The FBI warns of a new phenomenon with online fraud that is affecting the United States. Designed to attack older people, but also with less digital literacy skills, “phantom hacker” schemes result in huge losses for victims.
The US government agency explains that scams are an evolution of technical support fraud. Cybercriminals pretend to be technical support services or employees of financial institutions and the Government to gain the trust of victims and find those that are most “profitable” to scam.
Victims begin by being contacted by a supposed technical support service, by phone or email, which tells them that they need to install a specific program on their computer, which gives hackers remote access to the equipment.
BUT: FBI reveals major Internet fraud schemes
Scammers then claim that the computer is at risk of being hacked and ask victims to give them access to their bank account to “check” for unusual changes.
If the account is appealing, cybercriminals advance to the next stage, where they pretend to be a bank employee. Victims are then instructed to transfer all money to another account for security reasons. To make the scheme more “legitimate”, hackers also pretend to be government officials, reinforcing the requests made in the previous phases.
According with the FBI, many victims, convinced by fraudsters that they are protecting their savings, end up losing all their money. Between January and June of this year alone, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received 19.000 complaints related to fraud of this type, with losses in the order of 542 million dollars. Almost 50% of victims of these frauds were over 60 years old.
To avoid falling for these schemes, the FBI recommends that you do not click on pop-ups, links sent in messages and email attachments that appear suspicious. Phone numbers included in these pop-ups, messages or links should not be contacted.
You should not download software at the request of people you don't know, much less give them remote access to your computer. The agency also reminds you that the US Government does not ask you to send money via bank transfer to foreign accounts, cryptocurrencies or prepaid cards.
