Don’t click that link!
The rise of online tax scams worries one expert as tax season approaches and online scammers churn out eerily convincing emails.
Cybersecurity expert Chester Wisniewski told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Friday: “I’m concerned because we haven’t really seen this level of quality from criminals in the past.
Over the past decade, scams pretending to originate from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) or involve what looks like an official Interac Electronic Transfer email have become extremely sophisticated, says Wisniewski. , as the criminal network that generates these scams continues to grow.
He said that international scammers even follow the Canadian spelling in their emails to make Canadians more trustworthy, making it harder to spot the warning signs of scams.
“There are no tell-tale signs that most people assume something’s wrong. They don’t look amateur, they don’t make typos or grammar problems,” he said.
Cybersecurity expert Chester Wisniewski says Canadians need to be more aware of the sophisticated phishing emails that are becoming more persuasive and frequent. Image credits for Sophos X-Ops.
The people behind online and internet scams pretend to be a known, generic business or organization or they act as a target business with which an individual currently has a relationship; like the banking institution they use every day. According to the Canada Anti-Fraud Center (CAFC), 9,000 online scams and frauds were reported to the CAFC in 2021, costing victims $54 million.
These scams have evolved from small criminal groups into entire networks where criminals can buy and sell their services to send and create these fake emails, Wisniewski said. He explains that a job in this market can be like an individual being hired to create a bank’s logo and write emails in the primary language of the country being targeted. It can also involve hiring a computer for rent, which is then used to send phishing scams to as many victims as possible.
“The people who do each job in the crime ecosystem have done it very, very well, and that increases the success rate of criminals who can steal larger amounts of money,” he said.
PROTECTED, SPECIAL BETWEEN TONS OF COMPANIES
The CRA details on its website that they will never ask for immediate payment or send an online link to your refund and that they will only contact individuals to notify them. about a new message, then instructions to access their CRA portal.
Since the CRA will only reach individuals online for message alerts, Wisniewski said, it may be easier to detect fraudulent activity from scammers posing as CRA. However, he said he was concerned about emails from scammers posing as banking institutions or targeted businesses, especially after recent cybersecurity attacks.
Indigo was recently affected by a cyber attack that affected the bookstore chain’s website and electronic payment system. While it’s not yet known if customer data will be affected, Wisniewski explains that similar cyberattacks to gain access to customers’ personal data can make email scams more common. should be more believable.
Cybersecurity expert Chester Wisniewski says Canadians need to be more aware of the sophisticated phishing emails that are becoming more persuasive and frequent. Image credits for Sophos X-Ops.
“We see them impersonating famous brands after these massive hacks, where they now know all of these people either have a Marriott Rewards number or they know that everyone has an Indigo account,” he said.
“As a result, this adds credibility to something you’ve already interacted with.”
Finally, Canadians need to be on the lookout for suspicious and unsolicited emails, texts and phone calls as scammers kick off tax return season, Wisniewski said.
He recommends that you don’t click on any links for payments you don’t expect, or if you’re being emailed from the CRA, go directly to your CRA account, instead of clicking any any link, to see if the message is actually authentic.
“I hope that we will not only continue to see them, but that we will probably see them more, with more frequency, as we get closer to tax day,” he said.
