Advanced fee fraud cases rose by 600% between 2020 and 2022, according to a new report from the U.K.'s Office of National Statistics.
The report claims the attacks accelerated during the pandemic.
AFF scams involve the victim being asked to pay an upfront fee or provide personal information in exchange for a promised reward or financial gain.
- To deploy the attack, scammers are using threat vectors such as impersonating legitimate businesses or government agencies and social hacking.
- The most commonly reported types of these scams are:
- romance scams,
- lottery scams,
- and employment scams.
- The report warns that these types of scams are likely to continue to increase in frequency as scammers become more sophisticated and target a wider range of victims.
Zoom Out:
- In 2021, a woman in Australia had $2.2M stolen by a scammer she met online.
- In 2022, another woman in Australia was scammed out of $11,000 by a man she met online who used a fake identity.
