Increase defense against fraud in the financial and banking sector

Fraudulent tricks to appropriate assets in cyberspace are constantly changing and complex.

New tricks constantly appear

A familiar trick of scammers is to prey on people's greed. Accordingly, scammers create stock exchanges, multi-level exchanges, virtual currencies... with advertisements of high profit percentages, easy money, then luring the victim to try it out, earned a large profit, then became even more ambitious and continuously deposited money.

After successfully "fattening" their prey, the criminals will give many reasons so that the victim cannot withdraw money and have to pay more fees, then lock the account, crash the exchange and then take the money away.

In the case of July 19, 2024, Vietnam Social Security received information from Binh Duong Province Social Security about a fake document sent by Vietnam Social Security to an elementary school in Binh Duong province via email. This fake document requested the cancellation of insurance books, health cards and simultaneous conversion of numbers to the VssID 4.0 application using a chip-embedded citizen identification card; at the same time, request the provincial social insurance agencies to urgently deploy and update the VssID 4.0 application.

Regarding the above information, Vietnam Social Security affirmed that the document with the above content is fake to steal personal information, then steal personal accounts, causing financial damage to people and affecting the reputation of the social insurance industry.

Also recently, information from the General Department of Taxation said that it has received many reports about the situation of fraudsters using a number of technological and technical tricks to impersonate tax officials or tax authorities, fraudulently steal and appropriate information and assets of taxpayers. The subjects even faked brand message from the General Department of Taxation to spread fake messages, provide fake links and instructions to take control of phones/computers to appropriate money from bank accounts...

Previously, scammers also pretended to be airport or customs employees... demanding to pay customs clearance money to receive gifts and then appropriated them. Along with that are a series of tricks that scammers have continuously changed the script, updating according to trends in people's lives, especially the digital transformation moves of management agencies, thereby carrying out property appropriation.

Technology moves ahead and accelerates communication

According to a recent report of the Department of Information Security (Ministry of Information and Communications), carrying out the work of inspecting and reviewing information security in cyberspace, the National Cyberspace Safety Monitoring Center (NCSC) has recorded 124,928 website pretending to be agencies and organizations. In June alone, 68 more websites appearing impersonating the brands of agencies and organizations to scam users were discovered. Notably, these are 28 websites impersonating banks, 2 websites impersonating the electronic information page of Vietnam Social Insurance and 1 website impersonating the website of the Government Inspectorate.

According to this agency, subjects use fake websites of authorities, financial and banking institutions, e-commerce platforms, large companies... to defraud and cause damage to people in cyberspace, and at the same time cause serious damage to the reputation and brand of the forged agency or organization.

According to a Report of the Department of Cyber ​​Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention and Control (A05) - Ministry of Public Security, in 2023, the total amount of people's money appropriated by scammers online was about VND8,000-10,000 billion, an increase of one and a half times compared to 2022. Statistics from this unit also show that 91 percent of fraud cases are related to the financial sector, 73 percent of mobile device users, social networks... regularly receive fraudulent messages and calls. In the first six months of 2024 alone, the Vietnam Cyber ​​Information Security Warning Portal has received more than 8,200 reports of online fraud cases sent by users.

According to experts, scammers have continuously updated scam scenarios and technology, so organizations and businesses must also have similar response plans, even one step ahead.

For example, to prevent fraudulent money from circulating through unauthorized accounts, recently, the banking industry has required biometric authentication for amounts over VND10 million and a total amount of more than VND20 million per day. At the same time, there are solutions to prevent the use of fake facial photos or videos (deepfake) to bypass banks when transferring money. However, regarding this issue, Mr. Luu Danh Duc, Deputy General Director in charge of Information Technology Division, SHB Bank emphasized, currently, transactions on digital channels are exploding, leading to the trend of more attacks on customers and users' devices. Therefore, to thoroughly deal with the root of the problem of online fraud, communication and education to customers must be carried out more strongly, multi-channel and effectively, so that people can raise their awareness of vigilance. At the same time, it is necessary to soon develop regulations, processes, and coordination mechanisms between the Ministry of Public Security, the State Bank of Vietnam, commercial banks, and payment intermediaries to promptly prevent money transfer activities of criminals.

Therefore, banks said they have built defense systems and data encryption to prevent cyber attack. At the same time, organizations, businesses, banks and authorities also continuously strongly warn customers through a variety of communication channels about forms of fraud and prevention measures... This issue shows that preventing fraud in cyberspace requires the involvement of ministries, branches, and agencies as well as increasing investment in technology, perfecting online fraud identification toolkits and fraud prevention knowledge and skills for people.