Students searching for financial assistance can easily become targets of fake student grant and scholarship scams. Fraudsters often advertise attractive education funding opportunities through social media, email, text messages, messaging apps, and websites. A scammer may claim that you have been selected for a grant, scholarship, tuition assistance program, or government education fund. The goal…
Back-to-school shopping can be exciting, but it is also a time when online shoppers should be extra careful. Parents, students, and families may be searching for laptops, tablets, backpacks, shoes, uniforms, textbooks, stationery, and other school essentials. Unfortunately, scammers can take advantage of this increased demand by creating fake online stores, misleading advertisements, counterfeit websites,…
As students and parents prepare for the 2026–2027 school year, scammers are taking advantage of the increased demand for scholarships, financial aid, laptops and other educational resources. In August 2026, cybersecurity researchers reported a wave of back-to-school scam campaigns targeting students, parents and educators with fake education grants, scholarship offers, Pell Grant messages, free laptops…
As the 2026 back-to-school season approaches, parents, students, and guardians are spending more time shopping for school supplies, uniforms, electronics, textbooks, accommodation, and other essentials. Unfortunately, scammers also take advantage of this busy period. Fake online stores, misleading advertisements, phishing messages, scholarship scams, and fraudulent payment requests can make back-to-school shopping risky. The good news…
A new online shopping scam is targeting people searching for discounted Nintendo Switch 2 consoles. The scam uses attractive marketplace listings, unusually low prices, and instructions telling potential buyers to contact the seller by text message before purchasing. Recent reports describe Switch 2 listings on marketplaces such as Whatnot that advertise unusually cheap consoles and…
Artificial intelligence has made it easier to create realistic voices, and scammers are increasingly taking advantage of this technology to make phone scams more convincing. An AI voice scam call may sound like a family member, friend, boss, company representative, government official, or another person you recognize. The frightening part is that hearing a familiar…
ClickFix scams are a form of social engineering that trick people into performing actions that can expose their computers to malware. Instead of simply asking victims to download a suspicious file, scammers may use fake CAPTCHA tests, browser errors, security alerts, or software-update messages to persuade users to copy and run commands. The technique has…
Malicious browser notifications are unwanted alerts that can appear on your computer or smartphone after a website has been given permission to send notifications. While browser notifications are a legitimate feature used by many trusted websites, scammers can abuse them to promote misleading content, phishing pages, unwanted software, and fraudulent offers. The good news is…
Fake tech support pop-ups are deceptive browser messages designed to make you believe that your computer, phone, or browser has a serious security problem. They may claim that your device is infected with a virus, that your personal information is at risk, or that you must contact technical support immediately. Although these warnings can look…
