Blog
Updates, tips, and behind-the-scenes notes from the SAFE Portal team.
The Sign-In Window That Isn't a Window
A new phishing operation opens a Google sign-in window that shows the right address, the right padlock, and the right logo. It is a drawing inside the page. Here's how it works, the ten-second test that exposes it, and where SAFE Portal fits.
Read more →Open Enrollment Is Scam Season
Medicare Open Enrollment runs October 15 to December 7, and fraud climbs right alongside it every year. Here's what the surge looks like, the two shapes it takes, and the simple checks that hold.
Read more →The Breach Was Step One
The IDScan breach put a huge pile of real driver's license records in criminal hands. Here's how a breach like that turns into the phishing that shows up in your inbox, and the checks it can't get past.
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The Scam That Knows Your Coworker's Name
BYU researchers found people can't reliably tell AI-written phishing from the human kind, and that the most persuasive detail was a coworker's name. Here is where those details come from, why they work, and the one check they can't touch.
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The Help Desk That Calls You Is Never the Help Desk
Microsoft published research on attackers who call employees offering to help set up a passkey. Setting up your passkey was never the point. Here is what they were actually doing while they had you on the phone.
Read more →The Invisible Character in the Middle of "Funding"
Microsoft found a phishing wave that peaked past 2.3 million messages a day by hiding characters you can't see inside ordinary words. Here's how it beat the filters, and which defenses it couldn't touch.
Read more →The Bad Grammar Was a Budget
A hundred-plus tech companies just warned that AI-enabled attacks are about to get far more common, and pointed at hospitals and water plants. The part that matters for the rest of us is about cost. Every scam tell you were ever taught to watch for was really just a price tag, and the price has collapsed.
Read more →The Fake Bank That Outranks the Real One
For months we've told you to skip the link in the email and go to the site yourself. New research shows the most common way people do that — searching for it — is now being poisoned, with fake bank logins ranking above the real ones and playing dead whenever anyone checks.
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The Free Medicare Kit That Isn't
At least seven health systems are warning patients about the same fake email — a "MyChart Medicare Kit" that asks for your address and your Medicare number. Why this one works so well on people who are careful, and the one habit that beats it.
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The $913,000 Email — and the Five Days That Saved Most of It
The City of Pittsburg paid $913,839.81 to someone posing as a vendor it already knew, then got 76% of it back. How vendor impersonation actually works, why speed beat shame, and the three controls any small operation can copy this week.
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Back-to-School Scams That Don't Look Like Shopping
The IRS says school-season fraud is climbing again — and the scams doing the damage aren't fake supply stores. They're impersonated schools, scholarship bait, cloned voices, and strangers who skip you entirely and go straight to your kid.
Read more →Caught in the Wild: Real Facebook
Recent reporting describes a scam breaking the "check the sender" rule
Read more →Real Life Stories: Technical Support
A real story from a person like you!
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Caught in the Wild: Socially Primed
We take a look at some fakes powered by Prime Day hype
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Caught in the Wild: Perfect Fakes
We take a look at some very convincing fakes, and how SAFE Portal continues to protect
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Analyzing the Instructure Hack!
Instructure — What, Why, How?
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SAFE Portal is Live!
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Read more →Welcome to the SAFE Portal blog
A new home for our updates, behind-the-scenes notes, and the occasional thought on keeping everyone safe online.
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