Scammers are using the crisis faced by victims of Hurricane Ian to steal government funds and personal information, according to experts at several cybersecurity companies.
Hurricane Ian — the deadliest hurricane to strike the state of Florida since 1935 — directly caused the death of at least 137 people and $67 billion in insured losses. Thousands of people were displaced by the destruction caused by the category 4 hurricane.
But as recovery efforts coalesce, Cofense principal threat advisor Ronnie Tokazowski said he has seen evidence showing scammers are going after relief funds available to those in need from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Tokazowski said a colleague in Nigeria shared screenshots with him of hackers speaking on WhatsApp about ways to steal disaster relief assistance. The screenshots show scammers instructing people of ways they can file fraudulent claims on DisasterAssistance.gov.
“In the first image, scammers instruct other scammers to select the option of ‘Hurricane/Hail/Rain/Wind Driven Rain’ as what type of damage occurred, and to select the option of ‘Tornado/ Wind’ damage,” he said.
“In total, the documents and images shared by scammers are a total of 23 different steps, each of which details what to say, how to fill out the application, and what type of information can be used to file a fake claim. To note, the social security numbers (SSN) that are…
