The internet, one of the revolutionary inventions of science, has offered us the ultimate opportunity to communicate, share our views, and enter the realm of immeasurable knowledge within a blink of an eye. In this super-fast advanced world, accessing the infinite world of the web is only a click away. Our subconscious mind desires the internet to bestow only its goodness upon us. But nothing is of absolute good. The wondrous benefits that come with the web are often overpowered by its evil sides. Online scams, the most heinous activities, can overshadow the blessings of the internet if you are not careful even for a second! From PayPal scams to buzzing social media, hundreds of frauds are poisoning the web daily!
Scams to Scams to Avoid in 2020
With the increasing number of people using the internet nowadays, the number of scammers is also increasing exponentially! It has become so accessible that you can fall into the prey of a cunning fraudster at any time! Only your conscience and thoughtful steps can be your savior. Some criminals bypass scams altogether and simply go straight to the stealing of your personal information with the intent of selling it on the dark web or exploiting it for their own purposes – they are able to do this predominantly through connecting to unsecured public networks and preying on others unlucky enough to be connected to it. Thankfully, you can use something like zenmate vpn to keep your information private and secure through an encrypted connection that will dumfound even the hardiest of cyber-criminal. To help you keep your hard-earned money and information safe from the scammers, we are putting together here some of the most common and frequent online scams of 2020 to avoid.
Phishing Email Scams
One of the common scams to make your security vulnerable is phishing email scams. Almost all security issues start with this scam that sends malicious links or attachments using the persona of your employees, colleagues, or friends. It is a threat to both a company and users when their valuable details reach the fraudsters.
In phishing, cybercriminals try to communicate with the target people over email or social media. They try to trick people sending data like login credentials of cloud storage, bank account, etc. to steal the details.
It is a common cyber threat for a long time that is making a lot of people its victim every day. Though email has been its most used platform, the phishers are expanding their fraud through chat apps, social media platforms, etc.
The effective step to avoid a phishing scam is to review a message or email before you click on any link it contains to find if there are any inconsistencies. If you are not sure of the URL, hover the cursor of your mouse over the link and see if it belongs to a real or phishing site.
Fake Antivirus Software
Have you ever noticed a message popping up all of a sudden saying, your computer has become infected? It might be a fake antivirus software that suddenly pops up, shows a vulnerability message while browsing the web, and wants you to download its free version. Such antivirus is of no use instead, it only gives your computer malware!
Never pay heed to messages that suddenly pop up, urging you to download the software immediately. To avoid such random popping up, protect your computer using a trustworthy antivirus to take care of your background. Only trust the information that your verified antivirus gives you to avoid malware!
Make Money Fast and Easy
Who doesn’t want to be a millionaire at a fast pace? Scammers use this desire and make the users victimized. Hundreds of fraud websites may lure you saying that you can make money that is worth your whole month’s salary within a few hours! As you show interest, they would ask you to submit your sensitive economic and private details. You are sure to lose your hard-earned money if you hand over your data to cybercriminals!
Be a little bit considerate before you believe, give your financial details, and get trapped by the tricky words of the fraudsters. Never get flooded with the thought that someone can pay you a handsome amount doing nothing in exchange.
Fake Shopping Websites and Formjacking
The online scam that has spread by leaps and bound is cheating people by fake shopping websites. These sites offer you great deals, discounts even up to 75% and make you believe they are the perfect place to find all your favorite collections.
Again, formjacking is another way of defrauding users where very tactfully steal your credit card details. Without letting the proprietors of an authorized eCommerce website know, they hack it, redirect you to other links, and steal your details.
After paying a bit more attention, you can differentiate a real eCommerce site from a fake one. The URL of a scam site may resemble the real one, but not identical, having some inconsistencies, like spelling mistakes or very high/low prices.
It’s a bit tricky to trace a formjacking fraud. Before you submit your credit card details, keep checking the URL if you get redirected to another website. The cunning cybercriminals may put a letter here and there so that you cannot detect it. In fact, it is taking you to a scam website for stealing your card details. Also, if at all you using sites that ask for your privy information, you may want to turn on the VPN software like the ones provided by Fortinet (or similar ones) so that your information is protected at all times and you can access them securely.
Paypal Free Account Scams
Being Paypal a popular means of money transfer worldwide, cybercriminals keep trying to defraud companies and users using it. A very well known Paypal fraud is targeting people having no Paypal accounts and convincing them to create one. They may send you a link (a phishing site) looking similar to the genuine Paypal page. Once you put your information like billing address, passport number, etc. for signing up, they steal and use them for any criminal activities or make purchases by your name!
Other Paypal frauds include popping up of fake invoices, advanced fee scam, an email asking for sensitive details like a bank account, credit card, or password.
