According to Kaspersky Lab, in 2020 cybercriminals most often tried to make unauthorized money transfers using compromised accounts (in 36% of cases), or infected devices with malware for this (31%). Last year, malware attacks were the absolute leader, accounting for 63% of the total.
The researchers note that the proportion of incidents involving money laundering has quadrupled this year to 12%. To launder money, cybercriminals use complex and multi-stage schemes: they change accounts, companies, presentation form, currency, and jurisdiction many times.
In e-commerce, the most common type of scam has become the abuse of welcome bonuses in loyalty programs. The scheme is quite simple: attackers massively register accounts in the marketplace, receive welcome bonus points, and buy goods with a discount under the bonus program. For example, in one case, a fraudster bought up diapers and sweets, and then sold the purchased goods for himself on popular trading platforms. In the future, the created accounts were not used, their average life was 1-2 days.
“The use of applications with remote access tools remains one of the most common methods of fraud. In addition, the attackers have mastered the scheme of spoofing numbers for incoming calls. Unfortunately, bank clients often fall for this bait, because they are used to the fact that a real call from a financial institution can be made from different numbers, ”comments Ekaterina Danilova, Business Development Manager at Kaspersky Fraud Prevention.