Las Vegas, Nev. (FOX5) – The FBI in Las Vegas urges all small businesses to take precautions against cybercriminals and inform any threat, since several restaurants become the last objective of online scammers.
Fox5 told him about the scheme: The scammers request payments ranging from $ 75 to thousands of dollars, or restaurants will be bombarded with false criticism of one or two stars on several platforms. The reviews will continue until the victim company meets the demands of the scammers.
Three restaurants in the Valle de Las Vegas tell Fox5, received a similar email that urged them to contact an email scam and contact a WhatsApp number from Poland.
After the business owners did not get involved, a follow -up email had a sinister tone: “Be careful. We are all the time.”
The reviews were marked by Yelp and eliminated rapidly; Google placed protections on the pages of restaurants, and all false criticisms were soon withdrawn.
Two of the restaurants told Fox5, presented an online report with the Complaints Center for FBI Internet Crimes.
The Las Vegas del FBI division explains why small businesses have become the last objective of these scammers, which could come from organized networks or even people in prison.
“It is financially motivated. They know that if you add up to enough people, you can find a subset that will be the victim of your scam,” said Spencer Evans, a special agent in charge of Spencer.
“Many times they take advantage of people’s insecurities and vulnerabilities. There is an urgency in the message. There is a language that seems that something horrible will happen if the person does not take measures,” Evans said, and pointed out that the tools of AI are helping foreign scammers to sound more legitimate.
If you receive these emails, do not open them, or even call: I could install without knowing malware on your computer or giving access to your information. Always report any email or threat to Complaints Center for FBI Internet Crimes.
“If we can find common trends among the groups that are aimed at companies, it is much easier to open an investigation and hold those who are responsible,” Evans said.
Like large corporations or government agencies, they have been victims of extortion or cybernetic phishing schemes, small businesses must take appropriate precautions and train their employees with a good “cyber hygein”: use caution when opening electronic emails from strangers, change passwords regularly and even protect your personal information, especially if you are a business owner.
“Make sure there is a clear dividing line between your personal information and commercial information. Many times, due to what can be found in the open source, a small business owner could be manipulated by a sophisticated scammer who has done some research and can threaten the employee or the owner of the company,” Evans said.
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