One of the latest tricks employed by cybercriminals is the fake CAPTCHA scam. These prompts look familiar, even harmless, but are designed to slip past your defences. Here’s how they work, and how to spot them.

It usually starts with a harmless web search. You are attempting to locate a website for a product that you really liked, and as you click on the link, a familiar box pops up, asking you to prove you are not a robot. You see “I’m not a robot” written, and the checkbox. You have seen it so many times, so you don’t really give it much thought.