Online scammers are using the death of Pope Francis in attempts to steal data and scam people, according to research by cybersecurity firm Check Point shared with POLITICO.
Check Point said it had identified posts on social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok seeking to trick social media users into clicking on links embedded in the posts.
One example involved a link from a fake news story that led to a fake Google page promoting a gift card scam designed to get people to pay money or give sensitive info. Another post, on TikTok, claimed the news of the Pope’s death was a hoax, in attempts to spur online sharing. Other posts featured AI-generated images depicting the Pope.
Campaigns of this type often pop up around major news events, when hackers elicit curiosity and emotional reactions to try to lure unsuspecting users to fraudulent websites.
“Cybercriminals thrive on chaos and curiosity,” said Rafa Lopez, a security engineer at Check Point. “Whenever a major news event occurs, we see a sharp rise in scams designed to exploit public interest.”
Researchers have called this “cyber threat opportunism,” a phenomenon that spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Google identified 18 million malware and phishing Gmail messages per day related to the pandemic.
Instagram’s parent company Meta and TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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