WATCH OUT: Phishing scams are on the rise

Cloud Tips 15 Nov 2022

We are seeing a rise in phishing scammers towards end of the year. The trend started in September 2022, and we are seeing it intensify as we enter the holidays period.

The scammers, this time around, are using the everyday products and services we all use to trick us into entering our financial information. The attack is initiated using an SMS message which contains some sort of reminder or warning that you have missed on a payment. Or the message comes with a lure to upgrade to a better tier of a service.

Here in Australia, for example, some of the SMS message we have seen are targeted against users of toll services, Buy Now, Pay Later services, financial institutions, and telecom companies.

We also see that these phishing attacks are being taken down more quickly than before. Often time, the fake website is taken down in a matter of couple of hours. We don’t know if this is being done by the law enforcement agencies, or if there is a coordinated effort in place by the big IT & social media companies.

We advise never to click on the link in an SMS message you receive. If in doubt, search for, or directly type the web address of the business in question to access your account (if you are user) to find out if you missed on a payment, or if you qualify for an upgrade!

 

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