Rising cyber threats target social media in New Zealand

A recent report by Gen has revealed a notable increase in cyber threats through social media platforms, with phishing and malvertising standing out as the top threats in New Zealand.

The report, covering the period from October to December 2024, indicated a significant rise in extortion mails in New Zealand, with a 21% increase noted.

Phishing and malvertising were identified as the top two threats on social media, followed by scams involving e-shops and financial fraud.

Phishing appeared as a more prevalent threat in New Zealand compared to global statistics, which show e-shop scams as more dominant internationally. There was an observed 157.14% rise in coinminer threats and over a 100% increase in misleading attacks termed as "scam-yourself" attacks in the same period.

Financial scams, however, saw a decrease of 64% in share of malware in New Zealand during the quarter, although there was a slight increase in December.

The Gen Q4/2024 Threat Report uncovered that 2.55 billion cyberthreats were blocked in the final quarter of the year, translating to 321 threats per second. The report highlighted that social engineering attacks made up a significant 86% of blocked threats.

Siggi Stefnisson, Cyber Safety CTO at Gen, expressed concern over the growing sophistication of scams, stating, "We're continuing to see scam-related threats becoming far more dangerous as they hide, sometimes in plain sight, throughout every aspect of our digital life. This quarter we saw them prey on people's emotions, such as the need to shop on budget during the holidays, the desire to find love during the end of the year, the hope for change during government elections and more. And, unfortunately, this is resulting in people continuing to lose money and control over their personal information. In 2025 we only expect these risks to increase as the rise of AI-powered systems and devices will mark the next frontier for cybercrime."

The report identified platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Telegram as primary vectors for these scams. Facebook accounted for 56% of the identified social media threats, followed by YouTube and messaging app Telegram, the latter being utilised by scammers due to its privacy features.

Various forms of scams were revealed in the report, including deceptive online ads (malvertising), fake e-shops, and phishing, with respective threat percentages highlighting the prevalence of these tactics.

The largest financial scam during this period involved deepfake technology by the CryptoCore group, which used doctored videos in a scheme targeting YouTube accounts, managing to defraud victims of over USD $7 million.

Mobile threats also rose, with developments such as DroidBot and ToxicPanda aimed specifically at stealing banking and cryptocurrency information, while spyware apps promising quick loans introduced further risks.

Gen noted continued concern over personal data theft, with a noticeable 130% increase in "Scam-Yourself Attacks" aimed at data theft and fraud.

Ransomware incidents also continued their upward trend, marking a 50% increase during the period, pointing to ongoing challenges in securing digital environments for users globally.

Gen has implemented measures to counter such threats, including a Clipboard Protection feature across its brands Norton, Avast, and AVG, designed to block clipboard-based threats before they could cause harm to users.