Three delivery messages, and which one is real
Fraudulent parcel texts no longer look fraudulent. Three structural tests separate them from a genuine notification, and one fifteen-second habit defeats all of them.
Tag
#Social engineering
SIM swap: how a phone number stops being yours
Nothing is hacked. The number is moved by the company that owns it, on a request that looked legitimate — and your phone losing signal is the only warning you get.
A deepfake call is no longer easy to spot
Faces and voices are synthesised live from material already public. The visual tells are disappearing — the behavioural ones are not, and neither is calling back on a number you already had.
The charity scam that follows every disaster
Fraudulent appeals attach themselves to real crises, so the news being true proves nothing. Four checks that take four minutes, and one that is conclusive on its own.
The OTP code you were told to read out
The message arrives from the right number, because they caused it to be sent. Why the request itself is the answer, and the one method that cannot be spoken aloud.
Selling something second-hand without being scammed
When you are the seller, the fraud is on the payment rather than the item — and every technique reduces to one rule about when the money is actually yours.
The support chat that opened by itself
Because you arrived rather than being contacted, every instinct about unsolicited approaches is disabled — and searching for a helpline is how most people get there.
Screen sharing is remote access with better manners
The request sounds smaller than what it grants — and one familiar-looking prompt turns being watched into being operated.
Checking an invoice before you pay it
It rides on a real transaction between two parties who genuinely owe each other money, with one field changed — which is why it survives the scrutiny that stops other frauds.
Checking who actually published an app
A clone can copy the name, the icon and the screenshots. It cannot copy four years of unrelated software published under the same account, which is why the developer link is worth more than the review score.