Top 5 Industries Targeted By Scammers & How to prevent it_ (1)

1. Top 5 Industries Targeted By Scammers 21 Oct There are many reasons why scammers do what they do. One of their main motivations is money, ransomware, data breaches, or virus attacks, sometimes the motivation is revenge. Based on the in of cyber attack, you can hazard a guess on the scammers’ goals.  Online cyber-attacks can now take place on your mobile devices, and as most mobile devices do with any comprehensive data protection, anti-spyware, or antivirus software, they make easy targe of scams are now mobile-friendly with a 680% increase in fraud originating from mobile apps. IBM Security’s annual X-Force Threat Intelligence Index for 2020 reveals the top industries targete surprisingly, ?nancial and insurance services are number one. What is surprising is the number two once there is an opportunity, scammers will seize the chance to steal your data and blackmail you In the top ?ve industries targeted by scammers, there seem to be consistent methods of attack. Th hacking, scammers have perpetrated ransomware attacks, credential harvesting, remote access s   Financial and Insurance Services Industry   The ?nancial and insurance services industry consists of ?nancial planners, wealth management ? advisers, stockbrokers, superannuation providers, and investment advisers, agents, brokers, and c businesses in the ?nancial and insurance services industry provide ?nancial advice, buy, create or ?nancial products, regulate ?nancial activities and provide insurance and pension plans.

2. Naturally, being the hub of the world’s ?nances, you would attract unsavory attention. The ?nance services industry has been targeted by scammers for decades, way before the invention of the int emergence of Fintech and COVID-19 pushing more banking and ?nancial services online, custome services are being targeted more by online scammers. Skimming and counterfeit cards are a constant threat to customers and bank o?cials in the bankin and ransomware attacks are also prevalent in the ?nancial and insurance services industry, so one number one type of scam in the ?nancial and insurance sector would be an investment scam or c though credit card fraud is a real threat to the banking sector of the industry, it isn’t the main culpr insurance services industry.   Remote Server Access Scams Remote server access scams, or tech support scams, are sometimes done through phishing or sp claim to be tech support requesting access to your server. In other instances, they can be pop-ups claiming to detect a virus and requesting access to help.  They can come o? as being aggressive and rude with the intention of mimicking tired and disgrun telecommunications companies, tech companies like Microsoft, or your own local technical servic Remote server access scammers may even call you and say you or someone in your department support or your device needs a software upgrade and request a software download. Once inside y scammers can steal your data, install viruses, or further request your credit card information.   Firstly, you should note that ?nance and insurance companies don’t request credit card informa to solve a problem. They will enact system diagnostic and repair programs ?rst. Second, nobody f supposed to cold call you to check any system. And whether the system needs repairing or not, it to the tech. If they seem overly concerned and desperate to ?x it, then it’s probably a scam.   To counteract remote server access scammers, learn to verify the identity of the caller ?rst. Reque credentials then tell the potential scammer you need to verify their credentials before giving acce device has an updated ?rewall, anti-spyware, antivirus protection, and IDMaml for ID validation and   Manufacturing Industry   The manufacturing industry consists of companies that transpose raw goods, components, and id services. It includes car manufactures, textiles, industrial components, shipbuilding, paper product aerospace, food and drink manufacturers, and more. Like every other industry on this list, the man has been forced to become more agile and digital due to Covid-19. As a result of more people wo scammers took the opportunity to take advantage of communication gaps. As an industry that is h machine production, scammers have found a loophole in their technical expertise. No doubt mana large manufacturing plants didn’t foresee the need for protection because they believed that the o that can be stolen is right there on the factory ?oor. 

3. Considering data theft and ransomware attacks account for 35% of the scams in the manufacturing safe to say they are considering data and system protection now. One particular scam in the manu shows just how subtle and normal a scam could be.   Business Email Compromise In Business Email Compromise (BEC), also known as Email Account Compromise (EAC), the scam or spoo?ng attack by sending emails seemingly from within your company’s business contacts or department. The scammer can take days and even weeks to garner your trust before demandin requesting information. After all, they know the industry you are in, so they know the day-to-day invoice payments work. In BEC, the scammer can also use malware attacks and data breaches to gain access to your syst account information. They request things like: Invoice payments with updated accounts and mailing address Business expenses for a department and account access to make payments Down-payment on a loan or mortgage with directions to the account Payment for PPE supplies due to COVID-19 A BEC scam email is always made to appear legitimate on the surface. With COVID-19, scamme opportunity to tweak the scam for both business and their customers. They created scam kits mad based email services that manage shared calendars, emails, online storage, and instant messagin According to the FBI’s 2019 Public Service Announcement, the BEC scam targets small, medium, a as well as personal accounts. The BEC scam has been reported in all 50 US states and across 177 transfers have been sent to at least 140 countries and account for over 26 billion USD in losses bet To keep you and your company out of a compromising position from being targeted by scammers paying attention to the sender’s address. Some email addresses are not as legitimate as they se and passwords frequently and enable alerts for suspicious logins. Perform ID validation and verify identity with identity veri?cation solutions from IDMERIT.    Energy Industry   You probably think oil, gas, wind, water, and solar power are hardly worth being targeted by scamm investment scam. Like the manufacturing industry, the energy industry wasn’t that big on scams in scammers found loopholes that left them susceptible to BEC, ransomware attacks, and their num data theft. Most of the energy industry infrastructure isn’t designed to handle data theft or hacking attacks. H has a broad play?eld from which hackers can play through. Through hacking, outside parties have to operational technology controlling wind turbines and stopping them or causing destruction. Ha gas companies, power grids, and even electric vehicles.

