The Rise of Scams and Cybercriminals

Today more than ever, security in technology is very necessary. There are many cases of scams, phishing, and different crimes committed through technologies. The other day a gym colleague told me that he had been scammed out of about 3,500 euros through Telegram. This gave me the idea to talk about it to explain some scams and what security measures I recommend in these cases.

In this case, the scam occurred through a Telegram channel where they promised profitable investments through cryptocurrencies and, as usually happens, through a link. The hook was that there were users inside who were used as decoys, who talked about the benefits of their results.

Scams that are usually committed through different technologies are carried out through Telegram channels, a social network widely used by cybercriminals, by email, phone calls, and text messages. Generally, they all tend to consist of something similar and end in some type of web link where they either ask you to log in through some email account of your own, or you even end up paying some amount of money directly. Let's analyze a bit the different modalities that exist.

For example, through text messages we can receive communications that come from courier companies like Correos, since it is very common for users to be waiting for a package from an order that the user has made, which makes it easier to trap the user. Generally in this case they are messages that indicate that the package has been retained at some border, waiting for a small payment to be unlocked and finally sent. This type of scam is relatively simple for attackers, as what they do is send a link that takes you to a website where easily anyone with minimal frontend knowledge, that is, knowing how to design and layout a website, can impersonate companies like Correos, UPS, MRW, or any delivery company. It is very easy to get the logo and plagiarize the website.

The first thing you should always look at is the URL, that is, the web address, since generally they are not of the type www.mrw.es or www.correos.es, but rather can be of the type www.anyword-correos.es. In reality, it is quite easy to identify it through the URL, this is a really important measure to keep in mind. In any case, when in doubt, the best thing is to pick up the phone and call the transport company itself, since with the name and surname it is simply easy to identify if there is any type of shipment in your name and if there is any type of problem. If you are interested in seeing a bit of how a scam works, I highly recommend watching the following video by S4vitar, who is dedicated to cybersecurity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X59ABp1nQY8&t=1s. In this video, the scammers are exposed and all the information is finally served on a platter to the police.

Another type of similar scams are done through text messages as if it were your own bank. In this case, the scams have also improved a lot, since sometimes, as mobile phones manage to group senders, scammers manage to make the sender exactly the same. Personally, I have received more than one from ING Direct. In addition, the texts in this case are well professionalized, which makes it easy to fall for. They usually warn that a transfer of a high amount has been made to alarm you, adding a link to access it and thus you access the bank by entering your username and password. This is very dangerous because the moment you enter that information, the hacker gets your bank password. It must be said that banks are constantly warning that they never send messages or emails with links, to prevent people from falling for these scams. Cybercriminals in these cases also plagiarize the page where you log into the bank, thus appearing to be the original.

Another fairly old scam, and in this case in-person, is meeting someone who, at some point, after gaining trust and ending up talking about what each person does, we discover that the person is dedicated to investing. Since they have gained trust, it is easy for them to subtly end up explaining what they invest in and the returns they achieve. I heard this story through a friend of my brother, which happened to his father-in-law. He, already retired and with a certain patrimony, met an individual who after countless conversations ended up explaining that he invested in racehorses. This type of scam was formerly very recurrent, not only with horses but with other products somewhat different from the usual such as stocks or others, since they are products with difficult access to information and not very transparent, so you practically have to trust the control by the scammer.

The scam consists of ensuring a high return in a short time, such as 20% or 30% within about 3 months. The person ended up agreeing, providing about 25,000 euros the first time. The scammer, after 3 months, returns the money and the promised interest, which leads the person to finally make another investment, in this case with a larger amount of 80,000 euros. That is where the scammer finally decides to keep the money and continuously give excuses to the person after the deadline. In most cases, the scammer ends up disappearing and moves to another city or even country to continue with the same procedure.

Older scams were done by email. These scams usually came from abroad and were easy to identify because they used automatic translators and you could tell it was poorly translated. Now, thanks to the perfection of technology, it is easy for them to be well written and there are hardly any spelling or grammatical errors.

Another aspect, and this one more worrying and current, is the duplication of SIM cards. Attackers can manage to get a duplicate SIM card by calling telephone companies and impersonating the user's identity, thus getting them to send a duplicate of the card. In this case, when inserting it into a new mobile phone, they could finally access all the user's information.

A recent scam I know of was done to a company. It is a renovation company, and like any company of this type, emails are exchanged for sending quotes, acceptance, and sending the first invoice to make the first payment. In this case, the attackers managed to get the username and password of the hosting where the website and emails were hosted. In this way, they interfered in the process while the client provided the data for issuing the first invoice. The attackers, having control of the hosting, ended up manipulating the invoice to the client by changing the bank account number, and deleting certain emails sent from the hosting so that the company would not detect it. Finally, the client made the payment to the attacker's account, in this case it was from BBVA, who immediately made the money disappear through another transfer abroad.

It is true that in this case there were some signs by which a certain scam could have already been suspected, such as the fact of having received two almost identical emails in a row, and also that the attackers opened a Gmail account for the client with the same name but ending in "a". Neither the client nor the company realized it in that process and the result was obviously the loss of 15,000 euros by the client.

It goes without saying that any type of person, company, website, email, link, message, or through whatever channel, that proposes a high return in a short time, has all the makings of being a scam.

Some of my recommendations are as follows. Due to these times, I advise having proactive thinking and never reactive. That is, if I want something, I look for it on my own, I inform myself, analyze, consult opinions, and in that case I finally execute. Being reactive in these times is not a good idea, and by being reactive I mean that information reaches you through some channel, whatever it may be, and you suddenly show interest and end up accessing it. For a long time I have done the same with phone calls. In fact, I no longer answer a single unknown number unless I am expecting something specific and know they might call me. In this way, we also avoid losing invaluable time, avoiding many advertising and service sales calls, since current laws against this type of action are of little use.

Another of my recommendations is to open an email account exclusively for banking and possible investment platforms, and never use it for anything else. An encrypted email, and I would even recommend outside high-traffic platforms like Google or Microsoft. In this case I recommend Proton Mail, Tuta, or Mailbox for example, with great focus on privacy. In addition, in this case it is important not to open a nominative email, that is, do not create an email that has your name or surnames in it, so that it is unlinked from the person. It can be a nickname or whatever, as I say, that does not easily suggest what person it is.

It goes without saying that two-factor authentication is a completely mandatory step, especially for banks and platforms where money is moved. That way we make a possible attack much more difficult by depending on the mobile device with facial recognition.

In email processes, especially in companies, you have to be very careful with the names of senders, and suspect at least when you can receive two practically identical emails with differences of a few minutes or hours. Very especially if they are emails that contain links or communications that have to do with payment processes. In those cases, before doing anything, it is important to communicate with IT departments, who are much more up to date on all this than workers from other departments.

All my recommendations are really important, but having a proactive and not reactive attitude I see as essential, because that way our brain gets used to being always alert, and even for new or possible cyber scams that may arise over time.

It is very important to keep in mind that if the user accesses a link in which they enter their username and password, and it is not the official website of the bank or whatever platform it may be, and the cybercriminal gains access and manages to make transfers, the bank will never respond because they have not accessed the bank by hacking the bank itself. That is why special attention must be paid. Many links can even take you to Google-style websites to facilitate entry to the website through the user's own Google email and password to gain access to the user's email, and in this way they could gain access to all passwords.

I hope that with this article I have been able to help you and clarify doubts about such an important topic today as this is. Certainly, I think that laws should be much stricter and harsher on these issues to avoid misfortunes such as people who have been saving their entire lives ending up losing all their money.