Cyber fraud is a comprehensive term that describes crimes committed by cyberattackers via the internet. These crimes aim to illegally acquire and exploit an individual’s or business’s sensitive information for monetary gain.
WHITE HAT VS BLACK HAT: A FINE LINE INBETWEEN
Cybercriminal are individuals or team using their technological skills to perform malicious acts and illegal activities, known as cybercrimes. These criminals are often found on the “Dark Web” where they mostly provide their illegal services or products. Not every hacker is a cybercriminal because hacking itself is not considered a crime as it can be used to reveal vulnerabilities to report and batch them which are called “white hat hacker”. However, hacking is considered a cybercrime when it has a malicious purpose of conducting any harmful activities and we call this one “black hat hacker” or a cyber-criminal.
Internet fraud can be broken down into several key types of attacks, including:
Phishing and spoofing:
The use of email and online messaging services to dupe victims into sharing personal data, login credentials, and financial details. Scammers use a phishing method called URL phishing to distribute links to their fake sites via email. If you click on the link, you’ll be taken to a phishing website. Which, looks very similar to a legitimate one, such as Amazon or PayPal.
Data breach: Cyber fraud
Stealing confidential, protected, or sensitive data from a secure location and moving it into an untrusted environment. This includes data being stolen from users and organizations.
Malware:
The use of malicious software to damage or disable users’ devices or steal personal and sensitive data. These sites often appear legitimate but secretly infect your device with viruses, spyware, or ransomware. They spread malware by offering fake downloads, software updates, or through misleading ads and links.
Clone websites: Cyber fraud
Imitate legitimate companies. Posing as banks, health insurance, government, or other authoritative institutions, clone websites ask you to pay made up fines or extends your insurance, warn you about suspicious payments on your account, or rush you into confirming your passwords and other information. Clone websites are a form of online deceit, so everything you submit on them ends up in the hands of cybercriminals.
Technical support scams: Cyber fraud
Trick you into believing you have computer problems. In a technical support scam, criminals pretend to be support agents. They often use fake alerts or unsolicited calls to charge you for unnecessary services or steal your sensitive information.
Business email compromise (BEC):
A sophisticated form of attack targeting businesses that frequently make wire payments. It compromises legitimate email accounts through social engineering techniques to submit unauthorized payments.
Online dating scams:
Another typical example of internet fraud targets the plethora of online dating applications and websites. Hackers focus on these apps to lure victims into sending money and sharing personal data with new love interests. Scammers typically create fake profiles to interact with users, develop a relationship, slowly build their trust, create a phony story, and ask the user for financial help.
Lottery fee fraud:
Another common form of internet fraud is email scams that tell victims they have won the lottery. These scams will inform recipients that they can only claim their prize after they have paid a small fee.
Lottery fee fraudsters typically craft emails to look and sound believable, which still results in many people falling for the scam. The scam targets people’s dreams of winning massive amounts of money, even though they may have never purchased a lottery ticket. Furthermore, no legitimate lottery scheme will ask winners to pay to claim their prize.
