The latest internet scams and how to combat them.
There’s been a few Internet scams lately that seem legitimate, but are extremely dangerous. Scammers are trying to access marketing agency's Facebook ad accounts to hijack their budgets for their own ads.
More scams are showing up on hiring websites, there are many fake LinkedIn company pages that steal the names of current employees to attempt to get your credit card number, or access your bank account.
Both scams use emails that seem similar to legitimate companies, but the emails usually have a hyphen. They use the correct names of company executives, but the emails do not match the main company website.
Even a thorough Google search does not bring up red flags. To prevent scammers from accessing your information, be extra vigilant and do not click on any links, or open attachments, especially folders.
Delete any emails that do not match exactly a company email and report as spam.
Add required open ended questions to contact forms and Captcha for added security from bots.
Remove any email information from your website for bots to crawl, add contact information under a clickable button.
Remove direct contact information from your Instagram account and remove the "learn more" option.
You can always screenshot the email and send an inquiry to the business to see if the request for services is legitimate.
Train your staff to not open any unfamiliar emails, it’s better to be safe than sorry, as the malware in the scam folders are sophisticated and can take your entire computer systems hostage.
There are websites to check emails for malware and you can also copy and paste the email into Chatgpt for assessment.
Stay extra vigilant for cyber scams, and protect your Facebook ad account because Meta will not reverse any charges, even from hackers.
