What is pretexting?
Pretexting is the creation of a plausible story or pretext in the victim’s mind that induces an emotional trigger and compels victims into giving up their personal information, making a payment, granting remote access to their devices, and other similar situations where the victim either ends up losing their personal information (Identity theft) or ends up losing money to the attacker.
The IRS Scam is a great example of a pretexting scam, Where the attacker impersonates an IRS official and creates a plausible story of the victim missing the deadline for filing taxes. Using this Pretext the attacker creates a scenario where the victim either pays the amount or gets arrested inducing an emotional trigger of fear in the victim’s mind making him pay.
Pretexting can also be used with Social Engineering making it further difficult to detect. Pretexting when combined with social engineering helps in making the pretext more realistic, increasing the chances of a successful pretexting attack. Creating a fake document, using an email address resembling a trusted authority, Sending Malware or Spyware as email attachments, and Using Spoofed Numbers are some of the ways of combining Social Engineering with pretexting.
The Geek Squad Email Scam is a great example of a pretexting scam combined with social engineering, where attackers send a Geek Squad invoice to the victims with a similar-looking email address creating a sense of trust in the victim’s mind and ending up in either taking their information or Money.
Pretexting Scams often rely on manipulation and pressure tactics. Scam artists and social engineers are expert manipulators who understand human psychology. They design their pretexts keeping strong emotional triggers like fear and greed in mind. These emotional triggers help attackers manipulate victims into giving up personal information and money. Attackers also know that all the scams are time-sensitive and if allowed more time than required their pretext can fall apart. To tackle this situation, they use pressure tactics that force victims to act quickly.
Top 5 Pretexting Scams:
IRS Scam:
The intimidating image of the IRS makes up for just the perfect pretext scammers need to scare victims and extort money. The scam begins with a cold call as an IRS officer informing the victim of tax defraud, he/she has done and there is a case and arrest warrant against them. The whole motive of this pretext attack is to scare the Victim by leveraging the IRS authority and extorting money in the form of gift cards and cryptocurrency.
Pig Butchering Scam:
The pretext in this scam induces greed in the victim’s mind which later acts as a slow poison in killing his/her bank balance. A highly profitable investment opportunity is presented and if opted, good returns are provided to the victim. After receiving such good returns, trust develops and greed is enhanced. The convenience of quick and easy money can weaken even the sanest. When wanting to invest more the scammer informs the victim that the investment opportunity is a miraculous prodigy and is now selectively available for the high-profile investors. After further request, a chance is given to the victim generally at a much higher investment amount (generally more than $100,000). Once the money is paid in cryptocurrency the victims are duped and the pretext has worked.
Sextortion Scam:
The pretext preys on Lust. A desire so wild to control acts as fuel in the fire of sextortion pretext. Among all the scams this one is the most unethical as it preys on minors, messes up their mental health, and even forces them to commit suicide. Scammers impersonate attractive girls on social media and connect with teenage boys. The conversation quickly turns into sexual from casual and nude pictures and videos are exchanged. Once In control of the nudes of young boys, the scammers blackmail them to pay money or face the embarrassment of social shame as they threaten to share these photos with their parents and on social media. This scam has cost the lives of more than 20 minors till now.
Romance Scam:
Executed under multiple pretexts, the military romance pretext is the most common. A soldier deployed in a very remote location looking for love. The conversation happens mostly on text and phone calls, video calls and personal meetings are avoided. The aim like any other pretexting scam is to obtain money.
Toll Tax Scam:
Currently trending in the USA, Scammers send text messages claiming there is an unpaid toll and a link to make payment. A simple pretext combined with social engineering is proving to be effective in conning people. Here is more details about Toll Tax Scam.
How to Eliminate a Pretexting Attack:
The key to eliminating any pretexting attack is to control emotional triggers and obtain information from the right channels. Always remember that the pretext of any scam is built to emotionally trigger the victim so that the victim starts feeling things instead of understanding things. This puts the victim into a flow state of following instructions of the scammer.
If we can just stay calm in that emotionally triggering situation and obtain information from the right channel half of the job of eliminating pretexting scams will be done. If you get a threatening call from the IRS, hang up the call and call your local IRS office or visit them. If Someone offers you a good investment opportunity, investigate the company, and check their physical office. Simple wise decisions that kill your instinct to act immediately are the key to eliminating pretexting scams. Apart from this, the following 5 steps can help:
- Verify Identities: Always verify the identity of the person contacting you. Use official channels to confirm their identity before sharing any personal information. For instance, if someone claims to be from your bank, call the bank directly using the number on their official website.
- Be Skeptical of Unsolicited Requests: Be wary of unsolicited phone calls, emails, or messages asking for sensitive information. Legitimate organizations typically do not ask for personal details in this manner.
- Educate Yourself and Others: Stay informed about common pretexting tactics and educate your family, friends, and colleagues. Awareness is a powerful tool in recognizing and avoiding scams.
- Limit Sharing Personal Information: Be cautious about the amount of personal information you share online or over the phone. Scammers often use publicly available information to make their pretexts more convincing.
- Report Suspicious Activity: If you suspect a pretexting attempt, report it to the relevant authorities or the organization the scammer claims to represent. This can help prevent others from falling victim to the same scam.
How The Scam Protector Can Help You in Protecting Against Pretexting and Other Scams:
Every year more than a million people become victims of online scams losing billions of dollars to online scammers. These innocent people Suffer from financial losses and mental and emotional trauma for a very long time. This happens due to a lack of education and knowledge about online scams. If these people just knew how to act in the heat of a scam situation, their lives would have been financially and emotionally better today.
Another issue with online scams is that they are very closely associated with technology. With new technological developments like Artificial Intelligence, scams are becoming more sophisticated and hard to recognize.
At the Scam Protector, we constantly analyze emerging scams and financial threats that can harm you and send it to you every Monday summarizing it in a newsletter for FREE. Once you already know the dirty tricks scammers are going to execute on you, protecting yourself becomes a piece of cake. Our mission is to protect people from online scams by spreading awareness. You can also support us in this noble cause by joining our newsletter for free and help in protecting innocent people.
