Scam of the week 3: Financial Aid for Ukraine

During a humanitarian crisis, such as we are seeing in Ukraine, malicious threat actors often try to take advantage of people’s generosity, using social engineering techniques to defraud the well intentioned.

As one might predict, there has been a recent spike in these incidents, mostly in the form of phishing emails urgently requesting financial aid for Ukraine, with fund transfer options including crypto-currency, credit cards, or wire-transfer.

This article contains things to watch out for and some tips and tricks for donating online safely.

Things to watch for:

• Text or email messages from individuals requesting aid. Although these cases are often heart wrenching, one cannot verify the legitimacy of these claims. Threat actors will commonly use emotional manipulation to try to scam you. Therefore, the best way to help individuals is through organizations and not through individual donations.

• Urgency in the request. Threat actors will often try to create a sense of urgency. Be wary of any person that is attempting to get you to send funds; as soon as possible. No matter how urgent the situation, it is always best to verify that the request is legitimate before transferring funds.

• Donation requests that involve the buying/sending of digital assets (Crypto Currency). Reputable organizations will almost always accept Canadian dollars via secure credit card transactions.

• Trending charities on social media. Although legitimate charities do utilize social media, it is important to verify the legitimacy of any organization through known legitimate external sources before donating.

• Organization websites with non-secure UR Ensure that your URL has a lock on the left and the prefix contains “HTTPS” not “HTTP”. If the websites prefix is “HTTP” leave the website immediately.

Good:

Bad:

Donating Safely:

Here is a list of Do’s and Don’ts to mitigate your risk while donating.

Do:

• Verify the legitimacy of an organization.
• Donate via official organization websites.
• Talk to a representative from the organization to ensure you are following the proper donation procedure.
• Donate with traceable payment methods.

Don’ts:

• Do not donate money via wire transfer, gift card or cryptocurrency.
• Do not donate to individuals. It is impossible to verify the legitimacy of claims.

References:

“Beware of Charity Scams Exploiting War in Ukraine.” WeLiveSecurity, 1 Mar. 2022, https://www.welivesecurity.com/2022/02/27/beware-charity-scams-exploiting-war-ukraine/.

“R/Facepalm – Scammers Have Sunk Even Lower. How Absolutely Disgusting.” Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/t12qdl/scammers_have_sunk_even_lower_how_absolutely/.