Cybercriminals are using
pandemic to trick vulnerable
Anna Collard, Managing
Director of KnowBe4 Africa,
says cybercriminals are
using the pandemic to scam
desperate people.
n the US, a popular job
I
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 said.
“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
Anna Collard, Managing Director of
KnowBe4 Africa
These scams are
playing into people’s
fear and anxiety
to trick them into
making decisions
they normally
wouldn’t make.
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,” said Collard. “They
invite people to join amazing investment
schemes that sound fantastic but are
actually phishing scams and chancers
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. u
intelligent SOFTWARE SECURITY
www.intelligentciso.com | Issue 28
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