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Cybercriminals are using
pandemic to trick vulnerable
Anna Collard, Managing
Director of KnowBe4 Africa,
says cybercriminals are
using the pandemic to scam
desperate people.
In the US, a popular job placement
agency was used as the hunting
grounds for scammers looking to take
advantage of people in desperate need
of work. The scam was simple –
set up an alluring job offer, get
victims to enter highly sensitive
personal information, use the
information to either draw the
victims into personalised scams
or to sell on to fraudsters. The
entire con was designed to prey
on the vulnerabilities of those
most affected by the pandemic.
According to Anna Collard,
Managing Director of KnowBe4
Africa, this is just the tip of
the iceberg.
“It is truly awful how scammers are
using social media and phishing
campaigns to take advantage of
misfortune,” she adds. “Those who
are most likely to fall for these
scams are those who are the most
vulnerable and really need the
money that’s being stolen from
them. These scams are playing into
people’s fear and anxiety to trick
them into making decisions they
normally wouldn’t make.”
It’s a dark kind of clever and
it’s permeated all countries and
continents. In Africa, a scam
used a fake social media profile
of Margaret Kenyatta, Kenya’s
president’s wife, to trick people into paying
money to benefit from a Coronavirus relief
fund. The scam asked people to pay KES 599
to register for the fund and the money went
directly into fraudster bank accounts. There
are variations of this across the continent.
“There are numerous WhatsApp scams
currently circulating,” says Collard. “They
invite people to join amazing investment
schemes that sound fantastic but are
actually phishing scams and chancers
Anna Collard, Managing
Director of KnowBe4 Africa
looking to take what money they can during
the crisis. There is a trend of scammers
shifting their attention to mobile platforms
as people tend to be more aware on email
than they are on their mobile phones and
many of Africa’s mobile users are exposed to
the Internet for the first time.”
In South Africa, the pandemic has seen
many people register for grants from
the Social Security Agency (SASSA) and
scammers are pretending that they’re from
the agency, getting people to pay
a fake ‘registration’ fee. SASSA has
been alerted to the con and has
told citizens that the registration is
free, but there are still people who
need the grants and who don’t
know what to look out for to spot
a fake. It’s easy for them to fall
for scammers asking them to pay
to get their service or share their
personal information.
“Older scams are also being
repurposed for the pandemic,”
said Collard. “The voucher scheme
that uses the names of well-known
retail brands has recently come
back. This asks people to register
for fake vouchers and thereby hand
over a ton of personal information
because they’re being promised
extra discounts and savings
because of COVID-19. People are
more vulnerable because of fear
and stress, and the desperation of
losing money, so they’re falling for
these scams because they want,
and need, the help.”
Collard advises that people need
to be more careful and aware than
ever before. If it seems too good to
be true, it probably is. •
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