With the 2020 election less than three weeks away, it has been discovered that voters are being taken advantage of. According to Huffington Post, scam artists are posing as political action committees (PAC) in emails in an effort to steal people’s personal information.
Citizens have been regularly receiving warnings from cybersecurity experts. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Better Business Bureau have warned that several fraudulent sources are targeting voters with sophisticated email messages to steal phone numbers, addresses and bank account information. Sam Small, chief security officer of digital security firm ZeroFox, says that these scammers often use important occasions such as elections, disaster relief, and health crises to lure their targets.
Read More: First day of early voting in Georgia is met with long lines
“Psychologically, these scams play to our desire to do something – to get involved, to donate, to take action,” said Small. “Give them something to work with and they’ll find a way to make a dollar.”
Small added that these scammers make their emails look as legitimate as possible in order to convince voters to relinquish their information.
“Someone could use that to pretend to be a political action committee raising money, to try to get your personal information or your account numbers,” Small continued.
Read More: Democratic enthusiasm believed to be behind record early voting turnout
Better Business Bureau’s chief marketing officer Paula Fleming says that such con artist actions are on high alert due to the contentious, divisive election between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
“Every election is heated, but this one is very much so,” stated Fleming. “People are more trusting when they see it’s a political party or a candidate they like emailing them.”
The FBI revealed that there had been an uptick of fraudulent emails since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. Its cybercrime reporting site has been getting between 3,000 to 4,000 complaints per day since COVID-19 hit the nation, which is up from 1,000 per day prior to that.
Have you subscribed to theGrio’s podcast “Dear Culture”? Download our newest episodes now!
TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and Roku. Download theGrio today!