearing up too. This year, alongside the usual suspects, we're seeing some crafty new scams, so let’s take a look at some of the ones you should be most careful of during Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday. AI-Generated Fake Reviews AI has allowed scammers to flood product pages with well-written and convincing fake reviews of products.

Frequent flyer programs have long been a symbol of loyalty and reward in the airline industry. These programs are intended to reward travelers with benefits and encourage ongoing customer relationships. However, a growing and pervasive threat is lurking beneath the allure of free miles and exclusive perks: Frequent Flyer Miles fraud. At the last credible count in 2018, there were over 30 trillion unspent miles in circulation, according to McKinsey.

Fraud is a rampant threat to individuals and organizations worldwide and across all sectors. In order to protect against the dangers of fraud in its many forms, it is vital to stay in the loop on the latest fraud trends and the threat landscape. The Fraudscape 2024 report from Cifas, the UK’s Fraud Prevention Community, is an effort to share this information to help prevent fraud.

Scammers have leapt at the opportunity to exploit vulnerable UK residents by sending bogus messages telling them they need to take action to receive help with their winter heating bills. In July, the UK's new Labour Government announced that it was limiting who was eligible for assistance with their winter fuel bills by making eligibility means-tested.

Google Voice scams continue to pose a risk for users of this service. Scammers continuously attempt to lure users into divulging their verification PIN code. By stealing other people's Google Voice accounts, hackers and scammers impersonate their victims by luring others into fraudulent transactions. Scammers make millions per year using other people's Google Voice accounts. How should users protect their identification and PIN codes for bank accounts, travel sites, and Google Voice accounts?

You can spot Amazon scam emails if you realize the sender’s email address is not from the official Amazon domain, the message contains a generic greeting and your email service provider warns you that the message may be dangerous. According to data collected by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 34,000 reports were made in 2023 about scammers impersonating Amazon, resulting in approximately $19 million in losses.

Threat actors are abusing DocuSign’s API to send phony invoices that appear “strikingly authentic,” according to researchers at Wallarm. “Unlike traditional phishing scams that rely on deceptively crafted emails and malicious links, these incidents use genuine DocuSign accounts and templates to impersonate reputable companies, catching users and security tools off guard,” Wallarm says.

Cybercriminals are impersonating OpenAI in a widespread phishing campaign designed to trick users into handing over financial information. The emails inform users that a payment for their ChatGPT subscription was declined, inviting them to click a link in order to update their payment method. The phishing emails appear fairly convincing, but trained users could spot some red flags. The most obvious giveaway is that the emails were sent from “info@mtacom,” which is clearly unrelated to OpenAI.

If you’ve ever run an online ad campaign, be it through an advertising agency or in-house, there’s a very high chance that you, too, have fallen victim to undetected ad fraud. It’s not pleasant to hear, but your ad dollars often find their way into the pockets of cyber crooks. The costs of ad fraud are astronomical and continue to grow year after year. In Q1 of 2024, ad networks experienced an 18% click fraud rate across desktop web (26%), mobile web (15%), and mobile in-app (10%).

Real Estate Fraud is Running Rampant in the US Real estate is an area ripe for fraud and scams: transactions usually involve large sums of money, convoluted paperwork, and messaging back and forth. Criminals can use a wide variety of methods to intercept legitimate communications or launch their own scams in order to deceive their targets.

Chargeback fraud is a growing problem for e-commerce companies, but there are practical ways to mitigate it. Shana is a product marketing manager focused on the Persona platform and marketplaces. You can usually find her running around San Francisco with a coffee in hand. Shana is a product marketing manager focused on the Persona platform and marketplaces. You can usually find her running around San Francisco with a coffee in hand.

If The Terminator, The Matrix, and every other cyberpunk series taught us anything, it’s that you can’t fight the machines with machines alone. Daniel Lee is a product manager at Persona who loves collaborating with fellow Personerds! He likes biking around the bay area and exploring 'hole-in-the-wall' restaurants. Daniel Lee is a product manager at Persona who loves collaborating with fellow Personerds! He likes biking around the bay area and exploring 'hole-in-the-wall' restaurants.

If you are a victim of fraud, you should immediately protect your online accounts with strong passwords, collect evidence of the fraud, report it and freeze your credit. Fraud can occur in many ways, but cybercriminals who commit fraud intend to deceive you to steal money or other valuable information to potentially steal your identity. Think of fraud as an umbrella term for any deceptive act and identity theft as targeting your personal information to impersonate you and commit fraud in your name.

More transactions, less vigilant consumers, and countless digital impersonators ready to exploit them – for scam-targeted industries and cyber teams, the holiday season is a full-spectrum stress test. Those who pass with flying colors have likely adopted key reinforcements that adapt posture for the era of off-the-shelf social engineering scams assisted by AI. Those that don’t are likely still reliant on outdated solutions and customer education.