Cyber Scams Skyrocket: Protect Yourself This Black Friday cover art

Cyber Scams Skyrocket: Protect Yourself This Black Friday

Cyber Scams Skyrocket: Protect Yourself This Black Friday

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 Hey listeners, it's Scotty here, and boy do I have some wild stories from the scam trenches this week. Black Friday just wrapped up yesterday, and let me tell you, the internet was basically a minefield of fraud schemes.

So here's the thing that's got everyone freaked out right now. Phishing attacks targeting Black Friday shoppers exploded by 620 percent in the weeks leading up to yesterday. That's not a typo. Six hundred and twenty percent. And guess what? Security experts are predicting another 20 to 30 percent surge during the actual shopping week. It's absolutely bonkers out there.

The really clever stuff is what's getting me. Attackers are using generative AI to craft phishing emails that look so legitimate you'd swear they came straight from Amazon or Walmart or Target. Amazon alone got impersonated in about 80 percent of all phishing attempts against major brands. Scammers are spoofing domains like PetPlatz dot com and something called EpicBrandMarketing dot com, then they're baiting people with fake deals for luxury watches and designer handbags. Click the link, and boom, you're on a knockoff Amazon site handing over your credit card info.

But wait, there's more. Fake Amazon storefronts surged over 200 percent recently, and fraudulent eBay sites jumped over 500 percent. These sites use AI to look almost identical to the real thing, and surveys show that 68 percent of people can't actually tell the difference between real and fake websites.

Now here's where it gets interesting from a law enforcement angle. Police in Singapore just busted four guys aged 30 to 35 who were running fraudulent schemes on Grab, the ride-sharing platform. They'd created fake accounts, manipulated bookings, and stole over 58,000 dollars from the company. They're getting charged today actually, and we're talking up to 10 years in prison.

Meanwhile in Korea, authorities arrested 17 members of a criminal organization that was running no-show reservation fraud. These guys were impersonating government agencies and military units to make massive group dinner reservations, then vanishing while the restaurant got stuck with the bill. They hit about 15,000 victims and made off with roughly 3.5 billion Korean won.

The big takeaway here? Check every website twice before you enter your payment info. Scammers are switching letters around, using almost identical URLs. Type it into a search engine. Use credit cards with fraud protection. Never use public WiFi for shopping. And seriously, if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Thanks so much for tuning in, listeners. Make sure you subscribe for more of this stuff because the scammers aren't taking a break anytime soon. This has been Quiet Please Production, for more check out quietplease dot ai.

For more http://www.quietplease.ai

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