One of the best ways to avoid getting involved in a scam online is to get tooled-up with knowledge on what some of the most common online scams actually are. A little know-how will help you recognise them from a distance, and stay well clear.
Avast has decades of experience in this field. Not only does Avast provide virus protection, it made the Avast Assistant, which offers up-to-date AI-powered guidance on emerging online scams.
These scams are more sophisticated than they once were. You won’t only be offered fictional fortunes by far-away princes in the latest online scams, which often do their best to appear entirely naturalistic and benign.
One example Avast has told us about is the delivery message scam. You may well have seen these yourself. They will often arrive as a text message that appears to come from a courier. It may, for example, tell you that your package is delayed and a redelivery needs to be organised by clicking a link.
The website that you are then taken to may look like that of a courier, claiming you need to provide your payment details to receive the package. But it is of course nothing of the sort. Avast Premium Security can help flag these messages, so you don’t get sucked in.
Impersonation scams: what you need to know
One other kind of ruse you may encounter on your phone or over email is the impersonation scam. This is another case of the scammer pretending to be someone they are not in order to get a person to hand over money or their financial details.
That claimed identity can vary, and one of the classic examples for UK folks is the HMRC. The scammer may claim you owe money, an attempt to leverage the power of HMRC to make it feel as though urgent action is needed. Once again, Avast’s software can help give you a heads-up when it spots an email it thinks may be fraudulent.
In recent years Avast has also noticed a rise in impersonation scams claiming to be from family members.
One example is an SMS message that will purport to be from your child, or another close family member, who has lost their phone and is therefore calling from a new number. They may ask for money, once again leaning on a sense of urgency to try to get you to act before thinking.
Avast’s Scam Guardian Pro can help identify these malicious texts, highlighting that they may not quite be as they appear. This is often all it takes to make you safer from scams, in encouraging you to take a moment to reflect before tapping or clicking an unfamiliar link.
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An era of deepfakes
Current developments in technology also have a hand in how these scams operate. As in many areas of online life, we all need to be more aware of deepfakes.
These are being used to make scams much more advanced, turning a persuasive-looking written sentence into a voice or video clip many may struggle to identify as a fake. This is a rapidly developing area, but the technology is already being used in romance scams where the person you think you are having a video chat with may not be a real person at all.
This area in particular can be a tricky one for even the more tech-savvy user to counter, but Avast is on the case already with the Avast Deepfake Guard. It analyses audio and video “in real time” on your device to look for clues you may be looking at or hearing a fakery.
“These scams often involve AI-generated voice impersonations or fake video streams of public figures promoting fraudulent offers, tricking victims into sharing sensitive information or sending money,” says Avast.
Deepfake Guard is included with Scam Guardian Pro on Windows and is available within Avast Premium Security and Avast Ultimate, which offers protection for both your computer and mobile device from £19.99 for your first year at the time of writing. Avast Ultimate, which includes VPN access for more comprehensive security, is also available for £26.99 for one device for the first year of coverage*.
*savings compared to renewal price. Terms apply.
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