Hackers target biometric selfie and ID document check popularity with new phishing attacks

The rapid rise in popularity of identity verification services based on biometric selfie and ID document checks has given rise to a new kind of phishing scam, in which cybercriminals ask potential victims to confirm their identity by providing a selfie with an ID document to a certain webpage, according to SecureList.

The new attack is noted in the Q3 2019 spam and phishing report from Kaspersky. The fraudulent webpage looks quite convincing, with a privacy policy and user agreement linked. Other similar attacks observed in Italy simply requested victims email their selfie image to a specified address to be included in a smartphone giveaway.

Some Facebook users, meanwhile, received emails stating that they had to provide similar images and medical insurance details to prevent the deletion of their accounts following complaints about content in their posts to the social media site.

The report also covers a series of scams relating to Amazon Prime, application of fairly traditional scams to YouTube and Instagram, and phishing campaigns related to the launch of the new school year and new Apple products.

The attacks targeting facial images and ID documents indicate the importance of liveness detection for systems securing sensitive data or transactions. A Mitek survey recently showed that though most people now rely on digital identity in some form every day, only one in four “fully understand” it.

Goode Intelligence forecast earlier this year that the global digital identity and document verification market will reach $15 billion a year by 2024.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital identity  |  face photo  |  facial recognition  |  hacking  |  identity document  |  identity verification