![]() Be sure to follow me on Twitter at on Facebook at /DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at /DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at /DavidGewirtzTV.All PayPal scams follow a similar format and will try and inject a sense of urgency into your decision-making, but there are a variety of different types of PayPal scams. You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Let us know if you have any other safety tips in the comments below. That way, if you are hit by malware or some other attack, you can recover more quickly. ![]() Follow my advice and institute a 3-2-1 backup strategy. That will help prevent zero-day attacks from taking hold of your machine.Īnd, finally, back up your devices. Make sure your accounts all have two-factor authentication.Īlways update your operating system and browser when prompted. Don't call numbers that you can't verify independently. But even then, PayPal won't begin the process of sending money unless you have explicitly approved it.ĭon't click on links in suspicious email messages. The one exception to this is if you sign up for a subscription or a recurring donation. Keep an active eye on your finances and you'll be able to spot fraud attempts before it becomes too late to fix them.Īs for PayPal, understand that PayPal will never send payment without your explicit OK. Next, follow my advice about protecting yourself from credit card fraud and check your bank accounts and credit cards every week. Don't go through your day just mindlessly clicking to get through your email. My biggest piece of advice is simple: Pay attention. It's at this point that the scammers, pretending to be PayPal's fraud department, start asking questions, and by the time they're done, they've separated their victims from a treasure trove of personal identifying information, which can fuel additional attacks into the future and can even be sold to other scammers and criminals. That's when somebody gets the email and calls the number they think is PayPal to prevent the payment. 3: Pay out by giving away too much personal info: The big score, I was told by the PayPal agent, is actually the third prong of the attack. It's called a " one-ring phone scam" and it works by spoofing numbers, possibly connecting you to an international number where you're charged merely for connecting to the number. 2: Pay out by dialing the digits: The PayPal agent told me that the second prong of the attack that often also provides value to the scammers is the phone number they ask you to call.ĭepending on the scammer, the number itself may be billable. Don't pay enough attention, click the wrong button, and whoosh! Money gone. While it's fairly unlikely that anyone who gets hit with this attack will click "Send Money," all it takes is one or two people doing that to make the entire attack worthwhile from the scammer's perspective. 1: Pay out through PayPal: The first prong of the attack was the request for $699.99. ![]() This makes it pretty ideal for phishing attackers. Once that email address is fed in, PayPal does most of the work. It's a big part of what PayPal does, and it's a service that provides a lot of legitimate value to a lot of people. All they need to do is feed an email address into the PayPal interface and request money. While the email address used for this account wasn't one of my most actively used accounts, my email addresses have been all over the Internet for decades, so they're undoubtedly available to attackers.Īlso: Hackers commonly use these file types to hide malwareĪnyone can ask someone for money through PayPal.
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