In what feels like a zombie returning from the dead… per some data items out recently and covered in Axios, spam calls, texts, emails, and social media posts are up.
The average American received roughly 42 spam texts just in the month of March, according to new data from RoboKiller, an app that blocks spam calls and texts.
- There were more spam calls last month than in any of the previous six months, per YouMail’s Robocall Index.
- According to a January report from the Washington Post, spam emails rose by 30% from 2020 to 2021.
- According to data from the Federal Trade Commission, there was an unprecedented increase in social media scams last year. Many scams were related to bogus cryptocurrency investments.
Why? It’s a pandemic symptom because it’s working.
According to data from the FTC, Americans reported losing $131 million to fraud schemes initiated by text in 2021, a jump of over 50% from the year before.
I was surprised spam is on the way up. It’s certainly not the attention grabber that ransomware is.
Considering the value of these scams and the prevalence of social engineering broadly as an attack vector, worth highlighting this trend.
Actionable? I’d think that ensuring your customers are looking at data holistically and understanding the threats posed by scammers leveraging social engineering would be an intelligent positioning. It’s easy to burn out one message – ransomware – so mixing things up keeps the message fresh.
And a reminder to keep an eye out for multiple kinds of threats.
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