17 February 2023
Cybercriminals use multiple social engineering tactics when conducting phishing attempts- such as taking advantage of current events and people’s emotions.
Unfortunately, this has been seen after the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, where phishing attempts are preying on people’s desire to help and donate. This includes reports of fraudulent emails, texts and social media appeals which pretend to be from charities or relief organisations to solicit donations. For example, phishing emails will include links which lead users to non-legitimate crowdfunding pages or fake donation websites of well-known NGOs.
There are examples/screenshots of these phishing emails in a recent article by TrendMicro here.
To avoid falling for these tactics, it is important to be vigilant and follow LSE’s cyber security tools. Here are some steps you can take:
1. As always, be vigilant and sceptical of unexpected emails or text messages. It is important to take a suspicious approach if an email is asking you for personal information or donations. Also, don’t click on links or download attachments that you are not certain about.
2. If you are unsure about the legitimacy of an email, send it to phishing@lse.ac.uk in the form of an attachment and we can check it for you.
3. If you decide to donate, verify the legitimacy of charities that you are sending money to by taking the time to research them. Also, ensure that you are using secure websites (for example, if the website displays a padlock icon in the address bar and its URL begins with “https” then it uses encryption to protect information). Also, only use trusted payment methods to donate money.
In conclusion, the Turkey and Syria earthquakes have brought about incredible acts of kindness from people, however, this has also been taken advantage of by cybercriminals. By ensuring that you stay vigilant and follow cyber-security protocol, you can prevent falling victim to phishing and ensure that your donations go towards legitimate causes.