Internet scams these days are mostly about money. However, there are always other scams that are particularly popular and preferred by hackers.

In this article we will tell you which scams you currently need to be particularly wary of. We spend a lot of our time online these days. Even when we're not online, many of our devices are always online. No wonder, then, that digital security plays a very important role in our modern society.

If you want to feel safe online, you should first know how scammers and cyber criminals operate and what measures they take to obtain personal data and the like.

Scams are as old as the Internet itself. Anyone who has fallen for a scam once will probably be careful in the future so that it doesn't happen again. The bad news, however, is that scammers are always coming up with new ways to trick people, and they are quite creative.

You probably can't stop these scammers, but if you keep yourself informed about the latest scams circulating on the Internet, you will recognize them in good time and can therefore feel a lot safer. For this reason, we would like to inform you about the current scams and tell you how to recognize them.

Current scams

1. Survey Scams

Survey scams are particularly common at the moment. It is usually suggested to you that it is a survey regarding your own interests. In return, you will be promised vouchers, coupons or other great offers. The criminals then have your data and can sell it to large companies and in the end you get absolutely nothing in return, apart from your PC being infected malware It's best to ignore such surveys completely unless you have specifically registered for them.

2. Illegal sports betting sites

Sports betting and other gambling are widespread on the Internet. And since there is always a lot of money involved in these activities, it is hardly surprising that there are scams here too. To avoid falling for this, you should always make sure that the gambling provider has a license from a recognized local gambling authority before you try a game. It never hurts to find out about the provider online first.

3. Fake websites

Scams from this area usually look like this: you receive a link that takes you to a page that looks legitimate at first glance and asks you to provide certain information. This often happens with a pop-up that tells you that your computer has been infected with viruses and that you now need to take certain steps to secure your data. In this way, scammers want to get information such as usernames, passwords and so on.

4. The “Nigerian Prince” trick

Here you will be contacted by email from a person who claims to be a Nigerian noble or something else. You should help these people transfer large sums of money abroad. To make this transaction possible, the victim must grant access to their bank account and also pay fees for it. As a reward, it is promised that part of the assets will then flow into the injured party's bank account. Luckily, this scam is easy to avoid because if you receive dubious emails from unknown senders, you should never give them access to personal data anyway.

5. The Hitman Scam

This scam is still relatively new and really scary. The motto is: pay or die. You receive an email in which a person tells you that they have been tasked with killing you. However, you are given the opportunity to transfer a certain amount of money to the “hired killer” and he will then spare you in return. He will also tell you who the person is who wants you dead. This might sound ridiculous at first, but imagine you suddenly receive an email like this. This is definitely frightening at first.

6. CryptoCurrency Scams

The aim of these scams is for the fraudsters to make you believe that their cryptocurrency is THE big payment method of the future. You are now getting a great deal and the coins at a particularly low price, but after the release the value of this currency will skyrocket. In this case, we can only advise you to be well informed and do some internet research before taking advantage of such an offer.

For more general security on the web, you should consider getting a VPN . Finally, there are other security risks than scams. Thanks to the encrypted and secure data transmission, a VPN makes life difficult for potential attackers.

Article image: Shutterstock / Rawpixel.com


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )