Hackers Move Fast

Hackers want to catch you off guard and play on your emotions to steal from you. One of the most popular tools they use is to leverage natural and man-made disasters. They will quickly register domain names like haiti-relief.com, or save-ukraine.com and build a high-quality website to collect donations.

Your donations will actually be going to the hacker’s bank account, or even the aggressors in a war. You might be funding the people exploiting those you are trying to save!

How to make sure your donations are going to those you are trying to help:

• Donate to one of the well-known organizations that provide humanitarian relief such as the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders.
• Verify that the charity you would like to donate to is legitimate by looking it up with one of these services:
• https://www.charitywatch.org/
• https://www.charitynavigator.org/
• Do not donate to people that call you on the phone, and don’t believe the Caller ID you see on your phone, that can be faked.

Here you can find a more in-depth article on avoiding scammers when making donations:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/giving-charity#avoid

Give with your heart, verify with your mind!