If you think you may have interacted with a scammer, block him or her and report the account to Facebook at your financial information. Or request a gift card or fee in return for a loan or a prize. They may impersonate a relative in an emergency, for example. Scammers have dreamed up lots of ways to empty your wallet. Here are a few steps you can take to protect yourself from cybercriminals.īeware of anyone requesting or offering money. To be safe, Murdock should also set up credit monitoring, change her passwords, and activate two-factor authentication for her social, email, and financial accounts, digital security experts say. The company says it works with law enforcement, including the FBI, to find and prosecute scammers. "Scammers for grants typically start with information that isn't as sensitive and build up rapport to work their target for more sensitive information."įacebook recently launched a privacy and safety hub, where Messenger users can learn more about features designed to help them report concerns and halt unwanted interactions. "Scams like this are particularly scary," says Zack Allen, director of threat operations at ZeroFOX. And once in control of her phone line, they could request a password reset on her online banking account and drain her funds. Using the info Murdock provided, Jenkins says, a thief could arrange for a SIM card swap via a cell-phone service and claim her phone number. "Yes, the scammers could get it online if they dug deeper, but they are always about speed. "That information she gave is terrifying," says Danny Jenkins, CEO of Threatlocker, a Florida-based digital security firm. "They wanted my full name, my mother's full name, full home address, whether I would want the money in check or cash, my age, my gender, marital status, phone number, email address, and whether I was employed or still on disability," she says. But she did surrender personal information that could prove valuable to criminals engaged in identity theft. While the number of victims is falling, the money lost to such scams is increasing, the FTC says. So cybercriminals have developed more complex attacks, using spoofed phone numbers, text messages, and social media platforms to pose as neighbors, friends, and family members. "But since the message came from somebody I've talked to before, it made me more interested."Īccording to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the government agency that polices the internet, consumers have grown savvy in recent years about phishing scams. "If it had been a total stranger, I would have ignored it all together," she says. "Gone are the days when attackers could send out emails with the same generic content body and hope people fell for it." "It seems a bit more personalized," says Ashlee Benge, a threat researcher at the Baltimore-based internet security firm ZeroFox. The use of the popular messaging app is particularly pernicious, according to security experts, because the scammers appear to be people victims know and trust. "Most of these accounts were blocked within minutes of their creation," Facebook says.īut that still leaves some Facebook Messenger users exposed to thieves. But there also are steps that consumers can take to protect themselves (see below).Īccording to Facebook's latest Community Standards Enforcement Report, the company removed 3.2 billion fake accounts from its social media platform between April and September 2019, up from 1.5 billion during the same period in 2018. "The scammers are in no way related to Global Greengrants Fund," he adds.Ī Facebook spokesperson says the company is working to protect users-online and on the Messenger mobile app-employing "technology, reporting tools, and human review" to remove malicious accounts. In addition to fictitious grants, cybercriminals have been using the platform to peddle fake loans, lottery winnings, and requests for charitable donations.Īlex Grossman, a company spokesman for the Global Greengrants Fund, says the organization has been helping victims report the problem to Facebook. Good thing, too, because she was on the verge of falling for a common Facebook Messenger scam.
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