Public Security Ministry warns of online scams

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)
Scammers often target elderly people, children, students, workers and office workers, the ministry said.

It said that online scams have been complicated. In the first six months of 2023, the number of online frauds surged 64.78% year on year and 37.82% over the second half of 2022.

Common tricks include offering cheap travel combos, conducting Deepfake, Deepvoice videos, verifying SIM card information, forging brands of organisations such as banks, State agencies, financial and securities companies to send fraudulent SMS messages to victims and forging official websites or blogs to trick victims and collect their personal information.

Scammers often pretend to be a teacher or medical worker reporting that a family member of victims is in the hospital due to accidents,
or play the role of recruiters to recruit young models.

Fraudsters also use phone numbers and pretend to be authorities, police, and telecommunications providers to make phone calls to victims to report their violations and require money transfers as fines.

According to the ministry, major reasons behind the situation come from Internet users themselves. Scammers tend to attack users rather than the devices.

It advised Internet users not to share their personal information in the cyberspace, setting up strong passwords for their online accounts, and applying information security methods to prevent information loss./.

VNA