Tag: mexico whatsapp number data

The scam that circulates digital services via WhatsApp is still actively widespread, with which one pretends to be a relative of the victim in emergency and makes him lose the money in his current account, with the persuasion to carry out banking operations in favor of the criminal, masked precisely behind the new telephone number of the relative.

 

Dario Fadda

Whatsapp scam
It begins as often happens with what seemed like an emergency from children or grandchildren and ends with the financial loss from one’s digital services current account . This is how a scam works that has returned to massacre relatives’ current accounts. And it is spreading more and more via WhatsApp.

Table of Contents

“Hi Mom This Is My New Number”, WhatsApp Fraud
The latest case: 5 thousand euros lost by a mother
How WhatsApp Fraud Works
Next step: artificial intelligence
How to defend yourself from scams
“Hi Mom This Is My New Number”, WhatsApp Fraud
The criminal exploits elderly targets, presumably taking data (phone number and personal details) from any old online leaks or through simple digital services phishing attacks. Once he has verified that the number found is present on WhatsApp, he starts a conversation pretending to be the victim’s son.

WEBINAR
Reinvent Your Insurance Customer Experience: Discover the Case of BNP Paribas

FinTech
InsurTech
Before filling out the form, please read the’Digital360 privacy policy And Intesa’s privacy policy

Carrying on the conversation with the emergency

of having to make a bank transfer and representing the impossibility of completing it with one’s own means having changed number, one asks for help from the “mother” by inviting her to do this for him, through a hypothetical ” friend ” who will act as a bridge in this operation.

No bridge and no emergency, in reality it is just a fraud and the person indicated as the beneficiary of the transfer will not be in any case a friend actually known by your child. On the contrary, it will be the accomplice (almost always a front man who is difficult to prosecute), who will serve the criminal to withdraw all the money paid and escape with the loot.

The latest case: 5 thousand euros lost by a mother
The scam is becoming quite widespread, thanks of course to the widespread diffusion of the well-known Meta app for instant messaging. Crime, as we have seen very often, follows trends, usability and widespread diffusion, to spread its work.

Although the scam is not a new concept mexico whatsapp number data and already known, it is the recent case described by the Twitter user @WebMarkeThink yesterday, which gives further proof of its effective exploitation, with 5 thousand euros lost by the grandmother in this way.

How WhatsApp Fraud Works digital services

 

By exploiting this mechanism, which simple tips to protect your wifi network at home has nothing to do with technology and is known as social engineering, the next step is to exploit the rules of the banking institutions to then escape with the loot. In fact, an instant transfer is request and , in this case, within the limits proposed by the institution precisely to avoid running into operational problems (5,000.00 euros as a maximum).

The peculiarity of this type of transfer is that it is not “reverseable” , there is no possibility of canceling an instant transfer precisely because the bank does not have a dead time of “processing” on this transaction. The transfer is immediately and automatically delivered to the beneficiary’s account. If the beneficiary is ready, on the other end of the “phone”, to withdraw the sums from an ATM, as they arrive, when the victim realizes that he has been scam, it is already too late.

Next step: artificial intelligence
Experts – such as Bruce Schneier – also report that the continuous and natural evolution of this fraud is the use of artificial intelligence, precisely to be able to carry on even voice conversations, simulating with these algorithms the tone of voice of our relative known to us, and not be recognize as scammers, not even during a voice call.

How to defend yourself from scams digital services

What can be done to avoid these scams is dating data to talk about them, to raise awareness as much as possible even among the public who are less accustom to these message systems, so that they do not trust an unknown message to make real charges from their current account.

Contact in person, always and in any way your relative who is involve by the criminal, before making any charges. Even credit institutions, for their part, can play an important role in this battle, for example by tightening the limits of use digital services of instant bank transfers (when the net is too loose), as well as the reiteration of operations of this kind and also the evaluation, on a 24H basis, of the monitoring of suspicious operations, identifiable precisely by the analysis of the daily habits of a customer which, if they differ in the specific operation, suspend them until verification. Better a temporary disservice, than a permanent economic loss.