Guest Post: Think you’ve won a prize? Cybersecurity experts expose the hidden dangers of fake lottery scams

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 23, 2025 by itnerd

Consumers are being tricked into paying upfront fees for non-existent prizes cybersecurity experts share how to spot and avoid these growing scams

More and more people are falling for fake prize scams, where scammers trick them into thinking they’ve won big in a lottery, sweepstakes, or contest they never entered. These fraudsters play on excitement, promising life-changing prizes – only to ask for upfront payments for supposed taxes or fees.

Once the money is sent, the scammers disappear, leaving victims empty-handed and out of pocket. It’s a growing problem, and experts warn us to stay alert to avoid becoming the next target.

“The scammers behind these fake prize schemes are sophisticated, often using personal information to make the scams appear more believable. The emotional effect of ‘winning’ a big prize only makes it harder for people to think critically,” says Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity expert at NordVPN

The hidden dangers of prize scams

While these scams might seem obvious, fraudsters are constantly evolving their tactics. Scam attempts can be extremely convincing, with phony calls, emails, and even fake websites designed to deceive victims into providing their personal information and making payments. 

In 2024, prize scams were the most commonly reported fraud in the US, making up 38.27% of all scam reports, according to the National Consumers League. Also, the Federal Trade Commission reported that in 2023 alone, consumers lost $301 million to lottery and prize scams, with an average loss of $907 per person. These numbers highlight the ongoing impact of prize-related fraud.

“Scammers use a variety of tactics to make their scam seem real, including spoofing caller IDs, sending counterfeit documents, and creating fake websites that mimic legitimate lottery organizations. They know how to play on human emotions,” explains Warmenhoven. 

Spotting the red flags of fake prize scams

To protect yourself from falling victim to prize scams, Warmenhoven urges everyone to watch out for these common warning signs:

  1. Unexpected prize notices: If you didn’t enter a contest or lottery, it’s a scam.
  2. Upfront payment requests: Legitimate organizations don’t ask for money upfront to claim a prize.
  3. Pressure tactics: Scammers often create a sense of urgency, threatening that you’ll lose your “winnings” if you don’t act immediately.
  4. Too good to be true: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Protecting yourself from prize scams

Adrianus Warmenhoven emphasizes the importance of staying vigilant and skeptical when receiving unsolicited communication about prize winnings. “Always verify the organization’s legitimacy and never share personal information, such as bank account details or Social Security numbers, over the phone or online unless you’re absolutely sure the source is trustworthy.”

It is recommended to remember that if you didn’t enter a lottery or sweepstakes, you didn’t win. The best defense against these scams is awareness. If you have any doubts, contact the supposed prize issuer directly through official channels, and never provide personal information unless you’re sure it’s real.

ABOUT NORDVPN

NordVPN is the world’s most advanced VPN service provider, chosen by millions of internet users worldwide. The service offers features such as dedicated IP, Double VPN, and Onion Over VPN servers, which help to boost your online privacy with zero tracking. One of NordVPN’s key features is Threat Protection Pro, a tool that blocks malicious websites, trackers, and ads and scans downloads for malware. The latest creation of Nord Security, NordVPN’s parent company, is Saily — a global eSIM service. NordVPN is known for being user friendly and can offer some of the best prices on the market. This VPN provider has over 7,300 servers covering 118 countries worldwide. For more information, visit https://nordvpn.com.

Saviynt Brings Platform-Centric Identity Security to Center Stage at RSA Conference 2025

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2025 by itnerd

Saviynt today announced its featured participation at RSA Conference 2025, taking place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. With a strong presence on the show floor April 28-May 1 at Booth #N-5163, and a full schedule of thought leadership and networking opportunities, Saviynt will put identity security at the center of this year’s cybersecurity conversation.

The platform-first mindset will be prominent at RSA, where Saviynt’s leadership will highlight how identity security is reshaping enterprise security in a digital, AI-driven world. Saviynt’s Chief Trust Officer, Jim Routh, will also take part in three high-profile speaking engagements, offering expert insights on generative AI risk, the evolution of the CISO role, and the growing trend of CISOs stepping into entrepreneurial and venture capitalist roles.

Featured Saviynt Speaking Sessions

Fireside Chat: Levi’s Modernization Journey: On Tuesday, April 29 at 2:10 p.m., attendees can hear how Levi Strauss & Co. transformed its identity program to support enterprise-wide modernization in this fireside conversation with Saviynt Chief Product Officer Vibhuti Sinha and Levi’s Director of Enterprise Security Aaron Anderle.

