Learning about the past can
help you better prepare for the present and improve the outcome of your future.
That's also true when it comes to fighting cyber fraud. What is Internet fraud
today can be accurately identified by going through the adaptations and
evolution that the most prevalent online scams went through over the years.
This can help you understand the main objectives of the scammers that
perpetuate these Web crimes, and how you can quickly spot them and safely avoid
their fraudulent schemes on the Web this year.
What is Internet Fraud in the
Current Climate?
The name of the game is
still the same for many criminal syndicates worldwide - Financial gain. Online
extortion scams have significantly increased from the reported incidents last
year. An almost 30% growth was reported by many security groups in the USA from
the monthly scam reports in 2015 to the monthly incidents of Web fraud during
the first half of 2016. A considerable percentage of these online crimes were
Internet dating scams and fake tech support schemes.
The FBI (Federal Bureau of
Investigation) began to send out alerts and reminders about these so-called
romance scams to American users after noticing the increase in the prevalence
of these online dating scams throughout the USA. ActionFraud, which is the UK's
national online crime reporting center, also followed suit to warn users in the
UK of popular dating sites and apps.
Tech support scammers also
make up a significant part of what is Internet fraud this year. Many of them expanded
from targeting American, European, Canadian and Australian users of popular
Microsoft Windows PCs and Android devices to users of Apple devices in the same
countries plus a few other Asian nations. The decision of these scammers to
expand to these new markets was probably caused by the crackdown against these
fraudsters, which was headed by Microsoft from 2012 to 2014. Many digital
security analysts claim that this move was organized after a lot of users
reported these scams, which points out the reason why you should report Web
crimes as you encounter them.
Card not present scams also make up a large part of What is Internet fraud today. According to cyber
security groups in the USA, an astounding 125% growth in credit card fraud is
predicted to materialize by 2018. This means losses in card not present scams
can grow from more than $8 billion in 2014 to over $19 billion in 2018
throughout the USA.
Now, to understand what is
Internet fraud in earlier years, you must learn about the most prevalent online
scams at that time. During the mid-2000s, there was widespread distribution of
malicious applications all around the world. most of these illegitimate
products had spyware components that secretly stole and transmitted personal
details and financial account information to Web servers that were operated by
these scammers. These stolen details were mainly used for financial theft and
fake identity packages that were sold to others for their illegal activities.
Some criminal syndicates
also experimented in distributing ransomware programs and rogue security tools
during that time. This partly comprised what is Internet fraud back then. These
illegitimate products tricked users into thinking that their devices were under
attack by high risk malware. This was done to force them to buy the fake
premium versions of these rogue products so as to fix the non-existent issues.
On the other hand, spam and
phishing scams mainly comprised what is Internet fraud from the mid-1990s to
the early 2000s. Mass mailing operations were conducted by criminal syndicates
to trick users into giving away their personal details and financial
information.
These were also done to
deceive users into clicking links and attachments that covertly installed
malicious applications with spyware components in their unprotected devices.
This paved the way to the modifications of what is Internet fraud in the next
couple of years, which brought about more deceptive methods.
This then gradually changed
into more sophisticated phishing scams. Fraudsters used fake websites that were
exact clones of popular online banking portals, Web mail platforms and shopping
networks. Deceptive messages that tricked users into thinking that they needed
to log into their accounts to update their profile details were also used for
these phishing schemes. This mostly make up what is Internet fraud from the
early 200s up to this day.
Now that you know what is
Internet fraud today and how it changed throughout the years, you'll be able to
better arm yourself with the right knowledge to spot and avoid these scams.
Share this with your colleagues and associates, so they can also learn about
the adaptations and evolution of cyber fraud over the past couple of decades.
This will help them formulate ways on how to secure their devices with the
right software and the things that they should avoid in their day to day
activities on the Internet.
