Only in the first 2 quarters of this year, there were more than 5.52 million online phishing attacks recorded in Vietnam.
Scams in Vietnam are gradually becoming more sophisticated, causing damage up to 374 million USD in 2021. Photo: Reuters.
The Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) recently reported that online scams are becoming more complex and common.
The rate in Vietnam is highest in Southeast Asia
Specifically, in 2021 alone, the world has more than 266 million online fraud cases, causing about 50 billion USD in damage to Internet users.
In addition, Securelist data also shows that Vietnam is the country with the highest rate of online malware attacks in Southeast Asia.
Damages are recorded up to 374 million USD in 2021. Thus, on average, each fraud case in Vietnam causes losses up to 4,200 USD.
According to GASA, Vietnam is home to an online fraud rate of about 0.89 cases per 1000 people, with an average of more than 87,000 recorded scams nationwide. The report was collected by GASA from 2 Anti-Phishing projects, ScamVN and security company Group-IB.
GASA also said that online scams in Vietnam have gradually become more sophisticated and professional. For email scams alone, Vietnam ranks first in Southeast Asia.
Many new attack forms
In Vietnam, the data is collected by the Anti-Phishing project, ScamVN and Coc Coc, through the report on the website canhbao.ncsc.gov.vn and the malicious and fraudulent website inspection tool. Units supporting the report include the National Cybersecurity Monitoring Center (NCSC) under the Ministry of Information and Communications, and the Vietnam Counterfeiting Information Center (TINGIA).
Replying to Zing, a security expert of the Anti-Phishing project, said that the most common phishing tricks in Vietnam today are mostly through brand messaging services (SMS brandname), targeting banks to hijack the victim’s account. Tools to support sending SMS brandname can be purchased easily.
“The tool to support sending SMS brandname can be purchased online at a very low price. Due to its high anonymity and relatively easy manipulation, scammers create trust for victims by applying tools and devices to send SMS brand names under the official names of reputable banks in Vietnam. Therefore, users of banks will easily mistake this as an official announcement from banks or agencies.
When the user accesses the link in the message content, the system will automatically display a fake website with the same interface and logo as bank’s official website and is asked to fill in information such as name and login address, password, OTP code…”, this expert said.
Anti-Phishing Tool was integrated to Twitter in August, reducing the risk of sharing malicious links. Photo: Xuan Sang.
However, according to an expert from Anti-Phishing, the number of bank phishing attacks is showing signs of decreasing compared to the daily recorded data on the website chongluadao.vn.
In 2021, a total of 113,384 phishing websites were reported, and 22,518 websites were blacklisted by these organizations. According to tinnhiemmang.vn, since the beginning of the year, 122,427 fake organizations have been recorded, including 121,988 websites and 439 social networks.
Experts from Anti-Phishing shared a new form of fraud, impersonating brands like Tiki, Shopee, and Lazada to recruit collaborators, most recently the trick of stealing Telegram accounts in some non-technical ways (social engineering), enticing the victim to take a screenshot, causing the victim to lose the login authentication code (OTP), leading to the account being taken over. Next is black credit, which makes many people intimidated, smeared and bothered.
Despite being warned, the number of victims of online scams is still very large. Experts believe that the reason comes from the lack of access to information and the mentality of wanting to make a lot of money.
“Part of the reason why the number of scams is so high is that victims lack access to information, lack work or are not satisfied with their existing income. That leads to a number of young people to middle-aged people, mostly in remote areas are lured into fraudulent websites, appropriating property or information. Psychology leads to damage partly due to wanting a lot of money, not thinking carefully, partly because of fear and curiosity”, this expert shared.
To avoid fraudulent tricks, users need to carefully check the content of received messages, including branded messages from banks, organizations, etc. to detect fake messages. Users should also not rush to reply or follow the content in the message.
According to an expert from Anti-Phishing, when receiving questionable and unclear messages, users can call directly to the customer care centers of banks and organizations to check the information or ask for help from experienced consultants. When detecting fraudulent messages, you can report to the website canhbao.ncsc.gov.vn for timely handling and prevention.
Currently, the Anti-Phishing project is working with cybersecurity company Cyradar to share phishing website data, working with thuvienphapluat.vn to support victims legally, including the denunciation process with authorities.
In addition, the Chongluadao group on Telegram with more than 10,000 members also helps users update information and experience to protect themselves against online scams.
“Anti-phishing is a long-term task because criminals are increasingly sophisticated, using many different technological techniques to commit fraud. At the same time, they always think that many new fraud scenarios with large scale, complexity and sophisticated,” shared the project’s security expert.
With NCSC, this unit is implementing programs such as the campaign to clean up malicious code in cyberspace, weekly information security warning news, and malicious website inspection project (tinnhiemmang.vn) to provide providing reliable information and data, helping users protect themselves against the risk of online fraud.
@ Zing News
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Source: Vietnam Insider