Scammers are using the EU’s new privacy regulations to steal your data

By Erin Winick

May 3, 2018

The GDPR is about to go into effect—the perfect cover for a new wave of e-mail hacks and cybercrime.

What the e-mails looks like: Attackers are sending messages that purport to be from companies affected by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. A prominent attempt, in which the sender poses as Airbnb, asks users to accept a new privacy policy and prompts them to enter personal information.

Nigerian princes, still going strong: E-mail fraud originating in Nigeria is more advanced than ever. Scammers nicknamed the “Yahoo Boys” have become famous for targeting Yahoo accounts. The fraudsters are being propped up by a deep criminal network.

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Old scams, new tricks: These scofflaws now imitate corporate e-mail accounts (or actually gain access to them) and use them to target small businesses, which tend to have more money in the bank than individuals. As their attempts get more advanced, the targets also get larger: according to security firm CrowdStrike, hundreds of millions of dollars a year are now on the line.

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