Anyone could be the victim of a cyberattack, so they must recognize the alerts so as not to fall
Source: Infobae
It is a mistake to believe that cyber attacks happen just like hacker movies. In real life anyone can be a victim, furthermore, the attacks are so simple that they go unnoticed by most people.
Cyber attackers are a wolf in sheep’s clothing that takes advantage of ignorance to deceive and take advantage of others. They use social engineering strategies to benefit from people not verifying the offers, links, accounts, contests, among other things they see on the Internet.
A person who is unaware that cyberattackers impersonate real sites and offers can easily fall for fraud, so here are five tips to recognize fraud in social networks and WhatsApp, since they are the favorite places to attack.
Promotions and contests
According to the Spanish Department of National Security (DSN), cyber attackers want their victims to click on their malicious links at all costs, which is why they often pose as irresistible contests and promotions.
If you receive the message of a won prize, you should be suspicious, especially if you are not participating in a contest. It should simply be ignored if it says that in order to deliver the supposed gift it is necessary to share “something” with friends, fill out a form with personal data, make payments, make a subscription or accept confusing legal bases.
WhatsApp hijacking
You can recognize this scam by unexpectedly receiving a verification code from the app via SMS to set up the account on a new device. Under no circumstances should the code be given to anyone, not even someone claiming to be a family member in distress.
fake accounts
Another of the strategies of cyber hackers is to impersonate companies or influencers, so before clicking on any link, first check that there are no other accounts with a similar name and content, since it is possible that it is a profile cloned.
It should not be trusted if the account with which the interaction was had does not have the blue verified account arrow, shares links to unknown websites or that are not related to the original, as well as if its messages seem to be generated by a bot or requesting support from His Followers.
Sextortion and couples
This is another common but just as effective strategy, as there never stops to be people who fall into this trap. It is characterized by using open profiles of attractive people. They often use photos stolen from other accounts and are interested in interaction.
Once they establish communication, they pretend to have the same tastes, hobbies and more to gain affection. When the victim trusts them, they begin to ask for economic favors under any pretext, they also ask for intimate photos or videos, but later they ask for money in exchange for not revealing them.
Fraudulent store ads
It is very common for attackers to clone official ecommerce pages and then send promotions to their potential victims, who may not realize that they are apocryphal by not paying attention to them.
They are dangerous because they are spread on social networks with very attractive promotions from well-known brands, however, the URL or link of the store has nothing to do with the original. The images of the products are of low quality, the descriptive information is scarce, but above all, the payment methods are strange, for example, they provide forms to enter bank details without giving options such as PayPal.
Due to the fact that scams are more common than people think, it is recommended not to believe in very good offers, to be wary of pages that are not very elaborate or that are not related to it, and to be alert to misspellings, since they could be signs that they are fraudulent pages.
