Cybercrime

A warning has been issued after County Durham residents have been targeted with a 'fake police' phone scam that has been sweeping through the region.

The scam calls, which are fraudulently from the Metropolitan Police, are coming through to people, who then ask people for their bank details and say they are investigating fraud offences.

AI-enhanced attacks are on the rise, leaving many organisations’ cybersecurity unprepared for the volume of new challenges; reveals cyber protection firm, Acronis, in its latest cyber threats report.

The latest Acronis release, ‘Cyberthreats Report, H2 2023: Alarming rise in cyberattacks, SMBs and MSPs in the crosshairs‘, details how organisations experienced a 54 per cent increase in the number of attacks per organisation.

Britain’s security minister has given his backing to Scotland’s efforts to combat business cyber fraud on a visit to Edinburgh.

Tom Tugendhat, MP, visited Edinburgh to meet with cyber and policing experts to discuss areas of support for protecting Scottish businesses from online crime.

https://futurescot.com/britains-security-minister-backs-scotlands-efforts-to-combat-business-cyber-fraud/

Zelle is one of the most famous platforms to quickly send money to loved ones, friends, and family. However, now cybercriminals are taking advantage of it to get people’s account information.

https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/25445/the-zelle-fraud-scam-what-it-is-and-how-to-avoid-it

A new report shows that AI scams are increasingly hard to identify.

Scammers are using

Scammers are using AI to improve the success of their efforts.

Consumers report that scam messaging is increasing and hard to detect.

Common scams that lead to engagement include winning a prize and missing a delivery.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-fraud-crisis/202312/scam-compliance-rates-are-soaring

More resources need to be ploughed into tackling an upsurge of sophisticated online business scams targeting Scottish firms, according to the Cyber & Fraud Centre – Scotland.

Serious and organised crime groups are increasingly extorting huge sums from companies – by stealing their credentials and following up with phone and web-based extortion methods.

The UK's cyber chief has today signalled that the threat to the nation’s most critical infrastructure is ‘enduring and significant’, amid a rise of state-aligned groups, an increase in aggressive cyber activity, and ongoing geopolitical challenges.

https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/ncsc-warns-enduring-significant-threat-to-uks-critical-infrastructure

Specialist cyber officers have issued a warning after a 90-year-old woman was targeted in a "sextortion scam".

The woman was left "terrified" by the incident, which involved her being sent an explicit email demanding money.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, 3.2 million UK households bought a pet to stave off lockdown loneliness. Unfortunately, where that kind of cash goes, criminals usually follow.

Pets4Homes, the most popular pet-classifieds platform in the UK, was soon besieged by fraudsters and cybercriminals keen to dupe would-be pet-owners. Axel Lagercrantz, its CEO, soon realised that the unprecedented consumer demand led to a spike in activity from sophisticated and multi-disciplined criminal gangs.

QR codes that re-emerged into our lives during the COVID-19 pandemic have given rise to a new wave of advanced phishing attacks targeting thousands of organizations worldwide. These evasive threats also known as quishing (QR phishing), lure end users into scanning a QR code sent to them via email using their mobile device camera, redirecting them to malicious websites aiming to steal their login credentials, harvest financial information, or infect their devices with malware.

https://perception-point.io/blog/qr-code-red-quishing-attacks-and-how-to-prevent-them/