Technology and Scams

 Piracy and Crime: Schemes and Scams

Cybercrime has many forms (e.g., financial fraud, Identity Theft, spoofing, phishing, malware, piracy, intellectual property crime, etc.) that can negatively affect an individual’s life. It can cause either a major inconvenience to the victim or downright lead the victim to financial ruin, or even threaten the safety of the victim. Because of the increasing easy access of digital world, criminals are finding new ways to steal, harass, and commit crimes. According to FBI, Internet crimes scams and schemes are stealing millions of dollars each year (1).

The scammers are not even taking a break during the recent pandemic. Rather, they have increased their attempts on scamming people for money or information and are even leveraging the COVID-19 by sending fake CDC emails asking to click on harmful links or download attachments, sending phishing emails asking for private information such as Bank information to receive stimulus checks (2).

Although, these scams cannot be permanently blocked, we can take some preventive measures to minimize the risk of falling for such scams. Here are some things that can be done to protect yourself from becoming a victim.

• Always check the URL of the website, make sure it has the correct domain name. For e.g., scammers might add incorrect extension such as ‘Amazon.com.xyz’ to make the amazon website look legitimate.
• Before clicking on any links or opening attachments in an email, make sure it is from a trusted source.
• Only make online payments through secure websites.

References:

1. https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/internet-fraud
2. https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2020/PSA200320
3. Featured Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay