A recently, Ms. T.H from Hanoi received a call from a person claiming to be a district official requesting the update and synchronization of personal data information on the national public service portal. Due to busy schedule, unable to go to the district police headquarters to complete the procedure, Ms. T.H was instructed to do it online at home, access the link to perform the data information synchronization.
After accessing the link sent by the “district official”, Ms. T.H’s phone hung up. A few hours later, when she accessed the phone again and checked her account, she found that all the money in her bank account had disappeared.
Angry because her money was hacked, Ms. T.H posted the incident information on social media. When the information was shared, she received a message from a man claiming to be a “police officer” from the Cybersecurity and High-Tech Crime Prevention Department of the Ministry of Public Security.
This person informed that he would support Ms. T.H in investigating and recovering the lost amount. After providing complete information, Ms. T.H was asked to transfer 1,000,000 VND processing fee for the case. Trusting because she noticed the “professionalism” from the information declaration requirement of the “police officer”, Ms. T.H transferred the full fee. However, right after that, Ms. T.H noticed that this person’s account suddenly blocked her messages.
Ms. T.H’s case is not rare. Recently, the Information Security Department warned about the situation of impersonating the police, lawyers to support victims in recovering lost money.
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According to the Information Security Department, recently, many Facebook accounts have appeared impersonating leaders, officials from functional agencies, legal offices providing support services for victims of online scams.
Targeting the psychology of wanting to recover lost money of the victims, the impostors pretended to be cybersecurity officers to support the recovery of scam money. Some individuals introduced that they would support the recovery of deceived money, committing to recover the money with quick and effective procedures that are much simpler than going to the police to report.
Afterwards, the individuals instructed and required the victims to pay fees to support or perform tasks to withdraw the hanging money on the system when someone transferred money. The individuals informed that the bank account was faulty and unable to withdraw money.
The Information Security Department recommends that people, especially victims of fraudsters, increase vigilance. In case of receiving suspicious calls impersonating, people can record the call, save the phone number, and promptly report to the nearest police agency to report the case. People should also regularly update and grasp information about cybersecurity issues; always be cautious of inviting greetings on social media; absolutely do not provide personal information to avoid being stolen and used for illegal purposes.
