According to Malaysia’s top police, Bukit Aman, over 30,000 online scams were reported in the country during the first 11 months of 2023, causing victims to lose approximately RM1.3 billion.
The increasing prevalence of scams on digital platforms has become a major concern in Malaysia, with more and more people falling victim to these fraudulent tactics.
Recently, CyberSecurity Malaysia warned on scammers exploiting WhatsApp to impersonate and deceiving victims into transferring money.
The agency said fraudulent activities were using the app, with perpetrators posing as someone known to the victim before sending a link and asking the victim to click on it.
The victim will subsequently lose access to their WhatsApp account once they click the link.
“The scammer will then take over the hacked WhatsApp account and use the victim’s identity to commit fraud. They will impersonate the victim by sending messages to the victim’s contacts via the WhatsApp account,” said CyberSecurity.
It added that scammers would claim the victim is in an emergency and needs financial aid or a loan to help them out of the crisis and promise to make repayment.
In this situation, the victim’s contacts will be misled and believe their friend sent the message and end up losing money.
Bank Negara Malaysia had also issued numerous alerts to be wary of officials impersonating and convincing victims to divulge their personal financial details through online platforms.
