Phishing takes different faces to steal sensitive data

From the stern bank employee who apparently wants to block the account to the alleged family member in emergency, cybercriminals hide behind all imaginable and unimaginable paperwork to trick their victims and steal sensitive data.

Passwords for online banking or payment services are just as popular as passwords for social networks or phone numbers.

Criminals no longer use e-mails only to trick users into forging data entry and exit pages, reports the financial magazine “Finanztest” in its September issue.

In addition to common phishing methods, there are also new illegal resources:

– Messages on platforms or messaging services: It can happen that scammers treacherously pose as family members on social networks, ad portals or chat services to ask for help.

– Beat: is a combination of words between SMS and phishing. In this case, the SMS acts as a decoy to induce the recipients of the message to deliver the data. SMS ads and error messages related to packages that do not exist are very popular and dangerous.

– Spear-phishing: is the name given to data capture attacks aimed at a specific group of people, such as employees of a company.

– Whaling: they are phishing attacks aimed at “big fish” as rich and well-to-do victims.

– Wishing: This concept arises from the union of “voice” and phishing and is used to define attempts at manipulation and fraud through phone calls.

Two good phishing protection measures are, according to the information disclosed, Never leave yourself under pressure and contact the person or institution that allegedly made the contact by phone.

If you’ve already fallen into the trap, your first actions should be to lock out any accounts that might be affected and change stolen passwords as soon as possible.

It is also important to gather evidence and file a criminal complaint. If the money is stolen by scammers, report the damage to the bank and check if your home insurance covers phishing attacks.