Invest­ment fraud is causing huge losses

The half-yearly report by the “Nationales Zen­trum für Cyber­sicher­heit”, NCSC, focuses on the worst cyber secu­rity inci­dents of the first six months of 2022. Right at the top, you will find invest­ment fraud.

What do Roger Fed­erer, Elon Musk and DJ Bobo have in common? All three were exploited by internet crim­i­nals for dubious invest­ment trans­ac­tions without their per­mis­sion. Time and again, you can find lurid arti­cles cir­cu­lating in social media stating that some celebrity or other is sup­posed to have racked up huge profits with an invest­ment such as one into cryp­tocur­rency.

This scam also shows up in the cur­rent half-yearly report of the Nationales Zen­trum für Cyber­sicher­heit NCSC: Invest­ment fraud is one of the offences involving the highest amounts of damage. Over the first six month of the year, the NCSC was noti­fied of cases involving damage sums in excess of three mil­lion Swiss Francs, with six-figure losses per case not uncommon.

That fraud­u­lent invest­ment offers are having such a boom at the moment is due to the cur­rently unat­trac­tive infla­tion and interest sit­u­a­tion. Promises of high returns seduce vic­tims into ignoring all warning signs pointing towards a fraud.

You can find out more about invest­ment fraud and how you can pro­tect your­self in our new article on “Invest­ment fraud”.