FBI Tech Tuesday on Protecting from Spoofing and Phishing Scams

As part of the FBI’s Tech Tuesday series, the Phoenix, Arizona office has published an article warning of phishing and spoofing scams by criminal actors and actions to take to help prevent becoming a victim. It notes that phishing scams reported the most victims nationally in 2020, with more than 240,000 victims reporting about $50 million in losses. Meanwhile, spoofing scams saw significantly less victims, about 28,000, but victims reported a much higher money loss of more than $215 million. Some of the actions to protect against these scams include using anti-virus and anti-malware software, and setting the software to update automatically; not assuming that a message that looks like it is from a friend or business associate is real; and never giving out personal information over the phone or to unknown individuals. It also encourages victims of online scams to contact their local FBI office and to report the incident to the FBI’s Internet Crime Center. Read the article at the FBI.