Beware of These Spooky Fraud Trends
From corn mazes to haunted houses, there are many festive activities to do during October. However, one spooky activity you don’t want to take part in, is fraud. Unfortunately, hackers don’t rest during the holidays and are still coming up with new ways to steal your personal information. Check out these top fraud trends so the only thing you have to worry about losing this month is some candy.
Account Takeover
This type of fraud typically comes in the form of phishing. When a hacker chooses to do a phishing scheme, it is normally done through an email which contains a malicious link that will then download malware and give the fraudster access to your accounts. Once the hacker receives this type of confidential information, it can lead to total financial loss or other crimes like money laundering.
Digital Payment Hack
Digital payments allow you to ditch your wallet when leaving your house and make any purchases straight from your phone. Although convenient, these types of digital payments open a new channel for fraudsters to steal your financial information. If the location that you are making a purchase does not have a secure merchant processing system, this can make you vulnerable to others receiving your payment information.
Fake Identities
Having a digital profile is a common part of life. We all like to remain connected online, but hackers are now seeing this as an opportunity to commit fraud. Hackers can create fake profiles to communicate with people to receive personal information. According to the McKinsey Institute, synthetic identity fraud is the fastest-growing type of financial crime in the United States. These fake profiles can take bits of information from real profiles and reach out to family members and friends of that profile to try to get confidential information by posing as the person they know.
Targeted Attacks
Targeted attacks have the goal of obtaining a business’s entire infrastructure, including all of your computer systems. These typically start out with small attacks over a long period of time, which then gives the fraudster access to your critical financial data. Targeted attacks are so successful because all it takes is for one employee to provide confidential information, and the entire company can be in jeopardy.
To avoid fraud from becoming a part of your Halloween, make sure your employees are caught up-to-date on the top security practices and have routine security training sessions. Nutmeg Technologies is an IT managed service provider based out of Enfield, CT. We are happy to assist companies who are looking to have in-office or remote workforce through secure technology. Contact us to today to find a product that best suits your company’s needs.