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What do you get when you mix social engineering + identity/data theft - you get a debit card opened in your name courtesy of Sutton Bank
Quick recap of Social Engineering Attack
At its core, social engineering is not a cyber attack. Instead, social engineering is all about the psychology of persuasion: It targets the mind like your old school grifter or con man. The aim is to gain the trust of targets, so they lower their guard, and then encourage them into taking unsafe actions such as divulging personal information or clicking on web links or opening attachments that may be malicious
What is the Scam?
The Scam relies on:
- Stolen identity information
- Your willingness to scan or download the Cash App
If your identity / sensitive data has been stolen there’s a way to report this to the FTC - go to identitytheft.gov site & freeze your credit to prevent new cards.
We’ll go over steps on how to report & prevent this form happening.
How the scam works?
You receive the Cash App debit card in the mail, scan the QR code to activate the card. Then sync banking details to the account and load the card with money.
Once the card is activated scammers have access to your banking details & access to the user account associated with the card.
From there the money loaded to the card is either being transferred to another account or your locked out of the account the card is connected too.
For each debit card received there is a CashApp username written on the card. If you are unfamiliar with the account username then you should report the account as a scam.
Good news CashApp accounts will show the account creation date.
Your willingness to doubt if you requested the card plays heavily into this scams success rate.
How to Protect Yourself
If you're an existing CashApp user you can contact chat support and alert them of fraudulent accounts being created using your information.
Next look into enabling 2FA,or verify your account identity with CashApp.
Under profile settings you should see a feature to verify the account, this may potentially stop new accounts from being created using your identity.
Existing users can report the account as a scam. Search for the username listed on the debit card and click report
File a report with FTC & Freeze your credit
Visit the FTC (Federal Trade Commission ) Report Identity Theft,
identitytheft.gov.
resources: https://consumer.ftc.gov/features/identity-theft
When you place a security freeze, creditors cannot access your credit report. This will keep them from approving any new credit account in your name, whether it is fraudulent or legitimate.
To prevent new credit cards from being opened you can put a security freeze on your credit by reporting to one of the following sites:
- Experian
- Equifax
- TransUnion
Conclusion
If you randomly receive a CashApp debit card in the mail do not ignore it; take action to protect your identity and to report the scam account.
The scam is very simple but highly effective.Relying on the person to be unaware of the scheme you may assume you requested the card and begin to set up the account
By staying vigilant and carefully examine the user details you can stop yourself from falling prey to this elaborate social engineering attack.