4.   Data Theft In the 2020 report on data breaches in the energy industry, it was found that energy industry empl corporate accounts to register for entertainment, retail, and gaming sites. Though not expressed in this practice exposed some of the company’s credentials and data to some unscrupulous parties. Although data theft is common across most industries, the energy industry was struck particularly share of 35% of their attacks being from data theft. There are three reasons why this somewhat obscure industry su?ers data breaches: To cause security and economic disruption,  To access data that can be converted into monetary rewards To protest the actions of the companies in the industry and expose their agendas Customers of the energy industry fear no better from data theft from a few bad apples in the indus or sometimes fake utility company representatives use customer data in utility scams. In this scam asked: For credit card information for a refund To pay an overdue bill To grant access to your home or business to perform utility checks To send private information via phishing and spoo?ng emails Once you do that they can run up charges on your utility bill or steal your identity altogether.  Protection against utility scams as a customer is easier than protecting the energy company from companies can protect their customers by making it easier for them to validate the identity of emp from the company. They can also use proper employee and customer onboarding with safe identi solutions, like IDMscan that can perform ID validation for customers and employees’ IDs in second Right now, the energy industry is discussing ways to reduce its susceptibility to data theft and syst Hopefully, some of these changes will include ID validation and identity veri?cation solutions like I make it easier to verify customer utility records.   Retail Industry   The COVID-19 global pandemic lockdowns brought record levels of online commerce in 2020. Wo stay-at-home policies drove increases in online shopping attracting unwanted attention to the reta cybercriminals.  The retail industry in recent years now includes e-commerce platforms like Amazon, eBay, and oth that created e-commerce versions of their brick and mortar stores. Server access and ransomware became rampant as cybercriminals found opportunities within the they realized there was money to be made, they turned to credential harvesting.  

5. Credential Harvesting Credential harvesting, also known as password harvesting, is targeted towards gaining an employ information. Some experts believe it is the basis of some phishing and spoo?ng scams. Credential gathering of compromised user credentials including user names and passwords. Besides phishing and spoo?ng emails, credential harvesting is done through fraudulent links and d steals your employee’s information without them knowing it. Once the scammer has the informatio person can then use it to access sensitive information or sell the information to other scammers. To reduce your risk from credential harvesting, use multi-factor authentication and IDMERIT’s iden solutions with behavior monitoring to assess risk-based access control based on analysis of user b   Professional Services Industry   The professional services industry market share is worth over 5 trillion USD globally and includes a occupations such as lawyers, accountants, designers, consultants, B2B business services, and oth clients manage, support, and grow their businesses. The professional services industry is plagued by scams, such as non-payment scams, fake jobs, b phishing and spoo?ng, data theft, and remote server access attacks. However, one particular type stands out from the rest.   Ransomware Attack Ransomware attacks involve gaining access to your device through downloading malware from lin attachments from unknown sources. Once there, the scammer encrypts your device and demand decryption key. Paying the ransom doesn’t always guarantee access will be restored to your pe data. It accounts for 35% of cyberattacks in the professional services industry. Here are some of th ransomware attacks.   Crypto Malware Users of Windows OS were targeted in 2017 and payment was demanded in the form of bitcoin. Lockers Involve completely locking you out of your device and is targeted towards Android users. Scareware Claims to have found a virus and acts like an antivirus or cleaning tool demanding money for its re Doxware The scammer threatens to publish stolen sensitive information if you don’t pay the ransom. RaaS Ransomware as a Service (Raas) is done as a service for another party for a cut of the ransom. (yes They perform the scam and collect the payments all for a fee.  

6. Due to the popularity of cell phones, scammers have even created speci?c attacks for their operat the Windows ransomware scam, there is one for Mac as well. Strangely, given the popularity of an protects against ransomware, you would think that would be enough to protect your device. Yet, r have increased in 2020 by 485% globally with losses totaling over 20 billion USD.  Given that the ransomware attack can be done as a service, you cannot rule out the possibility of c disgruntled clients, or former employees as ?nancial backers. Therefore, ensure you can perform b and ID validation in seconds with IDMscan. Having an identity veri?cation solution protects your bu customer onboarding and Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance.   Closing   There is now cyber insurance available for when you get scammed because most experts believe time before you or your company will be faced with identity theft, data theft, or some other online idea of insurance is, assurance that the attack won’t happen in the ?rst place is better. Setting up the proper ID validation systems or an identity veri?cation solution to verify and validate devices of parties trying to access your systems can be a better deterrent against cyber attacks. D immediately decrease your stock price by .45%, going steadily downhill over time and unless you and services industry, it may take quite a while for it to recover. Incidentally, every cyberattack involving phishing and spoo?ng or other data breaches puts your c Counter-Terrorism Financing (CTF), KYC, and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) non-compliance. So if your customers’ and employees’ information, your company will be liable for ?nes. Don’t be targeted by scammers. Stay compliant with IDMERIT identity veri?cation solutions and pr device from ransomware, data breaches, and phishing and spoo?ng scams which are prevalent th industries.