2024 Fraud and Scam Predictions

Account Takeover (ATO) is a type of identity theft that occurs when a fraudster gains access to an individual’s or company’s computer accounts, email accounts, and other personal information. In a typical ATO attack, hackers use phishing and malware methods to acquire legitimate user credentials or buy them from the dark web. The stolen credentials are then used for account takeover.

A takeover can lead to a variety of crimes and direct financial losses, including:

● Bank account takeovers (Current accounts, Credit Cards)

● Money laundering

● Stealing loyalty or rewards points

● Reselling subscription information

Fraudsters will use techniques to gain unauthorized access to people-to-people payments like Zelle or Venmo to get consumers to buy fake items or give up their account credentials. Once a consumer is lured into sending money, they are extremely limited ways to recoup the losses because these transactions move money instantly and are irreversible. Best practices for P2P payments is to only send money to people you know.

Cryptocurrencies are continuing to grow in popularity, and the anonymity provided by these currencies makes it easy for criminals to carry out illicit activities.

Technologies which enable new ways to pay are also open to new ways of attack from fraudsters, as they use stolen credentials to carry out fraud and ID theft.

The most common example of employer text fraud is when a fraudster impersonates an employee's boss and asks the employee to purchase gift cards.

Economic uncertainty will lead fraudsters to create fake remote job postings luring applicants to provide their social security number, date or birth, and other private information use to commit identity theft. Mule recruiting schemes occur when people accept remote jobs and unintentionally ship stolen goods or move fraudster's money through their personal bank accounts.

Not all in-app advertisements are real products or companies, and some may be pretending to be other companies. If you are interested in buying a product you have seen in an advertisement, it is best to then search for that product on the internet to ensure the website, company and product are real and associated with a real company.