Phony covid and unemployment claims to boot

I’ve been sitting on stuff, and its time to try and catch up. We know that thieves have been taking advantage of our situation of not being able to work for some time now, and even before the pandemic, we’ve gotten the various phishing emails, sms messages, and even the telephone calls.

One phone call that I got within the past while had to do with someone claiming to call from the police department. They wanted me to donate $10 to help the police. While I support the police department, we are not responsible to pay the police department, they get paid by our taxes and other funding I may not be familiar with.

If the guy calling me was from the police department, the police department would probably be happy to send me information on what the money donated was to be used for. I told the guy to send me the packet, and he never asked for my address. I don’t believe police departments ask for money from the general public, they are paid again through the fines you pay and other means.

In June, KrebsOnSecurity was contacted by a cybersecurity researcher who discovered that a group of scammers was sharing highly detailed personal and financial
records on Americans via a free web-based email service that allows anyone who knows an account’s username to view all email sent to that account — without
the need of a password.

The source, who asked not to be identified in this story, said he’s been monitoring the group’s communications for several weeks and sharing the information
with state and federal authorities in a bid to disrupt their fraudulent activity.

The source said the group appears to consist of several hundred individuals who collectively have stolen tens of millions of dollars from U.S. state and
federal treasuries via phony loan applications with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and through fraudulent unemployment insurance claims made against several states.

This is only the first few paragraphs of this very interesting article I recently read from Krebs. Lets all be informed.