You may want to be careful about clicking on a student loan forgiveness ad. The Tech Transparency Project reviewed the top Google searches with 'student loan forgiveness' and found almost 12% of the ads were showing potential malicious intent.
Although Google claims to have strict rules for ads, there is still a risk of scammers taking advantage of the paid search service. And now with the student loan debt being extended until August 31st by President Joe Biden, there is now newfound interest in student loan forgiveness.
In a statement by Michelle Grajales, a staff attorney in the FTC’s division of financial practices, “Scammers read the news, too,” Grajales said. “They follow those trends as well and, unfortunately, account for them in their pitches to consumers.”
It is important to treat every link as if it could be suspicious - no matter how enticing the 'offering' may be. Implementing new-school security awareness training within your organization can help your users identify specific types of attacks, and report any suspicious activity.
Bloomberg has the full story.
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