CISOs Who Transitioned to Entrepreneurs and Venture CapitalistsRouth will moderate this compelling conversation with former CISOs who have successfully pivoted to build companies and back startups. The session explores the skills, mindset, and lessons learned from navigating the shift from enterprise security to the innovation economy. Attendees can join this session on Wednesday, April 30 at 11 a.m. at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

CISOs UnchainedJoin a powerhouse panel of longtime CISOs – including Edward Amoroso, Kirsten Davies, Charles Blauner and Routh – for an unscripted, interactive conversation about the future of the CISO role. During this session on Thursday, May 1 at 1:30 p.m., expect candid perspectives on risk, resilience, and how the job continues to evolve in real time.

AI Governance in Action: Balancing Innovation and Risk in the Age of GenAIIn this deep dive into AI governance, Routh will unpack on Wednesday, April 30 at 2:25 p.m. how organizations can responsibly implement generative AI at scale. Attendees will gain practical guidance on building cross-functional governance teams, aligning AI initiatives with core business values, and maintaining cybersecurity while driving innovation.

Experience Saviynt at RSAC 2025

Saviynt OnsiteDuring expo hours, attendees can stop by Booth #N-5163 in the North Expo or register for a demo of the Identity Cloud. Attendees can explore how Saviynt helps organizations manage complex identity environments with AI-driven insights and intelligent automation.

Saviynt Social at Holbrook HouseConnect with identity professionals and Saviynt leaders over food, drinks, and great conversation in the relaxed, stylish setting of the Holbrook House on Wednesday, April 30 from 5:30-9:00 p.m.

GuidePoint Security RSA PartyJoin Saviynt and GuidePoint on Monday, April 28 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at The Grand Nightclub for an evening of networking with top cybersecurity minds in a lively and informal setting.

To book a demo, join an event, or schedule time with a Saviynt expert, visit the website.

Check Your Exposure to Plant a Tree for Earth Day

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2025 by itnerd

In celebration of Earth Day, SOCRadar has announced that, for every person who downloads a SOCRadar Dark Web Report between April 22-29, a new tree will be planted. 

To contribute to this Earth Day initiative, you can run a scan of your dark web exposure here:https://hubs.la/Q03jfzLc0 By the end of the week, you will also receive a certificate showcasing your contribution. 

This initiative has been going along for several years now and coincides with SOCRadar’s promise to plant a tree for every person who reports a bug on their platform. This dark web report instantly finds out if your organization’s data has been exposed on dark web forums, the black market, leak sites, or Telegram channels. 

Over 200k patients had SSNs and medical info leaked in 2 healthcare breaches

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2025 by itnerd

Today, Comparitech reported two cyber stories. In one, an Alabama eye doctor has notified 131k people of a data breach compromising SSNs and medical information. And in the other, 114k people are now confirmed to have been impacted by a breach against a Wisconsin ambulance company, also having medical info and SSNs leaked. 

In the blog posts reporting this news, Paul Bischoff, Consumer Privacy Advocate at Comparitech,commented: 

“Comparitech researchers logged 16 confirmed ransomware attacks on US hospitals, clinics, and other care providers in 2025, compromising the personal and health data of about 470,000 people.”

“Ransomware attacks on US hospitals, clinics, and other care providers can cripple key systems and endanger the privacy and security of patients. Providers must pay a ransom or face extended downtime, data loss, and putting patients and staff at increased risk of fraud. Hospitals and clinics may have to resort to pen and paper, cancel certain appointments, and divert patients elsewhere until systems are restored.”

This is a prime example of healthcare organizations being soft targets for threat actors. This needs to change as the status quo is not sustainable. It truly isn’t.

Targus shares its latest sustainability progress, aims to achieve net zero by 2050

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2025 by itnerd

Targus today announced that it has now recycled 37 million plastic bottles to date with 4.7 million water bottles in the past year alone by turning them into post-consumer recycled materials that are used in more than 60 products, including its laptop cases, tech accessories, and docking stations. Additionally, the company has achieved its goal of making 95% of its packaging fully recyclable while continuing to improve its global sustainability performance ratings with EcoVadisProject Gigaton™, and THESIS.

 In 2008, Targus began incorporating recycled materials into its EcoSmart® laptop bags by turning plastic water bottles into fabric. Since then, the company has evolved this approach by introducing recycled ocean-bound plastic to its laptop cases, as well as post-consumer recycled plastic to its tech accessories. For example, its award-winning ErgoFlip™ EcoSmart™ Mouse and Sustainable Energy Harvesting EcoSmart Keyboard comprise 85 percent post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials, operate on ultra-low powered Bluetooth®, and come in recycled packaging. Just in the past year, the company has launched 17 new EcoSmart products, such as its latest GeoLite™ EcoSmart CollectionAvila™ laptop bags for women, and EcoSmart keyboard/mouse bundles.

Rogers Awarded Canada’s Most Reliable 5G Network by Umlaut

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2025 by itnerd

Rogers Communications announced today that it has been ranked the most reliable 5G wireless network in Canada by umlaut, solidifying the company’s longstanding leadership in network reliability. 

