The removal of unprecedented scams has been continuous to ensure the security of internet users from all forms of cybercrime. The NCSC’s (National Cyber Security Centre) report revealed that over 2.7 million scams, malicious domains, and phishing operations had been disrupted for 2021, which is four times greater than in 2020.
NCSC disrupted a record of massive threat operations from last year after they expanded their actions in taking down as many malicious contents as they could online. The malicious operations involved in this movement include fake celebrity endorsement scams, missed delivery SMiShing, extortion emails, and many other fraudulent activities found in malware-infected websites.
In one of the phishing scams found by an expert, a threat actor impersonated the NCSC’s CEO to commit fraud on victims.
NCSC’s CEO, Lindy Cameron, is one of the many prominent names that scammers use to victimise people. From the phishing email, the security firm’s CEO was imitated to communicate with the victims about fake recovered money from a made-up threat incident. Then, the victims are instructed to reply with their details to get their allegedly stolen funds back.
The NCSC immediately took down the fraudulent operation. From the CEO’s statement, they explained that the use of their name is only one of the many attack vectors that threat operators use in victimising people. The situation is also a concrete reason for their entity to expand and strengthen its measures in defending innocent internet users from being compromised.
In 2021, NCSC also eliminated over 1,400 phishing campaigns targeting UK’s National Health Service (NHS) with threat actors tricking people about a COVID-19 vaccine rollout. The phishing scams are intended to steal sensitive data from the victims, such as their usernames, passwords, banking credentials, and contact details.
The security firm started disrupting these cybercriminal activities under their Active Cyber Defence program or the ACD. It is a program implemented to combat numerous cyberattacks worldwide that targets innocent people, private entities, organisations, and critical infrastructure.
NCSC’s ACD has grown and innovated itself over time, following the massive records of cyberattack disruptions from the previous years. The security firm highly encourages companies and organisations to work closely with them to improve their services further.
