Fraud involving gift cards
- Updated at March 18, 2021
- By Gatefy
- Blog, Security News
Business Email Compromise (BEC) is one of the most dangerous digital threats. BEC is a form of spear phishing. It’s when criminals impersonate an executive or director of a company to lure employees and induce them to take an action.
We are talking about this threat because the FBI issued an alert saying it has seen an increase in the number of complaints involving BEC and gift cards. The fraud has been applied by email, call and text message.
“In a typical example, a victim receives a request from their management to purchase gift cards for a work related function or as a present for a special personal occasion. The gift cards are then used to facilitate the purchase of goods and services which may or may not be legitimate”, said the alert.
The FBI also says that, in some cases, criminals are going further and requesting extra wire transfer payments.
Table of Contents
How to recognize a malicious email
It´s not easy sometimes, but there are a few tips to recognize a malicious email. We wrote an article about it: Malicious emails: 7 tips to recognize them
Phishing and spear phishing
If you would like to have more info about phishing and spear phishing, please, take a look at this post: What’s the difference between phishing and spear phishing attacks?