The study shows Rogers wireless customers enjoy the best network performance in the country, winning umlaut’s “Best in Test” wireless benchmark award for the seventh consecutive year, as well as top performance in voice, data and reliability for wireless networks. Rogers has led on umlaut’s reliability testing since it was first introduced in 2021.

Umlaut, a global leader in independent benchmarking, measures network performance on smartphones based on extensive drive tests throughout Canada and crowdsourced data. The independent benchmarking organization tests over 200 mobile networks in over 120 countries. 

Rogers has invested over $40 billion in its networks over the last decade and will invest $4 billion in capital investments this year. Rogers is committed to bringing Canadians the biggest and best wireless networks. The company continues to invest to expand the country’s largest and most reliable 5G network, which now reaches more than 2,500 communities. 

OVHcloud announces General Availability of its Data Platform: an all-in-one, ready-to-use solution to unleash the full value of data

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2025 by itnerd

OVHcloud today launches its enterprise grade Data Platform solution. Centered on the importance and value of data, the innovative end-to-end PaaS platform helps organizations maintain a competitive advantage addressing the growing challenges around data such as volume, complexity and the rise of Generative AI.

The OVHcloud Data Platform enables users to collect, store, process, analyze, and visualize data in a trusted cloud environment. Being designed for and with data teams, the platform is a turnkey solution that democratizes access to analytics and data science. With a combination of services managed by OVHcloud (such as data streaming, storage, pipeline orchestration, advanced visualization and exploration tools), organizations can effortlessly focus on the value of their data without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. 

Improved operational efficiency in decision making

Answering organizational needs for Business Intelligence and Data Analytics, OVHcloud Data Platform helps to speed up and simplify the data journey in a number of verticals, including highly regulated industries. Examples of use cases can include: 

  • For retail & e-commerce, identifying customer groups based on their purchasing habits to tailor marketing campaigns and predict inventory needs.
  • For the Financial industry, the Data Platform provides the tools to assess portfolio risks, performs fraud detection and help in credit scoring use cases.
  • For healthcare, the Data Platform can assist use cases in clinical trials by analyzing patient data to speed up drug development and strengthen trial effectiveness.
  • In Media and Entertainment, the Data Platform can support in measuring KPIs from advertising campaigns and performing audience sentiment analysis.
  • Industry 4.0: the Data Platform can support use cases including supply chain optimization, predictive maintenance and quality control.

Utilizing AI and open-source standards in a full data journey

Featuring a range of services from data collection through the Lakehouse manager from external sources (including Object Storage, Apache Kafka, ClickHouse, MongoDB, MySQL, Oracle, HTTP/FTP, Google Analytics, Google BigQuery, Snowflake, X, OVHcloud API, etc.) to processing and storage, the Data Platform offers dashboards and insights to be shared via dedicated built-in apps or APIs.

Leveraging 10 years of ForePaaS technology, an OVHcloud acquisition, the OVHcloud Data Platform is perfectly tuned and optimized to operate within the OVHcloud portfolio. It relies on standard ANSI SQL or Python, and a number of open-source modern standards for data: Apache Iceberg, Spark, Pandas, Jupyter notebooks, Trino, SuperSet, Prometheus or Kubernetes.

An end-to-end solution tailored to all data experts

Unlike other data platform solutions, the OVHcloud Data Platform is a fully integrated solution that is easily accessible through a unique interface. It suits not only large and highly regulated organizations but also smaller and mid-size companies so they can benefit from advanced analytics services. Supporting data engineers, analytics engineers, data analysts, data scientists and dataops teams, the OVHcloud Data Platform acts as a complete data stack provided with a single pane of glass UI aimed at facilitating inter-departmental work.

The Data Platform workflow can further be enhanced using OVHcloud’s newly available AI Endpoints solution for multiple use cases like document data extraction, multi-modal transcription, automated data cleansing or anomaly detection. The service can also be used to accelerate the data-to-model lifecycle combined with serverless GPU-powered OVHcloud AI Training and AI Deploy services.

A sovereign and trusted cloud for the Data Platform

The OVHcloud Data Platform benefits from the Group’s open, trusted and sustainable cloud. Data is hosted in OVHcloud’s state-of-the-art cloud meeting the highest security standards, giving peace of mind to organizations that may have been hesitant to move sensitive data to the cloud because of security concerns. Data is hosted in Europe, providing protection against non-European regulations and giving organizations technical and strategic autonomy. The platform is also based on open-source technologies, providing users with superior data portability, control and freedom of choice.

Availability and pricing

OVHcloud Data Platform is now available in Europe from the Gravelines datacenter with a pay-as-you-go model. For a more predictable pricing, customers will soon be able to reserve capacity -depending on their needs- ensuring they stay in control of their cloud spendings.

