Scammers disguise as Bahrain Health Ministry staff seeking vaccination details to hack phones, bank accounts

TDT | Manama  

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Staff Reporter

Many have reportedly fallen prey to a new scheme set by scammers in which they disguise themselves as Health Ministry staff seeking details on vaccination from the victims to offer a ministry-issued certificate. Upon giving the details, OTPs were sent to the victims and sources told The Daily Tribune that those who shared the passwords with scammers had their smartphones hacked and banking details stolen.

A WhatsApp message being circulated among the expatriate community urges caution against the scammers, who in their latest fraudulent scheme, are disguising themselves as Health Ministry staff. The newspaper earlier reported on scammers targeting many by sending SMSs in the name of the Crime Investigation Department (CID). “I never knew it was a scammer, who was behind the SMS. And, in a momentary lapse, I clicked on the link they had sent to me,” a woman resident in the Kingdom had told The Daily Tribune. She has been advised to alert the bank officials with regard to safeguarding her account.

The Daily Tribune has been carrying many reports in the last few months about fraudsters targeting the online banking and financial transaction network in the Kingdom. The published articles carried the plight of many citizens and expatriates, who together lost thousands of Bahraini dinars to the scammers. Most of the victims have launched a complaint with the police department, pleading for an intense probe into the matter.

It is learnt that many banks are flooded with calls from frantic customers saying they have been conned out of their money by scammers after hacking their bank accounts or fund transfer system. Ajesh Panchavila Gopinath, a Bahrain resident, who lost in excess of BD850 to the scammers, has even threatened his bank of filing a criminal complaint with courts, for the former’s alleged inability to carry out a probe into the matter.

“Now, it has been over four months. And so far, no effort is seen to have been taken in the matter by the bank to recover my hard-earned money from the people who looted it,” says Ajesh in a letter written to the CEO of the bank. Earlier, speaking to The Daily Tribune, Ali Beshara, the Head of Information Security and Risk Management at The BENEFIT Company, attributed the rise in online fund transfer scams to lack of alertness from the part of users.

Mr Beshara also pointed out that this kind of cybercrime involves ‘social engineering’ - a term used by information security professionals to describe the action from the part of hackers, who deploy their highest social engineering skills to get information, which is supposed to be kept secret, private and never shared, from their victims. Cybersecurity experts have always been highlighting the need to protect Unified Payment Interface and online transactions from scammers in light of increasing online payments.

They include not responding to calls and text messages from strangers along with putting up different passwords on different accounts and UPI apps. The Central Bank of Bahrain, many a time, has carried out campaigns and circulated messages alerting over the possibility of falling victims to online fraudsters.