Social Media 2020 Is 'The Perfect Storm' For Online Scams

A worldwide pandemic, mass unemployment and nationwide protests and rioting — there are many important issues occupying everyone's collective attention. Sadly, this kind of large-scale distraction is fertile ground for hackers.

"We have the COVID disaster combined with the economic disaster combined with the protests," said Adam Levin, cyber security expert and founder of CyberScout, to Yahoo Life. "We are now in the middle of what can be considered a perfect storm for scammers."

Levin says that the current climate of our nation has set the stage for an online scam trifecta: motive, means, and opportunity.

"The motive for scammers is, for the most part, financial gain," he continues. "The means is phishing, spear phishing, vishing (phone-based phishing), or smishing (SMS- or text-based phishing)," among other things. And the opportunity? "Anything that in any way touches something impacted by COVID," he says, from stimulus check messaging to health updates. The ways in which online activism will motivate scammers remains to be seen.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been urging consumers to beware of online fraud, and they confirm that victims of scams have lost more than US$ 13 million — and counting — since the coronavirus outbreak. "Oftentimes the only reason you haven't experienced identity theft is simply because they have access to so many people and so much information, they just haven't gotten around to you yet," Levin said.

The good news is everyone is not powerless—far from it.

For instance, "during this disaster, there are legitimate organizations out there raising money to help victims of COVID and their families," says Levin. The same can be said of charities collecting funds for human rights and equal justice.

But do the research before entering credit card information. "There are scammers out there that come out with fake charitable requests," says Levin. "The avenues that these can come through are obviously email, and then we have 'smishing,' or SMS phishing."

This means everyone will get a text message from a number claiming to represent a Black Lives Matter (BLM) charity and asking to donate online. The FTC notes that telltale signs of a charity scam include a sense of urgency, vague claims about how the money will be used, or even a message thanking the user for a donation they never made. Check all charities against Charity Navigator to make sure they're legit.