The Judiciary Police (PJ) urged members of the public in a statement yesterday to be wary of their phone’s messaging software being hacked for a “guess who I am” phone scam.
According to the statement, the Judiciary Police recently received a report from a resident about the “guess who I am” phone scam, in which scammers hacked into the phone’s messaging software of their victims’ relatives and called them by using the invaded messaging software. The statement said that the scammers told their victims that they had been arrested for frequenting a prostitute overseas and asked them to pay bail on their behalf, adding that soon after their victims had agreed to transfer money to them, the scammers asked for even more.
In recent years, the statement pointed out, there have been fraud cases, in which criminals hack people’s social media platforms or messaging software, using the respective account holder’s identity to defraud others.
The statement underlined that an overseas messaging software company was reportedly hit by large-scale customer data leakage recently. Therefore, the police urged the public to be more vigilant in preventing fraud, adding if “relatives and friends” ask for financial assistance, they should verify their identity and not transfer money rashly, so as to avoid possible losses.
According to reports last week, over 410,000 local telephone numbers of WhatsApp users were believed to have been leaked.
The Judiciary Police suggested the public turn on dual security authentication for mobile phone’s messaging software accounts to improve their account security, while installing and updating anti-virus software and firewalls on their mobile phone regularly, changing their login password for their mobile phone messaging software or social media platform regularly, and avoid revealing any information about their relatives and friends as well as their own on social media platforms to prevent fraud.
This poster provided by the Judiciary Police (PJ) yesterday warns the public to be wary of the notorious “guess who I am” phone scam.
