the Fraudian Slip Podcast: Nice Things – Cybercriminals Stealing One-time Passwords

• A new report from Intel 471 reveals that cybercriminals are going after one-time passwords, known as OTPs.
• The attackers deceive people into giving them a one-time password or other verification codes via a mobile device, which the criminals use to steal money from the now compromised account.
• Also, do not share personal information with anyone you do not know until you verify they are who they claim to be.
• To learn about recent data breaches, consumers and businesses should visit the Identity Theft Resource Center’s (ITRC) data breach tracking tool, notified.

If you believe you are the victim of an identity crime or a data breach, contact the ITRC. Call toll-free at 888.400.5530 or live-chat on the company website www.idtheftcenter.org.

Nice Things

Welcome to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s (ITRC’s)Weekly Breach Breakdown for October 1, 2021. Our podcast is possible thanks to support from Experian. Each week we look at the most recent events and trends related to data security and privacy. This week we dig into a troubling development that we all kind of knew was coming but maybe didn’t want to admit it. Cybercriminals are finding ways to steal those one-time passwords you send to your phone by text.

This is why we can’t have nice things in our adult world. Every time someone comes up with a new way of protecting our personal information from the grubby little fingers of threat actors, the criminals find a new way to steal our data. That seems to be the case when it comes to two-factor authentic education, also known as multifactor authentication, or MFA.

New Report Shows Cybercriminals are Targeting One-Time Passwords

This week, a cybersecurity research team at Intel 471 issued a report that noted, “Two-factor authentication is one of the easiest ways for people to protect any online account.” Now, criminals are trying to circumvent that protection. Cyber thieves are using various tactics to gain account information, including impersonating banks and legitimate services on phone calls.

Using social engineering methods, the attackers deceive people into giving them a one-time password or other verification code via a mobile device, which the crooks then use to steal money from the now compromised account.

The criminals buy easy-to-use applications that send a potential victim a text message requesting their phone number. Once a target’s phone number has been entered into a chat message, the malicious application takes over from there. The researchers at Intel 471 found that about 80 percent of people targeted by cybercriminals will end up providing their information to threat actors, allowing them to drain the money from their accounts.

Variations on these OTP attack schemes include:

• Specialty software that targets accounts on social media.
• Media networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
• Financial services like PayPal and Venmo.

Even an automated tool allows an attacker to make any phone call that appears to be from a specific bank.

Once a call is answered, the criminals use a script to trick potential victims into sharing information such as ATM, PINs, credit card verification codes or one-time passwords. Quoting the Intel 471 researchers again, while SMS and phone-based one-time password services are better than nothing, criminals have found ways to socially engineer their way around the safeguards. It was always a matter of time before the bad guys found a way around this layer of defense in these particular instances. The weak security link is the user who willingly gives information to someone they believe to be a legitimate representative at a company where they do business.

To Avoid an OTP Text Scam, the ITRC Advises You To

• Always verify the legitimacy of any contact you do not initiate, whether it is a phone call, email, text message or a social media instant message.
• Don’t share any personal information with anyone you do not personally know and trust until you verify the person contacting you is who they claim to be. Also, make sure they have a good reason for asking you for information they should already know.

Today is the first day of Cyber Security Awareness Month. The ITRC has a full list of activities planned, including participating in industry events and special guests on our sister podcast, The Fraudian Slip. We will also issue two very important reports this month. Next week, on October 6, we’ll publish our Q3 Data Breach Analysis that shows how many new data compromises were reported in the past three months and what the trends tell us.

On October 27, we’ll issue our very first Business Aftermath Report. As a companion to our longtime report on the impact of identity crimes on consumers, the Business Aftermath Report will look at what happens to small businesses and solopreneurs after a security breach, a data breach or both.