KnowBe4 Marks 20-Quarter Leadership Streak in G2 Grid Spring 2025 Report and Named Leader in Two Categories

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2025 by itnerd

KnowBe4, the world-renowned cybersecurity platform that comprehensively addresses human risk management, today announced its PhishER product and its Security Awareness Training (SAT) software have been named the number one leader in the G2 Grid Spring 2025 Report for the 13th consecutive quarter and the 20th consecutive quarter, respectively.

The latest G2 Grid Report compares Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) software vendors and security awareness training (SAT) vendors based on user reviews, customer satisfaction, popularity and market presence.

Based on 2,026 G2 customer reviews, KnowBe4’s SAT remains the top ranked SAT product with 98% of users rating it four or five stars. The platform received the highest G2 score among products in the SAT category and is the only vendor with a score in the 90s. Additionally, 93% of users recommend KnowBe4 SAT to others. KnowBe4 also maintains the largest market presence among products in SAT and has been recognized as the #1 SAT vendor on G2 for over five years.

Based on 339 G2 customer reviews, KnowBe4’s PhishER is the top ranked SOAR software. PhishER has the highest satisfaction score among SOAR products in the category with 98% of users rating it four or five stars. Additionally, PhishER has been ranked as the number one SOAR software for three years and is recognized for “Best Results” and “Best Usability.”

For more information on PhishER, visit https://www.knowbe4.com/products/phisher-plus

To download a copy of the report on the SOAR market, visit https://www.knowbe4.com/g2-grid-report-for-security-orchestration-automation-and-response

For more information on KnowBe4’s SAT, visit https://www.knowbe4.com/products/security-awareness-training

To download a copy of the report on the SAT market, visit https://www.knowbe4.com/g2-grid-report-for-security-awareness-training

Boulanger’s 27 Million Records Data Breach Resurfaces for Free

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2025 by itnerd

The Safety Detectives Cybersecurity Team stumbled upon a forum post on the clear web where a threat actor posted a link to a database allegedly belonging to the French electronics retail store Boulanger Electroménager & Multimédia, which suffered a cyber incident in 2024. The data stolen is now being offered for free. 

The dataset is available in parsed and unparsed formats and contains 5 and 27+ million records from Boulanger’s customers. The data includes names, surnames, full physical addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers

This data is sensitive because it could be used by malicious actors to prepare and execute various types of attacks on the affected customers

The full report can be accessed here: https://www.safetydetectives.com/news/boulanger-leak-report/

SureStack AI Cybersecurity Platform Optimizes and Secures Cybersecurity Stacks in Real Time

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 22, 2025 by itnerd

SureStack today announced the launch of its AI-native cybersecurity platform, designed to help organizations ensure their cybersecurity stacks are optimally configured to prevent real-world attacks. Built on the company’s patent-pending “Resilient Intelligence” (RI), SureStack combines the power of Generative AI, years of human knowledge and expertise, and real-time environment analysis to give defenders a critical advantage against evolving threats. The platform delivers continuous validation, real-time alerts, and actionable insights to strengthen defense posture, eliminate cybersecurity stack misconfigurations, and ensure organizations get the best ROI from their security stack investments.

SureStack integrates directly with customers’ existing cybersecurity tools, including firewalls, endpoint protection, authentication, SIEM, ticketing, email security, and vulnerability management solutions. Once connected, the platform continuously monitors configurations for deviations, misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and gaps, providing real-time alerts through an intuitive dashboard. Current integration partners include: CrowdStrike, Fortinet, Palo Alto, Sonic Wall, and Trellix, with more on the way.

In addition to continuous monitoring, SureStack features StackChat, a secure AI cybersecurity assistant tailored to each organization’s infrastructure. StackChat allows users to query their live environments, troubleshoot issues, and access detailed information about deployed tools, configurations, and policies. By serving as a unified knowledge base and troubleshooting assistant, StackChat significantly reduces training time, accelerates operational efficiency, and helps security teams resolve issues faster.

Additional capabilities include:

  • Real-time stack validation against known threats and vulnerabilities.
  • Daily monitoring of the external threat landscape for emerging vulnerabilities tied to the customer’s deployed security tools.
  • Regular scraping of vulnerabilities specific to an organization’s security stack tools from security vendor websites, NIST, vulnerability databases, and more.
  • Automated grading system that highlights quick wins to help network defenders focus first on where they can improve their score and reduce risk.
  • Adversarial attack simulations, validating whether current configurations would stop common threat tactics and specific vulnerabilities SureStack has discovered, mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

Pricing and Availability

SureStack provisions a private tenant for each customer, supports flexible deployment and hosting options, including self-hosted environments for customers with strict compliance or sovereignty requirements.

SureStack is initially available with tiered pricing options for MSPs/MSSPs, mid-sized organizations, large enterprises, and government agencies.