Kaspersky experts have\ndetected a new online fraud scheme designed to trick people into thinking they are\nowed compensation. Under the pretext of offering compensation for personal data\nleaks, scammers instead urge users to buy \u2018temporary US social security numbers\u2019 worth around US$9\neach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Victims were found in\nRussia, Algeria, Egypt and the UAE, as well as other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scheme exploits issues around privacy. Kaspersky\nsays a website offers to check whether user data has ever been leaked, so one\nneeds to provide their specific surname, first name, phone number and social\nmedia accounts. Once this has been done, an alert is shown indicating that the\nuser has experienced a leak, which can include data such as photos, videos and\ncontact information, entitling the user to compensation of thousands of\ndollars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, fraudsters do not just ask for a user to\nenter a bank card number and wait for the payment to be credited; users\ninevitably need to offer their own social security numbers (SSN \u2013 a nine-digit\nnumber issued to US citizens as well as permanent and temporary working\nresidents).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In any possible scenario \u2013 be it the absence of the\nSSN or entering the correct existing SSN \u2013 the website alerts mistakes and\noffers to sell a temporary one for the US$9 price. Upon agreement, the victim\nis redirected to this payment form in Russian or English with the purchase\nprice specified in rubles or dollars respectively. The specific form depends on\nthe victim\u2019s IP address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe scammers themselves are most likely Russian\nspeakers, as suggested by the request for payments in rubles, plus the\nsuspicious similarity of the scheme to other easy money offers that regularly\ntempt residents of Russia and the CIS,\u201d said Tatyana Sidorina, security expert\nat Kaspersky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe e-bait in those schemes varies – giveaways,\nsurveys, secret retirement savings, even a part-time job as a taxi dispatcher –\nbut they tend to be in Russian (as are some of the preceding links). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe bottom line is always the same – the juicy\npromise of quite a bit of easy money, followed by a demand to pay for an\ninexpensive service, be it a commission, a \u2018securing\u2019 payment, or a temporary\nSSN. The new scheme is quite a topical one and is related to offering\ncompensation for data leaks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce some organisations have started to pay users,\nfraudsters decided there is a monetary opportunity for them as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In order to stay protected from the potential risks of\nonline fraud, Kaspersky experts advise:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kaspersky experts have detected a new online fraud scheme designed to trick people into thinking they are owed compensation. Under the pretext of offering compensation for personal data leaks, scammers instead urge users to buy \u2018temporary US social security numbers\u2019 worth around US$9 each. Victims were found in Russia, Algeria, Egypt and the UAE, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":31490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,298,9057,19,13,262],"tags":[1085,424,11336,226,8583,1302,1639,12310,12311,186],"class_list":["post-31489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-enterprise-security","category-main-story-newsletter","category-north-africa","category-regional-news","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-algeria","tag-egypt","tag-ip-address","tag-kaspersky","tag-kaspersky-security-cloud","tag-russia","tag-social-security-numbers","tag-ssn","tag-tatyana-sidorina","tag-uae"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31489"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31513,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31489\/revisions\/31513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}