Avast, a leading provider of cybersecurity software, has released its Q4 2022 Threat Report, which closely examines the kinds of scams that prey on unsuspecting consumers.
One of the most well-known scam types was social engineering, which highlights the human error, as well as techniques for refund and invoice fraud and purported tech support scams. Like in prior quarters, lottery-related adware campaigns were still widely used.
In addition to scams, the business identified two zero-day exploits in Chrome and Windows, which have since been patched, underscoring consumers' need to maintain software updates.
Widespread email fraud
Jakub Kroustek, Director of Avast Virus Research, argued that hackers attribute a significant percentage of their success to human nature, which causes us to react with urgency, anxiety, and a desire to recover control of situations.
According to Kroustek, "at the end of 2022, we witnessed an increase in human-centered threats, such as scams tricking people into thinking their computer is infected, or that they have been charged for goods they didn’t order. It’s human nature to react to urgency, and fear and try to regain control of issues, and that’s where cybercriminals succeed.
When people face surprising pop-up messages or emails, we recommend they stay calm and take a moment to think before they act. Threats are so ubiquitous today that it’s hard for consumers to keep up. It is our mission to help protect people by detecting threats and alerting users before they can do any harm, using the latest AI-based technology.”
During the latter months of 2022 running up to Christmas, an alarming rise in the refund and invoice fraud was observed, with duped victims giving hostile actors access to their screens and online banking. Uncertain individuals may prefer to go directly to the platform's website and use a number they are sure of rather than dialing the number on the scam email.
Along with the Arkei information stealer, which showed a startling 437% growth, other lottery-style popups and other sources of data theft also occurred. Among other places, Arkei is renowned for stealing data from autofill forms in browsers.
Two zero-day vulnerabilities have also been discovered in Windows and Google Chrome. According to Avast, the risk to users was reduced because both businesses were alerted and responded quickly.